True, the Sclav idiom pervades a number of his works, but this is, as it were, a mere accident of his nationality, and in no way detracts from the splendour of his achievements. We do not reject Burns because he wrote a good deal in a Scottish dialect, or Tennyson’s “Northern Farmer” because it requires a glossary.
Dvořák, although a lover of the romantic, has nearly always worked on classical lines, and to him must be credited the addition of certain new forms to the musical literature of our time. For example, “The Furiant,” a kind of wild and riotous scherzo, and “The Dumka,” with its alternate episodes of sadness and revelry.
His Symphonic Poems for Orchestra
In saying this, it is not overlooked that Dvořák has recently published several so-called symphonic poems for the orchestra, which are of course programme music. We allude to “Der Wassermann,” “Die Mittagshexe,” and “Das Goldene Spinnrad.” These are works of no ordinary kind, and there is in them no want of melody and orchestral colour. Yet they cannot be regarded as entirely successful. This form does not seem to be the composer’s true medium, although the works are deeply interesting as showing the effect of modern influences on a receptive and sensitive musical temperament.
An American National Style of Music
The Negro Quartett
During his residence in New York as director of the National Conservatoire, from 1892 to 1895, Dvořák conceived the idea of an American School of National Music based on negro songs and dances. From the standpoint of the negro question and of national pride it was hardly a happy notion, yet he must be credited with a large measure of success in his efforts to carry it out, for in the String Quartett in F, op. 96, and in the Orchestral Symphony in E minor (“From the New World”), are to be found a remarkable idealisation of tunes hitherto more associated with the clog-dance than with the classics.[33] The whole of this Negro Quartett, as it has been called, will repay study, but the chief point of interest is, of course, the employment of those tunes which are either directly drawn or closely imitated from negro sources.
1st Movement, String Quartett, Op. 96.
Dvořák.
