ual stature could be found in the 1890s; but he left after three years, homesick for Bohemia. Yet in that short time, Dvořák put American music on the world stage, where it has been ever since.
At the heart of our program is the Prelude from Act I of Lohengrin. Music, and Wagner in particular, was a central part of Du Bois’s experience and philosophy. Unlike almost any other great work of literature, Souls of Black Folk includes notated music, and it is central: every chapter is headed by a Negro spiritual. In the text, the Lohengrin prelude—the music of the swan—represents both the hope and the tragedy of black existence at the beginning of the 20th century, in a way that reflects Du Bois’s own experience: he was a music lover (with a good singing voice, he reported), and in Europe was able to attend many concerts, but at Harvard was rejected from the glee club because of the color of his skin.
In the chapter Of the Coming of John, Du Bois imagines two Southern men named John, one white and one black, who grew up together. But when the black John attempts to sit next to the white John in a New York performance of Lohengrin, he is removed from his seat, although not before he hears the prelude. The music inspires him to return to the South and work for the betterment of his race and humanity. But these efforts are resented by both the whites and the blacks of his town, and he is fired from his teaching position. The story ends, as so many did in that time, with a lynching: when John rescues his sister from rape, he hears the music of the swan as the white men fall upon him, and it leads him into the next world.
In the 21st century, can we hear music again the way Du Bois did, as a signpost toward transcendence and liberation? When we consume it in bits and pieces online, and music is so often piped in for the sake of corporate branding in shops and lobbies, one may wonder. Has classical music lost its soul?
Du Bois worked his whole life to educate the public about the oppressive symbiotic relationship between and among capitalism, racism, and the other forms of social inequality and exclusion. Yet concert programs today seem more divided than ever, between 19th-century warhorses and contemporary works played once. Composers of color and female composers are rarely heard. This has as much to do with music education in America as with institutional racism. Meanwhile, orchestras, conservatories and concert halls, strapped for funding, are increasingly pressured to adopt corporate models, resulting in a homogenized and routinized approach to musical performance.
But like Du Bois we may discover that much classical music actually possesses a radical, revolutionary spirit—institutions are only the frame around the artwork. We might listen to it, as Du Bois did, as a metaphor for spiritual emancipation and social transformation. Mozart sought to challenge the aristocracy: chafing at his servant status while working for the prince-archbishop of Salzburg, and later setting to music Beaumarchais’s revolutionary Marriage of Figaro. Beethoven, living in a police state, composed music of liberation, symphonies for the 99 percent. His Ninth is a hymn for all humanity: “Seid umschlungen Millionen,” (be embraced, you millions). Wagner was a socialist who participated in the Revolutions of 1848; his music juxtaposes transcendent love with a world obsessed with money and power. Verdi’s operas inspired the Risorgimento, the unification of Italy.
Throughout history, the arts and the artist not only have reflected society but also have criticized, stood in opposition to, and even provided revolutionary inspiration for transformation of society. Music was composed and performed not as a commodity (which in our time both popular and classical music have arguably become) but with the political, social, and spiritual concerns of the people in mind. Much music has at its core a volcanic revolutionary spirit: it is an infinite wellspring of idealism, hope, and passion. The members of the Du Bois Orchestra hope that in rediscovering certain compose