Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
Happy 2024! Your financial support helps us bring you our great musical programming year-round.
Catch interviews with, performances by and news about some of our up-and-coming artists and future generation of musicians.

PostClassical: June 30 - Dvorak and America

DVORAK AND HIAWATHA

Is the New World Symphony about Hiawatha? Did Dvorak become an “American composer” during his momentous American sojourn of 1892-1895? Do his American piano works forecast Scott Joplin and George Gershwin? Did Dvorak represent a greater hope for American music than would Aaron Copland?

Tune into a no-holds-barred debate between Bill McGlaughlin and PostClassical Ensemble’s Joe Horowitz and Angel Gil-Ordonez, peppered with strong opinions and inside knowledge. 

This next installment of “PostClassical” includes the Hiawatha Melodrama, mating Dvorak and Longfellow (named one of the best CDs of the year by Minnesota Public Radio), as well as Dvorak’s American Suite and “American” Humoresques.
We’ll also sample the “Indianist” cameos of the American Bartok: Arthur Farwell, who called himself the first composer to “take up Dvorak’s challenge.”  

A unique radio experience.

This webcast contains over 35 additional minutes not included in the broadcast!!

part_2web.mp3
Part 2

Part3Web.mp3
Part 3

Dvorak listening guide

DVORAK AND HIAWATHA

Part I: THE HIAWATHA MELODRAMA

7:00 – The Dance of Pau-Puk Keewis and the Scherzo from Dvorak’s New World Symphony

12:30 – Why does Dvorak’s symphony end with a dirge? Hiawatha’s Departure

17:50 – The Larghetto from Dvorak’s Violin Sonatina as a picture of Minnehaha and Minnehaha Falls

26:10 – Dvorak’s American Suite and his Indian mode

33:00 – The complete Hiawatha Melodrama, with Kevin Deas and PostClassical Ensemble conducted by Angel Gil-Ordonez, on PCE’s Naxos “Dvorak and America” CD

Part II: DVORAK’S AMERICAN SUITE

4:25 – Does the opening evoke Jerome Kern?

5:40 – The second movement’s “plantation song”

8:20 – The third movement’s minstrel dance, plantation song, and Indian elegy

13:13 – How an Indian dance becomes a minstrel song in the finale

15:35 – Is this “program music”?

17:35 – The complete American Suite, performed by pianist Benjamin Pasternack on PCE’s Naxos “Dvorak and America” CD

39:00 – Why is Dvorak’s “American style” more than an “American accent”?

40:02 – The Dvorak Humoresques in G-flat and F major (sounds like Gershwin), with pianist Benjamin Pasternack

53:00 – Dvorak vs Aaron Copland – why Gershwin is the real heir to Dvorak

Part III: THE AMERICAN BARTOK: ARTHUR FARWELL

00:50 – Farwell’s Indian War Dance No. 2, performed by Benjamin Pasternack

6:06 – Farwell’s “Pawnee Horses,” in versions for piano (Benjamin Pasternack) and 16-part a cappella chorus (The University of Texas Chamber Singers conducted by James Morrow)

17:00 – Dvorak/Fisher: “Goin’ Home,” sung by Kevin Deas with PCE conducted by Angel Gil-Ordonez

TO PURCHASE “DVORAK AND AMERICA” ON NAXOS:  click here

TO LEARN MORE ABOUT DVORAK AND AMERICA: click here  

David Osenberg is WWFM Partnership Manager, WWFM Music Director, Afternoon Host, and Host of award-winning Cadenza.