你好It’s lucky for the world that Jeanette Thurber, a rich New Yorker, decided to lure Dvorak to head up her academy of music before the turn of the 20^th century. What she wanted from the celebrated composer, then at the peak of his powers, wasn’t so much a symphony, as she wanted to encourage American musicians to recreate an American classical music using native elements. According to Dvorak, he couldn’t think of a better way of showing his students how to go about this than writing his own symphony, using some American ingredients.

Musicologists have been arguing ever since about how these so-called US ingredients differed from the Bohemian ones that Dvorak had used before. The difference seems to center on the use of black spiritual motifs in the second and third movements, none of which were considered within the range of cultural ingredients at the time.

According to Mrs. Thurber, Dvorak missed home so deeply that he was often in tears, when Mrs. Thurber suggested he write something about his feelings and experiences in America. I can’t help wondering how much of the vernacular America the composer could absorb in Manhattan. This was before the advent of jazz and even ragtime. Slavery had been banned in New York State since early in the century, so presumably the singing of black spirituals was not common in New York City, which again brings into question exactly how American was Dvorak’s material.

But there can be no question that Dvorak’s masterpiece succeeded in imbedding in the music’s DNA close to the heart: a feeling of nostalgia for old loves, lost possibilities and vanished landscapes – a world view that the ninth symphony shares with Dvorak’s masterful Cello Concerto in B minor.

In my player now: Dvorak: Symphonies 8 & 9 (From the New World) - Budapest Festival Orchestra, Ivan Fischer, cond. Philips 464 648-2

I admit impressions can be highly subjective, tempered by the digestion, by the weather, whatever. However, I’d got to say I’ve enjoyed this version more than almost any other I‘ve heard in the past. It has a kind of freshness and power that remind me of what it must be like to have heard Symphony No. 9 for the very first time. The atmosphere feels authentic as does the playing. And the level of anticipation stays throughout the piece, even though on a conscious level, if you know the piece, you know what’s to come.

The orchestral playing is rich and lyrical with just enough of an edge of sincerity, to occasionally bring you up short, allowing you to hear things you never heard before. Although the catalog is full of renderings of these two symphonies, this one deserves a very special place in your collection.

How is this blog doing? Drop us a line at Jeffrey. Mark. Goldmark@gmail.com and let us know. We want to hear from you.