shown to be the remains of an unrealized project to compose an opera or oratorio on the subject of Longfellow’s Hiawatha , was intended as a Herderian object lesson to the Americans on how they might achieve a distinctive ‘school’ of composition. As quoted by the critic Henry Krehbiel, Dvořák urged that they submit the indigenous musics of their country, namely native-American (‘American Indian’) melodies and ‘plantation songs’ (alias ‘Negro spirituals’), ‘to beautiful treatment in the higher forms of art’. But of course higher forms that would justify and canonize
Article
Irén Kertész Wilkinson
( phari gili ) – a classification also used in Bulgarian traditional music – which are mostly laments in Romani language, or Romani mixed with Turkish or Bulgarian; ‘slow-songs’ ( loki gili ), which are slower versions of čoček dance melodies and ‘dance-songs’ ( khelimaski gili ), comprising adaptations of Bulgarian and Serbian dance-songs. ‘Heavy-songs’ follow the Bulgarian epic ( na trapeza ) but add Romani topics of loneliness, loss and sorrow. Song structure has a wider tonal range than other Bulgarian songs, reaching a 7th or an octave, with highly ornamented
