The New World Symphony by Dvořák: a listening guide for kids

The New World Symphony is a symphony by the Czech composer Antonín Dvořák. He wrote it in New York in 1893, while he was living in the United States. Its slow second movement has a famous tune for the English horn. The whole symphony lasts about 40 minutes.

Quick facts

• Composer: Antonín Dvořák, who lived from 1841 to 1904
• Written: 1893, in New York
• First played: December 1893, at Carnegie Hall in New York
• Length: about 40 minutes
• Movements: four
• Full name: Symphony No. 9 in E minor, “From the New World”

How it came to be

In 1892, Dvořák sailed from Europe to New York to direct a music school. He stayed for three years.

He told American composers to listen to the music of their own country. He named the songs of Black Americans as its richest source. A student at the school, Harry T. Burleigh, sang spirituals for him. Dvořák also read a long poem about a Native American hero named Hiawatha, and he said that two movements of the symphony grew from scenes in it.

He did not copy any tunes. He wrote his own in a style that mixed what he heard in America with the music of his Czech home.

Read Harry T. Burleigh for kids.

The four movements

Movement	Speed	What to listen for
First	Slow, then fast	A quiet opening, a sudden jolt, and a horn call that leaps up and down. Later, a flute plays a soft, low tune.
Second: Largo	Slow	Soft, deep brass chords. Then the English horn plays the famous tune over hushed strings.
Third	Fast	A stamping dance with a triangle. Dvořák said it came from a wedding feast in the Hiawatha poem.
Fourth	Fast	The strings climb, two notes at a time, and the brass blaze out a march. Tunes from the other movements come back.

Read what is a symphony?

The Largo

Start here. The Largo lasts about 12 minutes, and the first four hold the tune.

The English horn is a larger oboe that plays lower, with a dark, warm sound. This tune is among the best-known solos written for it.

Years later, one of Dvořák’s students put words to the tune and called the song “Goin’ Home.” Some people think it is an old spiritual. It is not. The tune is Dvořák’s own.

Homesick in America

Dvořák missed his home. He spent the summer of 1893 in a small Czech farming town in Iowa, where he could speak his own language and play the church organ. Some listeners hear that homesickness in the Largo.

A trip to the moon

In 1969, the astronaut Neil Armstrong took a recording of this symphony on the flight that carried the first people to the moon.

Things to do together

Far from home. Play the Largo. Ask your child what they would miss if they lived far away for three years.

Find the English horn. Raise a hand when the solo begins. Read the English horn for kids.

March in. Play the first minute of the fourth movement. Creep with the climbing strings, and march when the brass enter.

Dance with the triangle. In the third movement, tap two fingers together each time you hear the triangle.

Spot the returns. In the last movement, listen for the Largo tune and the horn call from the first movement.

Hum it. Hum the Largo tune at bedtime.

Questions to ask

• Does the Largo sound happy, sad, or both?
• Which movement has the most energy?
• Why would a composer bring back old tunes in the last movement?
• What does music from your home sound like?

Words to know

• Largo: slow and broad
• English horn: a low woodwind related to the oboe
• Spiritual: a religious song first sung by enslaved Black Americans
• Symphony: a long piece for orchestra, most often in four movements

Print and play

Use a listening journal page for the Largo. Place Dvořák on the composer timeline. Read Dvořák for kids.