Dvorak

With all the rain we have had lately, the wheat is green and the fields are wet.  We have attracted a flock of seagulls.

In 1892, the National Conservatory in New York brought composer Antonin Dvorak to New York from Bohemia (now Czceh Republic) and commissioned him to compose a truly American piece of music.  They wanted him to base it on the "beautiful plantation songs" of unlettered African American men and women in a plea to ending the cultural parochialism which bound American artists to the European models and racial stereotypes of classical music.
At the premiere, the American symphony that he composed was sneered at by contemporary reviewers as "Themes from Negro melodies; composed by a Bohemian; conducted by a Hungarian and played by Germans in a hall built by a Scotchman . . ."

Thursday evening we enjoyed the performance of Dvorak's Symphony No. 9 in E Minor, Opus 95, "From the New World" by the University of Illinois Symphony Orchestra.  We met Nephew Ned at Za's for supper prior to the concert, and again at DQ following.  It was a good evening.

I recently finished reading Killing Lincoln, by Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard.  It is the dramatic story of the end of the Civil War and the account of the assassination of President Lincoln. It is a vivid, engaging, and entertaining story of the events prior to and after the tragic deed and the manhunt for the killer and conspirators.  I recommend it.
It got me wondering though, how the reconstruction would have been much different after the war, and how America would be different today if Lincoln would have been able to finish his second term.

[ Psalm 12 ] [ To the chief Musician upon Sheminith, A Psalm of David. ] Help, Lord; for the godly man ceaseth; for the faithful fail from among the children of men.