Antonín Dvorák (1841 - 1904)
Vanda
In Nature's Realm, Op. 91
Carnival, Op. 92
Othello, Op. 93
My Home, Op. 62
Antonín Dvorák must be considered
the greatest of the Czech nationalist composers of the nineteenth and early twentieth
century, and he certainly enjoys the widest international popularity. His achievement was
to bring together music that derived its inspiration from Bohemia's woods and fields with
the classical traditions continued by Brahms in Vienna.
Dvorák was born in 1841 in a village
of Bohemia, where his father combined the trades of inn-keeper and butcher, which it was
expected that his son would later follow. As a child he played in his father's village
band, his early training as a violinist in the hands of the village schoolmaster.
Schooling in Zlonice, where he was sent at the age of twelve, lodging with an uncle,
allowed instruction in the rudiments of music from Antonín Liehmann. Two years later he
was sent to Kamenice to learn German, but the following year the needs of his family made
it necessary for him to return to Zlonice, where his parents had now settled, to help in
the butcher's shop. Liehmann continued his lessons and persuaded his father to allow him
to study in Prague. In 1857 he entered the Prague Organ School, where he was able to
remain for two years.
Dvorák at first earned his living in
Prague playing the viola in a band led by Karel Komsák, which was later to form part of
the Provisional Theatre orchestra, established in 1862. He was to become principal
viola-player and to continue as an orchestral player for the next nine years, for some
time under the direction of Smetana, who exercised considerable influence on Dvorák's
parallel work as a composer. In 1871 he found himself able to resign from the Provisional
Theatre orchestra and to marry. At this time he took a position as organist at the church
of St. Adalbert, taught a few pupils and otherwise devoted himself to composition. It was
through the encouragement of Brahms, four years later, that his music was brought
gradually to the attention of a much wider public. In particular Brahms was able to
persuade Simrock to publish Dvorák's Moravian Duets.
Their success was followed by the publisher's request for a further set, the first series
of Slavonic Dances, Opus 46, also composed
for piano duet, but orchestrated at the same time by the composer. The same year, 1878,
saw the composition of the three Slavonic Rhapsodies,
Opus 45.
From this time onwards Dvorák's fame was to grow and he was to
win particular popularity in Germany and in England, visiting the latter country on
several occasions and fulfilling commissions for choral works for Birmingham and Leeds. In
1891 he was appointed professor of composition at Prague Conservatory and the following
year accepted an invitation to go to New York as director of the new National
Conservatory. The period in America gave rise to one of his best known works, the Symphony
"From the New World". By 1895 he was back again in Prague, teaching at the
Conservatory, of which he became director in 1901. He died two years later.
Dvorák's first attempt at opera came
in 1870 on the improbable subject of Alfred the Great. This was followed by King and
Collier, written in 1871, and finally rejected by Smetana, after initial rehearsals at the
Provisional Theatre had demonstrated its impossibility. The Pig-headed Peasant, written in 1874, was only staged
seven years later, before being withdrawn. The five-act opera Vanda occupied the composer for the second half of
1875, but again success eluded him. The subject of the opera, based on an event in Polish
history, was remote enough from Dvorák's real gifts as a composer of opera, which became
apparent, relatively speaking, in some of his later stage works, although these too failed
to find a place in international repertoire, with the possible exception of Rusalka. The Overture to Vanda was the only part of the work to be published
and is, in consequence, occasionally heard in the concert-hall.
The three overtures In Nature's Realm, Carnival and Othello have enjoyed much greater success.
Originally given the titles Nature, Life and
Love, these three works were intended as a
trilogy of symphonic poems, the first of them dedicated to the University of Cambridge,
from which Dvorák received an honorary doctorate in 1891, and the second to the
University of Prague, from which he had received a similar honour a year earlier, the
period of their composition. The three overtures are united thematically, by a recurrent
pastoral theme, making its first appearance, appropriately in In Nature's Realm. The cheerful Carnival finds only a passing place for the theme,
which assumes more importance in Othello,
which has themes associated with jealousy and love, developed in the Allegro con brio that
follows the introduction.
The overture My Home was written in 1881 as part of the incidental
music Dvorák provided for the play Josef Kajetan Tyl
by the playwright Samberk. The overture makes use of a song with words by Tyl, founder of
the Czech Theatre and music by Skroup, a work music that later became the Czech national
anthem.
BBC Philharmonic
The BBC Philharmonic has come to
occupy a leading position among British orchestras, distinguished by the Royal
Philharmonic Society Music Award for large ensemble in 1991 in recognition of its standard
of performance and wide repertoire in broadcasting, concerts and recordings. The BBC
Northern Orchestra was established in 1934 in pursuance of the policy of providing
regional orchestras and in 1967 became the BBC Northern Symphony Orchestra, in 1982
assuming the title of the BBC Philharmonic. Based in Manchester, the orchestra has had a
series of eminent principal conductors, including Sir Charles Groves, George Hurst, Bryden
Thomson and Sir Edward Downes. Van Pascal Tortelier was appointed principal conductor in
1992. The orchestra enjoys particular fame for its performance of contemporary music and
has performed under the direction of a number of eminent composers, among them Sir Peter
Maxwell Davies who accepted the position of composer/conductor with the orchestra in July
1992.
Stephen Gunzenhauser
Conductor and Music Director of the
Delaware Symphony Orchestra, Stephen Gunzenhauser is one of the few conductors active in
both the U.S. and Eastern Europe. Over the past ten years, he has helped build the
Delaware Symphony into a major regional orchestra, while at the same time conducting and
recording with Eastern European orchestras including Poland's Silesian State Philharmonic
and Czechoslovakia's Slovak Philharmonic
Stephen Gunzenhauser, a graduate of
Oberlin College and the New England Conservatory, served Igor Markevich and Leopold
Stokowski as assistant conductor before becoming executive and artistic director of the
Wilmington Music School in 1974. In 1979, he became conductor and music director of the
Delaware Symphony Orchestra. He records exclusively for Naxos and Marco Polo and his
recordings include works of Schumann, Tchaikovsky, Dvorák, Vivaldi, Mozart, Gličre, and
Liadov. In 1989/90 he recorded all nine Dvorák symphonies with the Slovak Philharmonic,
as well as the three Borodin symphonies with the Czecho-Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra.