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Dvořák's prophecy : and the vexed fate of Black classical music

Author

Horowitz, Joseph, 1948- author.

Title

Dvořák's prophecy : and the vexed fate of Black classical music / Joseph Horowitz ; [foreword by George Shirley].

Format

Book

Edition

First edition.

Published

New York : W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., [2022] ©2022

Description

xxiii, 229 pages ; 24 cm

Other contributors

Shirley, George, writer of foreword.

Notes

Includes bibliographical references (pages [205]-214) and index.

Contents

• Foreword / by George Shirley
• Preamble. Using the past
• Chapter 1. Dvořak, American music, and race. Dvořák's prophecy ; Dvořák's progeny: Burleigh and Coleridge-Taylor ; The Black symphonists ; Porgy and Bess ; The appropriation debate
• Chapter 2. In defense of nostalgia. James Gibbons Huneker and the "Old Guard" ; In defense of nostalgia ; Henry Edward Krehbiel and "Negro melodies" ; The fragmentation of culture
• Chapter 3. Nostalgic subversions. Using the vernacular: Mark Twain and Charles Ives; Race and the moral core ; The transcendentalist past
• Chapter 4. Oedipal revolt. The useless past: Van Wyck Brooks and the myth of the "Gilded Age" ; The useless past: Virgil Thomson, Aaron Copland, and the standard narrative ; Leonard Bernstein and the Ives Case ; Copland and Mexico ; Postscript: The standard narrative and the CIA
• Chapter 5. The bifurcation of American music. Why American classical music stayed white ; Was there a usable musical past? ; Using Whitman and Melville ; Confluence ; The souls of Black folk
• Chapter 6. Classical music Black and "Red". Rediscovering William Levi Dawson ; Rediscovering Florence Price ; Rediscovering Nathaniel Dett ; America's forbidden composer
• Chapter 7. Using history: a personal quest. The condition of pastlessness ; Culture and "social control" ; Trigger warnings ; Reencountering Harry Burleigh ; Reencountering John Singer Sargent ; Reencountering Arthur Farwell ; Porgy and Dvořák's prophecy
• Summing up. A new paradigm ; The paradigm summarized ; Dvořák's prophecy.

Summary

A provocative interpretation of why classical music in America "stayed white"- how it got to be that way and what can be done about it. In 1893 the composer Antonín Dvořák prophesied a "great and noble school" of American classical music based on the "negro melodies" he had excitedly discovered since arriving in the United States a year before. But while BLack music would foster popular genres known the world over, it never gained a foothold in the concert hall. Black composers found few opportunities to have their works performed, and white composers mainly rejected Dvořák's lead. Joseph Horowitz ranges throughout American cultural history, from Frederick Douglass and Huckleberry Finn to George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess and the work of Ralph Ellison, searching for explanations. Challenging the standard narrative for American classical music fashioned by Aaron Copland and Leonard Berstein, he looks back to literary figures--Emerson, Melville, and Twain--to ponder how American music can connect with a "usable past." The result is a new paradigm that makes room for Black composers, including Harry Burleigh, Nathaniel Dett, William Levi Dawson, and Florence Price, while giving increased prominence to Charles Ives and George Gershwin. Dvořák's Prophecy arrives in the midst of an important conversation about race in America--a conversation that is taking place in music schools and concert halls as well as capitals and boardroooms. As George Shirley writes in his foreword to the book, "We have been left unprepared for the current cultural moment. [Joseph Horowitz] explains how we got there [and] proposes a bigger world of American classical music than what we have known before. It is more diverse and more equitable. And it is more truthful." -- From dust jacket.

Subject headings

Dvořák, Antonín, 1841-1904. Music--United States--History and criticism. African Americans--Music--History and criticism. African American musicians--History and criticism. African American composers--History and criticism. Music--United States--African American influences. Music and race--United States. Black Music Collection.

Genre heading

Informational works.

ISBN

9780393881240 (hardcover) 0393881245 (hardcover) 9780393881257 electronic book