Dvorak, like all true workers,
did more than he thought: he taught Americans not so much the power of a
song of their own, as their right of heritage in all folk-music. And
this is based not merely on an actual physical inheritance from the
various older races.
If the matter, in Dvorak's symphony, is of American negro-song, the
manner is Bohemian. A stranger-poet may light more clearly upon the
traits of a foreign lore. But his celebration will be more conscious if
he endeavor to cling throughout to the special dialect. A true national
expression will come from the particular soil and will be unconscious of
its own idiom.
The permanent hold that Dvorak's symphony has gained is due to an
intrinsic merit of art and sincere sentiment; it has little to do with
the nominal title or purpose.
CHAPTER XIV
THE EARLIER BRUCKNER[A]
[Footnote A: Anton Bruckner, born at Annsfelden, Austria, 1828; died in
Vienna in 1896.]
Whatever be the final answer of the mooted question of the greatness of
Bruckner's symphonies, there is no doubt that he had his full share of
technical profundity, and a striking mastery of the melodious weaving of
a maze of concordant strains. The question inevitably arises with
Bruckner as to the value of the world's judgments on its contemporary
poets. There can be no doubt that the _furore_ of the musical public
tends to settle on one or two favorites with a concentration of praise
that ignores the work of others, though it be of a finer grain.
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