Antonin Dvořák (1841-1904) was born in the Bohemian village of Nelahozeves outside of Prague. His father was a Czech-speaking butcher/innkeeper – lower middle class -- but not a peasant. It’s true, as is sometimes emphasized, that the young Antonin had some training as a butcher, but the family, to whom the musical world owes a great debt, very soon recognized his musical talent and sent him away to school for musical studies. There, he also received instruction in German, the language required to advance in the world of the Habsburg Empire that ruled the Czech lands. While playing viola in the Prague Theater orchestra to earn survival cash, the impoverished Dvořák lacked a piano and musical scores from which to study. Fortunately, his talent impressed Brahms, who was on a panel which approved Imperial stipends for young composers. The eminent Brahms not only advanced Dvořák’s career by recommending him for a state stipend in 1874, but Brahms subsequently in 1877 promoted the young composer to his Berlin publisher, the firm of Fritz Simrock. It is easy to speculate that Dvořák might never have made it as a composer without this timely intervention.
Earlier this season we discussed what a productive year Robert Schumann had in 1841 When he produced the original version of his Symphony No. 4, completing, essentially, two other symphonies and the opening movement of his Piano Concerto. Dvořák had many such productive years including 1875 when he completed his Symphony No. 5 in F Major, Op. 76, B54; his Nocturne in B major, Op. 40, B47; his opera Vanda, Op. 25, B55; the Piano Quartet No. 1 in D major, Op. 23, B53; the String Quintet No. 2 in G major, Op. 77, B49; the Piano Trio No. 1 in B flat major, Op. 21, B51; the Moravian Duets, Op. 20, B50; and the piece for tonight, the Serenade for Strings in E major, Op. 22, B52.
The sunny, idyllic feelings expressed in the Serenade possibly reflect the warm familial atmosphere the composer was experiencing with his first-born child, Otakar, born in 1874, while finally having sufficient money, due to the stipend, so that his time could be devoted to composing. Alas, Otakar and his two younger siblings died in infancy by 1877 a period of loss that deeply influenced Dvořák’s composition of his Stabat Mater. Fortunately, Dvořák’s next six children survived to adulthood, and he brought the whole family with him when he stayed (1892-1895) in “The New World” of New York City and Spillville, Iowa. The Serenade was rapidly completed within only a two-week period in the spring of 1875 and is, by far, one of Dvořák’s most popular pieces due to the beauty of its melodic abundance.
It is interesting to contemplate the two fates of the pieces composed one after the other. The Symphony No. 5 is a big piece with the sonic resources of the full orchestra. It makes the symphonic “argument” in its larger forms. Yet the Serenade wins the day because of sheer beauty. Are we listeners abandoning the “truth” of a symphonic explication for the ephemeral, shallow pleasure of a serenade, a little night music, as it were? I would take the Platonic view that beauty is a ladder that we climb to reach inner truth. Or I would adhere to the John Keats phases, “Beauty is truth, truth beauty, -- that is all / ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”
The Serenade for Strings is in the traditional five movements for serenades. (Mozart’s famous, “A little Night Music” was also originally in five movements, but, mysteriously, one movement that he listed in his thematic catalogue went missing before the posthumous publication.) The movements are all superficially in ABA form. But Dvořák has plenty of ingenious complexities of modulations and developments that flow effortlessly in the construction of these “simple” forms.
The opening movement, Moderato, has a charming turn figure the punctuates responses across the string sections. Dvořák may be illustrating a gentle spring breeze across our cheeks, but there is no poem to guide us as in the Vivaldi, The Four Seasons. Did Dvořák have mental sonnets he strove to illustrate? (The last orchestral pieces he composed were tone poems that explicitly followed graphic literature.) The second movement, “Tempo di valse” is an enchanting waltz in C-sharp minor. The middle “trio” is in the parallel major but notated as D-flat major. The movement ends with a bright C-sharp major chord. Calling the third movement, “Scherzo” would seem to indicate a joking, energetic dance movement but the opening spritely energy of responses gives way to some of the most pensive music before the energy returns and then dissipates. The slow movement Larghetto follows with hymn-like thankfulness but progresses to a more profane yearning and then resoluteness before the calming phrases return. The Finale has a fine rustic vigor with the third theme opening with spirited snapping ornaments which leads surprisingly to the hymn of the previous movement. After a recap of the three themes, the coda of the opening movement returns reminding us of that beautiful setting before the dashing conclusion.
Program Note by IPO Board Member
Charles Amenta, M.D.