Jennifer Pike Dvořák Janáček Suk Tom Poster piano Leoš Janáček, 1914 © T.P. / Lebrecht Music & Arts Photo Library Leoš Janáček (1854 – 1928) Sonata, JW VII / 7 (1914, final revisions 1922) 16:59 for Violin and Piano 1 I Con moto – Adagio – Tempo I, un poco più mosso – Meno mosso – Adagio – A tempo – [ ] – Tempo I – Adagio – Tempo I, un poco più mosso – Meno mosso – Adagio – A tempo – Meno – Adagio 4:43 2 II Ballada. Con moto – Meno mosso – Tempo I – Meno mosso – Poco mosso (Tempo I) – [ ] – Tempo I – Meno mosso 4:52 3 III Allegretto – Meno mosso – Tempo I – Da Capo al Fine 2:40 4 IV Adagio – Un poco più mosso – Poco mosso – Poco più mosso, rubato con crescente emozione – Maestoso – Adagio – Tempo I 4:44 5 Dumka, JW VII / 4 (?1879 – 80) 6:27 for Violin and Piano Živě [Con moto] – Adagio – Tempo I – Adagio 6 Romance, JW VII / 3 (1879) 5:14 for Violin and Piano Moderato – Andante – Moderato 7 Allegro (1916) 3:32 Allegro – Meno mosso (Tempo II) – Più mosso – Tempo I – Poco mosso – Poco più mosso – Adagio (Tempo II) – Tempo I (Allegro) – Più mosso – Adagio 3 Josef Suk (1874 – 1935) Four Pieces, Op. 17, JSkat 42 (1900) 16:17 (Čtyři skladby) for Violin and Piano 8 Quasi ballata. Andante sostenuto – Adagio – Tempo I – Più mosso – Andante sostenuto – Adagio – A tempo 5:11 9 Appassionato. Vivace – Meno mosso – Tempo I – Poco più mosso – Tempo I – Meno mosso – Tempo I – Più mosso 3:55 10 Un poco triste. Andante espressivo – Moderato – Tempo I – Moderato – Tempo I 3:47 11 Burleska. Allegro vivace – Pochettino meno mosso – Andante – Tempo I – [ ] – Tempo I 3:22 4 Antonín Dvořák (1841 – 1904) Romantic Pieces, Op. 75, B 150 (1887) 14:52 (Romantické kusy) for Violin and Piano Revision of Miniatures (Drobnosti), Op. 75a, B 149 (1887) for Two Violins and Viola 12 I Allegro moderato – Poco meno mosso 3:20 13 II Allegro maestoso – Meno mosso – Andante 2:34 14 III Allegro appassionato 2:25 15 IV Larghetto 6:30 16 Nocturne, Op. 40, B 48a (1875, revised 1882 – 83) 6:06 (Nokturno) in B major • in H-Dur • en si majeur for Violin and Piano Adaptation of Andante religioso, discarded slow movement from String Quartet No. 4 in E minor, B 19 (1870) Molto adagio TT 69:32 Jennifer Pike violin Tom Poster piano 5 Dvořák / Janáček / Suk: Works for Violin and Piano Dvořák: Romantic Pieces, Op. 75, B 150 version were minor – harmonic in the first Antonín Dvořák (1841 – 1904) wrote four piece and the addition of four extra bars to pieces for violin and piano in January 1887, close the third. The violin is given the trio’s finishing them on the 25th of the month. first violin part, while the second violin and They were an arrangement of his Miniatures viola parts are distributed respectively to the (Drobnosti), Op. 75a, B 149 for two violins and right and left hands of the piano part. viola, which he had completed on 18 January. The first public performance was given This original trio in C had been written for in Prague on 30 March 1887 at a concert of a chemistry student, Josef Kruis, who the arts societies Umělecká beseda and was a sub-tenant in the house of Dvořák’s Měst’anská beseda although there had been mother-in-law in Žitná ulice, central Prague, a private performance on 27 January, also by to play with his violin teacher, Jan Pelikán, the Umělecká beseda, in Prague. The violinist whom Dvořák knew as a fellow member was Karel Ondříček, then leader of the of the National Theatre Orchestra, as well National Theatre Orchestra and the younger as with Dvořák himself, on the viola. When brother of the famous violinist František Dvořák realised that the student could not Ondříček, with Dvořák himself playing the manage his violin part, he wrote a simpler trio piano part. The work was published in Berlin in four movements with the titles Cavatina, by Simrock later that year, such being its Capriccio, Romance, and Elegy (Ballad). popularity that it has remained in print Pleased with these new pieces, he reworked ever since. The original trio version was not them for violin and piano, removing the published until the 1940s. movement titles, and replacing them with just tempo markings. (Dvořák’s original tempo Dvořák: Nocturne in B, Op. 40, B 48a marking for the second piece had been Poco In January 1875 Dvořák produced a Nocturne allegro and for the third, Allegro.) He called the (Nokturno) in B major, B 47 for string resulting work Romantic Pieces (Romantické orchestra, which may or may not be one of kusy). Differences from the original trio the Three Nocturnes, B 31 which he is known 6 to have written in 1872 and of which only movements from melodic fragments, giving the string parts of the second, ‘May Night’ each piece a cohesive inner strength from (Májová noc), survive. In 1875 Dvořák would these highly charged motifs. Here is a truly arrange the Nocturne for violin and piano, as unique voice in Western music, creating well as for piano duet, revising these versions intense drama and spirituality from the finally between 1882 and 1883. That this condensation of his musical ideas. Such an Nocturne is unlikely to belong to the 1872 set achievement was not without struggle and is suggested by the fact that it is a reworking a long gestation period. On 21.January 1922 and lengthening of a discarded movement, Janáček wrote to the musicologist Otakar Andante religioso, from String Quartet No. 4 Nebuška: in E minor, B 19 of 1870, which Dvořák also I wrote the Violin Sonata in 1914 at the adapted as the first of two slow movements beginning of the war when we were written for the String Quintet in G, Op. 77, expecting the Russians in Moravia. B 49, the final version of which was While the work was probably largely completed in March 1875 but without this completed in its final basic form by the movement. A printed copy of the violin and summer of that year, it is one of a very few piano version of the Nocturne was found in compositions upon which he worked over Turnov, carrying a later inscription by Dvořák: many years – in this case, seven. (The operas Svému milému přitelí Aloisi Göblovi Jenůfa and The Cunning Little Vixen [Příhody v Sychrově... (To my dear friend Alois Göbl Lišky Bystroušky] took him nine years each). at Sychrov...) Of the works for violin and piano that Janáček is known to have written, one Janáček: Violin Sonata, JW VII / 7 Romance out of seven composed in 1879 In the comparatively limited chamber music survives, as does a Dumka from the following output of Leoš Janáček (1854 – 1928), the year, the year of his studies at the Leipzig Violin Sonata holds a place of importance, Conservatory. He had attempted two violin being the first work he wrote in his truly sonatas before this one, one of which he settled, highly individual style, which started in Leipzig in January 1880; the other – began to emerge in the opera Jenůfa (Její which may have used material from the first – pastorkyňa) in 1904. Now we clearly hear his was written in Vienna in April and May of that originality in so successfully building whole year for Franz Krenn, in whose class he had 7 enrolled at the Conservatory. This second period leading up to the outbreak of the Great attempt was performed in Brno on 6 January War. Although he made some changes in 1881 but the subsequent fate of the two 1921, Janáček claimed that the original ideas works is unknown. stemmed from the impending but unrealised The one mature surviving Sonata passed invasion of his native Moravia by Russian through several forms and much reordering troops. As a confirmed Russophile at this of the movements between 1914 and the final period (later a certain disillusionment set in) version of 1922. In 1915 Janáček completely he held such an event in excited anticipation. revised the first movement; later, the second Of the heroic element in the work he wrote: movement, Adagio, became the finale of the In Pohádka for ’cello and piano a gleam of final version, replaced by the ‘Ballada’ which sharp steel flashed through my mind; in the had been the original third movement. This Sonata for violin and piano of 1914 I almost was in turn replaced by the Allegretto which heard its clanging in my troubled mind. in its original form, marked Con moto like Much of the work carries pre-echoes the first movement, had been intended for of Janáček’s later, Russian-based opera the finale. That concluding movement was Kát’a Kabanová (derived from Alexander initially replaced by an Allegro, subsequently Ostrovsky’s play Groza), for example several discarded, before the decision was taken to motifs in the first movement. The second place the Adagio last. It seems probable that movement, ‘Ballad’, is the one which all this was caused by reservations that had received least revision; it was originally a been voiced about the original form of the separate piece not intended for the Sonata. Sonata by Jaroslav Kocián, the distinguished It contains the most extended theme of the violinist whom Janáček had invited to give whole work, one which is in the style of the the first performance of the work in Prague. melodies from Valachia. The scherzo-like Further revisions were made some months third movement also shows up motivic links before the eventual first performance and with the later opera.