Sissel Kyrkjebø - Going Home

Sissel Kyrkjebø performing “Going Home“ in a TV-concert from Røros Church, Norway in 2007. Click on CC for subtitles. The song is based on the Czech composer Antonin Dvorak’s famous “Largo“ theme from his Symphony No. 9 (From the New World), Op. 95. His symphony was composed while he was in America and was first performed by the New York Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall on December 16, 1893. It has been said that Dvorak’s themes in his symphony were inspired by American folk melodies, especially Afro-American or American Indian. The lyrics for “Going Home“ was written by one of Dvorak’s pupils, William Arms Fisher (1861-1948), who adapted and arranged the Largo theme and added his own words in “the form of a Negro spiritual.“ This song especially became known as a spiritual after the death of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1940s. This is part of what Fisher wrote in the published sheet music of his song, “Going Home“ (Ol