Crossing Parallels Past — Aspect Chamber Music Series

PROGRAM NOTES

Antonín Dvořák

(1841–1904)

String Sextet in A major, Op. 48

Allegro moderato

Dumka (Elegie): Poco allegretto

Furiant: Presto

Finale. Tema con variazioni: Allegretto grazioso, quasi andantino

Antonín Dvořák’s String Sextet was written in about two weeks in May 1878, around the same time that he was working on his Slavonic Rhapsodies (Op. 45) and first set of Slavonic Dances (Op. 46). This was a crucial period for Dvořák, and in these three works in particular he was finding his voice as a distinctly ‘Slavonic’ classical composer. That wasn’t as hard for him as it was for some of his nationalist compatriots. Unlike them, Dvořák came from a simple, rural background rather than having grown up in a prosperous middle-class family. Not only was Czech his native tongue (it was still the language of poor people in the mid-nineteenth century), the folk music of Bohemia was in his blood. If he wanted a folk song, he didn’t have to go out and find one or look for it in a book, he could simply compose one, with no nervous qualms about ‘authenticity’.

No, the challenge Dvořák faced was how to integrate his feeling for Czech and more broadly Slavic folk music with the symphonic thinking embodied in the music of Beethoven and of the man who was soon to become his friend and mentor, Johannes Brahms. In the Slavonic Rhapsodies and Slavonic Dances he was able to show the world that, like Brahms in his hugely successful Hungarian Dances (1852–69), he could present music of ‘national’ character in a way likely to appeal to classically trained musicians, professional and amateur alike. But in the Sextet he went a stage further. As their names suggest, the middle two movements are based, like the Slavonic Dances, on distinct folk-dance styles. The first movement, however, is more abstract, more symphonic, in the sense that it submits motifs to a sophisticated process of development, making strong use of dynamic contrast, while the finale is cast in a form that goes right back to Haydn and Mozart: the more orderly, regularly-structured process of ‘theme and variations’.

Almost certainly, Dvořák looked to Brahms for encouragement in the Sextet’s first movement. There’s a strong resemblance here to the first movement of Brahms’s First Sextet (1860): both are easy-going, warm-toned, with gently flowing lines accompanying a long-breathed melody. But the melody here is pure Dvořák, especially in its lovely lilting repetitions. And the way he develops both this and the animated second theme is more impulsive, more fleet-footed than the Brahms. The name of the slow movement, Dumka, means ‘a little thought’ in several Slavic languages, and in character the original folk dance is inclined to be melancholic and reflective. Some traditional dumky play with contrasts in mood and tempo, so that the pensive first section alternates with music that is much more upbeat, sometimes almost manically elated. Dvořák was to make a great deal of this contrast in other works, notably the famous ‘Dumky’ Piano Trio, Op. 90 (1891). There is contrast here, provided by a somewhat languid dance theme, marked Adagio, quasi tempo di marcia, but the mood remains wistful, the mode firmly minor-key.

The real contrast is provided by the Furiant third movement. The furiant Dvořák knew from childhood was a rapid three-time dance, often with dizzying rhythmic changes; but here he keeps to a steady, lively three-time. Finally the Tema con variazioni presents a theme which seems unsure whether it’s in B minor or the home key A major, a tone-step lower. Each of the five variations maintains this delicately poised tonal ambiguity – itself characteristic of quite a few Slavic folk tunes. It is in the faster coda that the tensions are finally worked through and resolved, in true Beethovenian symphonic manner. The Sextet made a great impression on the Hungarian virtuoso violinist and composer Joseph Joachim, who arranged a private performance of it at a special soirée for the composer in 1879, before leading the public premiere in Berlin a few months later. Dvořák was delighted: ‘They played with great understanding and enthusiasm’, he wrote. It was the beginning of his steady climb to international stardom.

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

(1840–1893)

String Sextet in D minor, Op. 70 ‘Souvenir de Florence’

Allegro con spirito

Adagio cantabile e con moto

Allegretto moderato

Allegro vivace

Tchaikovsky’s only string sextet has the subtitle ‘Souvenir of Florence’, apparently for no more significant reason than that one of its themes was sketched during a stay in that much-visited Italian city. It would be lovely to think of Tchaikovsky strolling around the streets, enjoying the sights, immersing himself in Renaissance art, or leaning pensively on one of the bridges over the River Arno, drinking in the atmosphere. The lovely long arching melody that begins the slow second movement does sound like something he might have heard in the opera house, though some might argue that the singer has a slight Russian accent.

In fact, Tchaikovsky was much too busy in Florence to do much sight-seeing. The main purpose of his visit in 1889 was to compose his brilliant but decidedly sinister opera The Queen of Spades – a task which he managed to accomplish in a breathtaking forty-four days. Given the febrile atmosphere of much of the opera, and the fact that much of it spoke directly to Tchaikovsky’s own internal pains and nightmares, it doesn’t seem likely that this was a very relaxing time. But the ‘Souvenir’, which he wrote the following summer, does convey the impression that the experience was largely positive. The main theme of the first movement is headstrong and impassioned, but the disturbed subjectivity of the later symphonies is less in evidence here. Its character is more that of a driven waltz, and it does yield temporarily to tender melodic expansion in the second theme. Perhaps, as in the famous Italian tarantella, the purpose is to dance away the darkness. There is something exultant about the minor-key ending.

Opening the second movement, a wonderful slow, hymn-like introduction – almost like a great sigh of relief – leads to the gorgeous ‘operatic’ theme mentioned above. This starts as a soprano aria (first violin), then the first cello joins in, doing a more than passable imitation of a tenor. This eventually returns to build to a rapturous climax, but only after a strange, largely-hushed middle section, marked Moderato, all nervous string figures and enigmatic pizzicatos, which Tchaikovsky compared to the eerie flickering of summer lightning. An energetic dance movement follows, based on a tune that might strike some ears as more Russian than Italian. Finally, the Allegro vivace returns to the spirit of the energetic dance, again possibly as a means of purging melancholy through vigorous communal action – a notion common to the peasant cultures of both Italy and Russia. This ‘Souvenir’ is, however, much more than a colorful picture postcard. In its slightly more modest way it is as masterfully structured and argued as any of the later symphonies. Granted, the style is more orchestral than that of Dvořák’s intimately voiced Sextet, which is not too surprising given that Tchaikovsky had far less experience as a chamber music composer and performer than Dvořák. But the use of solo instruments adds greatly to the character of the melodic writing and to the beauty of the textures – qualities which can be weakened when the ‘Souvenir’ is performed (as it often is) by a string orchestra.

CROSSING PARALLELS: TCHAIKOVSKY & DVORAK

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