Largo: A Song History

← Back to Browse By Song

This melody is the Largo, the slow second movement of Antonín Dvořák's Symphony No. 9, "From the New World," whose official world premiere at Carnegie Hall is usually dated 16 December 1893, although a performance on 15 December was already open to the public.[1] Anton Seidl conducted the New York Philharmonic, while Dvořák listened from a box.[2] The movement's famous tune is first given to the English horn, rarely heard as an orchestral soloist, and its melancholy sound helps carry the homesickness the music expresses.[3] Dvořák described the movement as a sketch toward a larger work, perhaps a cantata or opera, drawn from Longfellow's Hiawatha.[4]

Early 19th-century English horn of wood with ivory rings and a bulb-shaped bell

H. Grenser, English Horn, German, wood, ivory and brass, before 1807. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0). Shown for the instrument that first plays the Largo's melody; this one has no connection to Dvořák.

Dvořák was searching for an American sound and was strongly moved by African American spirituals, which he first encountered in arrangements by the conservatory student Harry T. Burleigh; even so, Dvořák maintained that the symphony quoted no actual African American melodies, and Carnegie Hall describes the Largo's theme as wholly his own.[1] Roughly three decades later, three composers from the conservatory's composition program, among them William Arms Fisher, each fitted the English horn tune with a spiritual-style text, and Fisher's "Goin' Home" became the best known.[4] Fisher's song is dated 1922 and was issued that year by Oliver Ditson in Boston for solo voice and for chorus.[5] Baritone Reinald Werrenrath recorded it with orchestra in Camden, New Jersey, on 11 May 1923, for release as Victrola 6472.[6]

Carnegie Hall calls the Largo the symphony's most famous passage, and it was played at the funerals of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Gerald Ford.[1]

Find books with Largo for sale →

Sources

  1. Carnegie Hall: "Carnegie Hall Premieres: Dvořák's Symphony No. 9, 'From the New World'".
  2. Carnegie Hall: "Carnegie Hall Icons: Antonín Dvořák".
  3. Radio Prague International: "The Best of Czech Classical Music, Part 4: Largo, from Antonín Dvořák's New World Symphony".
  4. Dvořák American Heritage Association: "The Premiere of Dvořák's Symphony".
  5. IMSLP: "Goin' Home (Fisher, William Arms)".
  6. New York Public Library Research Catalog: "Goin' home [sound recording]" (Reinald Werrenrath, Victrola 6472).