Music
Vaclav Neumann - Dvorak New World Symphony
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Czech conductor Vaclav Neumann conducts the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra in Dvoraks Symphony No 9, the New World
Programme
Dvorak : Symphony No 9 in E minor 'From the New World'
1. Adagio - Allegro molto
2. Largo
3. Scherzo: molto vivace
4. Allegro con fuoco
Performers
Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra
Vaclav Neumann (conductor)
Even in the most highbrow concert programme notes, you'll see Dvorak's Symphony No 9, subtitled From the New World because of its supposed basis in Black American spirituals, described as 'the Hovis music'. For UK viewers the haunting slow movement is indelibly associated with the brown bread that used the Largo tune for its nostalgic TV adverts. To paraphrase the bread's slogan, the symphony is as good today as it's always been - certainly since 1974, when the delivery boy first clattered down Shaftesbury's Gold Hill for the adverts.
For once, the marketing men have chosen appropriately. That second movement is, literally, nostalgic: when he wrote it Dvorak was earning a fortune in America, but was desperately homesick. And he was a plain country boy: his father ran the local inn, which doubled as a butcher's shop. Perhaps it's no wonder Dvorak's music is meaty, open to all, and full of local life - and warming spirits.
In 1891 Dvorak, already a successful composer known through Europe, was teaching at Prague Conservatory. That year, a telegram arrived with an extraordinary offer. Mrs Jeanette Thurber, the wife of a millionaire businessman, wanted him as Director of the New Conservatory of Music in New York. For a little teaching and conducting, with four months' vacation, he would receive the unimaginable salary of $15,000 - 25 times what he was paid in Prague, and at something like 300 times the annual salary of a skilled manual worker, equivalent around £0.5m-£1m today.
He reluctantly accepted, mainly for financial security of his family. The Dvoraks sailed across in autumn 1892, and their time in America produced three of his most famous works, the String Quartet No 12, the American; the Cello Concerto in B minor; and the New World Symphony, his ninth, which was premiered in 1893 to instant and lasting success.
The Ninth Symphony is said to be the world's most performed classical work, and its very approachability makes it easy to underestimate as just another lightweight bag of folksy tunes. Dvorak liked to tell journalists the New World Symphony was based on black and native American themes, but really, the tunes could all have come from a Bohemian village fair.
Whatever the derivation of the melodies, there's no denying the technicolour appeal of the work. It was Dvorak's last symphony, and has deservedly become his most popular.
Dvorak : Symphony No 9 in E minor 'From the New World'
1. Adagio - Allegro molto
2. Largo
3. Scherzo: molto vivace
4. Allegro con fuoco
Performers
Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra
Vaclav Neumann (conductor)
Even in the most highbrow concert programme notes, you'll see Dvorak's Symphony No 9, subtitled From the New World because of its supposed basis in Black American spirituals, described as 'the Hovis music'. For UK viewers the haunting slow movement is indelibly associated with the brown bread that used the Largo tune for its nostalgic TV adverts. To paraphrase the bread's slogan, the symphony is as good today as it's always been - certainly since 1974, when the delivery boy first clattered down Shaftesbury's Gold Hill for the adverts.
For once, the marketing men have chosen appropriately. That second movement is, literally, nostalgic: when he wrote it Dvorak was earning a fortune in America, but was desperately homesick. And he was a plain country boy: his father ran the local inn, which doubled as a butcher's shop. Perhaps it's no wonder Dvorak's music is meaty, open to all, and full of local life - and warming spirits.
In 1891 Dvorak, already a successful composer known through Europe, was teaching at Prague Conservatory. That year, a telegram arrived with an extraordinary offer. Mrs Jeanette Thurber, the wife of a millionaire businessman, wanted him as Director of the New Conservatory of Music in New York. For a little teaching and conducting, with four months' vacation, he would receive the unimaginable salary of $15,000 - 25 times what he was paid in Prague, and at something like 300 times the annual salary of a skilled manual worker, equivalent around £0.5m-£1m today.
He reluctantly accepted, mainly for financial security of his family. The Dvoraks sailed across in autumn 1892, and their time in America produced three of his most famous works, the String Quartet No 12, the American; the Cello Concerto in B minor; and the New World Symphony, his ninth, which was premiered in 1893 to instant and lasting success.
The Ninth Symphony is said to be the world's most performed classical work, and its very approachability makes it easy to underestimate as just another lightweight bag of folksy tunes. Dvorak liked to tell journalists the New World Symphony was based on black and native American themes, but really, the tunes could all have come from a Bohemian village fair.
Whatever the derivation of the melodies, there's no denying the technicolour appeal of the work. It was Dvorak's last symphony, and has deservedly become his most popular.
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