Did Antonin Dvorak Predict Blues and Rock?

[jmc]

Many of you certainly know Dvorak's Symphony #9, Themes From the New World, or as it is better known: The New World Symphony. Personally, it is one of my absolute favorite pieces of all time.

While in the United States, Dvorak notated:
"I am convinced that the future music of this country must be founded on what are called Negro melodies. These can be the foundation of a serious and original school of composition, to be developed in the United States. These beautiful and varied themes are the product of the soil. They are the folk songs of America and your composers must turn to them."

Personally, I believe that this was a remarkably perceptive and astute, if not eerily prophetic comment that came to fruition with the evolution of these "products of the soil" into early jazz, into blues, and from there into rock music, pop music, and even R&B/Rap.

Discuss...?

[david13]

1. No, I think it was just a very common idea, going back to Stephen

Foster, and up to Gershwin, and so many others. I think he was just jumping on the bandwagon with everyone else.
What about Appalachian Spring. I think Dvorak had a distinctive sound but he was no where near as original and inventive as Bach and Beethoven.
dc

[jmc]

2. I conceed Foster, but Gershwin?

While Stephen Foster has been called the Father of American Music, I don't understand the Gershwin part. Dvorak's Symphony #9 was written 5 years before Gershwin was born. Ballet for Martha (later reworked as Appalachian Spring) was written 50 years later.
Perhaps we don't understand each other?

I am not saying that "Themes from the New World" changed American music, particularly considering that none of the understudies at his conservatory in the U.S. made much of themselves.

What I am simply pondering is whether the comment was could be interpreted as a prediction for the unfolding of popular music in the United States.