Integration of American Elements in Dvořák's Symphony No.9

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-511-9_46How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Dvořák; American Elements; Transcultural Nationalism

Abstract

At the end of the 19th century, European musical nationalism was on the rise, and composers mostly constructed cultural identities with their own folk materials. The Czech composer Antonín Dvořák, as a representative, has long embodied a strong national cultural identity in his compositions. However, in his Symphony No. 9, “From the New World”, which was completed during his travels in the United States, he absorbed African-American spirituals and Native American musical styles, demonstrating an open, cross-cultural nationalist stance. Existing studies mostly focus on the stylistic characterization of melody and rhythm, but lack a systematic exploration of their cultural integration mechanisms. Taking the four movements of the symphony as objects, this paper uses documentary method and musical analysis to sort out the specific embodiment of American elements in melodic construction, rhythmic organization and orchestral layout, and to explore their structural integration in the symphonic genre. The study finds that Dvořák embodied inclusive nationalist expression by fusing spirituals and Indian rhythmic vocabulary into European symphonic grammar through creative imitation of exotic musical styles rather than direct quotation. This study contributes to a deeper understanding of the diversity of late nineteenth-century nationalist music and provides case support for cross-cultural music-making.

Copyright

© 2025 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

Download article (PDF)

TY  - CONF
AU  - Mengjie Gao
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/12/31
TI  - Integration of American Elements in Dvořák's Symphony No.9
BT  - Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Literature, Art and Human Development (ICLAHD 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 404
EP  - 412
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-511-9_46
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-511-9_46
ID  - Gao2025
ER  -