The Unsavory Truth About Dvorak and the Woman Who Proved Him Wrong
The Czech composer Antonin Dvorak is arguably most famous in the U.S. for several works he composed during a trip to the states from 1892-1895. It was then that he composed his "American" String Quartet, as well as his Symphony No. 9 "From the New World." These two immensely popular works were not the only result of his travels, though. Whether it was a purposeful or premeditated effect or not, Dvorak also came to hold great influence over the state of American music and American composers, for better or worse.
It is well documented that he encouraged American composers to explore African American Spirituals and the folk music of both Indigenous peoples for base material to compose off of. His relationship with one of the earliest black American composers, Harry Burleigh, who introduced Spirituals to Dvorak by singing them for him, was particularly influential to Dvorak's ideals for American music, as in particular to his 9th Symphony. Dvorak's approval of Burleigh and traditional African American music in many ways had a positive effect for black composers over the coming decades. He provided lessons and encouragement to composers like Harry Burleigh and Will Marion Cook, and gave a worldwide seal of approval on bringing black music into concert halls.
On the other hand, as musicologist Douglas Shadle points out in his book Antonin Dvorak's New World Symphony, there was a second side to Dvorak's influence. He also encouraged the appropriation of this music by white composers, a tradition that became a staple of the most popular American works of classical music of the early 20th century. George Gershwin followed this example in much of his music, infusing classical music with jazz idioms to great acclaim. Around the same time in Europe, Maurice Ravel was similarly weaving the Blues into many of his works. Meanwhile, the black students of Dvorak, such as Will Marion Cook, never found the same popularity, facing accusations of "falling back on their racial identity and heritage," as Jeffrey Yelverton put it in this 2021 article. These kinds of accusations, fed by general racism, meant that only white composers benefited from following Dvorak's prescription for American classical music.
It was concerning this influence that the American composer Amy Beach enters our story, unsure of Dvorak's advice, although for what reason is not known. She was hesitant about the use of African American music, especially, perhaps because of her inability to personally identify with it, or perhaps more nefariously because of her own racism (according to some theories). While she admired Dvorak's compositional process and music, she thought it was more appropriate to incorporate traditional European folk music, especially that of Ireland and England. It made sense for her to more closely identify with this music, her being a born-and-raised New Englander. Likely, these were the tunes that she was most familiar with and even grew up playing on the piano.
Only two years after "From the New World" was composed - right at the end of Dvorak's tenure in the U.S. - Beach became the first woman to have a symphony premiered by an American orchestra, her Gaelic Symphony being performed by the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1895. Following her ideals, Beach used themes inspired by old English, Irish, and Scottish melodies while using a harmonic and structural language very much in the same vein as Dvorak and his contemporaries. It was a successful premiere, generally enjoyed by critics, and encouraged Beach to continue to strike her own path. Therefore, the Gaelic Symphony became only her first musical response to the musical philosophies Dvorak had spread in America.
Upon first arriving in the U.S., before developing his concept for American music, Dvorak made some off-handed, unsavory remarks, and was met by immediate dispute from Amy Beach, as outlined in this 2017 New York Times article:
Shortly after Antonin Dvorak arrived in the United States in 1892, for a historic visit that resulted in the creation of his “New World” Symphony, he made a cursory remark to a Boston newspaper about gender and the field of music.
“Here all the ladies play,” Dvorak said. “It is well; it is nice. But I am afraid the ladies cannot help us much. They have not the creative power.”
His contention that women might play but not create — that they could be performers, not composers — was commonplace at the time. Ten days later, though, another paper published a rebuttal from an up-and-coming Boston composer who would soon go on to prove Dvorak wrong.
“From the year 1675 to the year 1885, women have composed 153 works,” Amy Beach wrote. “Including 55 serious operas, 6 cantatas, 53 comic operas, 17 operettas, 6 sing-spiele, 4 ballets, 4 vaudevilles, 2 oratorios, one each of fares, pastorales, masques, ballads and buffas.”
These comments must have particularly affected Beach. Before marrying, she had an accomplished performing career as a pianist. Her husband’s views were that this would be inappropriate to continue after marriage, and heavily restricted how much she performed, instead encouraging her to compose. Therefore, by 1892, she faced a husband telling her it was inappropriate to perform and a leading, heavily influential composer saying she couldn’t possibly be a successful composer.
After the success of her symphonic premiere, Beach set out to rebuke such masoganistic remarks by Dvorak, and in some ways her husband as well. In 1898 came the premiere of her next major work, a piano concerto for which she also served as soloist. With this work, Beach wanted to make another statement about what American music could be - specifically, what American women could be: powerfully creative.
The fame of Dvorak's "From the New World" had not gone unnoticed to Beach, and in particular the very famous and fiery tune of the last movement caught her attention (Image A). Dvorak uses a simple but effective eight-bar phrase first introduced by the horns in fortissimo. This theme is used throughout the last movement and, for most audiences, is the tune they walk away humming after a listening of the piece. As the most recognizable theme of his most popular symphony (in the U.S., at least), it presented Beach with the opportunity to directly respond, compositionally, to Dvorak's remarks on women.
Image A - Dvorak’s “From the New World” Symphony, Movement IV, Primary Theme
Image B - Beach Piano Concerto, Movement I, Opening Theme
The opening of her Piano Concerto, which constitutes the primary theme of the first movement, directly corresponds to the first half of Dvorak's theme, as you can see in Image B. But in Beach's version, the melody is introduced in pianissimo strings. It is shorter as well, only four bars long, with a two-bar transition to another iteration of the melody in the Dominant. Likely, the late 19th-century concert-goer would immediately consider this to be a more stereotypically feminine interpretation of the renowned tune. But this is a compositional ruse, as just one minute into the work, the solo piano comes crashing in with a demanding, cadenza-like flourish, ultimately pounding out Beach's version of the theme con tutta forza (Image C). Finally, after the piano has had an undeniably grandiose first entrance, the horn (Dvorak's original instrument for his version of this theme) enters with an inverse of Beach’s melody, evoking a much more questioning, unsure demeanor (See Image D)
Image C - Beach Piano Concerto, first piano entrance, a la cadenza.
Image D - Horn inverses melody directly after opening piano cadenza.
The message must have been clear to knowledgeable listeners of the day: Dvorak was wrong. Women can use the same basic material as men and create wide-ranging, intelligently created, and even shocking music. To further land the proverbial slap to the face, Beach served as soloist for the premiere of her concerto and, by all reports, was at least as good a pianist as she was a composer. I love to picture the scene of the premiere, Amy Beach sitting at the keyboard as the theme is gently played in the strings, smiling knowingly of the pure virtuosity seconds away, holding firm in her fight for her rightful place as a composer and a pianist.
It is impossible to say the theory I present here is fact or not, but considering the musical and written dialogue Beach had established against Dvorak, and her keen awareness of his work, it is difficult to say there was not a purpose behind Beach's design. The resemblance in the opening themes of the first movement of Beach's Piano Concerto to the fourth movement of Dvorak's 9th Symphony is uncanny and difficult to argue as being coincidental, and while Beach was heavily influenced by Dvorak's compositions, her previous written and compositional reactions to him were filled with resistance to certain ideas of his.
While her husband continued to restrict how much she performed until passing away in 1910, Beach managed to have a mostly full and respected career as a composer. Her bravery in standing up to Dvorak in this musical dialogue between the two composers did not hinder her career, although perhaps only because of how intelligent and subtle she managed to make her responses. Dvorak's influence on American music was not overtly thwarted by any means, but a testament to the creative power of women in the form of Beach's two large-form masterpieces - the Gaelic Symphony and the Piano Concerto - forever stands directly next to him.
-P