Notes for: July 29, 2014
In 1842, Schumann composed the first successful piano quintet – that is, a work for piano plus four string instruments. Continuing technical improvements in the piano had made possible the balancing of the piano with four instruments. His pioneer work then became the model for a small but select line of similar works by other composers – first Brahms, later Dvořák, Fauré, Elgar, Reger, Franck, Bloch and Shostakovich.
With a single exception, each of these composers published only one piano quintet, but in each instance it was one of the composer’s more impressive compositions. (The exception was Fauré, who wrote two). It was as if each composer felt challenged by the unique sonorities of that combination of instruments, but then found that it took only one successful effort to meet the challenge and satisfy his curiosity about its possibilities.
Dvořák actually made two tries, but the first, in 1872, was a failure. A string player by training, he had not yet learned how to write effectively for the piano. Further, several carping critics censured his use of Slavonic dance idioms in a serious piece of chamber music. Discouraged, Dvořák destroyed the manuscript.
Fifteen years later, Dvořák, now a successful composer, had second thoughts about that early work. He borrowed a copy of the music from a friend, with the intention of making extensive revisions and sending it to his publisher. But still not satisfied, he decided to start from scratch – in the key, A major, of his maiden effort but with completely fresh material.
While still not a keyboard virtuoso, Dvořák was now an experienced composer for the piano, having learned in a preceding piano quartet and three piano trios how to blend the instrument forcefully with the strings. Further, his use of Czech folk idioms had been fully accepted, and in fact had become a major factor in his winning a wide public all over Europe and the United States. The resulting Piano Quintet was one of his finest chamber works, and today it rivals in popularity the piano quintets of Schumann and Brahms.
Perhaps the most pervasive characteristic of the quintet is its alternating moods – an idiosyncracy Dvořák absorbed from Czech folk music. While the overall nature of the work is cheerful optimism, there is a melancholy strain in every movement.
In the first movement, the cello presents the dreamy and soulful main theme over an undulant piano accompaniment. Soon the theme becomes energetic and brilliant, but the variability in mood continues, and the second theme, introduced by the viola, again injects a tinge of sadness. Contrast is also reflected in the wavering major-minor treatment of the main theme in the development.
The contrast in moods reaches its greatest extreme in the second movement, titled Dumka. This was originally a Ukrainian term meaning an “elegy” or “lament”, but, by the time it reached Bohemia, it implied a work with abrupt contrasts in mood and tempo. The main section is, in fact, slow-moving and melancholy, with a mournful theme stated by the piano and followed by variants for the viola and first violin. But there are two sharply contrasting sections – the first, fast and sunny, and the second, a wild dance in 2/8 time derived from the opening strain.
Titled “Scherzo” to conform to convention, the third movement also carries the far more meaningful subtitle Furiant, an energetic Slavonic dance. Although written in 3/4 time, the music is accented in such a way that it seems to alternate between 2/4 and 3/4. The contrasting middle section is calmer, but again tinged with melancholy.
The last movement offers a dazzling variety of dance-like rhythms, sentimental strains and playful tunes. There is even a fugal passage in the development and, late in the movement, a chorale before the frantic windup.
Notes for: August 14, 2018
“Magnificent” may be an overused word, but it fits Dvořák’s Piano Quintet in A Major. Dvořák was at the peak of his career when he wrote it. He was acknowledged at home and abroad as one of the great composers of his day – a master at evoking his Slavonic musical heritage within the classical traditions of Beethoven, Schubert, and especially his friend Brahms. He was happy in his personal life too. He was contentedly married, his children were flourishing, and after years of financial struggle he could afford to live comfortably. Dvořák had visited his sister-in law and her husband at their chateau in the small village of Vyoská, near Prague, and had fallen in love with the area. Eager for a place that could be a peaceful retreat from his increasingly busy travels abroad, he bought an old farm building that he turned into a summer home for his family. For years he spent long, idyllic summers there. Dvořák wrote many of his famous compositions at Vyoská, including his Symphonies No. 7 and No. 8, some Slavonic Dances, the opera Rusalka, and this epic Piano Quintet.
Fifteen years earlier, Dvořák had written an unmemorable Piano Quintet in A Major, which he published as Op. 5. Years later he thought of rewriting it, but then decided to start a new one from scratch, in the same key. What he composed in its place is one of the great piano quintets of the Romantic era – a melodically sumptuous, flawlessly structured, sonically grand work that joyfully blends Europe and Bohemia. Dvořák’s brilliant handling of his material begins with the first measures of the opening Allegro, as the cello plays one of Dvořák’s meltingly beautiful melodies over the piano’s gentle arpeggios. Almost immediately, the mood changes with a rousing series of elaborate transformations of this theme. Not until many measures later does the viola introduce a second, minor-key theme. These contrasts – between gentle and vigorous, major and minor, lyrical and muscular – drive the rest of the movement, through its elaborate development and to its jubulant coda.
The Dumka, with its alternating lament and rhythmic folk dance, was a Dvořák specialty, and this one is superb. The opening melancholy melody alternates with two dances, the first a cheerful melody in D Major, the second a lively, rhythmic Vivace. Each time the lament returns it is treated more elaborately, with increasingly rich textures. Melodic invention and rhythmic verve drive the last two movements. The briskness of the effervescent Scherzo is interrupted by a tranquil trio. There’s barely an interruption in the merry Finale, a rhythmic adventure with a fugato in the development, a chorale near the end, and a dazzling, headlong coda.
Notes for: July 18, 2023
“Magnificent” may be an overused word, but it fits Dvorák’s Piano Quintet No. 2 in A Major. Dvorák was at the peak of his career when he wrote it. He was acknowledged at home and abroad as one of the great composers of his day – a master at evoking his Slavonic musical heritage within the classical traditions of Beethoven, Schubert, and especially his friend Brahms. He was happy in his personal life too. He was contentedly married, his children were flourishing, and after years of financial struggle he could afford to live comfortably. Dvorák had visited his sister-in law and her husband at their chateau in the small village of Vyoská, near Prague, and had fallen in love with the area. Eager for a place that could be a peaceful retreat from his increasingly busy travels abroad, he bought an old farm building that he turned into a summer home for his family. For years he spent long, idyllic summers there. Dvorák wrote many of his famous compositions at Vyoská, including his Symphonies No. 7 and No. 8, some Slavonic Dances, the opera Rusalka, and this epic Piano Quintet.
Fifteen years earlier, Dvorák had written an unmemorable Piano Quintet in A Major, which he published as Op. 5. Years later he thought of rewriting it, but then decided to start a new one from scratch, in the same key. What he composed in its place is one of the great piano quintets of the Romantic era – a melodically sumptuous, flawlessly structured, sonically grand work that joyfully blends Europe and Bohemia. Dvorák’s brilliant handling of his material begins with the first measures of the opening Allegro, as the cello plays one of Dvorák’s meltingly beautiful melodies over the piano’s gentle arpeggios. Almost immediately, the mood changes with a rousing series of elaborate transformations of this theme. Not until many measures later does the viola introduce a second, minor-key theme. These contrasts – between gentle and vigorous, major and minor, lyrical and muscular – drive the rest of the movement, through its elaborate development and to its jubilant coda.
The Dumka, with its alternating lament and rhythmic folk dance, was a Dvorák specialty, and this one is superb. The opening melancholy melody alternates with two dances, the first a cheerful melody in D Major, the second a lively, rhythmic Vivace. Each time the lament returns it is treated more elaborately, with increasingly rich textures. Melodic invention and rhythmic verve drive the last two movements. The briskness of the effervescent Scherzo is interrupted by a tranquil trio. There’s barely an interruption in the merry Finale, a rhythmic adventure with a fugato in the development, a chorale near the end, and a dazzling, headlong coda.