Product Description
The Czech composer Antonín
Dvořák became the director of the National Conservatory of Music in New York
City in 1892 (a post he held until 1895). Whilst in North America, he became
fascinated by Native American music and the African-American spirituals that he
heard. After a commission in 1893 from the New York Philharmonic, he wrote the
Symphony No. 9 in E minor, "From the New World", also known as the
"New World" Symphony not only his most famous symphony but one of the most
popular symphonies of all time.
The second movement
(Largo) features the famous cor anglais solo, arranged here for solo clarinet
and piano accompaniment. It was famously used in a British advert for the
bread-brand Hovis and was adapted into the spiritual-like song "Goin Home" by
one of Dvořák's pupils in 1922.
Dvořák explained
the Native-American influences in the symphony in an article published by the
New York Herald: "I have not actually used any of the [Native American]
melodies. I have simply written original themes embodying the peculiarities of
the Indian music, and, using these themes as subjects, have developed them with
all the resources of modern rhythms, counterpoint, and orchestral colour."
A recording of the
"New World" Symphony was taken along on the Apollo 11 mission by Neil Armstrong
in 1969.
This product was created by a member of ArrangeMe, Hal Leonard's global self-publishing community of independent composers, arrangers, and songwriters. ArrangeMe allows for the publication of unique arrangements of both popular titles and original compositions from a wide variety of voices and backgrounds.