Czech Philharmonic Performs Dvořák

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Monday, 06 January 2025 14:20

Written by Jack Angstreich

Photo by Jennifer Taylor

At Stern Auditorium on the night of Tuesday, December 3rd, I had the exceptional pleasure to attend a superb concert presented by Carnegie Hall, featuring the Czech Philharmonic, which was expertly led by its Chief Conductor and Music Director, Semyon Bychkov.

The event started unforgettably with a mesmerizing rendition of Antonín Dvořák’s extraordinary, very beautiful Cello Concerto in B Minor, Op. 104, brilliantly played by the incomparable and renowned Yo-Yo Ma as soloist. In excellent notes for this program, Jack Sullivan provides some useful background on the work:

Though the Cello Concerto contains no explicitly American program, it was written in New York in 1894–1895 and influenced by another New World European: Irish-born Victor Herbert, whose Cello Concerto No. 2 moved Dvořák to try a cello concerto of his own.

Cellist Alwin Schroeder of the Boston Symphony Orchestra assisted Dvořák with the technical aspects of writing a cello concerto; he had further help back in Prague from cellist Hanuš Wihan, who had been pressing Dvořák for a concerto for some time. Indeed, Wihan became too helpful, first editing the cello part, then adding music of his own, until Dvořák finally had to intervene and insist to his publisher that they print the concerto “as I have written it.”

The genesis of the concerto was direct, the composition swift. Dvořák heard Herbert’s concerto at Carnegie Hall with the New York Philharmonic and was so moved that he rushed backstage and embraced the composer, after which he wrote his own Cello Concerto in only three months. It is not surprising that he would be so taken with Herbert’s piece. Like Dvořák, Herbert was a European composer with a seemingly inexhaustible melodic gift who loved American culture. His famous operettas were still before him, but he had already composed the orchestral work The Vision of Columbus (later the finale of the Columbus Suite) the year before, his counterpart to Dvořák’s cantata, The American Flag.

Johannes Brahms, a major inspiration for the composer, on encountering the piece said, “Why on earth didn’t I know that a person could write a violoncello concerto like this? If I had only known, I would have written one long ago.”

The initial, Allegro movement—which concludes triumphantly—opens somewhat solemnly, or at least seriously, then quickly becomes dramatic; the lovely second subject—for horn—is song-like and recalls the melodies of American folk music, while the cello line is often virtuosic, although with numerous, more meditative, lyrical interludes. About the magnificent second movement, marked Adagioma non troppo, theannotator comments:

The middle section was written as a musical love letter to Dvořák’s sister-in-law, Josefina Kaunitzova—the secret love of his life—who sent him a letter describing her rapidly disintegrating health just before he began the movement. As a tribute to her, he quoted one of her favorite melodies, “Kéž duch můj sám” (“Leave me alone”), the first of his Four Songs, Op. 82.

Somber and even more lyrical in inspiration than the first movement—and it too has an American sound—it has portentous moments and acquires a considerable intensity, but there are graceful passages as well; it closes quietly and delicately and drew applause. About the last, Allegro moderato movement, the composer explained in a note to his publisher:

The finale closes gradually, diminuendo—like a breath—with reminiscences of the first and second movements; the solo dies away to a pianissimo, then there is a crescendo, and the last measures are taken up by orchestra, ending stormily. That was my idea and from it I cannot recede.

The movement begins suspensefully and then becomes more spirited and affirmative—it is very exciting for most of its length—and it ends dynamically. Exceedingly enthusiastic applause elicited a couple of bewitching encores from the cellist: the traditional "Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen" and Dvořák’s "Goin' Home" (after the Largo from his Symphony No. 9, "From the New World,” arranged by Fisher).

The second half of the evening was at least equally remarkable: a sterling realization of the first three works of Bedřich Smetana’s marvelous Má vlast. About these, Sullivancomments:

The six tone poems were originally meant to be separate pieces, but they are frequently performed as a single unit or as excerpts. Smetana began them as he was losing his hearing (like Beethoven, he was unable to hear his final works); they premiered separately between 1875 and 1880, and the entire work was presented in 1882 in Prague.

The first selection, Vyšerad, depicts the castle of that name and has an almost celestial quality at its outset; it then becomes more stirring and, after more agitated episodes, it finishes serenely. The next tone poem, the glorious Vltava, which has an immortal theme andis the most celebrated, is more commonly presented under the title, Die Moldau. The composer summarized its programme as follows:

The composition describes the course of the Vltava, starting from the two small springs, the Studená and Teplá Vltava, to the unification of both streams into a single current, the course of the Vltava through woods and meadows, through landscapes where a farmer’s wedding is celebrated, the round dance of the mermaids in the night’s moonshine: On the nearby rocks loom proud castles, palaces, and ruins aloft. The Vltava swirls into the St. John’s Rapids, then it widens and flows toward Prague, past the Vyšehrad, and then majestically vanishes into the distance, ending at the Elbe.

The piece has a wonderful, more dance-like, central section and much pretty scene-painting, sometimes of a pastoral character, as well as a turbulent episode presumably portraying the rapids; it finishes forcefully.

About the final selection, Šárka, Sullivan says that it “depicts the female warrior of the same name in the Czech legend The Maidens’ War, the violent story of a war between men and women.” Smetana’s encapsulated its narrative thus:

Šárka ties herself to a tree as bait and waits to be saved by the princely knight Ctirad, deceiving him into believing that she is an unwilling captive of the rebelling women. Once released by Ctirad, who has fallen in love with her, Šárka serves him and his comrades with drugged mead, and once they have fallen asleep, she sounds a hunting horn: an agreed signal to the other women. The story ends with the warrior maidens murdering the sleeping men.

It begins tumultuously with a somewhat propulsive rhythm but with lyrical passages; the music then becomes jubilant and ultimately breathless and melodramatic, concluding abruptly. A standing ovation drew forth two more, marvelous encores, both Slavonic Dances by Dvořák: the C Major, Op. 46, No. 1 and the E Minor, Op. 72, No. 2.