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

By: Contributor(s): Publisher: New York : W. W. Norton & Company, 2022Edition: First editionDescription: pages cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 0393881245 (hardcover)
  • 9780393881240 (hardcover)
Subject(s): LOC classification:
  • ML200 .H676 2022
Contents:
Foreword / by George Shirley -- Preamble. Using the Past -- Dvořak, American Music, and Race -- In Defense of Nostalgia -- Oedipal Revolt -- The Bifurcation of American Music -- Classical Music Black and "Red" -- Using History - A Personal Quest -- Summing Up.
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 Antonin Dvořák prophesied a "great and noble" school of American classical music based on the searing "negro melodies" he had excitedly discovered since arriving in the United States a year before. But while Black music would found popular genres known the world over, it never gained a foothold in the concert hall. Joseph Horowitz ranges throughout American cultural history, from Frederick Douglass and Huckleberry Finn to Gershwin's Porgy and Bess and the work of Ralph Ellison, searching for explanations. Challenging the standard narrative for American classical music fashioned by Leonard Bernstein and Aaron Copland, 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 Dawson, and Florence Price to redefine the classical canon"-- Provided by publisher.
List(s) this item appears in: AAHM - African American History Month
Holdings
Item type Current library Shelving location Call number Copy number Status Date due Barcode
Book Book NMC Library Stacks ML200 .H676 2022 (Browse shelf(Opens below)) 1 Available 33039001500270

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Foreword / by George Shirley -- Preamble. Using the Past -- Dvořak, American Music, and Race -- In Defense of Nostalgia -- Oedipal Revolt -- The Bifurcation of American Music -- Classical Music Black and "Red" -- Using History - A Personal Quest -- Summing Up.

"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 Antonin Dvořák prophesied a "great and noble" school of American classical music based on the searing "negro melodies" he had excitedly discovered since arriving in the United States a year before. But while Black music would found popular genres known the world over, it never gained a foothold in the concert hall. Joseph Horowitz ranges throughout American cultural history, from Frederick Douglass and Huckleberry Finn to Gershwin's Porgy and Bess and the work of Ralph Ellison, searching for explanations. Challenging the standard narrative for American classical music fashioned by Leonard Bernstein and Aaron Copland, 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 Dawson, and Florence Price to redefine the classical canon"-- Provided by publisher.

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