If Dvořák is located as the protagonist of these songs, further questions can be asked with regards to the overall meaning of the cycle. Of particular interest here are songs five and ten, songs which have been criticised by scholars. Of these songs, Clapham states somewhat condescendingly that Dvořák ‘even resorts to pentatonicism.’6 However, pentatonicism permeates the cycle to a greater extent than this, as pentatonic scales are heard as short bridge passages twice in song two (bb. 6 and 19), in song three (b.48), and again in song six. Use of the scale can also be found in the opening of song nine. In this light, song ten, and to a lesser extent, song five, simply represent the culmination of the use of this scale.
From my own analysis of songs five and ten, it is clear that they contain more ‘folk-like’ elements than any other songs in the cycle – apart from the chromatic moment in song five, they are strophic, harmonically simple, often static, and strongly pentatonic. Scholarly criticism of these songs perhaps stems from the fact that in the context of the cycle, and of nineteenth-century repertoire more generally, these two songs do not sound particularly ‘progressive’. It is intriguing that the songs which have been the subject of greatest criticism by scholars were given prime positions in the cycle by Dvořák. Furthermore, as we
have seen, Dvořák uses static motifs in other instances to evoke a sense of peace: in particular, in the central section of song three. Indeed, the escape to tonal stasis evidenced song three is the very device that Dvořák uses to conclude the entire cycle.
Interestingly, the composition that Dvořák took a break from in order to write the Biblical Songs, the Suite in A major, has suffered related and much worse criticisms. In Beckerman’s article on the Suite, he states that ‘no mature work of Dvořák’s has come in for a more frequent trashing than this one.’7 Beckerman summarises the attitudes of a number of scholars, when he says that ‘according to the critics, the piece exhibits no serious compositional touches’, and that ‘the other problem critics…have articulated is that the work seems to lack any sense of drama or scope, the often-voiced implication being that the master rested after his great labour with the ‘New World’ Symphony.’8 However, Dvořák’s own
estimation of his Suite in A major was different. In a letter to Simrock dated 20 April 1894, he wrote that ‘I have the Sonatina for violin and piano (easy to play), a Suite in A major for piano (of medium difficulty), then ten new Songs (two volumes) taken from the Bible, and I think that the Suite for Piano and the Songs are the best things I have written in these genres.’9 The purpose of Beckerman’s article is therefore to validate the neglected Suite, and to show that ‘it was precisely the work he [Dvořák] wished to compose.’10
7 Beckerman, ‘Dvořák's Pentatonic Landscape: The Suite in A Major’, p.245. 8 Ibid., pp.245 & 247.
9 From Kuny, ed., Antonín Dvořák: Korespondence a Dokumenty, pp.260-61, quoted in
Beckerman, ‘Dvořák's Pentatonic Landscape: The Suite in A Major’, p.245.
The critical reception of the Suite in A major in some ways parallels the reception of songs five and ten in the Biblical Songs. The underlying thrust of the comments surrounding each of these works seems to be that they are somehow regressive, or less worthy of our attention. However, Dvořák’s clearly placed these folk-like songs in prime positions for a reason. One might therefore ask what message is inherent in the ordering of the Biblical Songs. We have already noted a progression from uncertainty to confidence in the cycle, but Dvořák’s use of differing song styles – those that seem more at home within a nineteenth-century context, and those that seem more like a type of folk-song – and his location of these particular styles, suggests a deeper level of design and meaning. Again, a contrast between songs one and ten is useful here. Song one embraces late nineteenth-century compositional techniques, is tonally unstable, and uses a vocal idiom which can only be sung by the individual. On the other hand, the folk-like aspects of song ten are suggestive of simplicity, tradition and communality.
Therefore, in the Biblical Songs, Dvořák’s solution seems to be founded on communal expression, which suggests that this is where his own comfort lay. After the individualistic laments found earlier in the cycle, certainty and clarity are achieved in song ten in words which praise God, and music which embraces simplicity and tradition. Such ideas lead us back to questions about the representation of nationality in music, and to the thorny issue of the prevalence of the pentatonic scale in the cycle. If the prevalence of pentatonic scale is seen as an American device, then this leaves us with a problematic paradox. In my
analysis I have shown how the pentatonic scale punctuates the cycle, culminating in the fifth and especially tenth songs. Thus, if we view this device as being American, it would suggest that Dvořák was in fact finding consolation in an American community, rather than a Bohemian one.
However, this makes little sense in terms of Dvořák’s biography – we have already seen that Dvořák longed for Bohemia while he was in America, and Jeanette Thurber remembered him as being ‘intensely patriotic’ (see p.54). Furthermore, even if Dvořák’s American compositions ‘seem to signal a quantum jump in his fondness for the device’, we cannot conclude that he saw the scale as wholly American.11 Even though he supposedly found evidence of the scale in African American and American Indian music, he referred to it as the ‘Scotch’ scale, and had made use of it in works much earlier in his career.12 David Beveridge points out that he used the scale in his first string quartet, which was written as early as 1862.13 If we cannot conclusively answer the question of whether Dvořák was alluding to a Czech or an American community, or, indeed a Scottish one, it is much safer to turn to biographical evidence. Given that the Czech community and church in Spillville were such a strong source of consolation to Dvořák during his time in the America, and that certain of the songs themselves suggest the protagonist’s longing for their
11 Beveridge, ‘Sophisticated Primitivism: The Significance of Pentatonicism in Dvořák's
American Quartet’, p.25.
12 See the article in the New York Herald entitled ‘Dvořák on his new work’, dated 15 December
1893, reprinted in Tibbetts, ed., Dvořák in America: 1892–1895 pp.362-64.
13 Beveridge, ‘Sophisticated Primitivism: The Significance of Pentatonicism in Dvořák's
homeland, it seems likely that the community and traditions that Dvořák is alluding to are those of the Czech people.
Otakar Hostinský, the preeminent nineteenth-century Czech aesthetician, located nationality primarily in the use of language:
Psychological character (like the external features of the body) of course used to be much more defined and distinct among different nations, but even that has become generally eroded and has lost much of its meaning. Going on character and temperament alone it is impossible to distinguish a nationality with absolute certainty, especially in the places where there are most contacts. We have, however, one unmistakable, absolutely clear sign which is virtually a symbol and in many respects even the basis of nationality – namely the mother tongue.14
On this basis, the Biblical Songs clearly have a strong connection to Czech national identity. Although the songs were also published in German and English, they were originally composed in Czech, and Dvořák paid particular regard to the word stresses of his mother tongue – one should note that Dvořák was also a fluent German and English speaker, so his choice of Czech was deliberate. Furthermore, the lied genre is, of course, closely connected to German national identity, making Dvořák’s use of the Czech language particularly significant. The composer’s use of his native language and compositional techniques which go against the German norm is perhaps as much a statement about national identity as it is about faith.
Given the connections between the language, music and religion in Bohemia in the nineteenth century this is hardly surprising. In chapter two I identified two
14 Otakar Hostinský (1870), reprinted in Otakar Hostinský, Bedřich Smetana a jeho boj o
moderní českou hudbu [Smetana and his struggle for modern Czech music] (Prague, 1901). 2nd
connections between nationalism and religion in Bohemia; namely, the role of the Protestant Bible of Kralice in preserving the Czech language in the face of German domination, and Hapsburg toleration of Czech folk music as part of worship. These features of Czech society strongly suggest that the blending of nationalism and religion found in the Biblical Songs would have been deeply rooted into Dvořák’s experience. The cycle, therefore, reflects both the intensely private and personal nature of Dvořák’s situation, and the communality of shared faith and national identity.