{"id":2063,"date":"2021-07-23T01:13:16","date_gmt":"2021-07-23T05:13:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/?p=2063"},"modified":"2021-07-23T01:13:20","modified_gmt":"2021-07-23T05:13:20","slug":"dvoraks-prophecy-essential-cultural-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/2021\/07\/dvoraks-prophecy-essential-cultural-history.html","title":{"rendered":"Dvorak’s Prophecy — “Essential Cultural History”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Kirkus Reviews<\/em>, which previews books for booksellers, critics, and others in the know, has just previewed my forthcoming Dvorak\u2019s Prophecy and the Vexed Fate of Black Classical Music<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s been accorded a star (good news) \u2013 and the review itself grasps my book whole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In summary: \u201cHorowitz closes with a clarion call for American classical music to \u2018acquire a viable future, at last buoyed and directed by a proper past.\u2019 His chronicle of \u2018a failure of historical memory\u2019 is feisty and opinionated but always backed by solid evidence. Essential cultural history.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The publication date is Nov. 9, 2021. Naxos will concurrently release six documentary films I\u2019ve produced, exploring the \u201cnew paradigm\u201d for American classical music that Dvorak\u2019s Prophecy <\/em>proposes. For more information, click here.<\/a><\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s the full Kirkus<\/em> review:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DVO\u0158\u00c1K’S PROPHECY<\/strong> [STARRED REVIEW]<\/strong> 
And the Vexed Fate of Black Classical Music<\/strong>
Author: Joseph Horowitz<\/strong>
Publisher: Norton<\/strong>
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why is American classical music so White?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1893, visiting Bohemian composer Antonin Dvo\u0159\u00e1k predicted that a \u201cgreat and noble school\u201d of American classical music would build upon the nation\u2019s \u201cnegro melodies.\u201d Instead, writes music historian Horowitz, classical music in America became \u201ca Eurocentric subsidiary,\u201d while African American melodies and rhythms were segregated in popular music. Yet Dvo\u0159\u00e1k\u2019s prophecy encouraged Black composers, including his assistant, Harry Burleigh, and mixed-race Englishman Samuel Colridge-Taylor, to compose classical works steeped in African American folk music that were widely performed and discussed at the turn of the 20th century. The villains in Horowitz\u2019s indictment are modernists Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein, and Virgil Thomson, who all \u201cmaintained that there was no American music of consequence before 1910.\u201d White outliers such as Charles Ives, who unabashedly quoted from popular songs in his symphonies and sonatas, and George Gershwin, who wrote an opera with African American protagonists, were dismissed as eccentrics or sentimentalists. At the same time, African American composers William Grant Still, Florence Price, and William Levi Dawson, though taken seriously in the years between the world wars, plunged into obscurity because they didn\u2019t fit into the modernist narrative. Horowitz is unafraid to tackle the third-rail issue of cultural appropriation, coming down firmly on the side of artists\u2019 freedom to draw on any traditions that speak to them. He covers his back by enlisting African American tenor George Shirley to make the most forceful defense in a foreword: \u201cI have no right to tell anyone they cannot perform the music of Black folk if they have the desire and ability to do so with proper respect for its content and distinctiveness.\u201d Horowitz closes with a clarion call for American classical music to \u201cacquire a viable future, at last buoyed and directed by a proper past.\u201d His chronicle of \u201ca failure of historical memory\u201d is feisty and opinionated but always backed by solid evidence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Essential cultural history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kirkus Reviews, which previews books for booksellers, critics, and others in the know, has just previewed my forthcoming Dvorak\u2019s Prophecy and the Vexed Fate of Black Classical Music. It\u2019s been accorded a star (good news) \u2013 and the review itself grasps my book whole. In summary: \u201cHorowitz closes with a clarion call for American classical music […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2063","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry","8":"has-post-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2QLHN-xh","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2063"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2063\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2069,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2063\/revisions\/2069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}