Antonín Dvořák wrote Symphony No. 9, known as “From the New World,” premiered in New York in 1893.
Dvořák composed the symphony while serving as director of the National Conservatory of Music of America. Its first performance took place at Carnegie Hall, with Anton Seidl conducting the New York Philharmonic. The work quickly became one of Dvořák’s most popular compositions.
The symphony draws on Dvořák’s interest in African American and Indigenous American musical traditions, as well as on his Czech background. The famous English horn melody in the second movement has often been called the “Largo,” while the work’s fourth movement contains some of its most forceful orchestral writing.
The title “From the New World” refers to Dvořák’s experience in the United States. The symphony is sometimes said to quote a specific spiritual, but its melodies are generally understood as original themes shaped by musical influences rather than direct quotations.