(Note: The Cherry Creek Chorale in the Denver area will be performing this lovely piece in its “American Songbook V” concerts on May 17 and 18, 2024. If you live in the area, make your plans to attend! Tickets may be purchased on this page or at the door.)
Haven’t you vaguely always understood that the second movement of Dvořák’s “New World” symphony was based on an American folk tune? I sure have. Turns out that, like most vague understandings, it’s not true. Dvořák wrote the tune himself; he said to one inquiring conductor that ““I tried to write only in the spirit of those national American melodies.”1 You can assign some kind of folksy charm to the horn solo in Movement #2, but it’s not necessarily American charm:
It has been said that Dvořák’s themes in his symphony were inspired by American folk melodies, especially Afro-American. But his themes are just as similar to Czech or Bohemian folk music and probably came from his own country’s music tradition.2
So all of that is well and good, but my focus in this post is on the words to the song that were written using that horn solo theme in the “Largo” movement. Such a reputable outlet as National Public Radio says that the words were written by Harry Burleigh, a Black composer whom Dvořák befriended while in New York. But they were actually written by another American protégé of Dvořák, a student of his named William Arms Fisher, who was White but who chose to write the lyrics in what he perceived to be some sort of African-American dialect. (Note my somewhat skeptical tone here.) So it’s “jes” instead of “just” and “’spectin’” rather than “expectin’” or “expecting.” And “goin’” is written as “gwine.”
As the song became more popular and mainstream, the dialect was considerably softened or omitted. In fact, although I haven’t been able to find a reproduction of the full original sheet music, I did find an image of the first page, which says at the bottom: “When desired the text may be sung without dialect.”
Here’s what Fisher himself had to say about African-American spirituals in general, in an introduction to an anthology of spirituals that he produced: