To be sure, all argument aside, it is a mistake to think that folk-song gets its virtue purely from a distinctive national quality,—because it is Hungarian, Scandinavian, or Slavonic. If all the national modes and rhythms of the world were merged in one republic, there would still be a folk-song of the true type and value. There is a subtle charm and strength in the spontaneous simplicity, all aside from racial color. It is here that, like Antaeus, the musician touches Mother Earth and renews his strength. So, when Dvôrák suddenly shifts in the midst of his New World fantasy into a touch of Bohemian song, there is no real loss. It is all relevant in the broad sense of folk feeling, that does not look too closely at geographical bounds. It is here that music, of all arts, leads to a true state of equal sympathy, regardless of national prejudice. What, therefore, distinguishes Dvôrák's symphony may not be mere negro melody, or even American song, but a genuine folk-feeling, in the widest meaning.
In one way, Dvôrák's work reminds us of Mendelssohn's Scotch Symphony: both exploit foreign national melody in great poetic forms. One could write a Scotch symphony in two ways: one, in Mendelssohn's, the other would be to tell of the outer impression in the terms of your own folk-song. That is clearly the way Mendelssohn wrote most of the Italian Symphony,—which stands on a higher plane than the Scotch. For folk-song is the natural language of its own people. It is interesting to see the exact type that each theme represents; but it is not so important as to catch the distinction, the virtue of folk-song per se and the purely natural utterance of one's own. Of course, every one writes always in his folk-tones. On the other hand, one may explore one's own special treasures of native themes, as Dvôrák himself did so splendidly in his Slavic Dances and in his Legends. So one must, after all, take this grateful, fragrant work as an idea of what American composers might do in full earnest. Dvôrák is of all later masters the most eminent folk-musician. He shows greatest sympathy, freedom and delight in revelling among the simple tones and rhythms of popular utterance, rearing on them, all in poetic spontaneity, a structure of high art. Without strain or show, Dvôrák stood perhaps the most genuine of late composers, with a firm foot on the soil of native melody, yet with the balance and restraint and the clear vision of the trained master.[47]
In a certain view, it would seem that by the fate of servitude the American negro has become the element in our own national life that alone produces true folk-song,—that corresponds to the peasant and serf of Europe, the class that must find in song the refuge and solace for its loss of material joys. So Dvôrák perhaps is right, with a far seeing eye, when he singles the song of the despised race as the national type.
Another consideration fits here. It has been suggested that the imitative sense of the negro has led him to absorb elements of other song. It is very difficult to separate original African elements of song from those that may thus have been borrowed. At any rate, there is no disparagement of the negro's musical genius in this theory. On the contrary, it would be almost impossible to imagine a musical people that would resist the softer tones of surrounding and intermingling races. We know, to be sure, that Stephen Foster, the author of "The Old Folks at Home," "Massa's in the Cold, Cold Ground," and other famous ballads, was a Northerner, though his mother came from the South. We hear, too, that he studied negro music eagerly. It is not at all inconceivable, however, Foster's song may have been devoid of negro elements, that the colored race absorbed, wittingly or unwittingly, something of the vein into their plaints or lullabies,—that, indeed, Foster's songs may have been a true type that stirred their own imitation. From all points of view,—the condition of slavery, the trait of assimilation and the strong gift of musical expression may have conspired to give the negro a position and equipment which would entitle his tunes to stand as the real folk-song of America.
The eccentric accent seems to have struck the composer strongly. And here is a strange similarity with Hungarian song,—though there is, of course, no kinship of race whatever between Bohemians and Magyars. One might be persuaded to find here simply an ebullition of rhythmic impulse,—the desire for a special fillip that starts and suggests a stronger energy of motion than the usual conventional pace. At any rate, the symphony begins with just such strong, nervous phrases that soon gather big force. Hidden is the germ of the first, undoubtedly the chief theme of the whole work.
It is more and more remarkable how a search will show the true foundation of almost all of Dvôrák's themes. Not that one of them is actually borrowed, or lacks an original, independent reason for being.
Whether by imitation or not, the pentatonic scale of the Scotch is an intimate part of negro song. This avoidance of the seventh or leading tone is seen throughout the symphony as well as in the traditional jubilee tunes. It may be that this trait was merely confirmed in the African by foreign musical influence. For it seems that the leading-note, the urgent need for the ascending half-tone in closing, belongs originally to the minstrelsy of the Teuton and of central Europe, that resisted and conquered the sterner modes of the early Church. Ruder nations here agreed with Catholic ritual in preferring the larger interval of the whole tone. But in the quaint jump of the third the Church had no part, clinging closely to a diatonic process.
The five-toned scale is indeed so widespread that it cannot be fastened on any one race or even family of nations. The Scotch have it; it is characteristic of the Chinese and of the American Indian. But, independently of the basic mode or scale, negro songs show here and there a strange feeling for a savage kind of lowering of this last note. The pentatonic scale simply omits it, as well as the fourth step. But the African will now and then rudely and forcibly lower it by a half-tone. In the minor it is more natural; for it can then be thought of as the fifth of the relative major. Moreover, it is familiar to us in the Church chant. This effect we have in the beginning of the Scherzo. Many of us do not know the true African manner, here. But in the major it is much more barbarous. And it is almost a pity that Dvôrák did not strike it beyond an occasional touch (as in the second quoted melody). A fine example is "Roll, Jordan Roll," in E flat (that opens, by the way, much like Dvôrák's first theme), where the beginning of the second line rings out on a savage D flat, out of all key to Caucasian ears.
We soon see stealing out of the beginning Adagio an eccentric pace in motion of the bass, that leads to the burst of main subject, Allegro molto, with a certain
