Dvořák & Tchaikovsky

Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904)
String Quintet No. 3 in E-flat, op. 97 (1893) 

• Allegro non tanto 

• Allegro vivo - Un poco meno mosso

• Larghetto 

• Finale: Allegro giusto 

Antonín Dvořák lived in the time of compelling feelings of love for his own country and colorful home culture. His musical language was inspired by Czech folk music, among other things, and he felt at home among simple people and in the tranquility of nature. When, in later life, he had become a world celebrity with his rock-solid and always appealing music, in 1892 he was invited (very honorably) to become director of the conservatory in New York. He lasted three years there, but his homesickness for "home" in the Czech Republic made him return to Prague as soon as he could. 

The intention of the officials who invited him was clear but also very naive: Dvořák was famous as the creator of a Czech national musical language grafted onto the folk music of his country. How about if he did the same for America? Surely devising a typical American idiom had to be possible for him. He was paid handsomely and was helped and pampered in every possible way. Only: in his homeland he was driven by his bond, grown from childhood, with the culture surrounding him, which had slowly grown into an idiom of his own that was essentially Czech. But there could be no question of germinating, growing and maturing in America. Results had to be achieved quickly, and no matter how much he tried, it was impossible. 

The composer was happiest during the American period during the summer months he spent in Spillville, a village in Iowa where a Czech community lived and where almost only Czech was spoken. There he was freed from the pressures of work and nagging at his head, and the rural tranquility did him good. To the sounds of the Czech language, music began to flow again. His most famous works originated here, in an atmosphere of homesickness: the completion of the Ninth Symphony "From the New World" and the American Quartet. Shortly afterwards, the String Quintet in E-flat.. The world-famous Cello Concerto is from the Last winter Dvořák spent in New York. That work, too, exudes a yearning for "home. 

The Third String Quintet premiered in New York along with the first performance of the American Quartet. The Kneisel Quartet brought the hall to rapturous acclaim. One reviewer suggested that the percussive theme of the quintet's second movement might have been inspired by folk music the composer had heard in Spillville. The theme of the third movement, a variation movement, was thought to be a melody for a new American folk song. There was a great need for this because the English national anthem was still being sung in America. Unfortunately, Dvořák did not quite get there and the beautiful melody was used for the slow movement of the Quintet where it exuded nothing American but a Slavic melancholy. 

In the intermission we serve a free drink

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)
String Sextet 'Souvenir de Florence' in d, op. 70 (1890/1892) 

• Allegro con spirito 

• Adagio cantabile e con moto

• Allegretto moderato 

• Allegro vivace 

Practically at the same time as Dvořák's quintet, Tchaikovsky's sextet "Souvenir de Florence" was also created . Although Igor Stravinsky called his great predecessor "the most Russian composer," his idiom was not, as with Dvořák, connected to the rural nature of his homeland and the human simplicity of his countrymen. Tchaikovsky had a refined and tormented soul, and in addition he was connected to French culture from an early age, perhaps because of his mother's French ancestry. Although he used Russian folk melodies in his music, you won't find in him the pounding rhythms of Russian folk dances, or nostalgia-filled paintings of Russian nature. His world was mostly personally colored, and we should also understand his sextet "Souvenir de Florence" as a personal testimony to his stay in Florence. The work is in no way a description of the city or a suggestion of Italian culture. 

Everything this sextet seems to be, it is not. It erupts right at the beginning in a spontaneous and furious wildness that seems to define the entire score. But in reality, the composition was created with extreme difficulty. He had started working on it three years earlier but in summer 1890 he started working in earnest. The composer wanted to create a new form far removed from the string quartet, the most widely used form of chamber music of which he himself had written three. He realized that the six homogeneous yet independent voices worked very orchestrally, and the piece is also often played by string orchestra. Yet it was explicitly conceived as chamber music, as a gift for the chamber music society in St. Petersburg.   

After the initial struggles, the score was suddenly finished on August 6, 1890. 'At this moment I am incredibly pleased with myself!' wrote the always uncertain and doubting Tchaikovsky. 'Terrible, as enthusiastic as I am about myself!' This refers to the virtuoso final fugue, and we can only agree with him because this joyful and passionate music seems to come straight from the heart without learned detours. 

Katja Reichenfeld