Terzetto
in C major for Two Violins and Viola, Op. 74
Antonín Dvořák
Born September 8, 1841 in
Died May 1, 1904 in
Composed
in 1887.
Premiered
on March 30, 1887 in
Duration: 18 minutes
By 1886, after his early years of
disappointment, poverty, and struggle, Antonín Dvořák had become one of the leading composers in the
world. That summer, submitting to the regular pestering of his publisher, Fritz
Simrock, he completed a sequel (for piano duet) to
the wildly successful set of Slavonic Dances of 1878, and then set out
on a concert tour, his fifth, of
Living at the same address as Dvořák during the winter of 1887 was a chemistry
student and amateur violinist named Josef Kruis.
Composer and chemist struck up a friendship, and in the space of just one week
(January 7-14), Dvořák composed a trio for Kruis and the young man’s teacher, Jan Pelikán,
a violinist with the Prague National Theater Orchestra, and himself as violist.
(Dvořák had played viola in the National
Orchestra many years before.) This Terzetto
(Op. 74) proved too difficult for Kruis’ limited
technique, however, so the following week Dvořák
wrote a simpler set of four Bagatelles for two violins and viola, which
he shortly thereafter arranged for violin and piano as the Four Romantic
Pieces, Op. 75. Both works were first played publicly in
The Terzetto
opens with a lyrical movement of quiet melancholy that Dvořák
labeled “Introduction,” and which leads through a series of harmonic
peregrinations directly to the Larghetto, a warmly emotional
instrumental song which becomes more rhythmically animated in its middle regions.
The Scherzo proper makes use of the vivacious Bohemian dance mannerisms
that Dvořák favored in many of the works of his
maturity, while the movement’s central trio is in the gentler style of the
waltz-like Ländler. The finale is a set of
variations on a harmonically mischievous theme that courses through sections in
both slow and fast tempos before ending with a lively dash to the close.
Contrasts for Violin, Clarinet, and Piano
Béla Bartók
Born March 25, 1881
in
Died September 26,
1945 in
Composed in 1938.
Premiered on January 9, 1939 in
Duration:
18 minutes
When the Nazi threat began to loom over Hungary
in the late 1930s, Bartók took what measures he could
to protest the accumulating menace threatening his homeland, though, with the
soulless rise of fascism, his actions affected him more than they did the
authorities — he gave up his membership in the Austrian Performing Arts Society
because of its Nazi sympathies, he quit his teaching post at the Budapest
Academy of Music, he forbid broadcasts of his music and refused to perform in
Germany and Italy, and he left the German publishing firm of Universal Edition
for the English house of Boosey & Hawkes. With his income dependent largely on royalties from
performances, making a living became increasingly difficult for him. One who
showed special concern for Bartók’s perilous
situation was his friend and long-time recital partner, the noted Hungarian
violinist Joseph Szigeti, who had spent much of his time in
Since Bartók flatly
refused to accept any assistance even faintly tinged with charity, Szigeti
concocted an ingenious plan with the clarinetist Benny Goodman, then one of the
most popular figures in American music, that would bring his friend income from
a commission, performances, and a recording. Though Goodman was known primarily
as a jazz artist, he also had ambitions for a concert career, and he reached an
agreement with Szigeti to commission a work from Bartók
that they could perform and record together. Their request reached Bartók in August 1938 in
The quick opening movement is a modern concert
realization of the verbunkos, a traditional
Hungarian dance of alternating fast and slow sections. Bartók’s
example is based on a vigorous, snapping-rhythm theme introduced by the violin,
around which the clarinet weaves elaborate decorations. Formal contrast is
provided at the movement’s center by a passage in the short-long rhythms
characteristic of much Hungarian vernacular music. Pihenö
(“Relaxation”) is quiet and mysterious. Sebes
(“Fast Dance”) is introduced by a mistuned (scordatura)
violin whose diabolical associations are familiar from Saint-Saëns’ Danse Macabre and Mahler’s Fourth Symphony.
The main body of the movement is occupied by a fiery folk-dance melody
cunningly inflected with jazzy elements in tribute to Goodman. The contrasting
central episode uses a theme in an irregular meter derived from Bulgarian folk
music. The brilliant closing section, which includes a cadenza for the violin,
returns the fiery music from the beginning of the movement.
Quintet in A major for Piano, Two
Violins, Viola, and Cello, Op. 81
Antonín
Dvořák
Composed in 1887.
Premiered on January 6, 1888 in
Duration: 40 minutes
By the time that Dvořák undertook his Piano Quintet in A major in 1887,
when he was nearing the age of 50, he had risen from his humble and nearly
impoverished beginnings to become one of the most respected musicians in his
native
“Several of his
friends have maintained that this Quintet provides a virtually life-like,
full-length portrait of Dvořák,” wrote Paul
Stefan in his study of the composer. “His joy in Nature and his love of melody,
his feeling of communion with the world, his quickly changing moods, that faint
melancholy and anxiety, swiftly dissolved in the consciousness of his own
power. Certainly we find ourselves completely under the spell of Dvořák’s joyful singing and romancing.” Dvořák’s range of expression, melodic invention, and
skill at motivic elaboration are abundantly evident
in the Quintet’s opening movement. The cello presents a lovely melody, almost folkish in its simple phrasing and touching directness, as
the main theme. This motive progresses through a number of transformations
before the viola introduces the subsidiary theme, a plaintive tune built from a
succession of short, gently arching phrases. The main theme,
rendered into the melancholy key of the viola’s melody, returns to close the
exposition. Both themes are treated in the expansive development
section. A full recapitulation and a vigorous coda round out
the movement.
The Dumka was a traditional Slavic (especially
Ukrainian) folk ballad of meditative character often describing heroic deeds.
The Quintet’s second movement draws its form and idiom from the Dumka, as do Dvořák’s
Dumka: Elegy (Op. 35, 1876), Furiant with Dumka
(Op. 12, 1884) and “Dumky” Trio (Op. 90, 1891). As
was typical of the folk form, Dvořák’s Dumka uses the slow, thoughtful strain of the
opening as a returning refrain to separate episodes of varying characters. The
movement may be diagrammed according to a symmetrical plan: A–B–A–C–A–B–A. The
“B” section, quick in tempo and bright in mood, is led by the violin before
being taken over by the piano. “C” is a fast, dancing version of the main Dumka theme given in imitation.
Though the Scherzo
bears the subtitle Furiant, the movement
sounds more like a quick waltz than like the fiery, cross-rhythm dance of
Bohemian origin. The central trio is occupied by a quiet, lilting metamorphosis
of the Scherzo theme.
The finale, woven
from formal elements of sonata and rondo, abounds with the high spirits and
exuberant energy of a Czech folk dance. The playful main theme is introduced by
the violin after a few introductory measures; contrasting material offers brief
periods of repose. The development section includes a fugal working-out of the
principal theme. A quiet, hymnal passage in the coda provides a foil for the
joyous dash to the end of this masterwork of Dvořák’s
maturity.
©2008
Dr. Richard E. Rodda