Kevin Anderson, my wonderful, funny friend and fellow choir member at The Welcome Table Christian Church in Arlington, and I had the supreme luck to spend a couple of hours Sunday listening to the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra from the floor of the beautiful Bass Hall. It wasn’t a coincidence that this fine collection of musicians was performing Czech composer Antonin Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9, “From The New World,” on the day we chose to attend, because the piece ranks at the top for us as it does for millions.
Kevin, a retired Fort Worth high school and middle school band director, has also performed the New World numerous times with symphonies he’s been a member of as a bass trombone player. This makes three times I’ve seen it performed – the other two by the incredible Dallas Symphony Orchestra. The FWSO also wowed the crowd Sunday with Mozart’s Symphony No. 40, another of my favorites.
But it was the New World – composed by Dvorak in 1893 with captivating Native American influences while he lived in New York, and first performed by the N.Y. Philharmonic (which had commissioned the work) that December 16 – that hooked me on classical music. That happened a few years after Neil Armstrong brought a recording of the beloved symphony on Apollo 11’s mission to the moon in 1969, when I was 8 years old.
In the mid-1970s, I was a sophomore clarinet player at Conroe High School when our symphonic band took a brief crack at the magnificently serene second movement and its “Going Home” theme. We rehearsed it a few times but weren’t able to master it enough to perform.
The following summer of 1976, it must’ve been, I accompanied my lingerie salesman dad Clark Christlieb to Lake Jackson, Texas, on one of his department store calls. At another store there, I found a cheap LP of the New World Symphony for sale (I seem to remember paying about $1.50) and bought it without a second thought. I played that thing till it had scratches, and I still have it, somewhere out in the garage along with other LPs Kay and I have saved.
I told Kevin after Sunday’s concert that, as many times as I’ve heard this enchanting symphony, I still picked up on some instrument-specific parts in the music that I hadn’t heard – and that’s one of the advantages of seeing/hearing musicians, especially orchestras, perform in person. The standing ovation after the last note of the Dvorak masterpiece, led by guest conductor James Conlon, must’ve lasted at least three minutes.
As I told Kevin, it’s one of those symphonies you just don’t want to end. Such an unbelievable thrill for the ears. I never tire of hearing it.
Bravo, FWSO. Thanks for giving me the chance to hear this grand work of art up close again. With a little good fortune, there will be others. 🙂 ❤
A Life of Words 