Perhaps it is strange to call a Czech nationalist composer the propellant of "American classical music," but when Antonín Dvořák moved to America in 1892, that is what he sought to do. He was imported as director of the National Conservatory of Music for a lofty annual salary of $15,000 (roughly $450,000 today) and fit well in the burgeoning Bohemian-inspired culture of New York City. 

While in Czech, Dvořák was a proponent of the folk tunes of his country, frequently featuring them in his symphonic works. He recycled this inspiration in the New World when he immigrated in the late 19th century. He stated: "I am convinced that the future music of this country must be founded on what are called Negro melodies. These can be the foundation of a serious and original school of composition, to be developed in the United States. These beautiful and varied themes are the product of the soil. They are the folk songs of America and your composers must turn to them."

Dvořák sought out Indigenous music in his studies of American culture, but confessed himself he never "stole melodies" from their original tradition. Dvořák's student and African-American composer Harry T. Burleigh said his teacher absorbed the "spirit" of the music he studied before creating his own inventions inspired by what he learned. 

The first movement of "From the New World" begins with a slow leitmotif that was borrowed from other works by the composer, and appears in different forms throughout the movement. Other "borrowed" themes here include a Czech polka and the spiritual "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot."

The second movement is slow and songlike, based on a spiritual-like composition by Burleigh called "Goin' Home." Lyrics were added in 1922, and in 1981 Don Williams recorded the same melody with different lyrics for his song "Miracles," written by Roger Cook.

Perhaps the composer attempted to make a symphony of America's origin when he used Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem The Song of Hiawatha, which is about Indigenous storytelling, as inspiration for the third movement. 

Specific inspirations for the fourth movement are speculated, but it certainly inspired WWE wrestler and trainer Walter Hahn, who uses it for his entrance theme into the ring. 

Program notes by Laken Emerson