Synopsis

On today’s date in 1895, the New York Choral Society gave the premiere of The American Flag, a choral work by Antonín Dvořák. Jeannette Thurber, who brought Dvořák to New York City to teach at her National Conservatory, had asked him to set a patriotic poem of that name. The idea was the new work would be performed to coincide with his arrival in the fall of 1892, and the big celebrations planned that year for the 400th anniversary of Columbus landing in the New World.

Unfortunately, Dvořák didn’t get the text in time, and so another choral work, his recently completed Te Deum was performed during the big Columbus Quadricentennial. The American Flag was put on a back burner, as it were, and wasn’t performed until after he returned to Prague. He never heard the work performed at all, in fact.

The blustery, outright chauvinistic tone of its pro-New World, anti-Old World text would hardly endear it to European audiences of his day. In fact, this work hasn’t proven to be a big hit with American audiences, either.

The American Flag remains one of Dvořák’s least-performed pieces. Michael Tilson Thomas conducted a recording of it timed for release in 1976 during the American Bicentennial. Ironically for so American a work, that recording was made in Berlin with a German orchestra and chorus!

Music Played in Today's Program

Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904): The American Flag; soloists; choirs; Berlin Radio Symphony; Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor; CBS/Sony 60297