Cont. throated statement of the “spell” theme from the brass and a lull in the action—the apprentice has cut the broom into pieces—the contrabassoon begins the melee again. This time the orchestra gets even more frantic. At the peak of the action, the brass once again powerfully state the “spell” theme. The master has returned and restores order. All is quiet until a final orchestral outburst signals the end of the story. Program notes by John P. Varineau CELLO CONCERTO IN B MINOR, OP. 104 – Antonín Dvořák Born: September 8, 1841, Mühlhausen (Nelahozeves), Bohemia Died: May 1, 1904, Prague Composed: Begun in New York on November 8, 1894, working simultaneously on sketches and the full score, and completed on February 9, 1895. In response to the death of his sister-in-law, Josefina Kaunitzová, Dvořák composed a new coda for the finale in June 1895. World Premiere: March 19, 1896. Cellist Leo Stern, with Dvořák conducting, in London Program Notes: Dvořák’s fame at home began with the performance in 1873 of a patriotic cantata called Heirs of the White Mountain. (It was the defeat of the Bohemians by the Austrians at the battle of the White Mountain just outside Prague in 1620 that led to the absorption of Bohemia into the Hapsburg Empire, a condition that lasted until 1918.) His international reputation was made by the first series of Slavonic Dances of 1878 and also by the Stabat Mater. The success of the latter work in England was nothing less than sensational, and particularly in the world of choir festivals Dvořák became a beloved figure there like no composer since Mendelssohn. In the 1890s, this humble man, who had picked up the rudiments of music in his father’s combination butcher-shop and pub, who had played the fiddle at village weddings and had sat for years among the violas in the pit of the Prague Opera House, would conquer America as well, even serving for three years as Director of the National Conservatory in New York. Dvořák enjoyed his first American visit. Nonetheless, he was glad to go home in the spring of 1894 and reluctant to return that fall. Ultimately, however, Dvořák signed another contract with the National Conservatory, and on November 1 he was at work again. The previous spring he had heard Victor Herbert, then principal cellist at the Metropolitan Opera, play his Cello Concerto No. 2 in Brooklyn; now he began to realize a scheme that that experience had suggested. In 1865 he had written a Cello Concerto in A major, but he never bothered to orchestrate that unsatisfactory work. Moreover, Dvořák for some time had wanted to write a work for his friend Hanuš Wihan, cellist of the Bohemian Quartet and the composer’s partner on a concert tour in 1892. Just as Dvořák had encouraged violinist Joseph Joachim to give him advice, to suggest and even to make revisions in the Violin Concerto of 1879, he now leaned on Wihan for technical assistance with the Cello Concerto.
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