The eccentric accent seems to have struck the composer strongly.  And here is a strange similarity with Hungarian song,—­though there is, of course, no kinship of race whatever between Bohemians and Magyars.  One might be persuaded to find here simply an ebullition of rhythmic impulse,—­the desire for a special fillip that starts and suggests a stronger energy of motion than the usual conventional pace.  At any rate, the symphony begins with just such strong, nervous phrases that soon gather big force.  Hidden is the germ of the first, undoubtedly the chief theme of the whole work.

It is more and more remarkable how a search will show the true foundation of almost all of Dvorak’s themes.  Not that one of them is actually borrowed, or lacks an original, independent reason for being.

Whether by imitation or not, the pentatonic scale of the Scotch is an intimate part of negro song.  This avoidance of the seventh or leading tone is seen throughout the symphony as well as in the traditional jubilee tunes.  It may be that this trait was merely confirmed in the African by foreign musical influence.  For it seems that the leading-note, the urgent need for the ascending half-tone in closing, belongs originally to the minstrelsy of the Teuton and of central Europe, that resisted and conquered the sterner modes of the early Church.  Ruder nations here agreed with Catholic ritual in preferring the larger interval of the whole tone.  But in the quaint jump of the third the Church had no part, clinging closely to a diatonic process.

The five-toned scale is indeed so widespread that it cannot be fastened on any one race or even family of nations.  The Scotch have it; it is characteristic of the Chinese and of the American Indian.  But, independently of the basic mode or scale, negro songs show here and there a strange feeling for a savage kind of lowering of this last note.  The pentatonic scale simply omits it, as well as the fourth step.  But the African will now and then rudely and forcibly lower it by a half-tone.  In the minor it is more natural; for it can then be thought of as the fifth of the relative major.  Moreover, it is familiar to us in the Church chant.  This effect we have in the beginning of the Scherzo.  Many of us do not know the true African manner, here.  But in the major it is much more barbarous.  And it is almost a pity that Dvorak did not strike it beyond an occasional touch (as in the second quoted melody).  A fine example is “Roll, Jordan Roll,” in E flat (that opens, by the way, much like Dvorak’s first theme), where the beginning of the second line rings out on a savage D flat, out of all key to Caucasian ears.

We soon see stealing out of the beginning Adagio an eccentric pace in motion of the bass, that leads to the burst of main subject, Allegro molto, with a certain

[Music:  Allegro molto
(Strings)
(Horns)
Pizz. (Strings)
(Clarinets doubled below in bassoons)
(Strings)]