Antonin Dvorak
alanwa...@googlemail.com
groups) just an observation to say that May 1 is the anniversary of
the death in 1904 of the great composer Antonin Leopold Dvorak.
Fortunately he retains his place in the great pantheon of music
although perhaps some compositions are not as well known as they
should be.
A highly distinctive individual in so many ways, a young man from very
humble beginnings who was given his chance as a musician by Smetana, a
man who despite great success made very little out of it financially,
a man of great principal and a man of great humility despite his
"worldwide fame" at the end of his life.
A man who when in residence at his country retreat thought nothing of
setting out at 4 a.m. on foot to walk to the nearest chapel three
miles away to play the harmonium at a tiny wooden chapel for the first
Mass of the day and then three miles back. Whether they knew his
stature in the world of music I think doubtful: no internet, no
really international newspapers into what was, effectively, peasant
country.
His affection for that tiny little harmonium with all it's musical
restrictions found it's way into the brief but beautiful Five
Bagatelles for two violins, cello and.....harmonium. Very simple and
very, very beautiful.
He had an important part in music in America, I believe, and left a
wonderful symphony as perhaps a thank you? $15,000 a year in America
must have been big money in those days but unfortunately his failure
to avoid to being ripped off by publishers - Simrock in particular
(there were no royalties for Dvorak on the first set of Slavonic
Dances Op 46, just a flat fee. Yeah, right!). While by no means
poverty stricken he certainly did not have the financial success his
eminence might suggest and at the end was not living a cushioned life.
In any event he didn't do trappings. He loved the simple things of
life: he kept doves at his country home (Symphonic Poem: The Wild
Dove) and walked out on a dignity filled Dinner in his honour in
Czechoslovakia and when the first course turned out to be Breast of
Wood Pigeon (closely related as far as Dvorak was concerned) walked
out, picked up his overcoat, and left them to celebrate the "Dinner"
in the absence of the Guest of Honour.
Nought out of 10 for menu planning.
Some of his compositions, Stabat Mater for one, were born out of his
intense grief at the loss of (several) of his children which was of
course commonplace in those times.
Today the country home survives and quite close by for those with a
penchant for travel is the lake in the woods, carefully signposted,
where Antonin Leopold Dvorak sat down (there are benches now, not sure
if there were then) and made his first sketches for Rusalka.
In the last year or so of his life he had very poor health and had
increasingly suffered from "breathing difficulties" alternatively put
down as a heart condition or Emphysema (or perhaps both). Whatever
the problem it was hardly helped in the last weeks of his life by
indulging his other passion - railways - and going down on a freezing
day to collect engine numbers at the Prague Station.
The severe cold turned into an infection (no antibiotics then folks)
and down and down he went until the heart (or lungs or both) called it
a day.
But he had his moments in music I would say just as he had his moments
in railways.
When he was at his country home he always walked down to the local
railway station to see "if there was anything happening" and there is
a famous photograph of him posed in front of a locomotive.
Many of his greatest triumphs were in England. His arrival in
Cambridge to conduct the first UK performance of Symphony No 8 (second
performance of same) was hilarious. Dvorak had asked for, and got, a
"Footplate Pass" for the trip on the Great Eastern Railway from London
(Liverpool Street) to Cambridge and travelled with the driver and
fireman on the engine.
Unfortunately this was not conveyed to the civic authorites at the
Cambridge end who had a Silver Band lined up to greet him with a
fanfare at the end of a red carpet aligned with the First Class
Carriage in which they expected him.
I'm afraid he wasn't in the First Class carriage.
In boiler suit and smutt emblazoned I'm afraid the civic authorities
entirely missed out as the engine crew (and Dvorak) strolled past the
Official Party.
Gotta love him! And if any of you boarders like something he wrote
perhaps you could hunt out a CD/LP and give it a little spin?
Kind regards,
Alan M. Watkins
J
rich...@gmail.com
I was at a commerative concert this afternoon with New York Choral
Society at Carnegie with the Brooklyn Phil, under John Daly Goodwinof
the Stabat Mater, with a very distinguised young cast (Angela Meade,
Tamara Mumford, yeghishe Maucharayan (best in the Met's Armide) and
Burak Biligili, although as you know it is far more a choral piece
than anything else. I'd heard this on record, but never live, and it
is spectacular music, very well performed all the way around. A bit of
it is here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1k98Q-AUsYQ&feature=related
This is the Virgo virginum for Chorus under Mr. Taliich
It's really a very interesting combination of being both very 'sacred'
and also quite sensuous, very much like those Ruebens paintings, and
not at all austere. I think a lot of Dvorak comes through in the music
and I found it completely engrossing even on a beautiful day out.
For those who don't know, Dvorak here was influenced by Schubert (and
Beethoven, seen trough Schubert), but he didn't give up his Slavic
roots, and in fact this was done with the new Critical Edition, which
restore many of those touches which had been eliminated in the
interim.
The wriiting of it is quite poignant. He stated it after the death, at
the age of two days, of the death of a daugther, and then put it aside
for other things. After the death of two more children within three
weeks of each other (one from the horrible death of having drunk a
phosphorus solution meant to make matches) he took it up again, and of
all the Stabat Maters I know it is the most personal. This was the
work, when finally circulated in the early 1880s, caught on and made
his name internationally.
Particularly wonderful singing from the bass, who has a great line,
and can be heard here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxVhIF5h9NA
very good sized voice, by the way.
Richard
Andrew Clarke
<alanwatkin...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> His arrival in
> Cambridge to conduct the first UK performance of Symphony No 8 (second
> performance of same) was hilarious. Dvorak had asked for, and got, a
> "Footplate Pass" for the trip on the Great Eastern Railway from London
> (Liverpool Street) to Cambridge and travelled with the driver and
> fireman on the engine.
While you will not find any mention of this ferroequinological exploit
in the standard biographies, the incident is described (in broad
Suffolk dialect) in the notebooks of the fireman who was on the
footplate that day, one Ebenezer Ashworth, a resident of Haughley, who
also describes playing the Great Man's "Humoresque" on the train
whistle as they approached Cambridge. I believe this document may now
be inspected (by appointment) in the Archives of the Mid Suffolk Light
Railway, somewhere in East Anglia.
The Ashworths were always a musical family in their own humble way.
Daphne Ashworth, a bus conductress who made a brief ectoplasmic
appearance in rmo a few years ago, was a stalwart of the Bury St
Edmunds Operatic Society, and between 1953 and her retirement could be
seen hanging out of the rear platform of a London County double-decker
doing her stuff as Brunnhilda, complete with horns protruding from her
LT uniform hat. And her elder sister Marjorie, lately deceased, was
celebrated for her performance of "Tosca" - the entire piano score
with vocals ad lib - on the harmonium of the Primitive Wesleyan
Chapel, Fornham St Martin, during the great Freeze of 1952 when the
building was snowbound and none of the congregation could get out.
The author of the present article - Alois Miroslav Vatkinsicek as he
is known in foreign parts - briefly followed in the family tradition
by entertaining passengers on the Premier Tours coachline with his
cover versions of contemporary popular music, Eric Delaney's "Oranges
and Lemons" being a particular favourite.
The world would be a poorer place without them, wouldn't it?
Andrew Clarke
Canberra