Czech Philharmonic • Barcelona

At the end of his stay in America, Antonín Dvořák wrote his Cello Concerto in B minor, Op. 104 (B191), his most famous work in the genre alongside his concertos for piano (G minor, Op. 33) and violin (A minor, Op. 53). Yet he had long regarded the cello, an instrument that supposedly “whines up high and mumbles down low”, as unsuitable for solo playing, and he basically discarded his first, youthful attempt at writing a cello concerto. His opinion of the cello changed under the influence of wonderful performers: Hanuš Wihan, with whom he had played in a piano trio during his “farewell tour”, and the American composer and cellist Victor Herbert, Dvořák’s colleague at the conservatoire in New York. Dvořák was truly captivated by Herbert’s Cello Concerto in E minor, Op. 30 (1894). He began work on sketches for his own concerto in B minor on 8 November 1894, just ten days later he began orchestrating it, the score was finished on 9 February 1895, and he made a major revision to the finale after returning to Bohemia.

The concerto consists of the usual three movements: the opening Allegro is composed in sonata form, the second movement (Adagio ma non troppo) is warmly lyrical, and the third movement (Finale. Allegro moderato) has the layout of an extended rondo with motivic connections to both preceding movements. The whole concerto exudes a sense of melancholy and desire for the homeland and for family. At the same time, there is an awareness of the impending return from the labyrinth of the world to the paradise of the heart; the music is very emotional and full of beautiful melodies as well as wonderful orchestration. It is no exaggeration to call it one of the most admired compositions of its genre. Dvořák himself was aware of the concerto’s exceptional qualities, referring to it in a letter to Josef Bohuslav Foerster as a work that brought him “outrageous joy” and that decidedly exceeds his two earlier concertos in importance. The cello and orchestra become such equal partners that the concerto has sometimes been described as Dvořák’s tenth symphony. The music’s intimate message is highlighted by a motif from Kéž duch můj sám (Leave Me Alone), a song in Dvořák’s cycle Four Songs, Op. 82 that was a particular favourite of the composer’s sister-in-law Josefina Kounicová. The motif is heard in the second movement and again in the finale, which was revised after Josefina’s death in May 1895.

The English cellist Leo Stern played the concerto’s premiere on 19 March 1896 in London with the Philharmonic Society under Antonín Dvořák’s baton. Stern studied the new concerto very diligently, being aware that it “is quite unlike any other cello concerto” and “is very difficult as regards intonation”. He acquitted himself honourably, however, so he also played the premieres in Prague (11 April 1896) and elsewhere. Although the Cello Concerto is dedicated to Hanuš Wihan, Prague audiences never heard him play it, a fact explained in part by a dispute over a cadenza, which Wihan wanted to add to the concerto, but which Dvořák resolutely refused. Mostly at fault, however, was Wihan’s busy schedule with commitments to the Bohemian Quartet and the Prague Conservatoire.

Dvořák’s prestigious invitation to New York did not come out of nowhere. For years, his music had already been familiar in the United States, and American newspapers had been writing about his successes in Europe as a composer and conductor. Above all, however, for America Dvořák was iconic as a national composer. “Americans expect great things from me, and above all, supposedly, that I will show them the way to the promised land and to the realm of new, independent art, in short, how to create the music of a nation!! […] Certainly, this is an equally great and beautiful task for me, and I hope I shall have the good fortune to succeed with God’s help. There is more than enough material here,” wrote the composer to his friend Josef Hlávek after arriving in America. Dvořák did, in fact, delve into America’s musical material with great interest, as is revealed in an interview for the New York Herald: “Since I have been in this country I have been deeply interested in the national music of the negroes and the Indians. […] I intend to do all in my power to call attention to this splendid treasure of melody which you have.” Dvořák did not borrow the melodies, however. He created his own melodies using many of the characteristic features of folk songs that he combined with the essence of American folklore. In addition, the motifs from the new Symphony in E minor, Op. 95, “From the New World”, did not come into the world instantly in the form in which we now know them. This is documented by the composer’s sketches, in which the now famous themes appear still with many deviations from the final version. It is clear that during the compositional process, Dvořák was giving ever deeper expression to the “American spirit” that he wanted the music to embody, adding syncopations including a special rhythm known as the “Scotch snap”, highlighting the pentatonic scale etc. However, his new symphony was by no means an attempt to do everything differently from his previous symphonies. As he was finishing the score, he brought this up in a letter to his friend Göbl: “I’m just now finishing my Symphony in E minor, which will be strikingly different from my earlier ones, mostly in terms of melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic figures—just my orchestration has not changed, something in which I probably will not advance any further, nor do I wish to, and I have my reasons.”

The composer also mentioned the work’s tempestuous reception at the premiere at New York’s Carnegie Hall in December 1893 (Anton Seidl conducted the New York Philharmonic) in a letter to his publisher Fritz Simrock in Berlin: “The symphony’s success on December 15th and 16th was magnificent; the newspapers say that no composer has ever before achieved such a triumph. I was seated in a box, the hall was occupied by New York’s most elite public, and the people applauded so much that I had to wave from my box like a king to show my gratitude! Like Mascagni in Vienna (don’t laugh!). You know that I prefer to try to avoid such ovations, but I had to do this and show myself.” The composer did not inscribe the title “From the New World” on the score’s title page until a few months after finishing the work; it was on the very day that he handed the score over to the conductor for rehearsals. The title of the first work he had written in America gave rise to a great deal of comment in newspaper articles. Having read them, the composer supposedly remarked with a smile: “Well, it seems I have confused their minds a bit.”