It’s Flag Day! Antonin Dvořák planned his rarely-heard cantata “The American Flag” to celebrate his arrival in America in 1892 as director of the National Conservatory of Music in New York. But the text, by Joseph Rodman Drake, arrived too late, and the work did not receive its first performance until 1894. Though he submitted the vocal score for publication in 1895, he did not consider the work complete until 1898.
Scored for tenor, baritone, chorus and orchestra, the cantata falls into eight sections:
I. The Colors of the Flag
II. First Hymn to the Eagle
III. Second Hymn to the Eagle
IV. Orchestral Interlude: March
V. First Address to the Flag (The Foot-Soldier)
VI. Second Address to the Flag (The Cavalryman)
VII. Third Address to the Flag (The Sailor)
VIII. Apotheosis (Prophetic)
The piece remains something of an obscurity, having never attained the popularity of other major works of his American years, including the String Quartet No. 12 in F Major, Op. 92 (the so-called “American”), the “New World” Symphony No. 9, and his Cello Concerto in B Minor. Part of the reason may be the fact that, for the most part, the work doesn’t sound particularly “American.”
His association with Henry T. Burleigh (called Harry), his African-American assistant at the conservatory, and travels around the American Midwest, introduced Dvořák to the Negro Spiritual and Native American folk music, traditions the composer enthusiastically embraced. He called upon his American counterparts to look to their own soil in the founding of a unique national sound.
Mindful of the invaluable contributions of their people, Dvořák lobbied to waive tuition to the conservatory for talented Native and African American composers who could not afford the fee. His perceptivity, his enthusiastic support for, and his elevation of sounds that really were in the American ear all along earn Dvořák his place as the honorary Grandfather of American Music.
Here is the neglected cantata, “The American Flag,” posted in two parts: