PROGRAM NOTES by Daniel Maki

Othello Overture, op. 93 by Antonín Dvořák (1841 -1904)

Duration: Approximately 15 minutes First Performance: October 21, 1892 in New York Last ESO Performance: These are the first ESO performances of the work

In September of 1892 Antonín Dvořák arrived in the United States for a stay that would last for nearly three years. As one of Europe’s most eminent composers, he was welcomed with considerable fanfare as he settled into his duties as Director of the National Conservatory of Music in New York City, founded just a few years earlier. His first public appearance introducing him to New York’s musical audience was a Columbus Day concert held, nine days late, on 21 October in the recently constructed Carnegie Hall, then only 17 months old. The program was ostensibly a celebration of the 400th anniversary of Columbus’s arrival in America, but there was also the clear suggestion that Dvořák was himself being welcomed as a kind of musical Columbus, come to conquer and explore the New World. Among the works on the program, which was conducted by Dvořák himself, was a Te Deum in honor of Columbus, which he had composed for the occasion, as well as a set of three concert overtures that he had premiered in Prague a few months earlier. Collectively titled Nature, Life, and Love, they were attempts at a musical depiction of three areas of the most intense human experience. In the first, which would eventually be entitled In Nature’s Realm, the composer explores man’s relationship with nature, while the second, entitled Carnival, depicts man in the whirlwind of life with all its social relationships. The third explores how the same life-force impulses that can bring joy in nature and in society can also lead to tragedy as love can turn to jealousy, a situation that is nowhere better portrayed than in Shakespeare’s classic drama Othello. Although Dvořák had originally conceived the work as a triptych, which, incidentally, had a common “Nature” theme appearing in all three parts, he eventually decided that the separate overtures could stand on their own, and that is how they are now heard. Of the three, Carnival is by far the best known and has, unfortunately, overshadowed the others, which deserve to be heard far more often. Like many another overture, Othello is laid out in time-honored sonata form. The compositional problem facing a composer who uses the form to write program music, i.e. music which refers to a literary or pictorial idea outside the music itself, is how to coordinate the musical ideas with elements of the program. Although Dvořák didn’t intend a close literal reading of the play in every aspect, he did leave insights into his thinking by marking in pencil in his original score what elements of the story certain passages were meant to portray. Like many works in sonata form, Othello begins with a slow introduction. Here, after a solemn, hymn-like opening, we are introduced to Othello’s appropriately somber theme as well as the “Nature” theme, which is cleverly transformed from a joyous melody into a sinister one as a musical metaphor for love twisted by jealousy. Both themes will be important throughout the work. In the Allegro, which is the main body of the work, we clearly hear Othello’s jealousy growing as he is lead on by the evil Iago while more lyrical music indicates Desdemona’s love. The passage that Dvořák marked “they embrace in silent ecstasy” begins the tragic ending. As the plot moves inexorably forward, Desdemona falls into a sleep, indicated by a quote from the “magic sleep” motif from Wagner’s Die Walküre, while a quote from Dvořák’s own Requiem signals her own impending doom. After killing his wife, Othello commits the suicidal act to some of the most violent music that Dvorak ever wrote, and thus ends the tragic tale.

* * * Concerto in A minor for Violin and Orchestra, op. 53 by Antonín Dvořák

Duration: Approximately 32 minutes First Performance: October 14, 1883 in Prague Last ESO Performance: These are the first ESO performances of the work

Like many other concertos, Dvořák’s Violin Concerto was written with a particular performer in mind. In this case the performer in question was Joseph Joachim, one of the leading violinists of the nineteenth century and one who occupies a special place in the history of violin playing. At a time when all too much writing for violin treated the player as a kind of circus performer, emphasizing virtuosity for its own sake at the expense of musicianship, Joachim came to represent the highest musical values. As hard as it is to believe now, the Beethoven Violin Concerto was not often played nor highly regarded until Joachim became its champion. He was also a pioneer in performing the unaccompanied sonatas and partitas of Bach, which today stand as one of the ultimate litmus tests of musicianship for any violinist. As a close friend of Brahms, Joachim not only premiered that composer’s magisterial concerto, but also worked closely with him on it, giving advice on technical details and even writing his own cadenza for it. It was soon after Joachim premiered the Brahms Concerto in January of 1879 that Dvořák began work on his own concerto. It was natural that he should have been inspired by the event, for he had already become a protégé of Brahms, who had introduced him to his friend Joachim. Joachim had expressed admiration for Dvořák and had already played some of his chamber music. The first sketch of the concerto was finished and sent off with a dedication to Joachim in November of 1879 to receive his opinions. Of opinions there was no shortage. Joachim’s bar by bar criticisms caused Dvořák who, incidentally, was himself an accomplished string player, to undertake a complete revision of the entire work, which he sent off in the summer of 1880 for further comment. This time Joachim would delay for two years before responding, saying that although he admired many aspects of the work, it still needed further revision. As it happened, Joachim would never play the work in public after all. Although there may have been personal considerations such as Joachim’s reluctance to learn new music at that stage of his career, the primary issue seems to have been his dissatisfaction with some of the formal aspects of the work. As something of an archclassicist, he was uncomfortable with innovations such as the linking of the first two movements. The task of introducing the concerto fell to František Ondřícěk, a brilliant young Czech violinist who played it in Prague in the fall of 1883 and subsequently became an ardent champion, playing it in Vienna and London and other important venues. The American premiere took place in Chicago on 30 October 1891, two weeks after the founding concert of the newly formed Chicago Orchestra (today’s Chicago Symphony Orchestra), with the orchestra’s concertmaster Max Bendix as soloist, under the baton of Theodore Thomas. Elgin symphony audiences will no doubt be interested to know that one of the great early champions of the work was Maud Powell, the distinguished violinist who was born in Peru, Illinois, and educated in Aurora and Chicago. At a time when there were few women performers, Ms. Powell became known as “the Queen of the Violin “ and unflinchingly brought some of the most challenging new works to audiences throughout the world. Karen Shaffer’s definitive biography of Maud Powell tells the following charming story of her meeting with Dvořák as she was preparing to give the New York premiere. Upon hearing her proposal to premiere the work in New York, the normally reticent man with a furrowed brow, a high forehead looming above large, searching eyes, warned her that Joachim had once said the concerto was too difficult for any woman to play. Undeterred, Maud proceeded to play the concerto for the composer. When she finished, he arose in great delight to congratulate her, proposing puckishly that “he should write to Joachim at once that he had found a woman who could play his concerto perfectly.” Maud Powell played the New York premiere of the concerto in November of 1893 to enthusiastic reviews. Those who are looking for Dvorak’s Czech musical roots will find much material in the Violin Concerto, which was written in the composer’s so-called Slavic period, the same period which produced such ethnically inspired works as the Slavonic Dances, the Slavonic Rhapsodies, and the Czech Suite. As a young composer beginning to make his way, this self-consciously folksy style had been the quickest way to reach a large audience, which found it a refreshing sort of exoticism. As is usual in such cases, there were also snobs who considered the style slumming and quite beneath the dignity of a well-trained composer, which in Vienna, inevitably meant one writing “German” music. Although Dvořák does not use actual folk melodies (he seldom did even when he could have), much of the concerto’s beautiful lyricism is clearly inspired by folk melodies and rhythms. It is the combination of folk elements with the innovative formal layout that gives the work its unusual, improvisatory and rhapsodic flavor, a work perhaps not entirely to the taste of a conservative such as Joachim, but one that occupies a special place in the violin repertoire. Unlike most concertos of an earlier time, the soloist here enters almost immediately, with a dashing opening theme filled with daring leaps. There is a more sedately lyrical second theme, but it is the opening theme that dominates the movement. The customary recapitulation of opening material is interrupted by a brief cadenza and interlude that lead directly into the second movement. Incidentally, it was not Joachim alone who advised against joining the first two movements. An assistant to Dvorak’s publisher gave similar advice which Dvořák stubbornly resisted. The second movement falls into three parts, or what musicians call ABA form. The opening section is in a serene major key, while the contrasting middle section begins in a stormy minor key. Throughout the movement the soloist often plays florid passagework that acts as ornament to melody played in the orchestra. The beautifully soaring lyricism of this movement made it a special favorite, and at one time many violinists played it as an independent separate piece. The high-spirited finale is filled with folk flavor from start to finish. The main theme of the movement is a furiant, a Czech dance of “furious” character filled with syncopated rhythms. Adding to the folk flavor are drones like those of the dudy, Czech bagpipes. The contrasting middle section is a dumka, a type of Slavic folk music of Ukrainian origin characterized by sudden mood changes from melancholy to manic exuberance. The opening section then returns, and with a brief reprise of the dumka theme near the end, the work comes to an appropriately furious conclusion. * * *

Symphony No. 9 in E minor, op. 95 (From the New World) by Antonín Dvořák

Duration: Approximately 40 minutes First Performance: December 16, 1893 in New York Last ESO Performance: March, 2009; Robert Hanson, conductor

“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 in the United States.” That statement was written not by an idealistic young American eager to explore his country’s ethnic roots, but by a fifty-two year old composer from Bohemia who had proven himself to be one of the world’s greatest masters of the international, i.e., German, style, while also retaining his identity as a Czech nationalist composer. It was just the sort of person that Jeanette Thurber, the high-minded philanthropist who founded the National Conservatory, was in search of. At a time when this country still suffered from an inferiority complex in matters artistic, her aim was nothing less than the founding of a musical culture that would meet the highest international standards yet be distinctively American. Logically enough, when she had founded the school in 1885, she had first offered the directorship to an American, Edward MacDowell, who was thoroughly trained in Europe and then one of the country’s best-known composers. When MacDowell declined the offer, the position of first Director went to the distinguished Belgian baritone Jacques Bouhy, who returned to Europe after a four stint. At this point, Mme. Thurber turned to Dvořák. As the son of a small town butcher, Dvořák seemed to have the common touch that would suit him to the New World. Unlike many Europeans of the time who viewed the United States as a crass, business obsessed place, Dvořák was genuinely interested in its potential as a place where the arts might be cultivated. Furthermore, as an accomplished opera composer he would be a candidate to help fulfill Mme. Thurber’s dream of producing an American national opera of stature equal to that of many European countries. Her pet project was Longfellow’s Hiawatha, which Dvořák had read in Czech many years earlier. Like many Europeans, Dvorak was fascinated by Native Americans and eagerly began work when Mme. Thurber presented him with a libretto based on Longfellow’s poem. Although the project would never be completed, it would, as we shall see, bear fruit in other ways. Dvořák took his new duties seriously, throwing himself into learning as well as teaching. From his African-American student and friend Harry Burleigh he heard spirituals, which moved him deeply. He also studied Native American music, albeit sometimes from questionable sources such as Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. It is perhaps forgivable that he should rather cavalierly lump Black and American Indian music together, thinking that they were essentially the same. In any case, as the above quote indicates, he came to the conclusion that such music could serve as the basis for a new, identifiably American style of music. Suspect as his ethno-musicology may have been (that discipline was barely in its infant stages), he forthrightly put his thesis into practice by writing what would be his Ninth and last symphony. While using no actual folk tunes, the symphony would attempt to be a panoramic view of America as seen and heard by a European artist. On 16 December 1893 the New York Philharmonic played the premiere of the New World Symphony in Carnegie Hall. It was one of the greatest public successes of the composer’s career. Ever since that historic evening, there has been endless discussion and vast amounts of ink spilled in attempts at answering the Big Question: “Is the New World Symphony an American work or simply another Central European symphony?” Both camps have had their ardent advocates. Those in the latter camp will point out, among other things, that the pentatonic (five note) scale that Dvořák uses for his folk-like effects appears not only in American music but also in Czech music, not to mention many other folk musics throughout the world. On the other hand, no less an artist than Willa Cather, the distinguished American novelist who was famous for her depictions of life on the Great Plains, had no doubt about the American feeling of the work. In the famous Largo movement she heard “the immeasurable yearning” of the prairie. The composer’s own answer was that “the influence of America can be felt by anyone who has a nose.” The best answer to the question would seem to be a resounding “Yes.” It is both at once. The distinguished musicologist Joseph Horowitz, who served as consultant to the Elgin Symphony Orchestra’s Dvořák Festival in 2005, put it succinctly in his own program notes for the ESO’s last performance of the symphony: “From the New World is a reading of America drawn taut, emotionally, by the pull of the Czech fatherland.” After a brief atmospheric slow introduction, we are launched into the main body of the first movement that begins with a majestic fanfare-like theme. A quiet noodling figure in the woodwinds that is often taken as an “Indian” melody then leads to another primary theme heard first in the solo flute. This melody uses the pentatonic scale and bears a remarkable resemblance to the spiritual, “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.” The themes are eventually developed and recapitulated in the best traditional European style and the movement ends triumphantly. Although Dvořák would never complete an opera on Hiawatha, he put his work on the project to good use. The Dvořák scholar Michael Beckerman has gone so far as to call the second and third movements of the symphony “tone poems” based on Longfellow’s epic. Although some have heard it as a spiritual or “plantation song,” most Dvořák scholars now consider the celebrated second movement with its English horn solo as suggesting in a general way the open countryside in which Hiawatha and Minnehaha lived and loved. This is the melody to which the words Goin’ Home were later set, and the fact that many an American has sung those words thinking of it as an American folksong, without the slightest suspicion that it comes from a highfalutin’ symphony, is surely proof enough of its authentic American flavor. The beautiful poignant middle section of the movement is generally viewed as a reference to Minnehaha’s funeral. The effective use of timpani in the third, scherzo movement, has reminded some commentators of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, but it is also a clear imitation of tom- toms. Dvořák himself made it clear that this movement represented the Dance of Pau-Puk Keewis at Hiawatha’s wedding. The grandiose finale is a vast pageant tying the entire work together with reminiscences of themes from all previous movements. The inherent ambiguities of the work, and of the composer’s own feelings, seem to be mirrored in the surprising final chord. For all his genuine interest in the New World, Dvořák was at times desperately homesick and was quite happy to return to his beloved homeland when the time came. When the final chord trails off into the distance rather than providing a triumphant ending, it seems to confirm the fact that, whether it is heard as the sad song of oppressed peoples or the homesickness of its composer, From the New World is a tragic work.

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