Introduction:

Antonin Dvořák was born in Nelahozeves, Bohemia[1] in 1841, the first of nine children. His father, František Dvořák, was an accomplished musician on the zither, and raised his son in a musical life from early on. As a young child, Antonin Dvořák quickly became known around his village as an accomplished violinist and even composed a couple pieces to accompany some local dances.[2]

Soon after Dvořák turned 12, he moved to Zlonice, Bohemia, to study harmony, piano, and organ, and began to professionally compose. After three years, one of his music teachers persuaded Dvořák’s father to enroll him at the Institute for Church Music in Prague.

Over the next couple years, Dvořák studied all the greats – Beethoven, Schubert, Wagner, and Liszt. In 1873, he married Anna Čermáková, a pianist and singer, and would eventually have nine children together.[3] In 1875, a grant from the Austrian government allowed Dvořák to become close with composer and performer Johannes Brahms, who worked closely with Dvořák in the following years and also put him in contact with publisher Fritz Simrock, who would eventually gain Dvořák worldwide attention through his publication of Dvořák’s music.

As his fame began to spread, Dvořák used the opportunities available to him to travel further and further outside of his home country of Czechoslovakia.[4] He made a number of trips to England, many of which were meant to promote choral works such as Stabat Mater (1877) and Te Deum (1892). He traveled to Moscow and befriended notable composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

Coming to America:

In 1892, Dvořák caught the attention of Jeanette M. Thurber, the founder of the National Conservatory of Music in New York City. The conservatory needed a new director, and Thurber had decided Dvořák was the best possible option. At first, Dvořák declined, but after months of persistent efforts, he finally relented.

Once Dvořák arrived in the United States, he quickly became fascinated by American folk music and, more specifically, African American folk songs. He said “I am convinced that the future music of this country must be founded on what are called the Negro melodies. In the Negro melodies of America I have discovered all that is needed for a great and noble school of music. America can have her own music, a fine music growing up from her own soil and having its own special character—the natural voice of a free and great nation.”[5] Dvořák employed Harry T. Burleigh, an African American composition student at the National Conservatory of Music to sing and play him African American spirituals and plantation songs, immersing himself in the new styles and themes that were so different from the music he’d grown used to in Europe. Burleigh had learned many of the old plantation songs that he shared with Dvořák from Burleigh’s grandfather, Hamilton Waters, a former slave who had bought his freedom in 1832.[6]

Soon after Dvořák befriended Harry T. Burleigh, he began to vocalize his opinions about the importance of African American music in the American canon. In an article titled “Antonin Dvořák on Negro Melodies”, he wrote “It is my opinion that I find a sure foundation in the negro melodies for a new national school of music. . . . The new American school of music must strike its roots deeply into its own soil.”[7]

African American Influence in Dvořák’s Ninth Symphony:

In late 1892, Dvořák began working on the piece that would eventually become the “New World Symphony”. Harry T. Burleigh worked closely with the composer as Dvořák worked on the symphony. He describes singing spirituals such as “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” and “Go Down Moses” to Dvořák as the composer notated the pieces in a sketchbook.[8][9]

Dvořák’s use of African American melodies in his Ninth Symphony did not go unnoticed by other notable composers of the time. American composer Edward MacDowell wrote, “We have here in America been offered a pattern for an American national music costume by the Bohemian Dvořák… though what Negro melodies have to do with Americanism in art still remains a mystery.”[10] On the other hand, Black musicians in the United States were thrilled with Dvořák’s use of their own music in his symphony. The Indianapolis Freeman, a black newspaper, referred to Dvořák and his music as “a triumph for the sons and daughters of slavery and a victory for Negro race achievements… Pan [father] Antonin Dvořák, our greatest friend from far across the sea.”

Dvořák used “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” as his main source of inspiration for the second theme of his Ninth Symphony’s 1st Movement. In the second movement, the theme performed on an English horn wasn’t directly pulled from an African American spiritual, but it so closely tied to the sound of them that words were eventually added to the theme and it was turned into a spiritual.[11]

In Dvořák’s second movement, the English horn solo plays the “Going Home” theme. While also not pulled directly from a single African American spiritual, the theme draws on many of the same ideas and concepts, and to a listener, can evoke the same thoughts and feelings as many of the other songs Harry T. Burleigh would have sung for Dvořák.[12]

Native American Influence on Dvořák’s Ninth Symphony:

African American spirituals were not the only non-Western musical influence on Dvořák’s Ninth Symphony. In 1855, poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote a poem called “The Song of Hiawatha”, which was based on a number of different Native American folk stories and legends. The poem describes the relationship and life between an Ojibwe warrior, Hiawatha, and his love, Minnehaha. In an interview with Dvořák in the New York Herald in 1893, Dvořák said, “I have long had the idea of someday utilizing that poem. I first became acquainted with it about thirty years ago through the medium of a Bohemian translation. It appealed very strongly to my imagination at that time, and the impression has only been strengthened by my residence here.”[13] In a letter to Otakar Sourek in 1927, Dvořák’s secretary, Josef Kovařik wrote, “During the entire time in America he had Hiawatha on his mind. He was immensely captivated by it, kept talking about it, reflected on it, and worked on it with special love, delicacy, and with a huge interest and fervor.”[14] Based on this information, it’s not surprising that Dvořák would have chosen this particular poem to base his third movement around.

Unlike with the African American spirituals, there were no original rhythms or melodies for Dvořák to draw on when writing the Largo and Scherzo movements of the Ninth Symphony. Instead, it is much more likely that Dvořák composed these movements based on specific images he created in his mind while reading The Song of Hiawatha.[15]

The Largo movement of the Ninth Symphony begins with seven single chords, all creating the idea of a big, sweeping movement, and preparing the listener for the grand story that is to follow. Immediately after, however, all but the English Horn drop out as the soloist plays a soft melody that ties the African American spirituals of the first movement into the Native American legend that makes up the rest of the movement. Soon after, more brass and woodwinds join in, creating an image of rolling hills and wide, sweeping landscapes, following the journey Hiawatha takes in the beginning of Longfellow’s poem to the land of the Dakotas where he will find his love. In the poem, Longfellow is clear that Hiawatha’s journey to and from the Dakotas is a slow journey, which is likely part of the reason Dvořák chose to make this movement Largo.

The Scherzo movement, or movement number 3, is also based on a part of The Song of Hiawatha. This movement, instead of attempting to encompass the whole of the land being traveled in the legend, focuses more on the creatures instead. Trills move throughout the woodwind section, imitating the sound of bird calls Hiawatha and Minnehaha would have heard on their journey. In an article in the New York Daily Tribune, Henry Krehbiel wrote “There is a striking passage in the middle of the movement… as if it were intended to suggest the gradual awakening of animal life on the prairie scene, and striking use is made of trills… as if they were the voices of night and dawn in converse.”[16] This idea of movement between the dark and light is shown often in both Longfellow’s poem and Dvořák’s symphony. The joy of first love and Hiawatha and Minnehaha’s wedding is balanced by the sadness and grief of Minnehaha’s sickness and death, as well as the blight brought upon the land by a cruel winter.

The American Argument:

While it is most commonly believed that Dvořák wrote his Ninth Symphony to honor the new land he had learned to call home, there were, and still are some, who believe that any ties to African American or Native American music and culture are simply coincidental. However, the New World Symphony still has a very distinctive Bohemian sound to it. “Dvořák embodies for [the Czech people] an untouchable ideal of artistry, and they hold affection for him as a sort of Czech “Papa Haydn.” What Czech does not swell with pride when he hears one of the themes from the “New World” symphony?” writes Michael Beckerman.[17] In his program notes for the Portland Symphony Orchestra’s 2019 performance of Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9, Mark Rohr also reminds us that “those who hear the landscapes of America in the Ninth might be surprised to know that Dvořák composed it before he had set one foot outside New York City.”[18] Many critics debated whether the use of “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” in the first movement was on purpose, or simply because Dvořák still had the melody in his head from his conversations with Harry T. Burleigh.

In the program notes for the Portland Symphony Orchestra’s 2019 performance of Dvořák’s Ninth Symphony Mark Rohr writes his own take on the debate. “The debut of the Ninth sparked a debate over just how American it really was. No one can miss the resemblance of the first movement’s flute solo to “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.” The second movement’s English horn melody is so like a Negro spiritual that someone later turned it into one, writing words to go with Dvořák’s music. And we have it from Dvořák that Longellow’s Song of Hiawatha inspired the symphony’s middle movements – the second movement by Minnehaha’s funeral scene, the third by the ritual Indian dance. But the music was Dvořák’s.”[19]

Conclusion:

Antonin Dvořák was a worldly man who used his fascination of the cultures of people from all different countries and walks of life to inspire his music. One of the best demonstrations of this is his Ninth Symphony, sometimes referred to as the “New World Symphony”. The four movements show numerous references to African American spirituals and Native American folk tales and legends. Dvořák uses the themes and melodies in his music to explore the emotional impact and imagery of songs created by plantation slaves and passed down through generations in a hauntingly beautiful first movement, and turns a legendary poem written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow encapsulating Native American legends into two beautifully contrasting movements of music.

In a way, Dvořák may have perfectly summarized the idea of what it means to be an American in his Ninth Symphony, without even meaning to. By bringing together music and stories from people of all different backgrounds, he truly represented the vastness that is the people of the United States.

Bibliography

Beckerman, Michael. Summer, 1992. “Dvorák’s “New World” Largo and “The Song of Hiawatha.” 19th-Century Music, Vol. 15, No. 1 35-48.

Beckerman, Michael. Winter 1993. “The Real Value of Yellow Journalism: James Creelman and Antonin Dvorák.” Music Quarterly, Vol. 77, Issue 4 749+.

Christiansen, Paul. 2003. “New Worlds of Dvorák: Searching in America for the Composer’s Inner Life.” In New Worlds of Dvorák: Searching in America for the Composer’s Inner Life, by Michael Beckerman. New York: Palacky University.

Dobreff, Nick. 2024. “Rediscovering the New World: The Unmatched Live Thrill of Dvorák’s Symphony No. 9.” program notes for Colorado Symphony, Dvorák’s New World Symphony, Principal Conductor Peter Oundjian,. Boettcher Concert Hall, September 13-15.

Gao, Matthew. July 2025. “From Bohemia to the New World: Dvorák’s Ninth Symphony and the Quest for an American Musical Identity.” Journal of Research in Humanities and Social Science, Vol. 13, Issue 7 148-159.

Lloyd-Jones, David Mathias. 2025. Britannica. October 17. Accessed December 6, 2025. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Antonin-Dvorak/Works.

Longfellow, Henry Wadswort. 1856. “The Song Of Hiawatha.” In The Myth of Hiawatha and Other Oral Legends Mythologic and Allegoric of the North American Indians, by Henry Rowe Schoolcraft. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co.

Peress, Maurice. 2004. Dvorák to Duke Ellington : A Conductor Explores America’s Music and Its African American Roots. Oxford University Press, Incorporated.

Rohr, Mark. 2019. “Dvorák’s “New World” Program Notes,” program notes for Portland Symphony Orchestra, Dvorák’s “New World”. March 8.

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[1] Some sources refer to Dvořák as being born in Mühlhausen, Bohemia.

[2] David Mathias Lloyd-Jones, “Antonin Dvorák,” Britannica, published Oct. 17, 2025, Johannes Brahms – German Composer, Symphonies, Lieder | Britannica.

[3] Only six of Dvořák’s children survived infancy. Three of the remaining six, Otilie, Magdalena, and Otakar grew up to be accomplished musicians and composers, taking after their parents.

[4] When Dvořák was born, the land that is now called Czechoslovakia was still known as Bohemia. The country wouldn’t be renamed until after 1918. In this essay, the two names will be used interchangeably to align with the sources used.

[5] Mark Rohr, “Dvorák’s “New World” Program Notes,” program notes for Portland Symphony Orchestra, Dvorák’s “New World”, Mar. 8, 2019.

[6] Maurice Peress, Dvorák to Duke Ellington : A Conductor Explores America’s Music and Its African American Roots. (Oxford University Press, Incorporated, 2004). pp. 22

[7] Rohr, program notes for Portland Symphony Orchestra, Dvorák’s “New World”, Mar. 8, 2019.

[8] Peress, Dvorák to Duke Ellington : A Conductor Explores America’s Music and Its African American Roots, 23

[9] Dvořák filled 11 pages of his sketchbook with different melodies in preparation for writing his Ninth Symphony.

[10] Peress, Dvorák to Duke Ellington : A Conductor Explores America’s Music and Its African American Roots, 25

[11] Rohr, program notes for Portland Symphony Orchestra, Dvorák’s “New World”, Mar. 8, 2019.

[12] Nick Dobreff, “Rediscovering the New World: The Unmatched Live Thrill of Dvorák’s Symphony No. 9,” program notes for Colorado Symphony, Dvorák’s New World Symphony, Principal Conductor Peter Oundjian, Sept. 13-15, 2024, Boettcher Concert Hall.

[13] Michael Beckerman, “Dvorák’s “New World” Largo and “The Song of Hiawatha,” 19th-Century Music, Vol. 15, No 1. (Summer, 1992), pp. 35-48. https://www.jstor.org/stable/746618. pp. 36

[14] Beckerman, “Dvorák’s “New World” Largo and “The Song of Hiawatha,” 37

[15] Beckerman, “Dvorák’s “New World” Largo and “The Song of Hiawatha,” 40

[16] Beckerman, “Dvorák’s “New World” Largo and “The Song of Hiawatha,” 43

[17] Paul Christiansen, “New Worlds of Dvorák: Searching in America for the Composer’s Inner Life,” review of New Worlds of Dvorák: Searching in America for the Composer’s Inner Life by Michael Beckerman, Palacky University, New York: W. W. Norton, 2003. EBSCO-FullText-12_05_2025.pdf.

[18] Rohr, program notes for Portland Symphony Orchestra, Dvorák’s “New World”, Mar. 8, 2019.

[19] Rohr, program notes for Portland Symphony Orchestra, Dvorák’s “New World”, Mar. 8, 2019.