Antonín Dvořák Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Standard histories of Antonín Dvořák’s life have largely ignored his output in the field of the symphonic poem, especially his final work in the genre, Píseň bohatýrská (Heroic Song). Composed in 1897 after four other tone poems... more

Standard histories of Antonín Dvořák’s life have largely ignored his output in the field of the symphonic poem, especially his final work in the genre, Píseň bohatýrská (Heroic Song). Composed in 1897 after four other tone poems explicitly based on poems by the Czech writer and ethnographer Karel Jaromír Erben, this piece features a much more abstract program and depicts the life, travails, and ultimate victory of a Slavonic bardic hero, assumed by many to be the composer himself. It premiered in late 1898 and early 1899 in Vienna and Prague, respectively, inviting mostly favorable reviews and performances in many other European cities before sliding into obscurity after the turn of the twentieth century. I situate Píseň bohatýrská in both the context of Dvořák’s larger output and the critical discourses of the late nineteenth century, using it as a focal point to examine not only Dvořák’s mythologized image as a composer at the fin de siècle, but the history of the symphonic poem, the politics of the Vienna-Prague critical axis, and the hardening of critical orthodoxy in the twentieth century. Through an in-depth study of Píseň bohatýrská’s reception, I reveal a picture of Dvořák at once familiar and unfamiliar: as the naive, spontaneously creative absolute musician at odds, in the eyes of the critics, with the unfamiliar territory of the symphonic poem, and as a specifically Czech musician who was nevertheless placed in the same masculinized, Germanocentric composer-hero lineage of genius as Beethoven and Liszt. Nevertheless, the understanding of Dvořák as absolute Czech musician par excellence ultimately triumphed, weathering the assaults of his program music to survive into the present. This article provides a new understanding of the complexity of Dvořák’s image near the end of his life, inviting a reconsideration of the composer. Keywords: Dvořák, Píseň bohatýrská, program music, symphonic poem, reception

Dvorák’s song cycle Gypsy Songs op. 55 on words by the Czech poet Adolf Heyduk, were written at the beginning of 1880 at the request of the Bohemian tenor Gustav Walter, a member of the Vienna Court Opera and the work’s dedicatee. For... more

The article is based primarily on Josef Kořenský’s travelogue and diary, and in broader historical contexts it reports on Kořenský’s contacts with Antonín Dvořák in Prague in the 1870s and ´80 and in New York, where the two men met in... more

The article is based primarily on Josef Kořenský’s travelogue and diary, and in broader historical contexts it reports on Kořenský’s contacts with Antonín Dvořák in Prague in the 1870s and ´80 and in New York, where the two men met in late May and early June of 1893. There is a detailed description of voyage to America, including the realities of ocean crossings and information about Dvořák’s family. There are also introductions of other figures from the circle of Czech artists and intellectuals in New York at the time, such as Alfred Baštýř, who took stereoscopic photographs of the Dvořák family, and the violinist Karel Ondříček. The connections between Kořenský’s journey to America and the Czech patriotic milieu also receive attention.

Analysis, Historical information, and facts about Dvorak's New World Symphony: Symphony No 9

Především na základě cestopisu a deníku Josefa Kořenského a v širších historických souvislostech líčí článek Kořenského kontakty s Dvořákem v Praze v 70. a 80. letech 19. století a v New Yorku, kde se oba muži setkali na přelomu května a... more

Především na základě cestopisu a deníku Josefa Kořenského a v širších historických souvislostech líčí článek Kořenského kontakty s Dvořákem v Praze v 70. a 80. letech 19. století a v New Yorku, kde se oba muži setkali na přelomu května a června 1893. Detailně je popsána lodní cesta do Ameriky včetně reálií a údajů z rodinného života Dvořákových. Představeny jsou i další osobnosti z kroužku českých umělců a intelektuálů v New Yorku této doby, např. Alfred Baštýř - autor stereoskopických fotografií Dvořákovy rodiny či houslista Karel Ondříček. Opomenuta není ani souvztažnost Kořenského cesty do Ameriky s domácím vlasteneckým prostředím.

The Serenade op. 22 for strings was one of the first successes of A. Dvorak, and its evaluation has remained untouched to this day. This paper reviews the vital adventures of the author in the years before and after his composition and... more

The Serenade op. 22 for strings was one of the first successes of A. Dvorak, and its evaluation has remained untouched to this day. This paper reviews the vital adventures of the author in the years before and after his composition and the serenade as a musical genre, before a thematic and formal commentary on each movement.

The modification of Dvořák’s Piano Concerto op. 33 by Vilém Kurz originated probably closely before its premiere which took place in Prague on December 9, 1919. Kurz’s version was for the first time introduced to public by his own... more

The modification of Dvořák’s Piano Concerto op. 33 by Vilém Kurz originated probably closely before its premiere which took place in Prague on December 9, 1919. Kurz’s version was for the first time introduced to public by his own daughter Ilona Kurzová (later Štěpánová-Kurzová), a pianist and later a co-founder of the piano department at the Music Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. This version, which was designed to enhance the generally bad reputation of the work, was to be performed only by the students of Kurz’s school who were provided the piano part by Kurz to copy it. Rudolf Firkušný was one of his students and he especially helped to rehabilitate the work in Europe and gave its first performance in the U. S. Dvořák’s original version, so much discussed in the past, found its way back to the stage at the beginning of the 1960’s and again thanks to Rudolf Firkušný and the Russian pianist Sviatoslav Richter.

The use of four-note extended triadic harmonies in late-Romantic music is still under-researched, despite their great significance within this repertory. This article explores the use of four-note collections in the music of Dvořák,... more

The use of four-note extended triadic harmonies in late-Romantic music is still under-researched, despite their great significance within this repertory. This article explores the use of four-note collections in the music of Dvořák, specifically the prevalence of modal added-note harmonies in the music of the composer’s American period (1892–95). It offers a new perspective on the 'dual-tonic' complex by applying the theory of harmonic geometry currently being developed by Dmitri Tymoczko to triadic-based tetrachords.

Dvorák’s song cycle Gypsy Songs op. 55 on words by the Czech poet Adolf Heyduk, were written at the beginning of 1880 at the request of the Bohemian tenor Gustav Walter, a member of the Vienna Court Opera and the work’s dedicatee. For... more

The Viennese critic Eduard Hanslick had savagely criticised Liszt's symphonic poems when they appeared in the 1850s. This study looks at his reception of symphonic poems that appeared in the 1890s by Antonin Dvorak and Richard Strauss. A... more

The Viennese critic Eduard Hanslick had savagely criticised Liszt's symphonic poems when they appeared in the 1850s. This study looks at his reception of symphonic poems that appeared in the 1890s by Antonin Dvorak and Richard Strauss. A careful comparison of his reviews reveals an underlying bias in favour of Dvorak, despite the fact that his works were even more dependent on their subject matter for comprehension than were Strauss's.

The earliest extant E-flat contra alto clarinets was made by Alessandro Maldura in 1881 for the Milan Exhibition of Industry. It is preserved today in The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Its design is identical to Maldura's... more

The earliest extant E-flat contra alto clarinets was made by Alessandro Maldura in 1881 for the Milan Exhibition of Industry. It is preserved today in The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Its design is identical to Maldura's 1866 patent for a bass clarinet and ensemble music appears in Alessandro Vessela's "Studi d'instrumentazione per banda", Milan, 1897.
A more successful and widely marketed B-flat contra bass clarinet was designed by Gustave Besson's daughter, Marthe Josephine Besson, who trained as a maker under her father in Paris, and from 1878 was responsible for all the firm's patents. Marthe headed the firm after the death of her mother and married Adolphe Fontaine in 1880. Afterward, the company in Paris was named Fontaine-Besson and their London factory was F. Besson & Co. In 1888, Marthe became sole proprietress, supervising manufacturing and patenting a number of brass instrument designs. In 1889, a prototype contra bass clarinet was developed and illustrated in an 1894 advertisement. It was called a pedal clarinet in order to distinguish it from other bass clarinets. Marthe Besson summited a 15-year French patent for a re-designed pedal clarinet which was approved in 1890. Other patents for the pedal clarinet were approved in England (1891), Spain (1891), Belgium (1891), and Germany (1892). The pedal clarinet was also brought to the United States at the Chicago International Exposition and demonstrated by Louis-Albert Bretonneau, bass clarinetist of the Paris Opera Comique. Thus Besson promoted her pedal clarinet in six countries and in doing so, encouraged composers to write for it and music schools to purchase it. Today only six examples of the pedal clarinet have been located, but there others yet to be found. By the 1920s, Besson contra bass was superseded by Buffet-Crampon's Boehm-system contra bass clarinets.

This paper examines how the phenomenon of the fluctuating third in folk musics of Hungary and the Czech lands might be perceived and interpreted, in formal and affective terms, in a few select works by Central European composers ca.... more

This paper examines how the phenomenon of the fluctuating third in folk musics of Hungary and the Czech lands might be perceived and interpreted, in formal and affective terms, in a few select works by Central European composers ca. 1840–1940. It follows two previous studies of folk-music influence in Béla Bartók’s music by Imre Olsvai (1969) and Kata Riskó (2015) respectively, which speculate about how Bartók responded compositionally to the phenomenon sometimes (too restrictively) known as “Transdanubian third”. An examination of repertoire and compositional techniques by Liszt, Brahms and Dvořák reveals that the origins of this adaptation predates Bartók by many decades. Beyond ascertaining the transcultural origin of this particular adaptive practice in art music (a challenge in itself that will be tackled to some extent), there is a particular question about whether and how such a practice impacted on a more traditional major-minor tonal syntax, as well as ethos. In respect of the latter, this study builds on Patrik Juslin's (2001) and Michael Spitzer's (2010) music-orientated development of James Russell's (1980) circumplex model of emotion, further expanding these methods to include the basic, and admittedly crude (but useful) happy/sad dichotomy associated with major and minor respectively. Alongside other musical elements and acoustic cues, what a few select, suggestive examples will show is the way composers twisted and bended the usual meaning of these modes, by listening 'transculturally' to oral cultures with a different modal ethos. The methods offered are preliminary and the sample tiny. More solid conclusions will require big-data research, But the qualitative kind of analysis offered here should encourage such a continuation.

Dvořák’s last opera Armida to the libretto of Jaroslav Vrchlický (on the motives of Jerusalem Delivered by Torquato Tasso) has remained practically forgotten to this day. The negative public and critical reception of the 1904 premiere... more

Dvořák’s last opera Armida to the libretto of Jaroslav Vrchlický (on the motives of Jerusalem Delivered by Torquato Tasso) has remained practically forgotten to this day. The negative public and critical reception of the 1904 premiere meant that Armida had only a brief initial run before being pulled from the National Theatre’s repertoire. The myth-veiled work was abandoned until the arrival of a new political regime and a new artistic generation, which endeavoured to enter Dvořák’s opera into the repertoire of Czech theatres. The most prominent of these efforts was Ostrčil’s production of Armida at the National Theatre in 1928, but even that failed to secure a decisive victory for Armida. The critics questioned the quality of the libretto and the overall dramatic structure of the opera. They also discussed the style, the choice of exotic theme,
and the stage design, which went against the essence of Wagnerian drama and “grand opera”.

On the 110th anniversary of the death of Antonín Dvořák, a song-maraton took place in the Moravian-Silesian National Theater in Ostrava, during which for the first time all Dvořák's songs were heard for one voice with piano accompaniment.... more

On the 110th anniversary of the death of Antonín Dvořák, a song-maraton took place in the Moravian-Silesian National Theater in Ostrava, during which for the first time all Dvořák's songs were heard for one voice with piano accompaniment. The auditorium in the hall and on the radios had an extraordinary opportunity to hear Dvořák's entire song oeuvre in an eve. The booklet deals with a study of Dvořák's song compositions (Ondřej Šupka), his intellectual horizon (Jan Kachlík) and a study of Dvořák's song work in recording studios (Martin Jemelka). The audience also had access to all the texts of Dvořák's songs in the booklet.

Notas de Programa para a Temporada de Música Gulbenkian (2017-2018).

The study deals with Vladimír Helfert’s relationship towards the work of Antonín Dvořák. The musicologist Vladimír Helfert (1886–1945) developed his relationship. After absorbing Hostinský’s theory on Dvořák’s operatic work, Helfert, as a... more

The study deals with Vladimír Helfert’s relationship towards the work of Antonín Dvořák. The musicologist Vladimír Helfert (1886–1945) developed his relationship. After absorbing Hostinský’s theory on Dvořák’s operatic work, Helfert, as a pupil of Nejedlý, strongly sided with the Smetana supporters in the famous fi ghts over Dvořák which culminated at the end of 1912. Together with Josef Bartoš, Helfert started a sharp campaign against Dvořák, which Nejedlý, as a supporter of his students, joined only later. In his ideas, Helfert's continued the theories of Hostinský and Nejedlý, and especially developed Hostinský’s note on Dvořák’s musicianship and folkishness. He labelled Dvořák as the top representative of this style, noting that his work did not bring anything new to the development of musical form. Together with Bartoš, they criticized contemporary dramaturgy of musical institutions in Prague that focused on the productions of Dvořák’s works and suppressed the works of the generation of younger composers (the criticism of the slogan „more of Dvořák“ which came up after the success of Dvořák’s works abroad.) After Helfert moved to Brno in 1919, he started to change his opinion of Dvořák slowly, among others also in connection with his works on the music at the Jaroměřice castle. Helfert reassessed his opinions and published them in the treatise Česká moderní hudba (Czech Modern Music) in 1936 as well as in other texts in which he elevated so-called „musicianship“ stream of the Czech music to the level of the form-creating stream, meaning he put Dvořák on the same level as Bedřich Smetana. He admitted his mistakes from the time of the battle over Dvořák, which he led under the infl uence of his teacher, in a letter to Otakar Šourek, an outstanding Dvořák’s researcher, in 1929.

Antonín Dvořák composed his last opera after 15 months of searching a new operatic topic. He decided for Jaroslav Vrchlický's libretto Armida from 1888, wchich was written after T. Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered. The genesis of the opera... more

Antonín Dvořák composed his last opera after 15 months of searching a new operatic topic. He decided for Jaroslav Vrchlický's libretto Armida from 1888, wchich was written after T. Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered. The genesis of the opera consist of a few compositional phases (first sketches, consistent sketch, full score). On stage wasn't Armida successful. It's first performance in 1904 was embarrassed and for the next performance at the stage of National Theatre in Prague Armida had to wait till 1928. Editional history of the opera includes only the vocal score (1941, 1951), full score still waits for its publication.

Geç Romantik Dönem Çek bestecisi, keman ve org virtüözü

It had been almost a year and three months after fi nishing Rusalka on 27 November 1900, when Dvořák started to look closer at the libretto for his new opera Armida in February and March 1902. He had learnt about the available libretto... more

It had been almost a year and three months after fi nishing Rusalka on 27 November 1900, when Dvořák started to look closer at the libretto for his new opera Armida in February and March 1902. He had learnt about the available libretto which was offered to him already in 1888 from its author, Jaroslav Vrchlický, when they met in the National Theatre during a performance of Vrchlický's drama Soud lásky. Dvořák started to study the libretto continuously and thoroughly and soon he drafted first motives. In the same time he was intensively meeting Vrchlický from whom he requested changes in the libretto however Vrchlický did not comply with everything. From the beginning of March, the composer had been drafting all four acts in the form of a short score. After that, he made the full score for the fi rst and second act and subsequently for the third and fourth acts, after the score without overture was submitted to the National Theatre for copying (the overture was composed by Dvořák later, from 17 to 23 August 1903). In the pauses between composing, he probably worked on the piano reduction of the opera which he recorded from the very bottom lines of the score. The manuscript of Dvořák's score was copied by four copyists at the same time. Unfortunately, many mistakes were found in the copies already during the fi rst rehearsals, their corrections bothered already complicated rehearsals‘ course which was supervised by Dvořák himself.

Robert Gooding-Williams, in his essay “Aesthetics and Receptivity: Kant, Nietzsche, Cavell, and Astaire,” takes issue very strongly with Stanley Cavell’s readings of scenes from the 1953 Fred Astaire musical The Band Wagon. Where Cavell... more

Robert Gooding-Williams, in his essay “Aesthetics and Receptivity: Kant, Nietzsche, Cavell, and Astaire,” takes issue very strongly with Stanley Cavell’s readings of scenes from the 1953 Fred Astaire musical The Band Wagon. Where Cavell sees a general human difficulty, Gooding-Williams sees problems that come from privilege; where Cavell sees an acknowledgment of and tribute to black American culture, Gooding-Williams sees appropriation and exploitation. This paper tries to defend Cavell’s reading, not by trying to prove Gooding-Williams wrong but by augmenting Cavell’s interpretation and expanding the scope of the tribute or homage Cavell finds in these dance numbers. It seems to me that under Minnelli’s direction, Astaire’s dancing becomes an acknowledgment of more than one kind of oppressed American group. This dance, this movie, and Hollywood movies like it illustrate a special kind of hope, goal, or ideal for America, and even for humanity beyond America.

Armida, Dvořák's last opera, was fi rst performed immediately after its completion in 1904. However, the preparation for the fi rst performance were accompanied by problems – confl icts with the conductor František Picka, the illness of... more

Armida, Dvořák's last opera, was fi rst performed immediately after its completion in 1904. However, the preparation for the fi rst performance were accompanied by problems – confl icts with the conductor František Picka, the illness of Bohumil Pták playing the role of Rinaldo and a neglectful stage production. Nor the premiere was successful. Although the audience encored the composer, he could not make it to the stage as he had to leave the theatre during the performance due to a health issue that later caused his death. The critics were disunited in the opinions on the opera – some stressed its modernism, other regarded the work as not very good. Leoš Janáček, who was present at some of the rehearsals and at the dress rehearsal, expressed his opinion that Armida would have been the beginning of new Dvořák's opera style.

This article discusses the appearance of a motto (in its original shape and in variants) throughout Antonín Dvořák's Requiem, reading it as a representation as a musical "other" that in this context may stand for death and an - ultimately... more

This article discusses the appearance of a motto (in its original shape and in variants) throughout Antonín Dvořák's Requiem, reading it as a representation as a musical "other" that in this context may stand for death and an - ultimately unsuccessful - attempt to integrate it musically into normal proceedings.

A detailed account of some of the challenges involved in preparing a new edition of the Mass in D, and of the differences between the manuscript sources and published editions, in the light of new research carried out by the author, and... more

A detailed account of some of the challenges involved in preparing a new edition of the Mass in D, and of the differences between the manuscript sources and published editions, in the light of new research carried out by the author, and with an emphasis on the British Library manuscript copy by Jan Elsnic, authorised by the composer and bearing his corrections, revisions and the addition of a part for violoncello and double-bass.

Presentación de la Octava Sinfonía de DVORAK con la Orquesta Nacional de España, dirigida por Christoph Eschenbach. 18 noviembre 2018.

Pomenovanie tém v "Allegro moderato" a ich obmien ako ustanovujúceho princípu sonátovej formy. Všeobecný vývoj a hudobná reč sláčikového kvarteta v porovnaní s jedinečným prístupom Antonína Dvořáka ku konvenciám sonátovej formy a... more

Pomenovanie tém v "Allegro moderato" a ich obmien ako ustanovujúceho princípu sonátovej formy. Všeobecný vývoj a hudobná reč sláčikového kvarteta v porovnaní s jedinečným prístupom Antonína Dvořáka ku konvenciám sonátovej formy a komorných foriem. Analýza tematických prvkov a tonálneho vývoja v "Allegro moderato" ako vhľad do kompozičnej techniky neskorého Dvořáka.

Standard histories of Antonín Dvořák's life have largely ignored his output in the field of the symphonic poem, especially his final work in the genre, Píseň bohatýrská (Heroic Song). Composed in 1897 after four other tone poems... more

Standard histories of Antonín Dvořák's life have largely ignored his output in the field of the symphonic poem, especially his final work in the genre, Píseň bohatýrská (Heroic Song). Composed in 1897 after four other tone poems explicitly based on poems by the Czech writer and ethnographer Karel Jaromír Erben, this piece features a much more abstract program and depicts the life, travails, and ultimate victory of a Slavonic bardic hero, assumed by many to be the composer himself. It premiered in late 1898 and early 1899 in Vienna and Prague, respectively, inviting mostly favorable reviews and performances in many other European cities before sliding into obscurity after the turn of the twentieth century. I situate Píseň bohatýrská in both the context of Dvořák's larger output and the critical discourses of the late nineteenth century, using it as a focal point to examine not only Dvořák's mythologized image as a composer at the fin de siècle, but the history of the symp...

This paper examines how the phenomenon of the fluctuating third in folk musics of Hungary and the Czech lands might be perceived and interpreted, in formal and affective terms, in a few select works by Central European composers ca.... more

This paper examines how the phenomenon of the fluctuating third in folk musics of Hungary and the Czech lands might be perceived and interpreted, in formal and affective terms, in a few select works by Central European composers ca. 1840–1940. It follows two previous studies of folk-music influence in Béla Bartók’s music by Imre Olsvai (1969) and Kata Riskó (2015) respectively, which speculate about how Bartók responded compositionally to the phenomenon sometimes (too restrictively) known as “Transdanubian third”. An examination of repertoire and compositional techniques by Liszt, Brahms and Dvořák reveals that the origins of this adaptation predates Bartók by many decades. Beyond ascertaining the transcultural origin of this particular adaptive practice in art music (a challenge in itself that will be tackled to some extent), there is a particular question about whether and how such a practice impacted on a more traditional major-minor tonal syntax, as well as ethos. In respect of ...

Reviews "Travelers to the New Naation, 1776-1914: An American Studies Reader," Marc Pachter, editor -- the public diplomacy edition published by the U.S. International Communication Agency in 1976. The book is a collection of essays on... more

Reviews "Travelers to the New Naation, 1776-1914: An American Studies Reader," Marc Pachter, editor -- the public diplomacy edition published by the U.S. International Communication Agency in 1976. The book is a collection of essays on foreign visitors to the United States. Alexis de Toqueville is the most well known, but the 20 other essays address the visits of such figures as Frances Trollope, Charles Dickens, Georges Clemenceau, Jose Marti, Antonin Dvorak, Swami Vivekanada, Hu Shih, and Liang Ch'i-chao.

The book is the first complete edition of a unique source for understanding the personality of Antonín Dvořák. It contains the correspondence of the Dvořák's faithful assistant during his American stay, excellent violist Josef Jan Kovařík... more

The book is the first complete edition of a unique source for understanding the personality of Antonín Dvořák. It contains the correspondence of the Dvořák's faithful assistant during his American stay, excellent violist Josef Jan Kovařík with Dvořák's biographer Otakar Šourek. The book contains historical study, medallions of important personalities, publishing and editorial report, registers and pictures. The book brings alive, new and sometimes surprising view of the great composer.