Dvorák – the inspired craftsman

"Conceiving an idea is, in and of itself, nothing special. It simply comes to you. And if it is beautiful, and great, it is not a human achievement, anyway. On the other hand, executing the idea well and creating something great from it: that is the difficult part – that is art!" Antonín Dvo?ák was deeply convinced that compositional craftsmanship was more important than naked inspiration, regardless how brilliant. Clearly resembling his friend Johannes Brahms in this, Dvo?ák invested much time and energy in the compositional process proper. This extremely intensive involvement with the musical text, this process of sketching, initial notation, rejection, summing up in words, conscious revision and instrumentation, nevertheless remains virtually undetectable behind Dvo?ák's music, so that the daily strenuous efforts of the composer as he worked at shaping his material goes completely unnoticed to the listener. And it is this very aspect which contributed substantially to a caricaturesque impression of Dvo?ák as a Bohemian (folk) musician who gave free reign to his musical talent and naiveté, a stereotype which long blocked the way to an undistorted view of his compositional achievements, including that in the field of genre development. In addition to his operatic and symphonic works, Dvo?ák's oeuvre also includes a third component, which remained consistently present throughout his entire creative life: chamber music. And in this connection, it was the genre of the string quartet that particularly formed a common thread, and also served as a kind of testbed for trying out compositional solutions on a small scale.
Aside from the string quartets, Dvo?ák also produced three highly original contributions to the (due to its flexible instrumentation) somewhat less prominent genre of the string quintet, viz., the String Quintet in A minor, Op. 1 (1861), which can be heard on this CD, the String Quintet in G major, Op. 77 (1875), and the String Quintet in E-flat major, Op. 97 (1893), whose scherzo movement is also included on the present disc. Whilst the Op. 1 and 97 are scored for 2 violins, 2 violas and a cello, Op. 77's instrumentation consists of a string quartet with a contrabass added to it, resulting, in the tutti passages, in a clearly perceivable expansion of the tone world of the string quintet into the orchestral.
The origins of the String Quintet, Op. 77, and the Notturno, Op. 40, are intriguingly intertwined. Dvo?ák composed his Op. 77 in 1875 as a submission to the Umélecká beseda composition competition, contributing it under the title, 'To my People.' The work had its premier in Prague on 18 March 1876. In this, its original, form, it still featured five movements – and the opus number, 18. What, then, explains the fact that it today bears the opus number, 77? The explanation is a financial one. Against the will of the composer, Simrock, Dvo?ák's publisher, published the Quintet in 1888 under this opus number, with the aim of deluding potential purchasers into thinking it was a 'new' work from the composer's pen.
The fifth movement that originally belonged to Op. 77, i.e., the Intermezzo (Nocturne), had been taken, albeit in drastically abbreviated form, by Dvo?ák from his unpublished String Quartet in E minor, Op. 9. Subsequently, in 1883, the composer himself removed this slow movement in B major from the work and published it separately, in modified form, as the Nocturne, Op. 40. The work exists in versions for string orchestra, violin and piano and piano four hands. Just this fact alone is an indication that the piece was one close to the heart of the composer. Although the version employed by the Philharmonisches Streichquintett Berlin was that for string orchestra, subtly modified to fit its instrumentation of five strings, it nevertheless remains extremely faithful to the original score (with the exception of two passages, where the first and second violins play divisi). But in complete contrast to the work's complex genealogy, the Nocturne itself is as straightlined, frank and uncomplicated as could be. The work's title is a clear reference to its colour pallet, in which dark hues predominate. The night-time atmosphere stretches out in the slow main tempo. The primary melodic strand develops in a spiritual meditation, without actually ever going 'anywhere.'
Through the addition of the contrabass (and, as a result, the orchestral expansion of the bass component), the String Quintet, Op. 77, gave Dvo?ák the freedom to deploy the cello as an extra melody instrument. The first movement adheres to the sonata form. The viola, the first instrument to be entrusted with the main motif, plays a distinctive triplet figure which goes on to dominate the movement rhythmically, including in the development and varied recapitulation, whilst the second theme, in F major, plays a relatively subordinate role. The second movement, an energetic scherzo with spirited Bohemian connotations in E minor, frames the strongly contrasting and tranquil trio in C major. The slow movement in C major, characterised by a songlike gesture, leads the instruments into a subtle and ingenious dialogue on more than one level. To conclude the work, a rousing finale in rondo form solidifies into an orchestral raiment reaching far beyond the conventions of chamber music, with no small contribution from the contrabass. The movement also includes thematic connections to the preceding movements.
The String Quintet, Op. 97, was written in 1893, during Dvo?ák's stay in America, as director of New York's National Conservatory of Music, immediately following the penning of his 'American String Quartet,' Op. 96. Dvo?ák composed this masterwork of the quintet literature between 16 June and 1 August during his summer holidays in America's Midwest, in the provincial town of Spillville, a Czech immigrants' settlement. The manuscript score bears the entry: "third work composed in America." As with Op. 96 and the Symphony No. 9, 'From the New World,' the work contains an abundance of 'American' references. For their recording of the Scherzo in B major included on this CD, the Philharmonisches Streichquintett Berlin placed great emphasis on faithfulness to the composer's original intentions, resulting in an extremely idiomatic reading of the work's folk references, such as those in the contrabass. The movement features a rhythmic ostinato in duple metre (overlaid with an extremely slender and simple tune), frequently asserted by musicologist to refer to the drum accompaniment in Indian dances. Nevertheless, features of Dvo?ák's Bohemian musical homeland manage to find their way into this final string quintet, however not isolated, but in a fine alloy of European and American ingredients, melding Old Europe and New World into one united musical soul.

top