They Don't Sing This One in Church

I picked this Canadian edition of Josef Škvorecký's novel about his countryman Antonín Dvořák one afternoon in Kingston, Ontario, and read it and enjoyed it soon after, but then I put it away for many years and I can't say I remembered much about it until I picked up a used CD of the New World Symphony the other day, and then of course I had to read it again. It's an odd book, splendid and sad and often hilarious. It's not quite "about" Dvořák and not really about him being in love at all (though that element is in there too), but instead it manages to trace a portrait of him largely through the eyes of the people around him (family members, other musicians, casual acquaintances), sometimes in scenes decades after his death. Many of the characters are historical figures from the music world and quite a number of them are Americans, including Will Marion Cook, the black violinist and composer who winds up having to "explain" (i.e., sanitize) the lyrics of a raunchy African-American musical number during the composer's sojourn in the US. "Is it a kind of spiritual?," asks Dvořák, whose English is limited, and Will replies, "Exactly, except they don't sing this one in church." Dvořák, a devout Catholic but one with an earthy streak, eagerly soaks up the music in any case.

According to an interview with Škvorecký, the title was the suggestion of his English-language publisher. The Czech title is Scherzo capriccioso, and it was originally issued by 68 Publishers in Toronto (that is, by the author and his wife, who were publishers to the emigré community), in an edition with illustrations that sadly weren't used in the translated version. I understand no Czech but Paul Wilson's translation reads extremely well.

One change in the translation that everyone, including the author, seems to have liked, is to move to the very end a chapter involving the celebrated classically-trained black singer Sissieretta Jones. Dvořák is long dead when the chapter opens, and Jones, who had known him and performed for him, is now old, retired, mostly forgotten, and living in Providence, Rhode Island. She receives a visit from an old colleague, and at the same time a phone call from Jeanette Thurber, who as patron of music had been responsible for first bringing Dvořák to America. In the brief chapter the narrative moves back and forth over the years, while in the present a boat outside, rocked by the waves, bumps repeatedly against a dock as Jones reflects on what, if anything, all of it was for. It's a small but unsettling detail, a reminder of the ceaseless tides that in the end carry everything away.

Naturally the novel should be read to the accompaniment of your favorite rendition of the New World Symphony.