Vienna Nights 4
Antonin Dvořák 1841-1904
Antonin Dvořák
1841-1904
Antonin Dvořák
Slavonic Dances Op. 46, No. 1, 2 & 3

Given his place as one of the foremost composers of the nineteenth century, Antonín Dvorák was something of a late bloomer, but not for want of musical talent and industry. Dvorák's father was a butcher and had expected his son to go into the family trade. Only after his uncle had agreed to finance the boy's musical education was he able to follow his passion. Trained as a church organist, Dvorák 's first job was as a performer, playing principal viola in Prague's new Provincial Theatre Orchestra. During this time, he practiced composition, producing songs, symphonies and entire operas although he achieved no recognition until he was in his 30s.

After winning national prizes for several years during the 1870s, however, his work came to the attention of Johannes Brahms, who gave him his first real break. The older composer, whose reputation was at its height, promoted Dvorák to Simrock, his own publisher, who offered him his first commission, the Opus 46 set of Slavonic Dances.

Dvorák was a devoted Czech nationalist. Like his older compatriot Bedrich Smetana, he freely incorporated folk elements into his music, utilizing characteristic peasant rhythms and melodic motives but never actually quoting entire folk melodies. The Slavonic Dances were first composed for piano duet and then immediately orchestrated by the composer. This dual approach proved to be a win/win arrangement for both publisher and composer. The dances could be played both in the concert hall, where they were recognized as the heir to Brahms's Hungarian Dances, as well as purchased for home music making. They were so successful that Simrock commissioned another set (Op. 72) in 1880, which Dvorák finally got around to completing in 1885.

The dances all follow a similar form with two or more sections containing themes in contrasting moods and tempi. The first section – sometimes also fairly complex in structure – serves as a refrain for the dance as a whole. The dances comprise a wide range of moods all displaying the composer's dazzling melodic gift.

No. 1, in C Major, is actually a combination of two dances from two different countries: a Bohemian furiant, a folk dance alternating 3/4 and 2/4 time, Example 1 and a Polish mazur. Example 2 The form is typical of the classical minuet and trio or scherzo with the mazur serving as the trio section. The entire dance is also a dialogue between the entire orchestra and a small group of winds.

No. 2 in E minor is a slow, sentimental Ukrainian dumka Example 3 interrupted in the middle by a lively vovcacká, a leaping dance for men. Example 4

No.3 is a Klatovák, a dance resembling the Polka, although little of what we associate with polka music is apparent here. The dance is made up of contrasting sections in mood and tempo. It opens with a gentle, lilting theme that serves as a rondo. Example 9 It is followed by an exuberant outburst and a faster tempo Example 10 that gradually winds down at the end, blending into a reprise of the rondo theme. A third section, also in moderate tempo, features a trumpet solo that once again blends back into the rondo. A flashy coda, based on the second section ends the dance.
Felix Mendelssohn 1809-1847
Felix Mendelssohn
1809-1847
Felix Mendelssohn
Violin Concerto E minor, Op. 64

If ever there was a composer born with a silver spoon in his mouth, it was Felix Mendelssohn. He was raised in affluence and comfort, his precocious musical talent recognized and nurtured by his culturally sophisticated and highly supportive family. His home was a Mecca for the artistic and intellectual elite of Germany who also encouraged the prodigy and his talented sister Fanny. One of his admirers was the formidable grand old man of German literature, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Fortunately for the development of Felix's rare abilities, his carefully selected teachers, however impressed they may have been with him, were demanding. His strict training, especially in fugue composition, familiarized him with the works of Johann Sebastian Bach, who at the time was dismissed as a mere pedagogue. In 1829, Mendelssohn was central to a Bach revival with an historic performance of the Saint Matthew Passion in Berlin, virtually rescuing the great composer's music from the counterpoint classroom.

As a mature artist, Mendelssohn was acclaimed throughout Europe as a composer and conductor, especially in his native Germany and in England, where he had a private audience with the young Queen Victoria, who sang for him after he had played for her. His untimely death from unknown causes created a profound shock, and Mendelssohn societies promoting his music and ideas quickly sprang up all over middle and northern Europe.

Unlike Mozart, Mendelssohn was extremely self-critical, constantly requesting feedback and carefully perfecting his compositions. The Concerto in E minor had a long gestation period. Mendelssohn started the concerto in 1838 but did not finish it until six years later. He wrote it for his friend, the famed violinist Ferdinand David (1810-1873), concertmaster of the Gewandhaus Orchestra of Leipzig where Mendelssohn served as conductor from 1835 to 1843. The composer sought - and took - David's advice on technical aspects throughout its composition. David finally premiered it in Leipzig in 1845, but Mendelssohn was ill and unable to attend. Now one of the staples of violin repertory, the Concerto was considered daring and innovative at the time of its composition.

From the first bar, the Allegro molto appassionato opening broke new ground. Instead of the usual orchestral exposition of the main themes, the violin enters at once to present the principal theme on which the movement is built. Example 1 Mendelssohn gives the second part of the theme to the orchestra. Example 2 For the second theme, the roles are reversed, with the winds introducing the theme. Example 3 The cadenza, largely the creation of David, is placed unconventionally before the recapitulation. Relocating the cadenza away from its traditional place at the end of the movement stresses the continuity with the second movement, which follows without pause.

The Andante emerges out of a single quiet bassoon tone, emanating from the last chord of the opening movement. It is joined by other instruments for a short transitional passage, Example 4 after which the solo violin introduces the simple, almost religious theme. Example 5 The middle section in the minor mode turns slightly darker. Example 6

Another transition, based on the opening theme of the concerto, Example 7 leads into the Allegro molto vivace. Mendelssohn saved the demonstration of the violin’s virtuoso possibilities for this sparkling Finale. After an orchestral fanfare for the winds, Example 8 containing a rhythmic motive that the composer reuses for throughout the movement as part of other themes, the soloist enters with a flourish followed by a delicate, dancing theme that dominates the movement and recalls the atmosphere of the teenaged composer's first great hit, the Overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream. Example 9 The orchestra answers with a development of the opening fanfare. Example 10 The soloist then plays a new, more lyrical melody – also based on the fanfare - in counterpoint with the first theme, now in the orchestra, Example 11 Later, their roles are reversed. Example 12
Franz Schubert 1797-1828
Franz Schubert
1797-1828
Franz Schubert
Symphony No. 9 in C major, D. 944

In the half century after Franz Schubert’s death, his reputation rested almost entirely on his wonderful Lieder, while the rest of his music was mostly neglected. None of his orchestral music was published during his lifetime, and many of the major works did not emerge from private hands until decades after his death. The first six symphonies were not published until 1884-85 in the Gesamtausgabe, the complete edition of his works. The manuscript of Symphony No. 8, the so-called “Unfinished,” resurfaced only in 1865 when its owner, Schubert’s friend Anselm Hüttenbrenner, a minor composer, used it as bait to get one of his own compositions performed. The Ninth, nicknamed the “Great,” was first performed – albeit severely cut – in 1839 at the instigation of Robert Schumann and under the direction of Felix Mendelssohn. Mendelssohn is one of the heroes of classical music; his appreciation for the great tradition of European music inspired him to revive the works of such great but forgotten composers as Bach, Schubert and even some Mozart and Beethoven.

The C major Symphony is actually Schubert’s seventh and final completed symphony (For a long time, it was believed that there was a seventh “lost” symphony.) Besides the fragment that is the Eighth, Schubert made at least four other aborted attempts at symphonic writing. He composed the C major Symphony in 1825-26, during a period of relatively good health and rising hopes, when the syphilis, from which he had been suffering since 1822, was quiescent. For years there was confusion about the date because Schubert wrote “March 1828” on the manuscript, perhaps to fool a publisher – unsuccessfully – that the work was new. Analysis of the paper and ink and the deciphering of the correspondence related to the events described below clearly shows the date of composition was two years earlier.

In October 1826 Schubert presented the score to the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, Austria’s Music Society. In the summer of 1827 its orchestra played through the work in Schubert’s presence but found it too difficult and too long for a public performance. The Finale alone was performed in Vienna in 1836. Schumann retrieved the manuscript from Schubert’s brother Ferdinand – and with a comment on its “heavenly length” – set the stage for the 1839 premiere.

Three major symphonic works composed within a six-year period served as a transition between the Classical style and full-blown Romanticism: Beethoven’s Ninth (1824), Schubert’s C major (1826) and Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique (1830). Of the three, Schubert’s is the most conservative when compared to Beethoven’s addition of a chorale finale, and Berlioz’s greatly expanded orchestral forces, harmonic language and literary program. Yet, Schubert’s is by no means a throwback. Taking and developing ideas particularly from Beethoven, whom he idolized, Schubert imbued each movement of the Symphony with creative, even innovative, takes on the Classical symphonic form.

At the time he was writing this Symphony, Schubert was still perfecting his power as a symphonist. Considering that even as late as the 1860s, Johannes Brahms struggled to emerge out of the shadow of Beethoven, think how Schubert must have felt with his idol already a living legend. Schubert possessed, however, a gift for melody and musical form in the service of drama through his hundreds of Lieder, a talent that he put to good use in shaping this Symphony.

The Symphony is characterized throughout by a steadiness of pacing and tempo. Although it opens with a substantial introduction, Example 1 the composer did not indicate any acceleration in tempo the main part of the movement that begins the formal sonata structure. The first theme is actually made up of several motives and has been criticized for being harmonically stagnant, based on a repeated cord progression and an upwards C major scale; Example 2 and, indeed, Schubert concentrates his development more on the second theme group. Example 3 A closing theme rounds out the melodic repertory of the movement. Example 4 Schubert re-introduces an important motive from the introduction, working it into the fabric of the development of the second theme. Example 5 And, although he was not the first composer to do so, he concludes the movement with a twofold restatement of the complete introduction theme.

In most symphonies and concertos, the so-called slow movement is designed to create a contrast in tempo and mood with the other, more animated movements. In this Symphony, however, the second movement march proceeds at a relatively speedy Andante con moto . It is also a complex hybrid of the customary ternary (ABA), rondo and sonata forms. It opens with a famous oboe solo – the entire piece, in fact, is an oboist's ego trip. Example 6 The middle (B) section belongs to the strings to create a neat ternary structure. Example 7 But then, Schubert inserts a new theme, one in even legato notes, to contrast with the dotted rhythm march, which becomes the main focus of one of several development sections. Example 8 Then the oboe and string themes return, creating a larger ABA form. While conductors frequently take cuts in this Symphony, the restatements of the three themes in this movement represent further developments that explore new harmonic territory and -– more importantly – increase the emotional intensity of the movement. All those repeats are not mere padding.

In the broadest sense, the Scherzo adheres to the conventional form of two repeated strains, followed by a trio in the same form. But Schubert expands this simplest of musical structures into the most complex movement in the entire Symphony. The Scherzo section is a hybrid sonata-allegro, in which the main theme, pounded out in the unison strings, Example 9 is followed by a contrasting middle section, a lilting waltz. Example 10 There follows a true development and recapitulation of both themes before the Trio begins. The Trio, another waltz for the upper winds, Example 11 turns suddenly melancholy with the composer’s penchant for drifting between the major and minor modes. Example 12 The return to the Scherzo also includes a coda based on the second Scherzo theme with continual changes in key, as if it were another development section. Example 13

The Finale, with its relentless driving rhythm – a perpetual motion of triplets in the upper strings – is reminiscent of the final movement of Beethoven’s Seventh. It is once again in sonata allegro form and, beginning with the opening fanfare, Example 14 each theme is independently explored within the exposition. Example 15 Example 16 The development’s opening musical allusion to and further expansion of the “Ode to Joy” constitutes Schubert’s ode to Beethoven. Example 17 A long coda, once again more like a development section, concludes the Symphony. Example 18

Copyright © Elizabeth and Joseph Kahn 2011