The fifth edition of Dvorak: The Chamber Music Survey: Antonin Dvorak’s early Romantic composition, the String Quartet No. 5 in F minor; selections from the love song cycle Cypresses; and the Slavonic-flavored String Sextet in A major, performed by the acclaimed Quartet 131.
Quartet 131 artist: Regi Papa (violin I), Laura Jean Goldberg (violin II), Andy Lin (viola), Robert La Rue (cello). Guest artists: Marcus R. Pyle (viola), Mihai Marica (cello).
Dvorak: The Chamber Music Survey is a multi-year series organized by the Dvorak American Heritage Association (DAHA), in which all of Dvorak’s chamber music will be heard by New York audiences.
This ambitious and unprecedented series is organized by violinist Laura Jean Goldberg, DAHA Music Advisor, who will provide music commentary during the program.
DAHA adheres to all current admission policies regarding COVID-19. Proof of vaccination is required and masks strongly recommended for indoor events.
General admission to be paid at the door: $30; seniors, students $20.
PROGRAM NOTES
Dvorak String Quartet in F Minor, opus 9 (Quartet # 5; B.37) Dvorak composed most of this early work during the month of September 1873, finishing it on 4 October of the same year. During his youth, before coming into the orbit of Johannes Brahms, Dvorak had been an ardent follower of the exuberant Romantic style exemplified by Liszt and Wagner. In many of Dvorak's early works the passionate musical rhetoric bursts the limits of Classical form, leading to a great expansion of the time frame, almost in operatic style.
The still relatively unknown composer had been promised a performance of the work by the Bennewitz Quartet, but the players backed out of the agreement at the last moment. Dvorak was very upset by this rejection and hid the work, never showing it again. This youthful, stormy Romantic composition was rediscovered in 1929 by the German Composer Günther Raphael, and it was premiered by the Kramář Quartet on 11 January 1930.
Selections from Dvorak's Cypresses. In 1887, Dvorak made String Quartet arrangements of some of his own early songs for voice and piano, also titled Cypresses. These arrangements are numbered B.152. The composer arranged 12 out of 18 of the original songs. These early love songs are settings of poems by Gustav Pfleger-Moravsky from the collection "Cypresses."
Dvorak String Sextet in A Major, opus 48 Composed during the month of May, 1878; the Sextet Opus 48 in A Major was Dvorak's first work to be performed outside Bohemia. The German publisher Simrock showed it to the celebrated violinist Joseph Joachim, who actually premiered the work in Berlin on July 19th of 1879. The Sextet was written at the same time as the Slavonic Dances Opus 46, and it partakes of their Slavonic flavor. During this period of his life, Dvorak emulated Brahms, aiming for works of abstract music, conforming to the formal schemes of the Austro-German tradition.
By Moshe S. Knoll D.M.A.
For more information about the artists, visit www.dvoraknyc.org.
This even is organized by the Dvorak American Heritage Association (DAHA), with support of BBLA.