Over the years, I’ve written a number of program notes for Sinfonietta Nova, a community orchestra based in West Windsor, New Jersey (on the outskirts of Princeton). In 2015, I was asked by its artistic director and conductor, Gail Lee, to submit seven interesting facts about Antonin Dvořák, to be shared on the orchestra’s Facebook page, as kind of a countdown to a performance of his Symphony No. 7. On the first half of the concert was Dvořák’s Cello Concerto. I reproduce those Facebook contributions here, for the occasion of the 180th anniversary of the composer’s birth. Happy birthday, Antonin Dvořák!
DVOŘÁK FACT #1
It’s hard to believe, but before writing his famous Cello Concerto in B minor, Dvořák wasn’t particularly fond of the cello as a solo instrument. He disliked its nasal high register and rumbling bass. However, after he heard a performance of the Cello Concerto No. 2 in E minor by his colleague at the National Conservatory of Music, Victor Herbert, Dvořák changed his mind. Herbert, best-remembered for his operettas, including “Babes in Toyland” and “Naughty Marietta,” was principal cello at New York’s Metropolitan Opera. He also led the cello section of the New York Philharmonic at the world premiere of Dvořák’s “New World” Symphony, when it was played at Carnegie Hall in 1893.
Victor Herbert’s Cello Concerto No. 2:
DVOŘÁK FACT #2
The slow, wistful passage just before the Cello Concerto’s triumphant conclusion was added by Dvořák as a tribute to his sister-in-law, Josefina Kaunitzova, who died during the work’s composition. Dvořák was actually in love with her for many years. When she refused his proposal, the composer married her younger sister, Anna, instead. The passage quotes from the composer’s Four Songs, Op. 82, of which Kaunitzova was particularly fond.
“Kéž duch můj sám” (“Leave Me Alone”), Op. 82, No. 1:
Transcribed for cello:
DVOŘÁK FACT #3
The Cello Concerto in B minor, completed in 1896, is Dvořák’s final concerto for solo instrument and orchestra. Previously, he had written a Violin Concerto in A minor and a seldom-performed Piano Concerto in G minor, both published in 1883. The Cello Concerto is widely regarded as one of the greatest – if not THE greatest – ever written for the instrument.
Of the three, the Piano Concerto has been the poor stepchild. This has been blamed in large part on the writing for piano. Pianist and Liszt authority Leslie Howard notes, “… there is nothing in Liszt that is anywhere near as difficult to play as the Dvořák Piano Concerto – a magnificent piece of music, but one of the most ungainly bits of piano writing ever printed.” Rudolf Firkušný was the work’s greatest champion. He recorded the piece three times.
Firkušný performs Dvořák’s Piano Concerto:
Dvořák’s Violin Concerto performed by his great-grandson, Josef Suk:
DVOŘÁK FACT #4
Like William Shakespeare, Antonin Dvořák was the son of a butcher. He was the first of fourteen children, eight of whom survived infancy. As a violist in the Bohemian Provisional Theater Orchestra, he performed under Bedřich Smetana and visiting conductor Richard Wagner. It was Johannes Brahms who was the first outside of Bohemia to recognize Dvořák’s genius as a composer. Brahms labored on his behalf to secure a grant, so that Dvořák could rise above impoverished circumstances and devote himself to composition full-time. In gratitude, Dvořák dedicated his String Quartet No. 9 to his new friend and champion. Brahms also provided an introduction to his publisher, Simrock, who commissioned Dvořák to compose something in the vein of Brahms’ “Hungarian Dances.” The resulting “Slavonic Dances” became an international smash.
Dvořák’s “Slavonic Dances”
String Quartet No. 9 in D minor, Op. 34
DVOŘÁK FACT #5
Dvořák was crazy for trains. During his tenure at the National Conservatory of Music in New York, he was frequently seen “trainspotting,” and when at home he took daily walks to the train station in Prague. So perhaps it is hardly surprising that on one such walk the first subject of a brand-new symphony flashed into his mind. The impetus was the arrival of a festive train full of countrymen returning from Pest. He sketched the first movement of his 7th Symphony in only five days. It was Dvořák’s intention for the work to reflect the political struggles of the Czech nation and his own feelings of patriotism. An atmosphere of obstinate defiance seems to hang over the piece. It is the most cosmopolitan of his last three great symphonies, with the composer keeping the reins tight on his penchant to bubble over into folk-inflected rhapsody. The work’s classic formal structure makes it arguably the greatest of his symphonies, though it has never achieved the popularity of the 8th or 9th, which wear their charms like the vibrant colors and patterns of Bohemian traditional dress.
Dvořák’s Symphony No. 7:
DVOŘÁK FACT #6
Earlier in his career, Dvořák composed another concerto for cello, in the key of A major. He wrote it for Ludevit Peer, a fellow musician in the Bohemian Provisional Theatre Orchestra (with which Dvořák played viola). It didn’t go anywhere, and in fact it lay undiscovered until 1925. Its existence remains obscure enough that whenever anyone refers to “the Dvořák Cello Concerto,” they mean the famous concerto in B minor – which, in fact, is the Cello Concerto No. 2!
Dvořák’s “forgotten” cello concerto:
DVOŘÁK FACT #7
“God grant that this Czech music will move the world,” Dvořák said of his 7th Symphony. He was riding high on the euphoria of composing at white heat. He completed the sketch of the symphony’s first movement in five days.
Ten days later, he finished the second. It is said that the sadness of the passing of his mother and possibly the recent death of his eldest child are reflected in this music. However, he also intimated to a friend, “What is in my mind is Love, God and my Fatherland.”
He completed the third and fourth movements over the next month or so. Dvořák suggested that the fourth movement enshrines the capacity of the Czech people to display stubborn resistance to political oppressors.
With the publication of his Symphony No. 7 in 1885, it could be said that Dvořák experienced the struggle for Czech independence in a deeply personal way.
PHOTOS (left to right): Well-trained composer Antonin Dvořák, Victor Herbert, and Josefina Kaunitzova
