Day Fourteen: du Prè, Barenboim and the Dvorak Cello Concerto
Celebrated as one of the most important works in the cello’s solo literature, the Cello Concerto by Antonin Dvorak reportedly moved Brahms to say; “Why on earth didn’t I know that one could write a cello concerto like this? Had I known, I would have written one long ago.”
Dvorak began work on the piece in New York in November 1894, the work receiving its premiere in London in 1896 with Leo Stern as the soloist. The recording chosen for today was taken from a concert given by two of the twentieth century’s most iconic figures, Daniel Barenboim and Jacqueline du Pré, in support of the people of Czechoslovakia days after the Soviet Union invaded in 1968.
At the time of writing the concerto, Dvorak could probably have only known the two concerti by Haydn, Schumann’s concerti, the first of the concerti by Saint Saens and Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations. The repertoire was by no means vast, certainly in comparison to the violin or piano and indeed, Dvorak himself was not the greatest advocate of the cello as a solo instrument, commenting that “High up it sounds nasal, and low down it growls”. All of that aside, he then gave the instrument and the form its finest example. It would prove to be the last major symphonic work of his career.
The first movement is highly emotive, expansive music. Traditionally, a concerto avoids modulating to a new key for the second subject in the orchestral introduction, a luxury usually saved for the soloist later on. In this concerto, however, Dvorak commits the sin and in doing so gives one of the most beautiful melodies to the horn, exquisitely played here by the legendary horn player Barry Tuckwell from the London Symphony Orchestra. As the cellist enters, the music grows ever richer, the development section a sublime example of Dvorak’s gift for lyricism. In the recapitulation, Dvorak breaks another traditional rule, totally bypassing the repetition of the main theme and jumping straight to the horn theme again, as if he just simply could not wait to hear it again!
While he was writing the melancholic second movement, Dvorak received word that his sister-in-law, Josefina Kaunitzová (with whom he had once been in love), was seriously ill. As a tribute, Dvorak included one of her favourite melodies, “Kéž duch můj sám” (Leave me alone), the first of his Four Songs, op. 82. The final movement is a playful rondo and, upon Dvorak’s return to Bohemia and his hearing of the death of Josefina, he took the jaunty finale up again and added a contemplative coda as a memorial. The Concerto still ends in a good spirit but its a different piece to the one he was imagining and writing in New York.
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