While I appreciate supportive phone calls – and who doesn’t like compliments? – I’m often a tad self-absorbed while I’m on the air trying to figure out what exactly I’m supposed to be doing next. One enthusiastic listener who has been following me on all three (!) radio stations has been calling me up the past several weeks to talk about all sorts of unusual and neglected repertoire and how he’d love to hear certain pieces. In response to which I begin by giving my full attention, but then after several minutes my concentration becomes divided, as I try to organize pertinent background information for the next time I go on mic, and I start to reply to certain comments with a perfunctory “Hmm mmm” or “Ah!”
However, after several such calls, one request managed to seep into my consciousness: Josef Suk’s “A Summer’s Tale.” For one, it’s seasonal; for another it’s nearly an hour long, which means I only have to write and record a single introduction! With these advantages in mind, I have decided to devote “The Lost Chord” this week to this single, sprawling symphonic poem.
Suk was the one-time pupil and future son-in-law of Antonin Dvořák. In fact, his early works very much reflect Dvořák’s influence, in sunny, romantic music full of nationalistic touches.
However, a double tragedy occurred in Suk’s 30th year, in 1905, when he lost both his father-in-law and his beloved wife, Otilie, Dvořák’s older daughter. The events directly inspired Suk’s “Asrael Symphony” – named for the Angel of Death. Not surprisingly, morbidity colors much of his mature output.
“A Summer’s Tale” is the next step in Suk’s emotional rehabilitation. The work is a five-movement symphonic poem, the second of a four-part cycle, which contemplates death and the meaning of life. More affirmative than the grim “Asrael,” full of pain, loss and grief, “A Summer’s Tale” explores the healing powers of nature, in a score that at times reflects the epic romanticism of Gustav Mahler and the impressionism of Claude Debussy. It was composed over the course of just six weeks in the summer of 1907. Further tinkering took place over the next year, year-and-a-half. The work received its premiere in January of 1909.
Suk later described the theme of the piece as “finding a soothing balm in nature.” Tune in tonight and see if you agree.
That’s “Healing by Nature” – Suk’s “A Summer’s Tale” – on “The Lost Chord,” Sunday at 10 p.m. ET, with a repeat Wednesday evening at 6; or listen to it later as a webcast at wwfm.org.
PHOTOS: Otilie Dvořáková and Josef Suk, in happier days
