Antonin Dvorak (1841-1904)
Symphony No.9 “The New World”
Hamburg Pro Musica Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Hans Jurgen Walther.
Funk and Wagnalls Recording
Symphony No.9
1) Adagio — Allegro Molto
2) Largo
3) Scherzo: Molto Vivace — Poco Sostenuto
4) Allegro con fuoco
The individual is still a very white thing——Last week, aside from Beethoven, I also had dignity on my mind. I’ve been thinking this week along the same lines, of what it means to claim space within the performing arts. We hear occasionally of black bodies not feeling comfortable in classical spaces, but how much of this is a reflection of a less-than-comfortable reception? In which case we should ask: what is it that makes you uncomfortable about black bodies in classical spaces? Is it that they encroach on this highly curated aesthetic of universality? If the academic foundation of ‘music theory’ (read Western music theory) poses as the universal language of music, and orchestral music is that theory brought to practise, then does this not equate universality to a specifically European thing? And so it seems this universally-minded individual, for whom the music is composed, is at bottom expected to be white. (Not just in music, medicine too seems to anticipate the avatar of the doctor and the patient as a specifically white thing). And so to be black while taking up space in these arenas, or any other space curated for this white-washed universal individual, is perceived as nothing else but an affront.
It is this subconscious association of white and individual that is at the root of what we mean by the other, as in those who are perceived as colourful variations on a universal theme. To be lauded only in the context of their otherness. And so this inability to perceive black people—BIPOC people at large—as individuals, is the utmost ceiling of white liberal support of the minority’s struggle. As in: yes you truly deeply believe Black Lives Matter but fail to see that rising above this very low bar is compatible with a subconscious belief in the individual as something out of their reach. Likewise, there’s something subtly sinister in this obsession with the others, even when you’re vehemently supporting them. As if the accentuation of their otherness further validates your identity as the universal raw material from which all other variants are to be understood.
This is a point that philosopher Slavoj Žižek makes a better than I’m perhaps managing here. He takes aim at the subtle racism of white liberalism that is inherent in this patronizing accentuation of the others—and the inherent threat felt when these others attempt to drink from the same faucet of individuality and pan-cultural universality. Žižek uses something of a joke to make the point: A rabbi in a synagogue declares with robust self-flagellation ‘God forgive me for I am nothing’; to which a rich merchant joins in on the action ‘God forgive me for I too am nothing’. Then a common member of the congregation too joins in ‘Forgive me God for I too am nothing’. This is somewhat an affront to the merchant who can’t help but remark “who does this commoner think he is to claim he is nothing? Surely only we have that right”. That is a metaphorical sketch of the ceiling of ‘support’ for the others: I’ll celebrate and defend your otherness till the cows come home, but don’t you dare close that gap. This, I think, is at the root of the subtle resistance we feel when we try and ‘claim space’.
There is a crisis in policing, there’s no doubt about that, but to what degree is this fixation on the police a subconscious attempt to shirk the underlying and chronically inflamed whiteness—as if the police exist in a bubble impermeable to the culture around and beneath it? When I first saw Joyner Lucas’s ‘I’m Not Racist’ back in 2017, though I couldn’t articulate the feeling then, the thing that resonated so much was its attempt to close the distance of otherness. To sit at the same table and confess that ‘I feel like we’re living in the same building but split into two sides’, is something I can trust much more than yelling Black Lives Matter while feeling slightly uncomfortable when these black lives encroach your precious prismatic whiteness.
Dvorak by Jeremy Lewis
Subtle racism, because it is subtle, is the most lethal. And while subtlety isn’t an American virtue, it is a Canadian one; and so the coarseness of the language in Lucas’s song is far less a threat than the polite but unyielding indifference that meets the black experience in our country. At least, in the former, the struggle is an attempt for a shared experience, rather than a cold and incremental shuffle towards the fallacy of mere tolerance.
What does this have to do with Dvorak? Not much, though I can’t help but notice how every write-up on this New World Symphony is a full-throated praise of how indelibly he mixes the idioms of the negro-spirituals he absorbed from one of his black students (Harry Burleigh). I can’t help but notice the reticence when the opposite happens, when blackness ventures outside the permitted sphere of otherness and attempts an individual identity that is free to express full range of human life. No, this not a problem that started with police, don’t kid yourself. Guns just have a way of making every problem exponentially worse.
Song of the Week: ‘I’m Not Racist’ — Joyner Lucas
Throwback to: YR3, WEEK36 — YR2, WEEK36
Click here for the full 2020/2021 roster of selected recordings