{"id":2186,"date":"2022-01-08T01:06:05","date_gmt":"2022-01-08T06:06:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/?p=2186"},"modified":"2022-01-08T01:06:08","modified_gmt":"2022-01-08T06:06:08","slug":"dvoraks-prophecy-a-systematic-curatorial-effort","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/2022\/01\/dvoraks-prophecy-a-systematic-curatorial-effort.html","title":{"rendered":"Dvorak’s Prophecy — A “Systematic Curatorial Effort”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The author most recently interviewed by Richard Aldous, in his always lively \u201cBook Stack\u201d series for The American Purpose<\/em>, happens to be me, talking about Dvorak\u2019s Prophecy<\/a><\/strong> and the Vexed<\/em> Fate of Black Classical Music<\/em>. You can hear our 30-minute chat here<\/a><\/strong>. <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

At one point, 22 minutes in, Richard in a surge of effusion pronounces: \u201cYour time has come.\u201d He references the new Philadelphia Orchestra recording of two Florence Price symphonies, and other evidence that American orchestras are finally attending to music forgotten and otherwise overlooked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not so fast, I reply. The rush to perform music by Black composers is more than welcome \u2013 but \u201cwe need a more systematic curatorial effort\u201d based \u201con an informed overview.\u201d In particular, I continue (casting further aspersion on Richard\u2019s optimism), if American orchestras are to enjoy a \u201cformidable future\u201d they must once and for all embrace \u201cour greatest composer\u201d of concert music: Charles Edward Ives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ives, I opine, is not only a victim of a modernist \u201cstandard narrative\u201d into which he does not fit; he is also an object of prejudice \u2013 that his music is \u201cdifficult.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of the six Dvorak\u2019s Prophecy<\/em> films just released by Naxos in tandem with my book, \u201cCharles Ives\u2019 America\u201d is an impassioned act of advocacy. It maintains that Ives should become known as a member of the same supreme New World cultural pantheon as Walt Whitman and Herman Melville \u2013 and that, moreover, \u201che can<\/em> become known.\u201d His music is in fact \u201creadily appreciable.\u201d Here\u2019s the trailer to the Ives film, with fabulous visual treatments by Peter Bogdanoff:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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