Dvořák was interested in
Native American music and the African-American
spirituals he heard in North America. While director of the National Conservatory he encountered an African-American student,
Harry T. Burleigh, who sang traditional spirituals to him. Burleigh, later a composer himself, said that Dvořák had absorbed their "spirit" before writing his own melodies. Dvořák stated: The symphony was commissioned by the
New York Philharmonic, and premiered on 16 December 1893, at
Carnegie Hall conducted by
Anton Seidl. A day earlier, in an article published in the
New York Herald on 15 December 1893, Dvořák further explained how Native American music influenced his symphony: In the same article, Dvořák stated that he regarded the symphony's second movement as a "sketch or study for a later work, either a
cantata or
opera ... which will be based upon
Longfellow's
Hiawatha" (Dvořák never actually wrote such a piece). Most historians agree that Dvořák is referring to the
pentatonic scale, which is typical of each of these musical traditions. In a 2008 article in
The Chronicle of Higher Education, prominent
musicologist Joseph Horowitz states that
African-American spirituals were a major influence on Dvořák's music written in North America, quoting him from an 1893 interview in the
New York Herald as saying, "In the negro melodies of America I discover all that is needed for a great and noble school of music." Dvořák did, it seems, borrow rhythms from the music of his native Bohemia, as notably in his
Slavonic Dances, and the pentatonic scale in some of his music written in North America from African-American and/or Native American sources. Statements that he borrowed melodies are often made but seldom supported by specifics. One verified example is the song of the Scarlet Tanager in the Quartet.
Michael Steinberg writes that a flute solo theme in the first movement of the symphony resembles the
spiritual "
Swing Low, Sweet Chariot".
Leonard Bernstein averred that the symphony was truly multinational in its foundations. Dvořák was influenced not only by music he had heard but also by what he had seen in America. He wrote that he would not have composed his American pieces as he had if he had not seen America. It has been said that Dvořák was inspired by the "wide open spaces" of America, such as prairies he may have seen on his trip to Iowa in the summer of 1893. Notices about several performances of the symphony include the phrase "wide open spaces" about what inspired the symphony and/or about the feelings it conveys to listeners. Dvořák was also influenced by the style and techniques used by earlier classical composers including
Beethoven and
Schubert. The falling fourths and timpani strokes in the
New World Symphonys Scherzo movement evoke the Scherzo of Beethoven's
Choral Symphony (Symphony No. 9). The use of quotations of prior movements in the symphony's final movement is reminiscent of Beethoven quoting prior movements in the opening Presto of the Choral Symphony's final movement. == Reception ==