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New York, New World (from the series: The Accidental Pilgrim)

I’ve heard people say that New York looks better from the air than it does on the ground. Certainly it’s worth getting yourself a window seat if you’re going to fly past. I love to advise you which flight paths gets you a view like this, but I just never locked it in my memory. All I can remember is that I was an accident tourist, coming in from the North - but I guess you could work that out yourself.

My first impression of New York was provided to me by my music teacher, who played Dvorak’s New World Symphony to my class at school, and then talked about how the music lifted you up and transported you around the New York skyscrapers. Sometimes when I walk the streets of New York, the music comes to me.

It’s nothing more than an emotional connection to a delusion. I’ve no idea what my music teacher was smoking, but Dvorak came to the USA in 1892 and left 3 years later, a while before the skyscrapers sprouted up. Dvorak’s excellent ninth symphony, from the New World, was influenced mostly by Native American melodies.

Dvorak explained this, saying:

“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 color.”