Dvořák in America: 1892-1895 by John C.

Tibbetts; Dvořák and His World by Michael

Beckerman; Antonín Dvořák, My Father by Otakar Dvořák; Paul J. Polansky; Miroslav Němec
Review by: Thomas L. Riis
Notes, Second Series, Vol. 51, No. 2 (Dec., 1994), pp. 604-606
Published by: Music Library Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/898887 .
Accessed: 10/06/2014 09:04

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Music Library Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Notes.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 188.72.96.138 on Tue, 10 Jun 2014 09:04:10 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
604
Dvorak in America: 1892-1895. Ed-
ited by John C. Tibbetts. Portland,
Ore: Amadeus Press, 1993. [x, 447 p.
ISBN 0-931340-56-X.
$32.95.]
Dvorak and His World. Edited by Mi-
chael Beckerman. Princeton: Prince-
ton University Press, 1993. [x, 284 p.
ISBN 0-691-00097-2. $55.00.]
Antonin Dvorak, My Father. By
Otakar Dvofrak. Edited by Paul J.
Polansky. Translated from the Czech
by Miroslav Nemec. Spillville, Iowa:
Czech Historical Research Center,
1993. [xlii, 195 p. ISBN 0-9636734-
0-8.]
Antonin Dvorak's sesquicentennial oc-
curred in 1991, and the hundredth anni-
versary of his tenure as director of the now
defunct, but formerly influential, National
Conservatory in New York (1892-95) is
upon us. A range of conferences and fes-
tivals, in New York, Iowa, New Orleans,
and Washington, related to recent Dvorak
scholarship and these events, has led to sev-
eral books.
Dvodrakin America: 1892-1895, is, in its
editor's words, "not a biography ... but a
portrait of a figure in a landscape. It views
[Dvorak's] New World visit through a series
of interpretive lenses-the diverse perspec-
tives of the musicologist, the cultural his-
torian, the archivist, the educator, the mu-
sician, the psychoanalyst, the novelist, and
the media reporter" (p. 3), the last being
John C. Tibbetts himself. This book is
nothing if not richly varied-in tone, in
content and in quality. It consists of three
principal sections: "Dvorak's New World:
An American Sampler," including an in-
troduction, a timeline, and ten contrasting
essays concerned with Dvorak's interests
and activities in America; the second sec-
tion devoted to Dvorak's music, ten analy-
ses entitled "New American Songs: The
American Compositions"; and the shorter
third section, called "Dvorak Today," four
chapters discussing Dvorak reception, his
modern image, and current scholarship.
Drier, more analytical chapters are inter-
woven with Tibbetts's tone poems, cheerful
verbal rhapsodies on conference events,
and the general atmosphere of New Or-
leans and Spillville, among other things.
This content downloaded from 188.72.96.138 on Tue, 10 Jun 2014 09:04:10 AM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
NOTES, December 1994
Reading Tibbetts's collection one can't
help but think that a central reason for
Dvorak's attractiveness to Americans comes
from our sense of his innocent euphoria in
America and his willingness to hear as
much American music as possible. Not for
Dvorak and his devotees was the United
States a land bereft of a national song, as
it was so often characterized by contem-
porary intellectuals.
Tibbetts's authors pursue many lines of
inquiry, with results ranging from the im-
pressionistically limp to the coolly rational.
Overlapping strands of information among
the articles provide a nice counterpoint
of views and facts. A variety of opinions
is expressed on several topics familiar to
Dvorak specialists: whether he did or did
not know Theodore Baker's doctoral thesis
"Uber die Musik der nordamerikanischer
Wilden" (University of Leipzig, 1882); the
exact nature of his musical borrowings and
sources for the New World Symphony; the
work of his students; and the implications
of his several comments to the American
press about national music. Even some sub-
jects slightly skew to the main title have
found a place in this book, such as Graham
Melville-Mason's report on Dvorak's pop-
ularity in England and J. Bunker Clark's
piece on Anthony Philip Heinrich ("a Bo-
hemian predecessor to Dvorak in the wilds
of America," p. vii). The chapters devoted
to separate musical works range from mod-
est apercus to intriguing original syntheses.
Deane Root's source study on the Dvorak-
Stephen Foster connection falls into the lat-
ter category.
Because Dvorak so famously struck the
right note for American racial minorities,
a consistent theme of many of the com-
memorative studies is the attention he gave
to Native Americans and African Ameri-
cans. Jean Snyder's excellent article on
black singer-composer Harry Burleigh is a
high-point in Tibbetts's collection, and Mi-
chael Beckerman's close study of Dvofrak's
interest in Henry Longfellow's Song of Hi-
awatha is an informative gloss on the po-
etry used to structure the New World Sym-
phony, as well as a cautionary tale not to
equate an interest in romanticized Indianist
narrative with bona fide ethnography.
In his final section, Tibbetts brings us
up-to-date on the human dimension of
musicological scholarship by providing a
candid journalistic commentary. He shares
Book Reviews
the frustration experienced by conferees
suffering through long-winded papers,
he cheers on the dogged researchers who
share their passions for the music they
study when new discoveries are made, and
he looks at how symbolic and historical
landmarks clash with modern interests:
Dvorak's residence in New York was razed
in August 1991 in order to make space for
the building of an AIDS hospice.
Altogether Tibbetts has made something
in the nature of a patchwork quilt, with
some complicated patches as well as some
simple ones. Its overall appearance pleases
-it is well illustrated-and it has much use-
ful information. A potpourri of perspec-
tives, it is a reader-friendly book, approach-
able by specialist and nonspecialist alike
interested in exploring Dvorak's continu-
ing impact.
Dvorakand His Worldis a set of five schol-
arly essays, plus introduction and 120
pages of translated documents and criti-
cism. Michael Beckerman, a thoroughly
conscientious editor, explains the inspira-
tion for the book as coming from Tibbetts
and Leon Botstein, president of Bard Col-
lege and conductor of the Fourth Annual
Bard Music Festival, two full weekends'
worth of Dvorak's music in August 1993.
The essay writers are Beckerman, Botstein,
David Beveridge, Joseph Horowitz, and
Jan Smaczny.
All of the essays are thoughtful, inter-
pretive pieces. Beveridge offers a vivid
and enlightening picture of the Dvorak-
Brahms friendship. Smaczny argues for the
strength and coherence of Dvorak's many
underappreciated operas. On American is-
sues Horowitz limns the intensity of the
musical world that Dvorak found in New
York and underlines the impact of the
urban experience. Horowitz stresses the
point that Dvorak was not merely passing
through a provincial musical town to enjoy
the rewards being showered on him, but
was interacting with a dynamic coterie.
Beckerman precisely illuminates Dvorak's
rhetoric as a self-created nationalist, a
speaker of realistic creeds (not unlike state-
ments by Anton Chekhov and Auguste Ro-
din), and as a composer who consciously
and individualistically shaped folk tunes
from many sources into his own idiosyn-
cratic shapes. Botstein's challenging article
-the longest one of the five-attempts to
illuminate what the author terms Dvorak's
This content downloaded from 188.72.96.138 on Tue, 10 Jun 2014 09:04:10 AM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
605
aesthetic of "populist classicism," defined as
"a [response] to modernity, especially tech-
nological change" (p. 35). "Dvorak did not
fear the culture or politics of the present,"
Botstein contends. "The new politics, mass
culture, and the explosion of popular
forms and expression were associated con-
structively with the Czech cultural revival
and American democracy" (p. 37). Botstein
argues that Dvorak's modernity in compo-
sition is "like [the medium] of photography
... designed to gain the trust of the lis-
tener" (p. 47) and is, therefore, an acces-
sible type of story-telling.
Botstein's holding up of Dvorak as a
"populist"-as opposed to a true folklorist
-resonates with the startling ideas of
Charles Hamm expressed in the Tibbetts
collection, that "Dvorak didn't urge Amer-
ican composers to draw on the folk songs
of one group or another [in his Harper's
article, (February 1895), 428-34], and in
fact he wasn't concerned with 'folk song'
at all, never using the term" (p. 155). This
provocative linguistic argument is strength-
ened by Beckerman's caution that most
of Dvorak's utterances in America "had to
be translated from either German or his
own rather rustic English" (Dvodrak and His
World, p. 136). We are cautioned to un-
derstand the spirit rather than the letter of
Dvorak's public statements.
Perhaps the most important new fact
to emerge from the ongoing Dvorak-in-
America colloquy was recently uncovered
by Beckerman and Robert Winter, namely
that a key controversial statement long at-
tributed to Dvorak, in the New YorkHerald
article carrying the title "The Real Value
of the Negro Melodies" (21 May 1893), was
not spoken by the composer, but was sub-
stantially and creatively shaped by the in-
fluential yellow journalist James Creelman.
Beckerman more fully fleshes out Creel-
man's story in his article "The Real Value
of Yellow Journalism: James Creelman
and Antonin Dvorak," Musical Quarterly77
(1993): 749-68.
Another recently exposed Dvorak doc-
ument is perhaps best termed a curiosity.
It is a hitherto unknown biography of the
composer, penned by his son Otakar in
1961, but unpublished until last year. It was
written as a collection of reminiscences-a
sort of personal "mosaic"-and apparently
came about when Otakar, at the age of 75,
decided, in his words, "to write about the
606
events missing from the other books about
my father" (p. 4). The manuscript is min-
imally edited, with a short preface by the
editor (the discoverer of the manuscript).
It also includes a map of Dvorak's home
area of Bohemia, a family genealogy, and
several dozen letters to or from Dvofrak,
and it is filled with many previously un-
published photographs, but no shocking
revelations. If Dvorak had lived a life of
intrigue or scandal, there would be much
bigger sales potential for this book. As it
is, we have to settle for a few poignant
glimpses of Dvorak as stern father and lord
of the manor, some anecdotes of the Amer-
ican sojourn, and a handful of gripes about
old Czech musical politics. None of this will
significantly alter our view of Dvorak as a
composer. Of course, it was not intended
to be a definitive or comprehensive life-
and-works volume. It will interest most of
those who are already attracted to Dvorak
as a human being.
THOMASL. RIIS
Universityof Coloradoat Boulder
The Piano Master Classes of Hans
von Billow: Two Participants' Ac-
counts. Translated and edited by
Richard Louis Zimdars. Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1993. [ix,
180 p. ISBN 0-253-36869-3. $35.00.]
Richard Louis Zimdars here provides the
first English translation of Theodor Pfeif-
fer's Studien bei Hans von Biilow (Berlin:
Luckhardt, 1894) with its Nachtrag (supple-
ment) by Jose Vianna da Motta (Berlin:
Luckhardt, 1896), a popular book in the
early years of the century. Both authors
participated as performers in Hans von Biu-
low's annual piano master classes given in
Frankfurt-am-Main during the spring or
summer months of 1884-87 and these are
their accounts of Billow's teaching. Zim-
dars also provides a useful introduction,
annotations, and six appendixes, the most
lengthy of which reprints extended music
examples from Pfeiffer's VirtuosenStudien,
technical studies intended to be used in
preparation for the "excellent fingerings of
Dr. Hans von Builow's editions" (p. 136).
Pfeiffer (1853-1929) was a student of
Wilhelm Speidel, a pianist and composer
This content downloaded from 188.72.96.138 on Tue, 10 Jun 2014 09:04:10 AM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
NOTES, December 1994
respected by Builow. He became a professor
at the Mannheim Conservatory in 1905 and
was a lifelong Builow disciple. Pfeiffer's ac-
count of Billow's master classes is organized
as a series of eight chapters, each concern-
ing the works performed in the class by one
specific composer. J. S. Bach and Ludwig
van Beethoven receive the most thorough
discussion, with Frederic Chopin and Franz
Liszt represented only very selectively. Bil-
low seems to have disliked some of Cho-
pin's works such as, surprisingly, the Bal-
lades, and he voiced resentment toward the
popularity of Liszt's Rhapsodies and para-
phrases, while acknowledging the worth
of other Liszt works. Pieces by Johann
Nepomuk Hummel, Joachim Raff, and Jo-
seph Rheinberger met with Builow's ap-
proval and were performed in his classes.
George Frideric Handel, Wolfgang Ama-
deus Mozart, Felix Mendelssohn, and Jo-
hannes Brahms are the other composers
represented, with Franz Schubert and Rob-
ert Schumann conspicuously absent. One
wonders whether Billow's known dislike
for Clara Schumann's piano-playing also
extended to his opinion of her husband's
music. We do know that he was aware of
Schubert's Impromptus for it was Builow's
misguided edition of the Gb Impromptu D.
894 that transposed the work into G major
and condensed every two bars into one.
Da Motta (1868-1948) was one of Liszt's
last students and had a major European
career as a pianist prior to World War I.
From 1918 to 1938, as the director of the
National Conservatory in Lisbon, he was an
important reformer of music education in
Portugal. Da Motta's account of Builow's
classes differs from Pfeiffer's in its orga-
nization as a chronological discussion of the
repertory presented on each day from 9
May-7 June 1887, in the order that it was
played. While Pfeiffer's organization of the
repertory provides the reader with easy ac-
cess to Billow's comments on particular
works, da Motta's preserves an entertaining
picture of just how each class proceeded.
Like Pfeiffer's, da Motta's view of Builow
never falls short of adulation, but in his
foreword, he does present an implied de-
fense of Builow against possible detractors:
[B]ecause every offense against the pur-
est spirit of art, as he comprehended it,
grievously stirred up his naturally deli-