{"id":543,"date":"2014-06-29T21:00:54","date_gmt":"2014-06-30T01:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/?p=543"},"modified":"2014-06-29T21:00:54","modified_gmt":"2014-06-30T01:00:54","slug":"dvoraks-hiawatha-symphony-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/2014\/06\/dvoraks-hiawatha-symphony-2.html","title":{"rendered":"Dvorak’s “Hiawatha” Symphony"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"naxos<\/a>
\nIs Dvorak\u2019s New World<\/em> Symphony a programmatic Hiawatha <\/em>symphony? With the Dvorak scholar Mike Beckerman, I\u2019ve composed a 35-minute Hiawatha Melodrama for narrator and orchestra that combines Dvorak with verses from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow\u2019s The Song of Hiawatha<\/em>. A new Naxos CD, \u201cDvorak and America,\u201d <\/a>includes the world premiere recording, with PostClassical Ensemble<\/a> conducted by Angel Gil-Ordonez. Here\u2019s movement five, in which \u201cThe Hunting of Pau-Puk-Keewis\u201d aligns with the finale of Dvorak\u2019s symphony: http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/Hiawathalongest.mp3<\/a><\/audio> <\/p>\n

Dvorak himself cited The Song of Hiawatha<\/em> as a source of inspiration for his American symphony of 1893. Beckerman has closely studied points of correspondence between episodes of the symphony and episodes of Longfellow\u2019s poem. He\u2019s also demonstrated that the Larghetto from Dvorak\u2019s Violin Sonatina is a portrait of Minnehaha, Hiawatha\u2019s wife. <\/p>\n

Our Melodrama is in five movements:
\n1.A spoken Prologue
\n2.Hiawatha\u2019s Wooing (the music of which mainly draws on the Larghetto)
\n3.Hiawatha\u2019s Wedding Feast (which presents the Scherzo from Dvorak\u2019s symphony as a tone poem)
\n4.The Dearth of Minnehaha (using Dvorak\u2019s Largo)
\n5.The Hunting of Pau-Puk \u2013Keewis (Dvorak\u2019s finale)
\n6.Epilogue: Hiawatha\u2019s Departure (applying the coda of Dvorak\u2019s symphony, which with its dirge and apotheosis can only be programmatic)<\/p>\n

Our first goal in creating the Hiawatha Melodrama is to create a viable concert work. As a work of scholarship, the Melodrama suggests what a Hiawatha opera or cantata by Dvorak might have sounded like (and Dvorak wanted to compose a Hiawatha opera or cantata). Finally, the Melodrama apprises us what images and stories were in Dvorak\u2019s head when he composed his symphony. Certainly Dvorak powerfully empathized with the fate of the Indian, and of the African-American \u2013 and, however subliminally, this element of compassion is at the root of the symphony\u2019s enduring appeal.<\/p>\n

By way of exploring Dvorak\u2019s American style, the same Naxos CD includes Dvorak\u2019s American <\/em>Suite, the Larghetto from the Violin Sonatina, and a couple of Humoresques \u2013 as well as three terrific Indianist cameos by Arthur Farwell, who called himself the first composer \u201cto take up Dvorak\u2019s challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n

That Dvorak became an American composer during his astounding New World sojourn of 1892 to 1895 can no longer be doubted or denied. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Is Dvorak\u2019s New World Symphony a programmatic Hiawatha symphony? With the Dvorak scholar Mike Beckerman, I\u2019ve composed a 35-minute Hiawatha Melodrama for narrator and orchestra that combines Dvorak with verses from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow\u2019s The Song of Hiawatha. A new Naxos CD, \u201cDvorak and America,\u201d includes the world premiere recording, with PostClassical Ensemble conducted by […]<\/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-543","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2QLHN-8L","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543","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=543"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":546,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543\/revisions\/546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}