God bless our heroes and keep them safe! All of them! *saluting*
Antonin Dvorak (1841-1904, pronounced “DVOR-zhaak’) was born in Bohemia when it was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In those days Prague was a German-speaking city, something that was to change a year after Dvorak’s death when the Prague Riots, started by angry Czech speakers, broke out. Nowadays, that little principality is part of the Czech Republic. Boundaries moved around a lot thanks to the world wars.
Tony Dvorak’s training was Czech, but his early models were Mendelssohn and Wagner. However, it was when Jo Brahms, as part of an evaluating committee, voted a grant for Dvorak that he began modeling his later works on Brahms. The two men became good friends. He was a prolific composer of every form of music, to include some of the finest chamber works of that era.
Quintets for piano and strings tend to be chamber piano concertos where the strings don’t do much more than accompany the piano. The quintets of Brahms and Schumann fit this category. Dvorak found that special place where the instruments are balanced, and the piano is truly part of an ensemble rather than a solo instrument.
The Quintet for Piano and String in A, Op. 81 is one of the great chamber warhorses and a real crowd pleaser. It bubbles over with charm and great tunes. The first movement, marked allegro non tanto, which means “fast, but don’t overdo it”, starts out with a serene subject on cello backed by piano, and it seduces you into thinking the whole piece is going to be this sweet.
But at :28, the rest of the gang shows up, and the temperature rises as the theme oscillates between C Major and A minor.
At 1:16 he settles into A Major for the bulk of his first subject.
At 1:52 a cadence in A minor leads to a transitional passage, and at 2:15 he jerks on the reins and pulls the movement to a halt with an ominous mutter from the cello when the second subject in C# minor begins, one of the juiciest moments in the piece.
This subject is wonderfully passionate, and the heat builds up to a cadence at 3:45, which in this performance leads right into the development. This is good because the first ending, which would have led to a repeat of the exposition, is weak and unconvincing. Best to just get on with it!
The strings take up the first subject, and the piano and strings take the subject apart by fragmenting it in a progression of keys. At 5:47 everybody meets up for a review of the first subject in the remote key of C-flat Major (7 flats!), and the grand statement is made at 6:47 in F Major.
At 7:00 we’re back in A Major for the recapitulation of the first subject, which is so drastically abridged that by 7:45 Tony is pulling on the reins for that juicy second subject, this time in F# minor.
At 9:37 the coda arrives as a grand summation of everything that has gone before, and it leads to one of the greatest first movement endings in the repertory.
The second movement (at 10:23) is a dumka, which is a Czech musical form where happy and sad moments are alternated. It’s marked andante con moto which indicates that this “slow” movement isn’t all that slow. It’s in F# minor, the relative minor for A Major. The opening theme sounds a bit like “Nature Boy”, and Eden Ahbez, the proto-hippy who composed the song in 1947, might have committed Grand Theft Tune here.
At 12:56 the key changes to D Major for a theme where the piano and two strings (playing pizzicato) support something that sounds like a mother rocking her child. This goes into a pensive B minor.
At 14:52, the “Nature Boy” theme returns.
At 17:00 the speed picks up to vivace for a spirited and rather crazy section until Tony pulls at the reins at 17:41 and returns to the original speed for the first theme in F# minor.
At 19:09 the rocking theme returns, but this time in F# Major (6 sharps!). This puts the pensive theme in D# minor.
At 21:00 the “Nature Boy” theme returns for its final bow in F# minor, and the coda is very short and bleak.
The third movement in A Major (at 23:39), the dance movement, is a furiant, a Czech dance in 3/4 time set up in scherzo format. It’s a blast!
At 25:10 the middle section slows down to poco tranquillo for a contrasting theme in F Major.
At 26:54 the first theme returns for a race to finish line.
The finale in A Major (at 27:50) is a cross between ragtime and a Czech polka in sonata format. The first subject isn’t quite syncopated, but it’s close.
The second subject at 29:09 is in E Major.
At 30:29 you think he is going to repeat the exposition, but the first subject suddenly turns to the minor, and it’s development time. The first minute is devoted to breaking apart the first subject, but at 31:29 Tony writes a fugue. He’s been hanging around Brahms!
At 32:10 we’re back to A Major for the recap, but Tony drastically abridges the first subject, and at 32:46 we’re in the second subject, this time in A Major.
At 34:00 the coda begins tranquilly, and it initiates one of his finest stunts. You think he is going to end it slowly and dreamily, but then it spins faster and faster and faster to a bravo finish. Audiences always go wild at the end. You will, too.