Symphony no. 9 in E minor op. 95

The “New World” Symphony, a jewel of the symphonic repertoire, is finally available in a dependable scholarly-critical edition.

Yet again Jonathan Del Mar has managed to untangle a complex network of surviving sources, some of which have never been taken into account before. Among them are several musical examples in Dvorák’s hand known to have been used in a lecture he held at Columbia University shortly after the première given by the New York Philharmonic under the baton of Anton Seidl.

Del Mar thus sheds light, for example, on the frequently debated rhythm of the horn entrance in measure 4 of the opening movement and illuminates Dvorák’s vague instructions on the use of mutes in movement 2.