ANTONÍN DVOŘÁK (1841-1904) LEGENDY, OP. 59, B. 117 • Legends • Légendes • Legenden ZE ŠUMAVY, OP. 68, B. 133 • From the Bohemian Forest De la forêt de Bohême • Aus dem Böhmerwalde 1. Na přástkách, Op. 68, B. 133, No. 1 04:06 In the Spinning Room • Dans la chambre des fileuses • In den Spinnstuben Allegro molto 2. Legendy, Op. 59, B. 117, No. 2 04:30 Molto moderato 3. Legendy, Op. 59, B. 117, No. 3 03:55 Allegro giusto 4. U černého jezera, Op. 68, B. 133, No. 2 05:26 By the Black Lake • Près du lac noir • Am Schwarzen See Lento 5. Legendy, Op. 59, B. 117, No. 6 04:50 Allegro con moto 6. Legendy, Op. 59, B. 117, No. 4 05:30 Molto maestoso 7. Noc filipojakubská, Op. 68, B. 133, No. 3 04:10 Walpurgis Night • Nuit de Walpurgis • Walpurgisnacht Molto vivace 8. Legendy, Op. 59, B. 117, No. 1 02:51 Allegretto non troppo, quasi Andantino 9. Legendy, Op. 59, B. 117, No. 7 02:22 Allegretto grazioso, Andante con moto 10. Na čekání, Op. 68, B. 133, No. 4 03:51 In Wait • À l’affût • Auf dem Anstand Allegro comodo 11. Legendy, Op. 59, B. 117, No. 10 03:32 Andante 12. Legendy, Op. 59, B. 117, No. 9 02:18 Andante 13. Klid, Op. 68, B. 133, No. 5 04:48 Silent Woods • Calme de la forêt • Waldesruhe Lento e molto cantabile 14. Legendy, Op. 59, B. 117, No. 8 03:58 Un poco Allegretto e grazioso, quasi Andantino 15. Legendy, Op. 59, B. 117, No. 5 03:50 Allegro giusto 16. Z bouřlivých dob, Op. 68, B. 133, No. 6 04:20 From Troublous Times • En des temps troublés • Aus stürmischen Zeiten Allegro con fuoco ANNA ZASSIMOVA • CHRISTOPHE SIRODEAU Piano Four-Hands • Piano à quatre mains • Klavier zu vier Händen Recording Location & Dates: 3 & 4 August 2020, at the Eglise Évangélique Saint-Marcel, Paris - France Recording Producer: Nikolaos Samaltanos Piano: C. Bechstein D-282 Concert Grand, No. 212034 Piano Technician: Adnan Kiliç Equipment used: 2 Neumann CMV 563 - UM 70 omni - Kudelski Nagra IV-S Preamplifier DCS 900 A/D Converter - Electronics by Lavardin Technologies Sennheiser HD600 and Lecontoure Monitoring Booklet paintings by Anna Zassimova Artists picture: © Philine von Sell Anna Zassimova, Chistophe Sirodeau & Melism Records would like to thank Chris Rice, Étienne Barilier, Markus Stange and Hans-Christian Günther for their assistance with this booklet Product management: Pierre-Yves Lascar (D2C Production & Management) Cover design and booklet layout: Dimitris Samaltanos Contact label: email: [email protected] - tel: +33 6 87 72 38 06 : Label Melism, Melism Records It was nearing the end of 1880 when Dvořák embarked on the composition of the Legends. He had recently attended the première of his Stabat Mater, and completed his Sixth Symphony. Two years earlier he had composed his first book of Slavonic Dances for piano, four hands, which had been a great success for his publisher, Friedrich Simrock, who was understandably enthusiastic about the next project that the composer announced in a letter dated October 14th 1880. This new set of pieces was completed remarkably quickly, before March 1881, although it seems likely that he based them on sketches from the previous spring; and furthermore he re-used some material from significantly earlier works, notably a theme from the Third Symphony (c.1873). Composer and publisher took advantage of the opportunity to test the reception of the new score when they met in Karlsbad in the spring of 1881 to go over the proofs, in the presence of no less a personage than the famous critic Eduard Hanslick. He was a great champion of Brahms (who had originally recommended Dvořák to Simrock’s attention), and was vehemently opposed to Wagner, and to programme music in general. The simple title Legends, with no further elaboration, was unlikely to cause any offence to the great proponent of “pure” music! At any rate, Hanslick was enthusiastic about what he heard at this meeting; logically enough, Dvořák dedicated the cycle to him. Soon after, Brahms himself wrote of the score in laudatory terms: “It is a lovely work, and one can only envy the fresh, lively, and rich inspiration of this man.” Notwithstanding these career-conscious manouevrings, Dvořák’s æsthetic position, as a man of deep religious faith and a kind of unworldly simplicity, was more ambiguous and eclectic than is commonly acknowledged. He was, in fact, a great admirer of Wagner, and his music achieves a remarkable synthesis of German classicism, Wagnerian harmony and the influence of traditional Czech idioms, already prominent in the œuvre of his compatriot, Smetana. The ten pieces of Op.59 are generally in straightforward tripartite form, and readily appeal to a wide audience, though in every case the simple structures are permeated and enlivened by the composer’s prodigious imagination. It should be remembered that by its very nature, Mozart’s and Schubert’s legacy of writing for four hands at one piano is intended to be pleasing, entertaining, suitable for musical discourse among friends; the essence of “salon music” (in no derogatory sense) - even if Schubert himself provided some notable exceptions. Even so, as Brahms pointed out, these brief pieces contain an abundance of inventiveness, diverse inspiration, and atmosphere, which is truly remarkable. Ironically, their relative subtlety of expression as compared to the Slavonic Dances probably contributed to their more modest commercial success. Soon after publication, at Simrock’s request, Dvořák arranged the pieces for small orchestra. The other cycle we offer here, From the Bohemian Forest, Op. 68, was written a few years later (in the shadow of the Seventh Symphony, one of Dvořák’s greatest works), the bulk of the manuscript dating from the beginning of 1884. Interestingly, this time the composer seems to have sought symbolic inspiration through the application of titles to the pieces. Not, apparently, feeling equal to inventing his own, à la Schumann, he turned to a friend, Marie Červinková-Riegrová, librettist for his opera Dmitri. She recounted that “I said to him: ‘It doesn’t matter about the titles, ‘it’s the music that counts.’ ‘The music isn’t the problem,’ Dvořák answered, ‘I have the music, but I haven’t any titles.’ He then asked me to think up some suitable poetic designations as images, just a few words to conjure up these images, and his imagination would do the rest. As I discovered, he merely wished to have some kind of motif, a tonic that would trigger ideas, you might say. I told him that I would do it.” Meanwhile, his publisher, Simrock, had been pressuring him for some time to write a second book of Slavonic Dances, a task which Dvořák fulfilled soon after. From the Bohemian Forest is a cycle of six character pieces, somewhat more developed than those of the previous set. The writing here might be described as more Lisztian, and generally more extroverted. Furthermore, the arrangement of keys throughout the cycle is structured such that the tonalities of the first three pieces ascend in thirds, mirrored by the sequence of descending thirds of the following three. However, for this recording we decided to offer the listener an alternative path through the two works, as possibly relating a more compelling story. In any case, Dvořák would never have envisioned their being played one after the other, nor in a predetermined sequence. Our primary concern in leading the listener along an unfamiliar path was to highlight the naive freshness and infectious energy of this music, and to present it from a different perspective. Thus, to each of the six pieces of From the Bohemian Forest we have appended two of the Legends. In the Spinning Room, the first piece of Op.68, is full of light, lively good humour. The central part presents a second idea, more dancelike but less energetic. The second Legend (G Major) is imbued with the touching simplicity that permeates the Eighth Symphony, while the third, in G minor, looks back to the rustic passions of some of the Slavonic Dances. In the second piece of Op.68, By the Black Lake, with its strange, questioning introduction, Dvořák develops a pastoral nocturne of great delicacy. The sixth piece of the Legends, in C sharp minor, passionate and stormy, mesmerisingly repeats a phrase, accompanied by flowing streams of repeated notes. The central section of the piece is an enchanted nocturne in D flat, like a dream in the midst of the storm. The fourth Legend, in C Major, sets a different tone altogether, at first solemn and archaic, then mysterious, before an impressive climax which hints at a quotation from Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. The contrast with the robust Witches’ Sabbath, the third piece of From the Bohemian Forest, could not be greater. This tipsy, joyous wild ride frames a central section like a popular folksong. The first of the Legends foreshadows the D minor and the feeling of brooding, epic legend that will permeate the fabric of the future Seventh Symphony. Then we return to the countryside for the Seventh Legend (A Major), gracefully pastoral but troubled, in the central section, by an episode in sombre colours illuminated by lightning (to say nothing of its clear allusion to the Scherzo of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, replete with blows of fate at the climax). Next is In Wait (From the Bohemian Forest, No.4), suggesting a reminiscence of a pastoral tale of the adventures of a huntsman. Here can be heard not only the initial motif of Chopin’s Second Scherzo - probably an unconscious coincidence - but also, astonishingly, in the penultimate section, a passage of calm and peaceful atmosphere which seems to anticipate certain elements of Mahler’s First Symphony, a work with a deep connection to the forests of Bohemia.