Antonín Dvořák’s New World Symphony: In Search of an ...nyphil.org/~/media/pdfs/education/1617/curriculum-guide-mshs.pdf · New World Symphony: In Search of an American Voice

New World Symphony: In Search of an American Voice

Antonín Dvořák’s

Young People’s Concerts™ for Schools 2017Resource Materials for Teachers

MIDDLE & HIGH SCHOOLS

Education at the New York Philharmonic

Transformative Musical Engagement

For generations, the New York Philharmonic has been transforming listeners through unforgettable Young People’s Concerts and master Teaching Artist workshops, creating enriching opportunities for young artists and providing a deeper understanding of music for all kinds of audiences. Today, the Orchestra remains at the forefront of education — with a New York City focus and a global reach — and the Young People’s Concerts™ for Schools are central to the Orchestra’s partnerships with schools in New York City and beyond.

Teaching Artists of the New York Philharmonic are known around the world for creating indelible learning experiences through active engagement, sequential curriculum, and inspired performances. Their work has evolved over the past twenty-five years through their experience in New York City’s public schools both during and after school hours. Through Philharmonic Schools, Teaching Artists use major orchestral repertoire to teach students and teachers how to listen to, perform, and compose music, preparing them to fully experience concerts in their own school and at the Philharmonic. Partner elementary schools in all five boroughs — which comprise more than 5,000 students — embrace music as an essential element of the classroom and of the school community. Through Very Young Composers, students from diverse backgrounds create and notate their own compositions and even hear them performed by Philharmonic musicians — often the full Orchestra — with the help of Philharmonic Teaching Artists, who serve as mentors and scribes. Multiple national communities and foreign countries have established their own versions of Very Young Composers with assistance from the Philharmonic.

Since 1924, the New York Philharmonic has performed innovative, engaging concerts that introduce young people to symphonic music. Young People’s Concerts™ use repertory from all eras — including the present day — to help listeners ages six to twelve explore various musical topics. Fun-filled, hour-long Very Young People’s Concerts™ combine great music with storytelling and games that unlock children’s imagination and talent. And now, Young People’s Concerts Play! makes Young People’s Concerts available to schools around the world through an on-demand streaming service with interactive features that enable students to become experts about the music they hear.

To learn more about these and the Philharmonic’s many other educational programs, visit nyphil.org/education.

Young People’s Concerts for Schools are made possible with support from the Carson Family Charitable Trust and the Mary and James G. Wallach Family Foundation.

Additional support is provided by Evalyn E. and Stephen E. Milman, the Tiger Baron Foundation, Muna and Basem Hishmeh, and the Mary P. Oenslager Student Concert Endowment Fund. This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. New York Philharmonic Teaching Artist positions are funded by the Susan W. Rose Fund for Teaching Artists.

This guide has been made possible through an endowment gift from Lillian Butler Davey.

Very Young Composers is sponsored, in part, by The Susan and Elihu Rose Foundation Inc.; Muna and Basem Hishmeh; Mr. and Mrs. A. Slade Mills, Jr.; Mr. and Mrs. Stephen D. Solender; and The ASCAP Foundation Irving Caesar Fund.

Citi. Preferred Card of the New York Philharmonic.

Emirates is the Official Airline of the New York Philharmonic.

Programs are made possible, in part, by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

CreditsM. Luisa CruzDirector of BandsMusic History and TheoryLong Island City High School

ContributorChemistry CommunicationsDesign

Richard Mannoia, New York Philharmonic Teaching Artist

WriterTheodore Wiprud, New York Philharmonic Vice President, Education, The Sue B. Mercy Chair

Amy Hegarty

Editors

The lessons in this booklet work together with the Young People’s Concert to enable your students to put their ears to good use in the concert hall. Students will listen closely to distinguish different musical characteristics, just as they read texts closely for detail and evidence in class. They will build skills that open up all kinds of music in new ways. And they will hear the thrilling sound of the full New York Philharmonic.

This booklet is divided into four units, each with its own number of activities. Each activity is presented with an approximate timing, and you can adjust your lesson plan according to your students’ background and abilities. Extensions suggest ways you can take each concept further or support learning standards in other disciplines.

To help you implement the units presented here, we offer a teacher workshop, during which our Teaching Artists guide you through the lessons. It is important that as many participating teachers as possible attend this workshop.

Expect a dynamic and challenging experience at the concert, where everything will be both live and projected onto a big screen. To make the most of this opportunity, before attending the concert, play the enclosed CD for your students and carry out as many of the lessons in this book as you can. Enjoy the lessons, indulge in listening, and have fun at your Young People’s Concert for Schools. See you there!

Theodore Wiprud Vice President, Education The Sue B. Mercy Chair

Welcometo Young People’s Concerts for Schools!

Teaching and Learning in the Arts

The Blueprint for Teaching and Learning in the Arts is a guide for arts educators in New York City public schools. The Music Blueprint defines five strands of learning, all addressed in these Resource Materials for Elementary School Teachers. Through the lessons in this booklet, your students will compose music, develop musical literacy, explore connections with other disciplines, get information about careers in music, and, of course, take advantage of an important community resource, the New York Philharmonic.

In keeping with key elements of the Common Core, the Young People’s Concert for Schools and the lessons in this booklet provide a deep dive into a single great work. They foster close listening and citation of evidence, using the music as the text. Through the modality of music, they reinforce habits of mind developed in English language arts and math lessons and offer connections with literary and historical texts.

Joshua Gersen Theodore Wiprud conductor host

Antonín Dvořák Selections from Symphony No. 9, From the New World

Very Young ComposersSelection of New Works responding to the New World Symphony

The ProgramMiddle and High School ConcertsWednesday, January 18, 2017 10:30 a.m. and 12:00 p.m.

All performances at David Geffen Hall

Teacher WorkshopMonday, November 7, 2016 4:00–6:00 p.m.

Young People’s Concerts for Schools

The New World Initiative

Part of the New York Philharmonic’s celebration of its 175th anniversary season, the season-long, citywide New World Initiative centers on Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9, From the New World — which the Philharmonic premiered in 1893 — and its theme of “home” through performances, community outreach, and educational projects.

The Philharmonic is giving multiple performances of Dvořák’s New World Symphony this season, from the Opening Gala Concert in September and the Young People’s Concerts for Schools in January to the free Concerts in the Parks in June. More than eighty New York City–based ensembles are participating in this initiative, presenting their own interpretations of the New World Symphony. The Philharmonic offers participating organizations free tickets to Open Rehearsals as well as access to a traveling archival exhibit and to arrangements, scores, and sheet music bowed by Philharmonic musicians and conductors.

A professional development program helps New York City elementary and secondary teachers explore the symphony’s roots in African American and Native American music and the controversy, at the time this symphony premiered, surrounding the establishment of an American musical voice.

Through all these projects, the Philharmonic aims to engage as many New Yorkers as possible in the music, story, and issues surrounding Dvořák’s New World Symphony. For more information visit nyphil.org/nwi.

The Philharmonic’s Very Young Composers

Created by composer Jon Deak, the New York Philharmonic’s former Associate Principal Bass, Very Young Composers enables students from diverse backgrounds to compose music to be performed by Philharmonic musicians. Very Young Composers serves fourth and fifth graders as an after-school program through Philharmonic Schools; middle-schoolers through the Composer’s Bridge program at David Geffen Hall; and children and teens in countries around the world where the program has been introduced. In every locale, Very Young Composers culminates in the creation of astonishing works that reveal the power of children’s imaginations. Every year, more than 100 new children’s compositions are played by either ensembles of Philharmonic musicians or by the full Orchestra at the Young People’s Concerts for Schools. For more information, visit nyphil.org/vyc.

Antonín Dvořák’s

New World Symphony: In Search of an American Voice

When Jeannette Thurber was looking for a director for the National Conservatory of Music, which she established in 1885 on West 17th Street in New York City, she could not have made a better choice than Antonín Dvořák. Thurber wanted to create what she called a “national musical spirit” — encouraging American composers to develop a sound and a style independent from those of European composers — and Dvořák had done just that for his own homeland, writing music redolent of Bohemian folk traditions. In addition, Thurber ensured that admission to the school was open to everyone, regardless of their race, gender, or physical ability, and in Dvořák she found someone sympathetic to the poor and the downtrodden. Dvořák was born into the servant class in a land that was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Not only did he transcend his humble roots, he ennobled them through his glorious music.

After moving to New York City in 1892, Dvořák heard African American spirituals performed by his black students and Native American music performed in “medicine shows” in New York and in Iowa. Dvořák was so impressed with the range of emotion expressed in this music that, in interviews, he said the future of American music lay in these sources, not in European ones. His proclamations provoked intense controversy among critics and composers, but his Symphony No. 9 — which he subtitled From the New World — supported what he said, with audible inspiration from both sources woven into a masterful symphonic form. Or was it? Listeners in Dvořák’s own country (which is now part of the Czech Republic) say the tunes are all Czech, not American. Indeed, the similarities between folk music from Bohemian, African American, and Native American sources are striking, and questions remain about the true nature and meaning of this work.

In this year’s Young People’s Concerts for Schools, and in the lessons in this booklet, your students will explore the sources of this popular and influential symphony. They will experience how Dvořák transformed folk sources into a symphonic form. They will consider how Dvořák’s thoughts and feelings about home — his own home and how he fit into his new home in America — relate to their own experiences. And they will grapple with the question Dvořák came here to answer: what is American music?

To read program notes on the New World Symphony, go to nyphil.org/ypcschools-dvorak.

The New York Philharmonic wants to make your students’ take on Antonín Dvořák’s New World Symphony: In Search of an American Voice part of your Young People’s Concert.

• Record your own version of the Largo melody. Write your own lyrics to fit Dvořák’s famous melody from the Largo movement of the New World Symphony. Or reimagine the melody with new rhythms, phrasings, or instruments. With your own words or your own interpretation of the tune or both, tell us your feelings about your home, be it in New York or someplace far away (as Bohemia was for Dvořák). Perform your version and record a video.

Select videos will be shown on the big screen at the Young People’s Concert. Visit nyphil.org/ypcschools and click on “Concert Submission” to fill out a submission form (remembering to complete the section that gives us permission to exhibit the video) and to learn how to upload your video.

Be a part of the Young People’s Concerts for Schools!

2 3

Unit 1 Where Do We Feel a Sense of Home?

Antonín Dvořák’s childhood home was in Nelahozeves, a small village at the foot of a castle in Bohemia (now a part of the Czech Republic). Dvořák grew up to compose strongly nationalist music, reflecting his homeland’s folk culture. When he came to America, and even when visiting Czech immigrants here, he never felt at home —he always missed Bohemia.

View of Nelahozeves from the River Vltava Carl Robert Croll (1841)

ACTIVITY 1 Exploring Relationships to “Home”

(15 Minutes)

Ask your students to recall a time they felt homesick or to think of a character from a book or film who experienced homesickness. Have them write a paragraph about the following:

• What things or events can trigger feelings of homesickness?

• How long does it take to feel homesick?

• How far does someone have to travel to feel homesick?

Explain how some people travel for their jobs and can be gone for long periods of time. They may often be alone while traveling and essentially “living out of a suitcase.” Ask your students to imagine themselves in this type of work situation. Then ask them to consider what they would pack in their suitcase to remind them of home and to comfort them when they’re feeling homesick. Have students consider the power of music to affect their feelings and ask:

• What song (or songs) would you pack to listen to on this kind of trip?

• What is it about this song that makes you feel strong emotions? Is it the lyrics, the melody, or the chords? Is it a memory that’s associated with hearing this song for the first time? Is it something else?

• In addition to recorded music, what song (or songs) might you catch yourself singing when you’re feeling homesick?

EXTENSION / Home on the RangeHave your students sing or listen to the folk song “Home on the Range” and analyze its lyrics. Then ask: How does the singer express his feelings about the concept of home?

Invite your students to think like composers and ask: What would a piece that represented your home sound like? What instruments would you use when composing this piece? What is the piece’s tempo? What is its rhythm? What are its dynamics and articulations like? Is someone singing this piece? If so, in what style?

4 5

ACTIVITY 2 Antonín Dvořák and His World

(10 Minutes)

Explain to your students that Antonín Dvořák experienced homesickness while living and working in America. Share the following biographical information about Dvořák to teach your students more about his career and his experiences in the “New World”:

Antonín Dvořák was born in 1841 to a working-class Bohemian family. (Bohemia is now part of the Czech Republic, and its people are referred to as both Bohemians and as Czechs.) Antonín was encouraged to become a butcher, like his father, but he had a passion for music. Luckily, his uncle was able to take him to study viola, organ, and music theory in a nearby town. Eventually Antonín was afforded the opportunity to study music in Prague, the state capital, at the Prague Organ School.

Dvořák’s career was launched through the help of many fine mentors. Dvořák played viola in the Czech National Theater’s orchestra when Bedřich Smetana, a very important Czech nationalist composer, was serving as conductor. Smetana’s work inspired Dvořák to evoke Czech folk melodies in his music. This was important to Dvořák’s own identity as a Czech and as a composer because, at this time, Bohemia was ruled by the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In 1874, Dvořák won a composition competition, and the prize money from the Austrian government allowed him to focus his efforts on writing music. Eventually the eminent composer Johannes Brahms, who had himself been mentored by Robert Schumann, “discovered” Dvořák and brought him to the attention of his own publisher, which led to Dvořák developing an international reputation.

By the age of 40, Dvořák had been appointed professor of composition at the Prague Conservatory, and he continued to become more well known throughout Europe. In 1892, Jeannette Thurber brought Dvořák to New York City to serve as the director of her newly established National Conservatory of Music. Dvořák was deeply intrigued by the music he encountered in the United States — including spirituals and Native American, Creole, and folk music — and he encouraged his students to use what they knew in their own work. Although he enjoyed New York, Dvořák was deeply homesick, despite his visits to the Czech community of Spillville, Iowa, and finding substitutes for his beloved hobbies of minding trains and keeping pigeons. So, in 1895, Dvořák returned to Bohemia and rejoined the faculty of the Prague Conservatory, where he became director in 1901. Dvořák died in 1904.

Ask students to reflect on the above information and then discuss the following:• Which events do you think had a major influence on Dvořák’s career?

• What do you think were the biggest challenges for him?

• What do you think Dvořák’s life would have been like if he had been born in the year 2000 instead of 1841?

• What else would be interesting to know about Dvořák?

EXTENSION / Historical Context

1. Have your students consider how the changes that occurred in the world may have affected Dvořák. How did the world, in general, change between the mid-1800s and the late 1800s? Encourage them to explore one of the following developments:

2. After they complete their research, have your students create a diagram or a flowchart showing how the advances of the late nineteenth century directly affected Dvořák’s career.

After studying how much life changed overall between 1850 and 1900, have students think about changes within the United States, specifically, during this time, e.g.— people immigrating to this country in large numbers and New York City increasingly functioning as the country’s gateway. (New York’s Ellis Island became the country’s official checkpoint for immigrants in 1892.)

America was the land of opportunity for millions of people, but, depending on when they immigrated here, the degree of opportunity varied. Have your students choose one of the following subjects in American history to research:

• The Gilded Age

• Immigration shifts in the 1890s

• Factory life in the 1890s: a path to a better future or to despair?

• Technological advances and inventions

• Scientific and medical advances

• Development of the railroad and how it affected migration to cities as well as travel in general

• Romanticism

• Realism

• Impressionism

• Nationalism

• Exoticism

• An increase in support for the arts and arts organizations — museums, orchestras, conservatories, theaters, libraries, etc. — in major cities

Bottom: Spillville, Iowa, where Dvořák spent the summer of 1893

6 7

Unit 2 What Inspired Dvořák in the New World?

Prior to Dvořák’s visit to America, no symphonies or operas that sounded “American” had yet been composed. Dvořák was brought to the United States to help define an American symphonic tradition that would measure up to the classical music being written by established European composers. Dvořák himself said, “The musical life of this country is in the hands of foreigners. All the composers sound German.”

The issue with finding the American musical sound was that there was no common folk music tradition, since everyone in the United States was either an immigrant or a descendant of an immigrant. Dvořák grew up in a very modest working-class family and had a strong allegiance to the disenfranchised, saying, “I look to the poor for greatness.” In his mission to find, celebrate, and even create uniquely American classical music, Dvořák turned to the traditions of peoples who were once enslaved or nearly extinguished: African Americans and Native Americans.

ACTIVITY 3 Dvořák in America and at the New York Philharmonic

(25 Minutes)

Share the following background information on Dvořák’s journey to America:

Visit bit.ly/dvoraknws to show your students primary source materials from the premiere of the New World Symphony — housed in the New York Philharmonic Archives — including the program book, instrumental parts, and more.

Top: Jeannette Meyer Thurber, who brought Dvořák to America; bottom: Anton

Seidl, who conducted the premiere of Dvořák’s New World Symphony

Jeannette Meyer Thurber was a wealthy and influential woman who worked hard to promote the arts in New York City and across America during the late nineteenth century. She saw how countries like France were beginning to sponsor the arts. She convinced philanthropists to help her start a National Conservatory of Music, which she did, in 1885. In 1892, Thurber needed to find a new director for the school, and she believed Dvořák would be an excellent fit for the job. She convinced him to come to New York, paying him almost twenty-five times his salary at the Prague Conservatory. Dvořák worked at the school for three years, from 1892 to 1895.

Thurber believed in educating people regardless of their race or sex, and she provided scholarships for students who couldn’t afford to pay tuition. The diversity at the conservatory allowed Dvořák to learn as much from his students as they did from him. As a nationalist composer, Dvořák encouraged his students to draw upon their musical heritage and traditions when writing their own works and to stop emulating the Europeans.

Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9 in E minor, From the New World, reveals many different influences, including spirituals, American folk music, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s epic poem The Song of Hiawatha, and possibly even Dvořák’s impressions of the American landscape. The New York Philharmonic, led by conductor Anton Seidl (with whom Dvořák was good friends), premiered the New World Symphony at Carnegie Hall on December 16, 1893.

Photo of Kickapoo Medicine Show Company from New England Historical Society8 9

Divide your students into small groups and give them the following prompt:

• Making someone else’s ideas your own

Give the groups five minutes to generate as many questions related to the prompt as possible without answering, judging, or discussing them. Have each group write each question exactly as it was asked.

Have each group review their questions and decide which one is the most interesting open-ended question (i.e., a question that doesn’t have just one answer). Once each group has its question, have them research answers and debate their opinions.

Dvořák had his own experience coming to America — the “New World” — but it was early explorers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries who heard what many would consider “original” American music, i.e., songs of Native Americans.

Dvořák himself became highly interested in Native American culture when he read Longfellow’s epic poem The Song of Hiawatha; he even wanted to write an opera based on the poem. The Song of Hiawatha was one of the most popular pieces of literature in the nineteenth century, and it was the most direct inspiration behind the third movement (the Scherzo) of Dvořák’s New World Symphony. Dvořák cited a strong connection to the section of the poem that describes the dance of the character Pau-Puk-Keewis and, in an interview with The New York Herald, said:

The second movement is an Adagio. But it is different to the classic works in this form. It is in reality a study or sketch for a longer work, either a cantata or an opera which I propose writing, and which will be based upon Longfellow’s Hiawatha. 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.

The Scherzo of the symphony was suggested by the scene at the feast in Hiawatha where the [Native Americans] dance, and is also an essay I made in the direction of imparting the local color of [Native American] character to music.

The currently accepted term “Native American” has been substituted for antiquated terms in this passage.

ACTIVITY 1 Artistic Borrowing

ACTIVITY 2 Exploring Native American Influences

(15 Minutes) (15 Minutes)

The Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha was illustrated by Frederic Remington in 1891.

The Dance of Pau-Puk-KeewisThe Song of Hiawatha

First he danced a solemn measure,Very slow in step and gesture,In and out among the pine-trees,Through the shadows and the sunshine,Treading softly like a panther.Then more swiftly and still swifter, Whirling, spinning round in circles, Leaping o’er the guests assembled, Eddying round and round the wigwam, Till the leaves went whirling with him, Till the dust and wind together Swept in eddies round about him.Then along the sandy margin Of the lake, the Big-Sea-Water, On he sped with frenzied gestures,Stamped upon the sand, and tossed it Wildly in the air around him; Till the wind became a whirlwind, Till the sand was blown and sifted Like great snowdrifts o’er the landscape, Heaping all the shores with Sand Dunes, Sand Hills of the Nagow Wudjoo!Thus the merry Pau-Puk-Keewis Danced his Beggar’s Dance to please them, And, returning, sat down laughing There among the guests assembled, Sat and fanned himself serenely With his fan of turkey-feathers.

If not already covered, engage students in questions such as:• What’s the difference between artistic borrowing and stealing?

• What are some examples from the past or from contemporary times of artistic borrowing and stealing?

• What do you think about laws and limitations with regard to pop or hip-hop artists sampling or remixing other people’s music?

Have your students read the following excerpt from Hiawatha:

10 11

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.˙ œhome. I

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.˙ Œhome.- - - - -

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œ œ œ œpressed so hard they- - - -

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œ œjœ# .œ

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œ œ .˙Go down

œ œ .˙Mo ses,

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MusicExamples for MS/HS YPC-Schools Curric 2017Score

Track 7“Go Down, Moses,” sung by Harry Burleigh

“Swing Low, Sweet Chariot”

Track 6“Tribute Song to the Chief of the Tribe,” an Oglala Sioux chant.

Track 5Movement III, excerpt

EXTENSION / Native Americans in History and Literature

1. Research the role and treatment of Native Americans in U.S. history and their depiction in the media.

2. Research the history and reception of Longfellow’s poem The Song of Hiawatha.

3. Listen to a recording of a Native American song, an Oglala Sioux chant.

Discuss this excerpt, covering the following: • What are the images that come to mind when you read this text?

• What are the movements the poem describes?

• How do you think music inspired by this scene might sound?

• What do you think it was like for foreigners to read this description of Pau-Puk-Keewis’s dance?

Play the following excerpt from the New World Symphony and asks students to make connections between the Hiawatha excerpt and Dvořák’s music:

Reflect and discuss:• In what ways does this music sound like the excerpt from the Hiawatha poem?

• How does the music make you picture a scene or a character, a theme or a mood, movement or dance?

• What musical elements is Dvořák using to “[impart] the local color of [Native American] character”?

In an article in The New York Herald, Dvořák said:

I am now satisfied that the future of music in this country must be founded upon what are called [African American] melodies. This must be the real foundation of any serious and original school of composition to be developed in the United States. . . . These beautiful and varied themes are the product of the soil. They are American.

The currently accepted term “African American” has been substituted for an antiquated term in this passage.

Dvořák learned a good deal about African American spirituals from his student assistant, Harry Burleigh. Burleigh taught Dvořák songs he learned from his grandfather, who had been a slave in Maryland, and Dvořák was entranced by Burleigh’s powerful singing. Some of the songs Dvořák learned were the following:

ACTIVITY 3 Exploring Influences of African American Spirituals

(20 Minutes)

Harry Burleigh in 1894

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.œ jœ jœ .œchar i ot,


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.˙ Œhome.

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Swing low, sweet

.œ jœ jœ .œchar i ot,- - - - - -

&#

œ œ œ œ œ œ œCom in for to car ry me

.˙ œhome. I

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look'd o ver Jor dan, and

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œ œ œ œ œband of an gels

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œ œ œ œ œ œ œCom in' for to car ry me

.˙ Œhome.- - - - -

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œ œ .˙Mo ses,

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jœ .œ jœ .œTell old

œ œ œ .œ jœPha roah, To

jœ .œjœ# .œ

let my peo ple

wgo!- --

MusicExamples for MS/HS YPC-Schools Curric 2017Score

12 13

“Deep River”

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œ ˙ œriv er, my

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œ ˙ œJor dan

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land where

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& œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ


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Have your students listen to or sing these three spirituals.

Distribute copies of the melodies and have your students compare and contrast them. Have them work together to find some of the elements that these melodies have in common.

• If you were scanning through radio stations and these tunes came on, would you know them to be folk tunes or even spirituals? If so, how could you tell?

• When you hear these melodies, they have a particular “flavor” or “feel.” How would you describe those things?

• Besides their lyrics and subject matter, what musical traits do these melodies have in common?

• What do you notice about melody, shape, range, phrasing, and rhythm?

Growing up in a working-class family within an oppressive political environment, Dvořák was sympathetic to the American slaves who had endured the plantation system and its cruel conditions. The beauty, spirituality, and sincerity of the slaves’ musical traditions captured Dvořák’s imagination, and he used those traditions as inspiration when creating the “American” sound of his symphony.

The English horn theme from the second movement (Largo) of Dvořák’s New World Symphony is one of the most popular and best-known themes in classical music. Although it’s original, it’s reminiscent of African American spirituals. The theme is so irresistibly tuneful that William Arms Fisher set it to lyrics and titled his song “Goin’ Home” — a direct acknowledgment of Dvořák’s homesickness while living in America.

Distribute the symphony’s second-movement theme:

Have your students consider the following: What has made this melody so popular over the past century? In general, what characteristics cause a melody to become popular?

Guide your students while they note the characteristics of each measure and describe things like shape, pattern, pitch, and rhythm. Compare their descriptions to their conclusions in the previous activity. Ask: What qualities does this melody have in common with the spirituals we studied?

Since the New York Philharmonic gave the premiere of the New World Symphony, we can learn an interesting detail about this movement’s history from artifacts housed in the Philharmonic’s archives. The original orchestra parts show that the musicians in the orchestra crossed out the second movement’s “Larghetto” and changed it to “Largo.” This new tempo was much slower than the tempo of most folk songs, and it gave the melody a very poignant and nostalgic feel.

ACTIVITY 4 Analyzing the Famous Largo Melody

(15 Minutes)

Note to teachers: Transpose up a half step for strings and down a half step for winds.

EXTENSION / The Power of Spirituals

Have your students study and trace the historical pathways of spirituals, both geographically and in terms of their influences on today’s music, including gospel, R&B, and jazz. Additionally, students can research the role of spirituals in the Civil Rights Movement, including songs such as:

• “We Shall Overcome”

• “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing”

• “This Little Light of Mine”

• “Wade in the Water”

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Track 8Movement I, excerpt 1

Track 9Movement I, excerpt 2

Track 10Movement II, excerpt

Track 11Movement IV, excerpt

Though it’s debatable whether Dvořák heard Native American tunes before or after he wrote the New World Symphony, his impressions provide an interesting lens for listening to the symphony’s melodies. Dvořák heard songs performed at traveling medicine shows, which featured hundreds of performers chanting and dancing, as well as cultural displays of tepees, tents, herbal medicine, and more. Some songs were authentic, but others were produced for popular consumption. African American minstrels with banjos and guitars were often included in the shows, which is perhaps one of the reasons Dvořák had the uncommon view that there were similarities between Native American and African American songs.

Listen to these four excerpts from the New World Symphony and have your students express their opinions about which influence(s) they think they hear.

ACTIVITY 5 Listening for Influences of Spirituals and Native American Music

(15 Minutes) Unit 3 Rhythm and Imitation

Much of the boldness, folksiness, and energetic verve of the New World Symphony is due to Dvořák’s rhythmic vocabulary: dotted gestures, accents, syncopation, and cross rhythms.

16 17

Track 14Layered rhythm 1

Track 15Layered rhythm 2

Track 12Rhythm sample 1

Track 13Rhythm sample 2

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Lead your students in some warm-up scales, having them play or sing them in unison quarter notes. Next, have them play the scale in eighths and triplets. Then have them suggest ways of splitting the group of notes with off-beats.

Building on their rhythmic explorations in Activity 1, have your students analyze and discuss Dvořák’s use of rhythm in the melodies below. Display or distribute copies of each melody and guide your students’ observations as necessary.

• How many different rhythms do you see in this melody?

• What’s the feel of each of the rhythms? When do the rhythms stretch, push, and pull? When are they bouncy, heavy, light, flowing, suspended, etc.?

• Try splitting the melody into sections. Where would you divide it and why? How do the rhythms in each section compare? Are they the same, similar, different, complementary, opposite, etc.?

Challenge your students to listen for Dvořák’s use of more complex and layered rhythms in the following excerpts. Have students listen not only to single lines (melodies) but to the rhythmic interactions between different parts as well.

ACTIVITY 1 Exploring Rhythm, Syncopation, and Dotted Rhythms

ACTIVITY 2 Looking at and Listening to Dvořák’s Rhythms


For example, have them play or sing the following...

Then have them double the notes...

Then suggest adding ties...

Next, add dotted quarters...

And, finally, add dotted eighths...

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Have your students experiment and create short melodies using dotted rhythmic values, triplets, syncopations, and accents. To further encourage their creativity, ask them to use these rhythmic devices to create a feeling of lightness or heaviness or a combination of both.

Have your students share their work with partners and reflect:• Which of these rhythmic ideas did you find the most interesting to work with? Why?

• How did you create a lighter or heavier feel in your melody?

• How does tempo affect the feeling of these rhythms?

• How can accents be used to change the feel of your rhythms?

• What happens if you add other types of articulations?

18 19

Track 16Excerpt 1

Track 3

Track 17Excerpt 2

Track 18Excerpt 3

Track 19Excerpt 4

Track 20Excerpt 5

When students become adept at identifying the use of this motivic idea, have them listen to the complete third movement.

Teach your students to sing or play the following motives, which appear in the New World Symphony’s third movement: Listen to these selections from the symphony’s third movement, the Scherzo, and ask students to identify the many ways Dvořák passes, staggers, orchestrates, and accompanies this motive:

Repeating each part of the motive with a pulse or a metronome (set so that a dotted half-note equals sixty beats per minute) will help solidify the gestures.

Have your students form two lines facing each other. (You may need to form more than two lines, depending on your class size.) Then have the members of each line identify their counterpart in the opposite line by shaking hands. (If you have an odd number of students, serve as the partner for the unpaired student.)

Begin by having the first pair of students sing or play the motive’s first gesture in unison and then “pass” that gesture down to the end of the line (to a steady beat), synchronizing their unison singing or playing as they go. Do this until each pair of students has sung or played the melody.

[You may wish to prime this activity by first having students pass an object (like a tennis ball) instead of a sound so that they can visualize the “passing” concept and become comfortable with the format of the game.]

Have your students do this again, but this time ask them to simultaneously pass the melody down from both ends of the lines. (The students in the middle of the lines will need quick reflexes as the melody passes “through” them from both the left and the right!) This should be a messy, lighthearted process that will take a few attempts to solidify. Repeat the process with the motive’s second gesture.

When you’re done, ask your students to brainstorm ways to make this a “passing and mixing” game.• How could we turn this into a game?

• How could we change things up and pass these two gestures either down the line or across the line in different ways?

• What would happen if we mixed the two gestures together in different ways?

• What would be really fun?

• What would make this an interesting challenge?

Encourage your students to try staggering and stacking the gestures and passing them back and forth with their partner in the opposing line.

For advanced groups, brainstorm what the rest of the group could play while the gestures get passed:• What sounds would make a good background?

• What would relax the energy of the motive-passing game?

• What would intensify it?

• What element or aspect of the melody itself could we use in the background?

ACTIVITY 3 Imitation Game

ACTIVITY 4 Listening for Imitation


20 21

Track 23“Chorale Theme”

Track 24“Goin’ Home Theme”

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Second Movement: Largo

Track 21“New World Theme”

Track 22“Pastoral Theme”

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Unit 4 Weaving Themes and Structures

Perhaps supercharged by his new surroundings and the artistic challenges presented by Jeannette Thurber, Dvořák created a symphony that brims with melodic material—an unprecedented thirteen distinct themes.

ACTIVITY 1 Dvořák, a Master of Melody

(15 Minutes)

For this Young People’s Concert for Schools, your students should be familiar with the eight themes listed below. As they listen to the themes, encourage them to notice formal musical elements and to characterize them based on their expressive and evocative qualities. Note: The themes below have been named simply for purposes of convenience. Dvořák did not create these names, and you are welcome to refer to them by whatever names you or your students may create.

First Movement: Adagio—Allegro molto

22 23

Either on their own or in a group, have your students rehearse one of Dvořák’s themes from the previous activity. Once they are confident performing the theme, help them brainstorm how they could transform the melody. Ask:

• How could you change the pitches or rhythms of this theme?

• How could the theme be extended, shortened, or reordered?

• How could dynamics, articulation, and tempo change the character or feeling of the theme?

Give students time to try out their ideas. For more advanced groups, have them experiment with more complex forms of compositional development, focusing on the following:

• Orchestration: How could you use combinations of instruments to create new colors and emotions for this theme?

• Layering: How could you make different accompaniments to create texture and mood?

• Mash-ups: How could you combine two themes at once?

ACTIVITY 2 Experimenting with Thematic Transformation

(10–40 Minutes)

Track 25“Pau-Puk-Keewis’s Dance Theme”

Track 26“Finale Theme”

Track 28“Longing Theme”

Track 27“Rolling Rhythms Theme”

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Third Movement: Scherzo

Fourth Movement: Allegro con fuoco

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Track 32

In the final movement, listen for a mash-up of themes:

• The “Finale Theme,” with strings and woodwinds layering with the “Rolling Rhythms Theme.”• A return of the “New World Theme” in the brass, quickly followed by a variation of the “Finale Theme” in the violins.• Finishes with the “Chorale Theme” not quiet as in the Largo, but boldly proclaimed by the full orchestra with pounding timpani.

• Delicate woodwinds play the “Goin’ Home Theme” in various keys. In the background you can hear the violas playing the “Finale Theme” in quiet, quick notes. Additionally, the violins keep interjecting a snippet of the “Pau-Puk-Keewis’s Dance Theme.”

• Brass interrupt with a bold fanfare-like statement of the “Goin’ Home Theme,” while the woodwinds interject with shortened repetitions of the “Goin’ Home Theme.”

Track 29

Track 30

In the first movement, listen to the “Pastoral Theme”:

• The theme is introduced by a low and velvety flute solo.• It’s immediately echoed by lush and lustrous violins, with a melodic extension.• The violins are followed by the forceful brass.

• Solos are played in quick succession (French horn, piccolo), with fragmented repetitions in the low strings. • The upper brass take the lead, again with repeated fragments, and there are low brass interjections of the “New World Theme.”

Reflect and discuss: • Which melodies can you hear in the foreground? Which are in the background?

• What kinds of transformations did you hear?

• How do the different orchestrations change the feelings of the melodies?

• Why do you think Dvořák mixes his melodies together?

Discuss: • How did the effect of these themes change in their new settings?

ACTIVITY 3 Artistic Transformations

(15 Minutes)

Dvořák defies traditional symphonic structure by using themes across movements. When themes unexpectedly return from earlier movements, there is a satisfying sense of familiarity for the listener, a reminiscence of sorts, perhaps a reflection of Dvořák’s own feelings of homesickness and nostalgia and of his thoughts about his past while he’s living in a faraway land.

In particular, the symphony’s fourth movement is a remarkable display of Dvořák’s ability to transform melodies and weave them together. Once your students are familiar with all the themes from Activity 1, have them listen to the complete fourth movement.

ACTIVITY 4 Tracking Themes in a Grand Finale

(20 Minutes)

Guide your students to describe the ways Dvořák changes, develops, and orchestrates his themes.

26 27

Before you come…• Leave food, drink, candy, and gum behind. Avoid the rush at the trash cans.

• Leave your backpack at school, too. Why be crowded in your seat?

• Use the bathroom at school so you don’t miss a moment of the concert.

When you arrive…• Ushers will show your group where to sit. Your teachers and chaperones

will sit with you.

• Settle in and get comfortable. Take off your coat and put it under your seat.

• If you get separated from your group, ask an usher for help.

On stage…• The orchestra will assemble onstage before your eyes.

• The concertmaster — the violinist who sits at the conductor’s left-hand side — is the last person to arrive onstage before the conductor. You can clap for the concertmaster, but then quiet down, because once he arrives, all the musicians tune their instruments together. This creates an exciting sound, signaling the start of the concert.

• When the orchestra is done tuning their instruments, the conductor enters the stage. You can clap for him and the orchestra. Then, get quiet again, and listen for the music to begin.

• How do you know when a piece of music is over? Your best bet is to watch the conductor. When he turns around and faces the audience, that means the piece is over. You can show your appreciation for the performance by clapping.

Listening closely…• Watch the conductor and try to figure out which instruments are playing based

on where he’s looking or pointing.

• Try to name which instruments are playing based on the sounds you’re hearing.

• Listen for melodies and try to remember one you’ll be able to hum later. Then try to remember a second one. Can you try to remember a third one, too?

• If the music was the sound track of a movie, what would the setting of the movie be like? Can you also think of a story that would go well with the music?

• Pick out a favorite moment in the music to tell your family about later, but keep your thoughts to yourself during the concert. Let your classmates listen to the music in their own ways.

New York PhilharmonicThe New York Philharmonic is by far the oldest symphony orchestra in the United States, and one of the oldest in the world. It was founded in 1842 by a group of local musicians and currently plays about 180 concerts every year. On May 5, 2010, the Philharmonic gave its 15,000th concert — a record that no other symphony orchestra in the world has reached. The Orchestra currently has 106 members. It performs mostly at David Geffen Hall, at Lincoln Center, but also tours around the world. The Orchestra’s first concerts specifically for a younger audience were a series of 24 Young People’s Matinees that Theodore Thomas organized for the 1885–86 season. Josef Stransky led the first Young People’s Concert in January 1914, and Ernest Schelling established the ongoing series and brought the concerts to national attention in 1924. Leonard Bernstein made the concerts famous in the 1960s with live television broadcasts. Today’s New York Philharmonic offers a wide array of educational programs — both live and online — for families, schools, and adults.

Joshua Gersenconductor

Joshua Gersen, music director of the New York Youth Symphony since September 2012, began his tenure as New York Philharmonic Assistant Conductor in September 2015. A graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, he studied conducting with Otto-Werner Mueller. He recently finished his tenure as the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation Conducting Fellow of the New World Symphony, where he served as the assistant conductor to artistic director Michael Tilson Thomas and led the orchestra in subscription, education, and family concerts, including the orchestra’s renowned PULSE concert series. Mr. Gersen made his conducting debut with the San Francisco Symphony in the fall of 2013 and has worked with that ensemble numerous times, including filling in for music director Michael Tilson Thomas on part of a subscription series and leading a January 2015 program in the new SoundBox Theater. Joshua Gersen was the principal conductor of the Ojai Music Festival in 2013; has conducted the Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, and Jacksonville symphony orchestras; and has served as a cover conductor for the Los Angeles Philharmonic and many other orchestras throughout the United States. He is a recipient of the 2010 Robert Harth Prize and 2011 Aspen Conducting Prize from the Aspen Summer Festival, where he served as assistant conductor in the summer of 2012.

Theodore Wiprudhost

Theodore Wiprud, Vice President, Education, The Sue B. Mercy Chair, has overseen the New York Philharmonic’s wide range of in-school programs, educational concerts, adult programs, and online offerings since 2004. He hosts the Young People’s Concerts and the Young People’s Concerts for Schools. Previous to his tenure at the New York Philharmonic, Mr. Wiprud created educational and community-based programs at the Brooklyn Philharmonic, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, and the American Composers Orchestra, and he worked as a teaching artist and resident composer in a number of New York City Schools. Earlier, he directed national grant-making programs at Meet the Composer, Inc. An active composer, Mr. Wiprud holds degrees from Harvard and Boston universities and studied at Cambridge University as a visiting scholar.

Meet the Artists

How to Have a Great Day at the New YorkPhilharmonic

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NOTES

Young People’s Concerts for Schools | nyphil.org/ypcschools

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Tracks 1–5 and 8–32DVOŘÁK Symphony No. 9 in E minor, Op. 95, From the New WorldNew York Philharmonic: Leonard Bernstein, conductorRecorded 1962. Courtesy of Sony Music Entertainment.

Track 6Oglala Sioux Singers, from Indiens des plaines (Chants et danses de cérémonie et de guerre)Released 2014. Courtesy of Editions Milan Music.

Track 7Harry Burleigh, from Lost Sounds: Blacks and the Birth of the Recording Industry 1891-1922 Recorded 1919; released 2005. Courtesy of Archeophone Records.

YOUNG PEOPLE’S CONCERTS FOR SCHOOLS CD Track Listing

ANTONÍN DVOŘÁK Symphony No. 9 in E minor, Op. 95, From the New World1. Movement I: Adagio—Allegro molto 2. Movement II: Largo 3. Movement III: Scherzo. Molto vivace4. Movement IV: Allegro con fuoco

TEACHING EXCERPTS

Unit 25. Movement III, excerpt6. “Tribute Song to the Chief of the Tribe”7. “Go Down, Moses”8. Movement I, excerpt 19. Movement I, excerpt 210. Movement II, excerpt11. Movement IV, excerpt

Unit 312. Rhythm sample 113. Rhythm sample 214. Layered rhythm 115. Layered rhythm 216. Scherzo: Excerpt 117. Scherzo: Excerpt 218. Scherzo: Excerpt 319. Scherzo: Excerpt 4 20. Scherzo: Excerpt 5

Unit 421. “New World Theme”22. “Pastoral Theme”23. “Chorale Theme”24. “Goin’ Home Theme”25. “Pau-Puk-Keewis’s Dance Theme”26. “Finale Theme”27. “Rolling Rhythms Theme”28. “Longing Theme”29. “Pastoral Theme,” excerpt 130. “Pastoral Theme,” excerpt 231. Mash-up, excerpt 132. Mash-up, excerpt 2

Credits

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Documents

Antonín Dvořák’s New World Symphony: In Search of an ...nyphil.org/~/media/pdfs/education/1617/curriculum-guide-mshs.pdf · New World Symphony: In Search of an American Voice