This collection of six DVD films, each more than an hour long, was produced by Joseph Horowitz in tandem with his 2021 book, Dvořák's Prophecy: And the Vexed Fate of Black Classical Music. His “new narrative” embraces the music of Black and Indigenous Americans, deemphasizes the importance of modernism in the mid-twentieth century, and brings to light music and composers Horowitz deems neglected. The films draw on his work over the course of more than four decades as a critic, cultural historian, and concert programmer. They cover material familiar to musicologists, but likely unfamiliar to many of their students. They include interviews with scholars, performers, conductors, and critics; performances by soloists and by the PostClassical Ensemble, cofounded by Horowitz; and quotations from historical figures voiced by various contributors.
Horowitz's point of departure in the first film, “Dvořák's New World Symphony: A Lens on the American Experience of Race,” is Antonin Dvořák's 3-year residency in the United States. Soon after being brought to New York in 1892 to lead Jeanette Thurber's National Conservatory of Music, Dvořák prophesied that “negro melodies”—which for him included spirituals and minstrel songs—must be the “real foundation of any serious and original school of composition to be developed in the United States.” He also expressed interest in what he understood to be the music and culture of Indigenous Americans. Among the highlights of this film are the voice acting by Kevin Deas and the commentary by Kehembe Eichelberger. In delivering quotations from Dvořák, Deas's deep voice rings with idealism and goodwill. Eichelberger reveals her perspective on Harry Burleigh's spirituals as a performer and as a voice teacher at Howard University.
The second film, “Charles Ives’ America,” concentrates on a composer who practiced what Dvořák preached. Dvořák insisted that American composers attend to the music surrounding them, registering “every whistling boy, every street singer or blind organ-grinder.” So it was with Ives, who infused his music with vernacular sources. The film opens with a slow-motion scene of a circus band in bright yellow uniforms atop an ornate float made to look like a chariot, the moving images giving way to historical footage of bands, parades, circus animals, and great crowds in search of spectacle. To this visual presentation, the work of Peter Bogdanoff, is added the sound of Ives's “The Circus Band” in a performance featuring William Sharp. Horowitz notes the influence on Ives's creative process of Ralph Waldo Emerson and other lights of the American Renaissance; as Horowitz puts it, Emerson “urged American creative artists to cut the cultural umbilical cord to the old world,” a message Ives found immensely appealing. J. Peter Burkholder discusses the American sources of the melodies in Ives's Symphony No. 2. Toward the end of the film, Judith Tick addresses the composer's relevance today with his controversial depiction of gender and his interests in direct democracy.
The third film, “‘The Souls of Black Folk’ and the Vexed Fate of Black Classical Music,” begins with the Fisk Jubilee Singers’ 1909 recording of “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” set against a background of sepia-toned images. Horowitz briefly describes the Singers’ rise to popularity, then treats their use of sorrow songs or spirituals. It was through the musical arrangements of Harry Burleigh that spirituals such as “Deep River” entered American concert halls. Deas recalls a memorable performance of Burleigh's “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child.” With wonder, he recollects the effect on him of witnessing Leontyne Price, “this force of nature, singing with pride and dignity.” William Dawson's Negro Folk Symphony is praised by the conductor Michael Morgan for its “sweep that is almost cinematic.” Another conductor, Roderick Cox, commends its wide range of moods; Cox, who is Black, also speaks about the immediate effect Dawson's music had on him. Although Horowitz appreciates the renewed interest in Dawson, Florence Price, and William Grant Still, he also laments there isn't more American concert music by Black composers. Near the end of the film, the tenor George Shirley speaks about what it was like for him, a Black man, to work his way into the traditionally white spaces of American and European concert halls. These powerful 10 minutes are the highlight of the entire series.
The fourth film, “Aaron Copland: American Populist,” portrays a composer whose career, for Horowitz, “mirrors the vicissitudes of the American experience” in its politics, social history, and cultural history. The opening shows a scene from The City, the 1939 film based on the work of Lewis Mumford and featuring a score by Copland. Black-and-white footage of city life from long ago is set against a high-definition performance by the PostClassical Ensemble. Although the score of The City may be among Copland's least well-known works, Horowitz considers it the “strongest ingredient” in the film. The most dramatic moment in Horowitz's fourth film comes in an audio reenactment of Copland's appearance in 1953 before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Government Operations. It is one thing to read the transcript of the grilling Copland received, another, much more vivid thing, to hear it. As the voice of Copland, Lorenzo Candelaria captures the composer's discomfort at the questions of Joseph McCarthy, voiced masterfully by Edward Gero.
The fifth film, “Beyond Psycho: The Musical Genuis of Bernard Herrmann,” examines a composer about whom Horowitz feels strongly: “My own conviction is that, taken in the round, Herrmann is the most underrated of all twentieth-century American composers.” Although a canonical figure in film music studies, Herrmann is less well-known for his other compositions. Special attention is given to “Whitman,” a William Corwin radio drama from 1944 that sets the poems of Leaves of Grass to a score by Herrmann. Karen Karbiener provides background on the work and the appeal of its message, one that strikes the “perfect balance between individuality and community.” Further context comes from Murray Horwitz, who speaks about the role of radio at a time when its reach and influence was at its peak. Calling Herrmann a composer “who could do anything,” Alex Ross commends the breadth of his emotional range.
In “Lou Harrison and Cultural Fusion,” the sixth film, Horowitz discusses the appearance at the 1889 Paris Exposition of a gamelan orchestra and the influence gamelan music had on an array of European and American composers. One of these was Harrison. With his free use of non-Western traditions, however, Harrison is susceptible to charges of cultural appropriation. Sumarsam vouches for Harrison's “tolerance and respect” for the gamelan tradition, which Harrison treated as “equal” to that of the Western tradition. Jody Diamond emphasizes the way he would immerse himself in a music tradition, study with its masters, and even learn to build its instruments. With his “polyglot range of affinities,” Harrison, for Horowitz, was an “apostle of world music before there was a name for it.”
Thoughtful, informative, and well made, these six DVDs are a useful resource in a variety of teaching situations. Running through them is what may well be Joseph Horowitz's credo: American music matters, and so does the story we tell about it. Thanks to his creditable work— and to his invaluable contributors—that story can be told more fully and believably.
John Check teaches music at the University of Central Missouri. His writings have appeared in College Music Symposium, The Sewanee Review, and elsewhere.
