DIRECTION: ATLANTIC

The musical New World was built on the strength of composers and performers coming from Europe, and musicians born in the United States went to Paris or Vienna to get their education there. In 1892, an enterprising and inventive American composer and founder of the New York Conservatory of Music came up with the idea of persuading Antonín Dvořák to come to the United States. The Czech composer was a real star in Europe. At a New York university, he was supposed to educate young American composers and give several concerts. Dvořák did not allow himself to be persuaded for a long time, but in the end the matter was decided by financial issues. He spent two years in the United States. On vacation, he composed and brought real masterpieces from this trip. Today we can safely say that without the determination and generosity of Jeannette Thurber, head of the New York Conservatory, we would not have the Ninth Symphony “From the New World”, as well as the magnificent String Quartet Op. 96.

The journey in the opposite direction was made less than 30 years later by the young George Gershwin. He went to Europe to soak up what he could not find in New York. To this trip we also owe the great hit of concert halls — the symphonic poem The American in Paris, which is one of the greatest musical postcards of the French capital.

Since Gershwin's time, American music has needed less and less support from the Old Continent, and — as the following years would show — it soon began to speak in its own bold voice and dictate fashions.

Elaborations of works for trumpet and string quartet: Michał Olearczyk

photo: Katarzyna Wojtowicz