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Antonin Dvorak (1841 -1904) 22 Allegro non troppo Adagio ma non troppo Allegro giocoso, ma non troppo Among the greatest Czech Composers, from a land long famous for its musicians, Antonin Dvorak was born in 1841, the son of a village inn-keeper-cum-butcher, trades which it might have been expected that he would follow. His early musical talents, however, led him to study at the Prague Organ School and thereafter to earning his living as a viola-player in a band under Karel Komsak which was later to form part of the orchestra of the Provisional Theatre, established in 1862. He was to become principal viola-player and to continue his work as an orchestral player for the next nine years, for some time under the direction of Smetana, who exercised a Strong influence on Dvoräk’s parallel work as a composer. In 1871 he found himself able to resign from the orchestra and to marry, taking a position as Organist at the church of St. Adalbert, teaching a few pupils, and otherwise devoting himself to composition. It was four years later that, with the encouragement of Brahms, he was able to find a wider public for his work, Publishing with Simrock his vocal Moravian Duets and the first set of his Slavonic Dances. From this time onwards his reputation grew. While there might be conservative prejudices against a mere Bohemian in Vienna, Dvorak won particular popularity in Germany and in England. In 1891 he was appointed professor of composition at the Prague Conservatory and the following year accepted an invitation to go to New York as director of the new National Conservatory, an appointment that inspired the Symphony “From The New World”. By 1895 he was back in Prague, teaching at the Conservatory, of which he became director in 1901, two years before his death. Dvorak wrote the first Version of his Violin Concerto in the summer of 1879 and at the end of November sent the completed work to Brahms’s friend, the Violinist Joseph Joachim, to whom the concerto is dedicated. The following April he visited Joachim in Berlin and various suggested revisions were made. Joachim made further adjustments to the solo part, and the orchestral part, which had proved too heavy in a run-through in Berlin in 1882 with the orchestra of the Musikhochschule, was also revised. The work was completed in its final form by the end of the year and was first performed in October 1883 in Prague with the Czech Violinist Frantisek Ondricek, soloist also in December at the first Vienna performance, under Hans Richter. The first movement is introduced briefly by the orchestra, before the entry of the soloist with the principal theme, which dominates the movement. The soloist later introduces a secondary theme, but it is the first that remains of greater importance. The second movement is linked to the first, in spite of his publisher’s Suggestion that the two movements should be separated. Dvorak, however, considered that the first movement on its own would be too short. In F major, the slow movement Starts with a Statement of its theme by the soloist, the basis of what follows. The last movement, a Czech dumka, offers rieh melodic invention in contrasting episodes, marked by the recurrence of the principal theme, with its characteristic cross-rhythms.
