PostClassical Ensemble Dvorak's Prophecy: Film 1 - DVD

The first film in the series keys on Dvorak's prophecy and explores its present-day pertinence. In New York City and Spillville, Iowa, Dvorak boldly chose to regard African Americans and Native Americans as representative Americans. That decision was both acclaimed and ridiculed at the time. It remains inspirational. His New World Symphony, still the best-known and best-loved symphonic work conceived on American soil, is saturated with the influence of plantation song, and also with Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's The Song of Hiawatha. This act of appropriation, my film argues, was an act of empathy performed by a great humanitarian. The musical selections here are mainly taken from the Hiawatha Melodrama, which I co-composed with the music historian Michael Beckerman with orchestrations by Angel Gil-Ordonez. It mates Dvorak with Longfellow.

• Genre: Classical
• MPAA Rating: NR
• Label: NAXOS