Concerto in B minor for Cello & Orchestra, Op. 104
Antonín Dvořák
(b. September 8, 1841 in Nelahozeves, Bohemia; d. May 1, 1904 in Prague, Austria-Hungary)
Out of the blue philanthropist Jeannette Thurber, without any preliminaries, telegraphed Dvořák in June 1891, “WOULD YOU ACCEPT POSITION DIRECTOR NATIONAL CONSERVATORY OF MUSIC NEW YORK OCTOBER 1892 ALSO LEAD SIX CONCERTS OF YOUR WORKS TWENTY WORDS PREPAID”. The offer was a salary twenty times what he earned in Prague, light work duties, and four months off in the summer. He couldn’t refuse. Arriving in New York September 27, 1892, he settled into the house at 327 East 17th St., two blocks from the conservatory. There he would write five major works, the first of which was the perennially popular New World Symphony.
The story of his B Minor Cello Concerto spans both continents. Begun in America, its final, deeply personal character was forged upon his return to Bohemia in 1895, prompted by intense homesickness and the failing health of Josefina Kounicova, the great love of his youth. The first performance finally took place in London, March 19, 1896. Dvořák conducted with soloist Leo Stern.
The first movement after an expansive introduction is in sonata form. Of the lyrical second theme, Dvořák wrote, “Every time I play it, I start to tremble all over.” The mood in the recapitulation brightens considerably and the coda is positively ebullient.
Every profound emotion seems to find expression in the songful second movement. Its center section references “Leave me alone,” from Four Songs, Op. 82, Josefina’s favorite.
As the first version of the finale was finished only a few months before Dvořák’s return home, it fairly quivers with anticipation of “moving from the darkness into the light.” A quiet meditative section, inserted after he went home to Bohemia, quotes “Leave me alone” a final time before the full orchestra takes us out with incandescent fervor.
Dvořák wrote a cello concerto as a young man, but did not orchestrate it. Dvořák was embarrassed by much of his early work and burned most of it that was in his possession. Fortunately the piano-score of that cello concerto was with the cellist for whom he had written it, so it waited to be rediscovered in 1925.
A mature Dvořák complained about the cello, as a solo instrument, it “whinges up above, and grumbles down below.” Then Dvořák reported, “I’ve just finished the first movement of a concerto for the cello!! Don’t be surprised; I was surprised myself, and I still wonder why I chose to embark upon something like this.”
How did it happen? Among Dvořák’s colleagues at the conservatory was an Irish-born cellist and composer who had established himself in Germany before deciding to immigrate to the United States. He was Victor Herbert of Babes in Toyland fame. Herbert was greatly inspired by Dvořák’s New World Symphony and he chose the same key, E minor, for his new cello concerto and was the soloist at its premiere in 1894. Dvořák was smitten and went back to hear the second performance the next day. He borrowed Herbert’s score and studied it at length. What had seemed preposterous looked irresistible and he began work on Cello Concerto in B Minor on November 8, 1894, finishing the first version on February 9, 1895.
Dvořák and Herbert—something mythic how two immigrants could inspire one another, each after the other—but it wasn’t an uncomplicated American success story. Dvořák was homesick. He also worried greatly over the failing health of Josefina Kounicova, the unrequited love of his youth. He resigned from the conservatory and returned to Prague in May 1895. Josefina died on May 27th and he attended her funeral on the 29th. Into the revisions of the concerto as he worked for closure, went bits of his music he knew she had loved. Deeply personal in nature, international in scope, crafted by a master summing up his art, the concerto was first played on his last trip to England on March 19, 1896, Dvořák himself conducting, but not without exposing a last controversy. Dvořák dedicated the concerto to his cellist friend Hanuš Wihan and expected him to play it. Wihan, however, conceived of and wrote out a brilliant cadenza for the final movement as it was first written back in New York. Dvořák’s loyalty to Josefina’s memory won out and he would not change it. Before he and Wihan could work things out, the event organizers in London hired another cellist Leo Stern who played the debut performance.
Dvořák’s fame came piecemeal. He wrote a lot of music in the 1860s, most of it unperformed and unpublished until much later. In the early 1870s, he began to receive recognition in Prague but nowhere else. When Josefina declined Dvořák’s marriage proposal, Dvořák married her sister in 1873. He became a church organist at St. Adalbert’s church in Prague. The job did not pay well and quashed any ideas of travel, but he did find time to compose and hopefully entered international competitions beginning that year. With Austria’s competition for “poor but talented artists” his luck was in. He won a stipend in 1874 and twice more in 1876 and 1877. What Dvořák did not know immediately was that Johannes Brahms was an influential juror on the prize committee, and Brahms above all others was convinced of Dvořák’s remarkable talent. Brahms was promoting Dvořák’s music before the two even met and made for him the invaluable connection to Simrock, the German publisher. It was Dvořák’s piano duets, Slavonic Dances, Op. 46, published in 1878 that were a turning point. Within a few years he was famous around the world.
Brahms began but did not finish a cello concerto of his own, but lived to see Dvořák finish his cello concerto. In a peculiar irony, Brahms looked at Dvořák’s score and exclaimed, “Why on earth didn't I know that one could write a cello concerto like this? If I had only known, I would have written one long ago!"
Mrs. Thurber made the National Conservatory noteworthy even before Dvořák’s arrival. It was the first such place to be noted, according to Grove’s Dictionary [1920], as being “specially successful in helping students of foreign birth and certain special classes, like the blind and those of negro blood.” Frances MacDowell, mother of American composer Edward MacDowell (a through-line to Amy Beach as will be seen), helped create Mrs. Thurber’s vision when, as National Conservatory registrar, she saw to it that Harry T. Burleigh, a talented young African American, was admitted with a scholarship in 1892. Dvořák immediately bonded with the young man, finding him a trove of knowledge of traditional spirituals and folk music shared among slaves. Dvořák was already predisposed to use music of common people. Using folk music and dances from his native land was his stock in trade. Living in a new country he found a fresh wellspring of musical inspiration and passionately embraced it. In his position of influence, he made his case, “In the Negro melodies of America I discover all that is needed for a great and noble school of music.” It is fair to say that his advocacy changed American music forever.
(c) 2014, 2025 by Steven Hollingsworth
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contact: steve@trecorde.net
