DVORAK: American Suite / Silent Woods / Prague Waltzes
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Antonin Dvofiak (1841-1904) American Suite Silent Woods Prague Waltzes Mazurka for violin and orchestra Antonin Dvofiak was born in 1841, the son of a...
Antonin Dvofiak (1841-1904)
American Suite Silent Woods Prague Waltzes Mazurka for violin and orchestra
Antonin Dvofiak was born in 1841, the son of a butcher
and innkeeper in the village of Nelahozeves, near the
Bohemian town of Kralupy, some forty miles north of
Prague. It was natural that he should at first have been
expected to follow the family trade, as the eldest son.
His musical abilities, however, soon became apparent
and were encouraged by his father. After primary
schooling he was sent to lodge with an uncle in Zlonice
and was there able to gain the then necessary
knowledge of German and improve his abilities as a
musician, hitherto acquired at home in the village band
and in church. Further study of German and of music at
Kamenice, a town in northern Bohemia, led to his
admission in 1857 to the Prague Organ School, where
he studied for the following two years.
On leaving the Organ School, Dvofiak earned his
living as a viola-player in a band under the direction of
Karel Komzak, an ensemble that was to form the
nucleus of the Czech Provisional Theatre Orchestra,
established in 1862. Four years later Smetana was
appointed conductor at the theatre, where his operas
The Brandenburgers in Bohemia and The Bartered
Bride had already been performed. It was not until
1871 that Dvofiak resigned from the orchestra, devoting
himself more fully to composition, as his music began
to attract favourable local attention. In 1873 he married
a former piano pupil, Anna Cermakova, sister of an
actress from the theatre and daughter of a Prague
goldsmith, and in 1874 became organist of the church
of St Adalbert. During this period he continued to
support himself by private teaching, while busy on a
series of compositions that gradually became known to
a wider circle.
Further recognition came to Dvofiak in 1874, when
his application for an Austrian government award
brought his music to the attention of the critic Eduard
Hanslick in Vienna and subsequently to that of
Brahms, a later member of the examining committee.
The granting of this award for five consecutive years
was of material assistance. It was through this contact
that, impressed by Dvofiak's Moravian Duets entered
for the award of 1877, Brahms was able to arrange for
their publication by Simrock, who commissioned a
further work, Slavonic Dances, for piano duet. The
success of these publications introduced Dvofiak's
music to a much wider public, for which it held some
exotic appeal. As his reputation grew, there were visits
to Germany and to England, where he was always
received with greater enthusiasm than might initially
have been accorded a Czech composer in Vienna.
In 1883 Dvofiak had rejected a tempting proposal
that he should write a German opera for Vienna. At
home he continued to contribute to Czech operatic
repertoire, an important element in re-establishing
national musical identity. The invitation to take up a
position in New York was another matter. In 1891 he
had become professor of composition at Prague
Conservatory and in the summer of the same year he
was invited to become director of the National
Conservatory of Music in New York, an institution
intended to foster American music, hitherto dominated
by musicians from Europe or largely trained there.
Dvofiak's contribution was seen as that of providing a
blue-print for American national music, following the
example of Czech national music, which owed so
much to him. The musical results of Dvofiak's time in
America must lie chiefly in his own compositions,
notably in his Symphony 'From the New World', his
American Quartet and American Quintet, his Violin
Sonatina, and, to a lesser extent, his so-called
American Suite, works that rely strongly on the
European tradition that he had inherited, while making
use of melodies and rhythms that might be associated
in one way or another with America. By 1895 Dvofiak
was home for good, resuming work at the Prague
Conservatory, of which he became director in 1901.
His final works included a series of symphonic poems
and two more operas, to add to the nine he had already
composed. He died in Prague in 1904.
Dvofiak's orchestral works include a number of
arrangements of compositions originally designed for
smaller forces. His Mazurka, Op. 49, was written in
February 1879 for violin and piano and also effectively
arranged by the composer for violin and orchestra. The
work was dedicated to the violinist Pablo Sarasate and
first heard in Prague in the following month.
The Rondo in G minor for cello and orchestra,
Op. 94, was written in October 1893, an arrangement
of the earlier work for cello and piano that he had
completed in December 1891. It was designed for the
cellist Hanu% Wihan, who had joined the teaching staff
of Prague Conservatory in 1887. It was to Wihan that
Dvofiak dedicated his Cello Concerto of 1895, and with
him that he played the original version of the Rondo in
a Prague concert in March 1892. The work is a fine
vehicle for a virtuoso performer, and a testimony to
Wihan's technical ability.
Dvofiak's Seven Interludes, scored for small
orchestra, were written in January and February 1867,
dating, therefore, from a period when the composer
was employed as a viola-player, playing operas from
Italian and French repertoire, and, under Smetana, now
starting to tackle more Czech works. There is
something patently operatic and dramatic in the first of
the pieces. The same mood informs the second, while
the third offers a contrast, while still preserving the
conception of an operatic entr'acte, in an idiom that
would have been very familiar to the composer in the
orchestra pit. The fourth is a livelier piece, an
introduction to a cheerful finale, and the fifth suggests
a triumphant and happy scene to come. The sixth piece
has an air of gentle lyricism, while the seventh returns
to the dramatic contrasts of the first, demonstrating,
like the other pieces, Dvofiak's skill in handling the
orchestra, however conventional the musical material.
Klid or Waldesruhe (Silent Woods) was originally
the fifth of a set of six pieces for piano duet, Ze ·umavy
(From the Bohemian Forest), completed in January
1884. Dvofiak arranged it for cello and orchestra, for
the primary purpose of a concert tour with Hanu%
Wihan, and it was included in the Prague programme
of March 1892, in a version for cello and piano.
Dvofiak, it will be recalled, had years of experience
in lighter music, as an orchestral player in Karel
Komzak's band. His Polonaise in E flat major was
written in late December 1879 and heard on 6th
January 1880, among the celebrations usual for the
Epiphany. His Five Prague Waltzes were written a
week or so earlier, to be heard on 28th December. The
Polka in B flat major was written in December 1880
for a Prague students' ball on 6th January 1881.
The Nocturne was arranged first for violin and
piano from the Andante religoso slow movement of
String Quartet No. 4 in E minor, and forms the basis of
the string orchestra version, apparently completed in
1875. It was published in 1883 and heard the following
year in London, when it was included in a programme
conducted by Dvofiak at the Crystal Palace, where
Elgar was soon to have his first work played in
London.
The Suite in A major for piano was completed in
the spring of 1894 and is sometimes known as the
American Suite It was arranged a year later by Dvofiak
for orchestra, before his return from America, and
while he thought well of it, critics have generally found
little good to say of it, although fashions seem now to
be changing. The first of the five movements has
touches of the American, both in the opening motif and
the rhythmic and melodic ending of the theme. There is
a stormy C sharp minor introduction to the second
movement, before the appearance of a gentler central
theme, related to the opening figure of the first
movement. The musicologist Michael Beckerman has
drawn attention to other motivic connections between
the movements, apparent again in the main theme of
the third movement. Contours familiar from Dvofiak's
other compositions of the American period are heard in
the fourth movement and in the final Allegro, linked to
the others in its main theme and in the pentatonic
element with which it ends.
Keith Anderson
Mazurka for Violin and Orchestra, B. 90 (Op. 49) (more info)
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Mazurka for Violin and Orchestra, B. 90 (Op. 49) - 6:14
Rondo in G minor for Cello and Orchestra, B. 181 (Op. 94) (more info)
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Rondo in G minor for Cello and Orchestra, B. 181 (Op. 94) - 6:15
7 Interludes for Small Orchestra, B. 15 (more info)
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I. Capriccio (Allegro risoluto) - 3:43
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II. (Andante sostenuto) - 2:21
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III. Con molto espressione - 4:22
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IV. Allegro con brio - 2:34
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V. (Allegro assai) - 3:04
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VI. Serenata (Andantino con moto) - 3:26
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VII. Allegro animato - 3:46
Silent Woods (Klid) for Cello and Orchestra, B. 182 (Op. 68, No. 5) (more info)
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Silent Woods (Klid) for Cello and Orchestra, B. 182 (Op. 68, No. 5) - 6:05
Polonaise in E flat major, B. 100 (more info)
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Polonaise in E flat major, B. 100 - 4:59
Nocturne in B major, B. 48 (Op. 40) (more info)
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Nocturne in B major, B. 48 (Op. 40) - 4:37
Suite in A major, B. 190 (Op. 98b) (more info)
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I. Andante con moto - 3:55
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II. Allegro - 3:11
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III. Moderato (Alla Polacca) - 3:17
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IV. Andante - 3:13
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V. Allegro - 2:59
5 Prague Waltzes, B. 99 (more info)
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5 Prague Waltzes, B. 99 - 8:40
Polka in B flat major, B. 114 (Op. 53a/1), "For Prague Students" (more info)
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Polka in B flat major, B. 114 (Op. 53a/1), "For Prague Students" - 1:58