Cont. He was, however, less docile now, and there was some friction, particularly concerning an elaborate cadenza that Wihan added to the finale. A reconciliation was achieved easily enough, but ironically a series of misunderstandings over dates between Dvořák and the Secretary of the Philharmonic Society of London made it impossible for Wihan to give the premiere of the concerto that had meanwhile been dedicated to him. Wihan played the piece for the first time in 1899 with the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra under Willem Mengelberg, and he later performed it on several occasions under the composer’s direction. The first movement introduces two of Dvořák’s most memorable themes. The one at the beginning—low clarinet, joined by bassoons, with a somber accompaniment of violas, cellos, and basses—lends itself to a remarkable series of oblique, multi-faceted harmonizations, and the other, more lyrical, is one of the loveliest horn solos in the literature. The Adagio begins in tranquility, but this mood is quickly broken by an orchestral outburst that introduces a quotation from one of Dvořák’s own songs, now sung by the cello in its high register and with tearing intensity. The song, the first of a set composed 1887-88, is “Kez duch muj san” (“Leave me alone”), and it was a special favorite of the composer’s sister-in-law, Josefina Kaunitzová. Thirty years earlier Dvořák had been very much in love with the then sixteen-year-old Josefina Čermáková, an aspiring actress to whom he gave piano lessons. The love was not returned, and Dvořák eventually married Josefina’s younger sister Anna, but something of the old feeling remained, and the song intruded on the concerto when the news of Josefina’s illness reached the Dvořáks on East 17th Street in New York. Josefina died on May 27, 1895, a month after the composer’s return from America, and it was in her memory that Dvořák added the elegiac coda to which he did not want Wihan to add a cadenza. For the song returns in the finale, and that coda stops the dancelike momentum. Here is what Dvořák wrote about that passage: “The Finale closes gradually diminuendo, like a sigh, with reminiscences of the first and second movements—the solo dies down . . . then swells again, and the last bars are taken up by the orchestra and the whole concludes in a stormy mood. That is my idea and I cannot depart from it.” He had been skeptical about writing a concerto for cello. Now he had written the best one we have. And Brahms, his friend and benefactor, growled: “Why in the world didn’t I know one could write a cello concerto like this? If I’d only known I’d have done it long ago!” Program notes by Michael Steinberg
Paul Dukas
Antonín Dvořák
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