Old Borax and the Spirituals

By Greg Sandow, with help from Antonín Dvořák and some of his friends

Dvořák—a lovable and very famous Czech composer—was invited to visit and teach in America. He arrived in 1892, stayed for three years, and wrote his “New World” Symphony, which of course got its nickname because, back then, Europeans still called America “the new world.” During his visit, Dvořák lived in New York, and loved it, but was embarrassed by all the attention he got:

On Sunday the 9th, there was a big Czech concert in my honor. There were 3000 people present, and there was no end to the cheering and clapping. There were speeches in Czech and English and I, poor creature, had to make a speech of thanks from the stage, holding a silver wreath in my hands. You can guess how embarrassed I felt! What the American papers write about me is simply terrible—they see in me, they say, the savior of music and I don’t know what else besides!

His friends in New York used to call him “Old Borax,” perhaps because “Dvořák”—as pronounced in the composer’s native Czech—sounds more raspy than the spelling would suggest in English. And as one of these friends remembered, there were things Dvořák looked for in New York, but had a lot of trouble finding:

What the Master missed in America were his two hobbies, his pigeons and locomotives. One day we went to Central Park where there is a small Zoological Garden and buildings with different kinds of birds. And then we came to a huge aviary with about two hundred pigeons. It was a real surprise for the Master and his pleasure at seeing the pigeons was great, even though none of them could compare with his.

With locomotives it was a more difficult matter. In New York at that time, there was only one railroad station, and they did not allow anybody on to the platform except the passengers and it was in vain that we begged the porter to let us look at the American locomotives. We traveled by elevated train to 155th Street, a good hour from the Master’s house, and there, on a bank, waited for the Chicago or Boston express to go by.

But then the Master found a new hobby in steamships. For one thing the harbor was much nearer and then, on the day of departure, the public was allowed on board, an opportunity which the Master made full use of. There was soon not a boat that we had not inspected from stem to stern.

Dvořák believed deeply in America, and also in American music. He especially believed that African-American and Native American songs could someday inspire a triumphant American style of classical composition. He learned about African-American songs from a remarkable African-American, Harry T. Burleigh, who studied at a New York music school where Dvořák taught, and visited Dvořák at home many times:

I sang our Negro songs for him very often, and before he wrote his own themes, he filled himself with the music of the old spirituals.

He was in his shirtsleeves, with all his children round him. He had bird cages all over the house with thrushes in them. He kept the cage doors open so the thrushes flew about freely and joined in the singing. I’d accompany myself at the piano. Dvořák especially liked “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen,.” and “Go Down Moses.” He asked hundreds of questions about Negro life. When I sang “Go Down Moses,” he exclaimed, “Burleigh, that is as great as a Beethoven theme!”

When the “New World” Symphony was first performed—by the New York Philharmonic—it was a huge, grand, colossal success. Poor Old Borax! Now he had more embarrassing acclaim to endure. But he loved to talk about the American inspiration of his triumphant new piece:

It embodies my principles, to preserve, to translate into music, the spirit of a race as distinct in its national melodies or folk songs.

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And certainly that’s not hard to hear in the music. Listen to these melodies from the first movement.

The second movement [he went on to say] is a study or sketch for a longer work which will be based upon Longfellow’s “Hiawatha.” The third movement of the symphony was suggested by the scene at the feast in “Hiawatha.”

But isn’t something missing from this description? What happened to Harry Burleigh and his slave songs and spirituals? Said Burleigh:

I have never publicly been credited with exerting any influence upon Dr. Dvořák, although it is tacitly believed that there isn’t much doubt about it. The great master literally saturated himself with Negro song before he wrote the “New World.”

Many people took this further, and said that Dvořák had used real Native American and African-American tunes in his symphony. That made Old Borax angry:

Forget that nonsense, that I used Indian and Negro melodies, because it is a lie! I tried only to compose in the spirit of those melodies, that’s it!

But that’s just the point! Dvořák composed in the spirit of the American music Harry Burleigh and others had taught him to love. And nowhere is Burleigh’s influence more clear than in the gorgeous, very simple melody of the second movement. “Hiawatha” might have been part of its inspiration, but it sounds so much like a spiritual that someone later wrote words for it, so it could be sung. Dvořák even scored this melody for the English horn, the only orchestral instrument that had the husky sound of Burleigh’s singing voice.

So the “New World” Symphony has a very special history. It embodies the love for America that Old Borax so deeply felt. And it’s the only classical masterwork that was inspired, at least in part, by an African-American.

Greg Sandow, the curator of this site, is a veteran critic who’s now more active as a composer and consultant. You can find out more at his website, www.gregsandow.com.

More Information Online


The American Symphony Orchestra League offer continuous information on the orchestra field at their home web site: www.symphony.org. Read about orchestras around the country who are creating and presenting new ideas at the League’s new innovations forum.


Andante.com offers classical music news, reviews, and commentary. For a monthly fee, subscribers can download performances and access reference sources.

The online store ArkivMusic.com has a very complete catalogue of classical recordings. So does Amazon.com.

For kids who are learning to play instruments, FromTheTop.com offers a great resource, and access to public radio’s From The Top programs.

Many orchestras have wonderful web sites for smaller kids. They can play musical games at playmusic for starters, and visit its music links page to connect to more great music sites just for them.



New Music Audiences

The Music of Our Time
There are a number of organizations and resources available for creators, performers, and presenters of music written today.

Composer Residencies
A brief summary of the benefits and factors in planning and implementing composer residencies.

Promoting and Funding Commissions
The Ford Made in America project has made such in impact on orchestras across all fifty states with its first featuring composer Joan Tower. Find out how you can make the most effective experience in your orchestra. Visit Ford Made in America for more information on the project’s first round. Read about the upcoming second round with composer Joseph Schwanter here!

Before your next concert

How can I learn more about classical music?












About your first concert








Will I recognize any of the music?



What should I wear?



Should I arrive early?



How long will the concert be?


When should I clap?










What if I need to cough during the music?



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About the orchestra



Why are the musicians onstage playing before the concert begins?



Why do the musicians wear formal black clothes?


How come there are more stringed instruments than anything else?


Why do their bows move together?


What does the concertmaster do?


Why do all the musicians tune to the oboe?


Why do the string players share stands?


Why does the conductor leave after every piece of music?


Why don’t the musicians smile while they play?


What Makes Great Program Notes?

How can we engage our audience — both our present audience, and new people who’ll come in the future — with the program notes we write for our concerts?

I’ll start with the simplest, most basic observation. Anyone who comes to an orchestra concert also does other things. And among much else, concertgoers read. They read books, newspapers, and magazines. And so program notes take their place, for everyone who reads them, in a wider world. If you go to a concert, you’re not seized with a sudden urge to read scholarly journals that you wouldn’t read in normal life.

It should be obvious, then, that program notes shouldn’t be scholarly. But while I think we all know that, it might not always be entirely clear what “not scholarly” should really mean. How far, just for instance, should we go in the opposite direction? I think we should be lively, in the style of the best writing our audience encounters in the media, but I’d underline “best.” I’d be tempted to say the New York Times Book Review might be a model, but maybe not everyone in our audience is bookish. So think of the best writing — the most grounded, the most serious, but also the most engaging — that you see in top newspapers and good magazines, and aim in that direction.

But what about the content? People trained in classical music often want to talk about the structure of a composition — how the composer uses sonata form, let’s say, or how some musical theme develops — because this is what their training may have emphasized. They may also be in love with the history of a work, where it fits in the composer’s oeuvre, or how it influenced composers who came afterwards. All this is interesting if you’re already interested — and if, most crucially, you understand it all, for which you’d have to know sonata form, and also quite a lot about the history of classical music.

Will new ticket-buyers know these things? Do even our subscribers know them? And even if they did, is this really what they want to read about? Is this what’s most important? As a cautionary example, I’d cite some program notes I once read, when Colin Davis brought the London Symphony to New York. The program that night featured Romeo and Juliet, and the program notes went into depth about how much Berlioz learned from Beethoven and Shakespeare. Which could be fascinating, but what wasn’t said was why Colin Davis, plus an orchestra and chorus, would have crossed the ocean to play this music for us. Surely there’s something more immediate than Beethoven and Shakespeare, something that — once we’re gripped by it — might even make us thirst to know about the finer details.

And this is what programs notes, I think, might talk about: Why a piece is gripping, why we care about it, why we’re still performing it after all these years (or centuries),and — maybe most important — what some moments are that show these things, moments in the music that anyone can hear, even if they’ve never had a moment’s training in anything related to classical music. This tangible connection to the music is, for me, the crucial thing. Give your audience something to listen for, especially in difficult scores, but even in simpler works. Say, as a student in one of my Juilliard classes once said, that you love the entrance of the horns in the last movement of the Brahms First, because you feel a sense of redemption that the entire symphony has been building towards.

This student, I might add, was a trumpet player, so he was talking about a moment that he didn’t play. He’d just sit there in the trumpet section, longing for it. This suggests that program notes could most effectively draw on your musicians, and even your music director. What do the musicians love about the pieces on the program? What does the conductor (and any soloist involve) think is most important? What are they trying to do with the music? What’s hard to play (or conduct)? What are the easy parts? Take your audience behind the scenes. Don’t just tell them facts about the music. Also tell them things about performing it. Describe the concert as a human experience, which the audience shares with the conductor and musicians. And while this alone won’t transform your concert hall, you might find that your audience will thank you, will participate more actively in listening — and will want to come back.