<P> Dvořák was interested in Native American music and the African - American spirituals he heard in America . As director of the National Conservatory he encountered an African - American student, Harry T. Burleigh, later a composer himself, who sang traditional spirituals to him and said that Dvořák had absorbed their' spirit' before writing his own melodies . Dvořák stated: </P> <P> I am convinced that the future music of this country must be founded on what are called Negro melodies . These can be the foundation of a serious and original school of composition, to be developed in the United States . These beautiful and varied themes are the product of the soil . They are the folk songs of America and your composers must turn to them . </P> <P> The symphony was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic, and premiered on December 16, 1893, at Carnegie Hall conducted by Anton Seidl . A day earlier, in an article published in the New York Herald on December 15, 1893, Dvořák further explained how Native American music had been an influence on this symphony: </P> <P> I have not actually used any of the (Native American) melodies . I have simply written original themes embodying the peculiarities of the Indian music, and, using these themes as subjects, have developed them with all the resources of modern rhythms, counterpoint, and orchestral colour . </P>

Antonín dvořák – symphony no. 9 in e minor op. 95 from the new world ii. largo