Description

Since 2019 the “New World” Symphony, a jewel of the symphonic repertoire, has been available from Bärenreiter in a reliable scholarly edition in which the editor, Jonathan Del Mar, clarified the complexities of the work’s source transmission. He did this by consulting previously overlooked sources, including music examples in Dvorák’s hand that the composer is known to have used in a lecture he delivered at Columbia University, New York, shortly after the symphony was premièred by the New York Philharmonic under Anton Seidl.

With this volume the Del Mar edition is now available in a practical study score with a new introduction by Dvorák authority Jan Smaczny.

Description

The “New World” Symphony, a jewel of the symphonic repertoire, is finally available in a dependable scholarly-critical edition.

Yet again Jonathan Del Mar has managed to untangle a complex network of surviving sources, some of which have never been taken into account before. Among them are several musical examples in Dvorák’s hand known to have been used in a lecture he held at Columbia University shortly after the première given by the New York Philharmonic under the baton of Anton Seidl.

Del Mar thus sheds light, for example, on the frequently debated rhythm of the horn entrance in measure 4 of the opening movement and illuminates Dvorák’s vague instructions on the use of mutes in movement 2.