BROADCASTS.com

More than a century ago, Anton\xedn Dvo\u0159\xe1k prophesied that American music would be rooted in the black vernacular. It\u2019s come true, to a certain extent: when we think of American music\u2014jazz, blues, rock, hip hop, rap\u2014we are thinking of music invented by black musicians. The field of classical music, however, has remained stubbornly white. At one point in the last century, classical music was on the cusp of a revolution: the Englishman Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was writing works like his Twenty-Four Negro Melodies, Dvo\u0159\xe1k\u2019s own assistant Harry Burleigh was reimagining black spirituals for the concert stage that would be performed by the likes of Marian Anderson. And the lineage continued with William Grant Still, Nathaniel Dett, Florence Price, and Margaret Bond. The arrival in 1934 of William L. Dawson\u2019s Negro Folk Symphony seemed to usher in the imminent fulfillment of Dvo\u0159\xe1k\u2019s prophecy\u2014and yet Dawson never wrote another symphony. Why not? Joseph Horowitz, a cultural historian and the executive director of the PostClassical Ensemble, joins the podcast to explore why. Scholar managing editor Sudip Bose guest-hosts.

Go beyond the episode:

• Read Joseph Horowitz\u2019s essay, \u201cNew World Prophecy,\u201d from our Autumn 2019 issue
• And read more about Anton\xedn Dvo\u0159\xe1k\u2019s time in Spillville, Iowa, in Tom Zoellner\u2019s essay, \u201cNo Harmony in the Heartland,\u201d about how the national struggle over immigration has hit an American town built by immigrant Czechs
• Listen to Leopold Stokowski conduct the American Symphony Orchestra\u2019s 1963 performance of William L. Dawson\u2019s Negro Folk Symphony
• Listen to Samuel Coleridge-Taylor\u2019s Twenty-Four Negro Melodies, played by David Shaffer-Gottschalk
• Listen to Marian Anderson perform Harry Burleigh\u2019s composition of the spiritual \u201cDeep River\u201d
• Listen to Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau perform Charles Ives\u2019s extraordinary setting of \u201cFeldeinsamkeit\u201d
• Read about the rediscovery of the composer Florence Price

And keep an eye out for Dawson\u2019s Negro Folk Symphony at the following events:

• Georgetown University\u2019s PostClassical Ensemble will perform the second movement on April 25, 2020
• The Brevard Music Festival may perform the complete symphony next summer

Tune in every week to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek. Follow us on Twitter @TheAmScho or on Facebook.

Subscribe: iTunes \u2022 Feedburner \u2022 Stitcher \u2022 Google Play \u2022 Acast

Have suggestions for projects you\u2019d like us to catch up on, or writers you want to hear from? Send us a note: podcast [at] theamericanscholar [dot] org. And rate us on iTunes! Our theme music was composed by Nathan Prillaman.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.