DVORÁK of Eight Pieces for Piano Duet
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
GRZEGORZ NOWAK CONDUCTS DVO RÁK Symphonies no 6 - 9 Carnival Overture 3 CDs ˇ composer complied in 1878 with a set Symphony No.6 in D major, Op.60 the Vienna cancellation must have galled ANTONÍN DVORÁK of eight pieces for piano duet. These did the composer, was a resounding success. I. Allegro non tanto The work was published in Berlin in 1882 as (1841-1904) much to enhance his reputation abroad, II. Adagio and in 1884 he was invited to conduct ‘Symphony No.1’, ignoring the fact it actually III. Scherzo: Furiant-Presto had five symphonic predecessors, and leading his Stabat Mater in London, where his Antonín Dvorˇák was born in what was IV. Finale: Allegro con spirito to a situation where the celebrated work we music became immensely popular. In then known as Bohemia, in the small In the mid-1870s Dvorˇák, then in his now know as the Ninth appeared in print village of Mühlhausen, near Prague. 1891 he was made an honorary Doctor mid-thirties, was still struggling to gain as the Fifth. He was apprenticed as a butcher in of Music by Cambridge University and recognition and renown outside his native Dvorˇák’s earlier symphonies were strongly the following year made the first of his country. In 1874 he was awarded the first his father’s shop, encountering strong influenced by those of Beethoven. Indeed, visits to America, a country that would of several Austrian State Stipendium grants, paternal opposition to his intended his First Symphony, which was composed through which he made the acquaintance career as a musician. He was a chorister have a profound effect on some of his in 1865 although not performed until 1936, of Johannes Brahms, who became both in the village church, and learned the later music. Dvorˇák is often criticised for adopted both the key and the tonal scheme a close friend and a supporter. It was basics of violin playing from a local sounding like Brahms and, in his earlier of Beethoven’s Fifth. There are discernible through Brahms that Dvorˇák came to the work, Wagner, although the strong Czech Beethovenian echoes, too, in the opening schoolmaster. At the age of sixteen he attention of the publisher Simrock, who in movement of Dvorˇák’s Sixth which, for left home and enrolled at the Prague elements in his music, when he chose to 1878 commissioned the Slavonic Dances all its superb handling of the sonata-form Organ School, at the same time earning a incorporate them, helped him to create a that quickly rocketed the composer to structure and felicities of orchestration, living as a violinist in a small orchestra, highly individual style. international fame. occasionally comes close to phrases from and between 1861 and 1871 played the He composed nine symphonies (the In 1879 the conductor Hans Richter, Beethoven’s Third, Eighth and Ninth viola in the orchestra of the National last of which is the popular ‘From The having successfully performed Dvorˇák’s Symphonies. This may, of course, have been Theatre in Prague. With his meagre but New World’), no less than ten operas Third Slavonic Rhapsody, commissioned a deliberate attempt to ingratiate himself effective musical training he began to (including the popular Rusalka), concert a symphony for the Vienna Philharmonic with the Viennese musicians, or was simply compose, only receiving recognition in overtures, the Slavonic Dances, concertos Orchestra. Dvorˇák completed this, his Sixth evidence that, like Brahms in his own First 1873 when his choral-orchestral Hymnus for violin, piano and cello, and a great Symphony, the following year, but for some Symphony, he was not afraid to declare reason Richter, although pleased with the his influences. It is perhaps the spirit of was performed. For many years Dvorˇák deal of chamber and piano music. In Mendelssohn that hovers lightly over the was able to support himself by winning result, began to prevaricate. There was at addition to writing music, Dvorˇák was a that time a marked anti-Czech feeling in main theme of the luscious second movement several government grants. Following the popular teacher and his hobbies included Vienna, and there appears to have been some Adagio, but there can be no mistaking the success of Brahms’ Hungarian Dances, playing skittles, keeping pigeons and reluctance among members of the Orchestra Bohemian origins of the ensuing Scherzo, Dvorˇák was persuaded by the publisher train-spotting. to schedule yet another new work by Dvorˇák. a scintillating celebration of the folk-dance Simrock to compose a set of Slavonic In the event, the Symphony received its known as the furiant. Imitation being the Dances in a similar mould, and the première in Prague in 1881 and, much as sincerest form of flattery, the Symphony’s Finale is unmistakeably reminiscent of opening Allegro, which apparently Symphony No.8 in G major, Op.88 which also characterises the contrasting Brahms’ own D major Symphony, although came into his head during one of his second theme played by the woodwind the forward momentum and sheer joie train-spotting sessions, is a dark and I. Allegro con brio against the descending scale of the strings. de vivre of the music as it builds to its sinuous melody sounded against an II. Adagio (The descending scale may have been exhilarating close is pure Dvorˇák. ominous drum-roll. The second theme, III. Allegretto grazioso suggested by the sound of a cimbalom in a by contrast, is a lightly-scored and quite IV. Allegro, ma non troppo village band.) As this movement progresses Brahmsian woodwind tune; it is the conflict Dvorˇák composed his Symphony No.8 in a curious little woodwind phrase begins to between these two ideas that generates the 1889, carrying out most of the sketches at dominate the texture. This striking figure Symphony No.7 in D minor, Op.70 powerful symphonic drama that unfolds. his country house in Vysoka. The score is uses the same ascending four-note idea, and Dvorˇák described the expressive Adagio inscribed ‘For being admitted to membership its bright, bird-song innocence is in complete I. Allegro maestoso as being ‘from the sad years’, in reference of the Emperor Franz Josef’s Czech Academy contrast to the darker tones of the opening II. Poco adagio to the recent death of his mother, the of Science, Literature and the Arts’, and the string melody. III. Scherzo vivace. Poco meno mosso note of personal tragedy discernible in composer conducted the first performance After the slightly troubled atmosphere of IV. Finale: Allegro the passionate outcry that disrupts the in Prague in 1890. The Symphony is a the slow movement, the third movement is movement’s opening calm. The ensuing Where Vienna had been reluctant to include highly experimental work, particularly an exquisite waltz, whose ravishing melody Scherzo is coloured by the infectious Dvorˇák’s music in its programmes, London in the structure of its opening movement. is heard against a background of gurgling rhythms of the Czech furiant, although this proved far more receptive. 1883 marked The composer had declared his intention to woodwind figures. The middle section presents relaxed, melodic music is worlds away from the first of a series of highly successful write a score that was ‘different from the a more angular theme from the woodwind, the frantic bravura of the corresponding visits to England and the composer was other symphonies, with individual thoughts which returns at the end of a movement in a movement in the Sixth Symphony. delighted to receive honorary membership worked out in new ways’, and the Symphony new rhythmic guise. The closing movement is The tragic note returns to haunt the Finale, of the Philharmonic Society, who also proclaims its originality in the opening a set of orchestral variations, an uncommon whose opening theme, with its characteristic commissioned a new symphony from him. bars, as the cellos play a beautiful theme in device also adopted by Beethoven (Symphony dissonant fourths and sevenths, dominates Dvorˇák began work on the Seventh in the ‘wrong’ key of G minor. It is not until No.9) and Brahms (Symphony No.4). A the movement. Once again, however, a December 1884 which he hoped would be a bright halo of G major from the strings harsh trumpet fanfare hints at the luscious brighter major-key theme offers contrast ‘capable of stirring the world’, completing introduces a perky little flute theme that Brahmsian tune, which is then announced and hope and the Symphony reaches its it in March the following year and the exposition proper may be said to begin, in its entirety by the cellos. The variations triumphant conclusion in a jubilant D major. conducting the première at St. James’s Hall the G minor theme returning to herald the that follow range from wild Slavonic dances nd on 22 April. development section and, in a brash trumpet to reflective string studies, including a long version, the recapitulation. If the Sixth Symphony was modelled section in which a raucous village band seems partly on Brahms’ Second, the Seventh Exposition and development are also the to have crept into the orchestra. takes inspiration from the dark passions basis for the underlying structure of the of Brahms’ recently performed Third second movement (Adagio). The first string Symphony. The main first theme of the theme starts with a rising four-note scale, Symphony No.9 in E minor, musicologists by subsequently declaring that and deservedly popular theme given to the alone, all three are united by a common Op.95, ‘From the New World’ all of his music was inspired by Bohemia, cor anglais. This tune so perfectly captures melodic theme, which is prominent in although the melodies and rhythms of the the flavour of American music that it is often the first overture, quoted in the second, I.