Homesick. That is a one-word description that best sums up how the music-writer and the original lyricist felt about “Going Home”. Antonin Dvorak was from Bohemia (See here the flag of Bohemia, Dvorak’s native land, known in the present-day as the Czech Republic) and had some feelings of melancholy, something that one of his students, William Arms Fisher, heard not only in the music, but also from the great composer some 30 years after its inception. Later, a lyricist named Ken Bible modified some of Fisher’s words to give a hopeful Christian edge to the song’s message. Dvorak was missing his birthplace, and evidently found some scenery while on his journey through America in the late 19th Century that accentuated an expression of his feelings of displacement, and his longing to reunite with family. It’s a longing that most people feel at least once, or most likely many times, while on Earth.
Dvorak had come to the ‘New World’ in America from the ‘Old World’ of Europe in 1892 to become director of a music conservatory in New York, where he would stay until 1895, a time that left him feeling vacant at times, but also energized with what he discovered. In that light, his music for the 9th (New World) Symphony would emerge in 1893 as one of his most famous and well-received works. Part of the music was something called ‘Largo’, upon which his student William Fisher would later base the words for ‘Going Home’, nearly 30 years later (in 1922). Fisher shared that Dvorak missed Bohemia, and that this bit of gloom mingled with his experience in seeing the American continent’s prairie land horizons. The recent experience of native Americans in this area, as well as of negros and the slavery through which they had come – both heartrending in their history – spoke to Dvorak as he pondered his own mood. This deep wistfulness was evidently something that the great composer did not keep to himself, and Fisher likewise expressed it in his poetry, including the title words of the song that he said materialized easily from the first few notes of the Largo that his mentor had composed. That Dvorak died in 1904, some two decades before Fisher’s words for this classic hymn would arise, speaks of how enduring and affecting was the music that the composer created. It must have had somewhat of the same effect on Ken Bible, who added words many decades later (by the year 2000) to emphasize the Christian’s hope of seeing that ‘Jesus is the door’, that ‘He is waiting…’ along with friends to greet us in the afterwhile (v.1). He’s the ‘Morning Star’, the ‘Light’(v.2), and the ‘Smile’ (v.1) at the end of this life’s journey, according to Ken. It is comforting for grieving people, in the moments when they most likely hear this tune and its words sung.
The New World Symphony arrived on the Moon in 1969, via the astronaut Neil Armstrong (see Wikipedia article link below). What Armstrong wanted to emphasize was the novelty of the experience, as he planted the first human footsteps on the Earth’s planetary satellite. But what he found was a dust-like surface, barren of any life – like friends or family -- and therefore quite different from what he or any other human would consider a place like home. It certainly wasn’t the American prairie, or a Bohemian scene that would have resonated with Dvorak. What Dvorak, Fisher, and Bible have given us, instead, are music and words that evoke images of a place filled with good, with peace, and with people with whom to share it. He knows what we need in that moment of mortal transition, and He provides a serenity that comes from His nature exclusively. Find rest and reassurance in a reality that goes on forever – that’s what the tune and its words communicate. It really defies written description. Let’s just go with the auditory sensation, and that pinprick in the soul’s deepest part that Dvorak, Fisher, and Bible have made.
See here for the song story: Story of Going Home
See here for background of the music and its composer: Wikipedia_Dvorak_9thSymphony
See site here for one author who wrote some alternate words for the song: KenBible.com | Nurturing Your Creativity & Your Life in Christ, and LNWHymns.com (see About the Author on site)
See here for information on the song: San Francisco Symphony - DVOŘÁK: Symphony No. 9 in E minor, Opus 95, From the New World Antonín Leopold Dvořák was born at
Check out this video for a very beautiful rendition of the song: Bing Videos
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