Dvořák: Piano Quintet in A major, Op 81 (1888)
Allegro ma non tanto
Dumka: Andante con moto – Vivace – Tempo I
Scherzo (Furiant): Molto vivace
Finale: Allegro
For many music lovers the true personality of Antonín Dvořák is enshrined less in his large scale symphonic works, but rather in those where either he allows his deep rooted Czech temperament to come to the fore (as with the famous Slavonic Dances), or in certain more intimate chamber works which even betray a whiff of the homespun. Into the latter category would be placed the wonderful Bagatelles (Maličkosti), Op.47, for the decidedly homely combination of two violins, cello, and harmonium; or Cypřiše (Cypresses), for string quartet. But what of the full scale chamber works themselves? Interestingly, they appear to fulfil different rôles at different times of his life: some of the earliest quartets are huge, ambitiously symphonic, lasting up to an hour! By the time he came to write this Op.81 piano quintet he had completed at least a dozen of them, yet had not attempted one for six years, since Op.61 of 1881. Similarly, although having composed three piano trios, plus a piano quintet and quartet by the same year, it was not until 1888 that he once more put his great experience in these forms to practical but triumphant use in the production of another piano quintet – again, in the bright and optimistic key of A major. Whilst the inevitable influence of his great friend Brahms is often to the fore, and in particular the massive sonorities achieved in his own F minor quintet from 1864, it transpires that the terse, angst-ridden tone of much of that work is less in evidence than the sunny, life-enhancing spirit which pervades another piano quintet, from 22 years further back: that of Brahms’s great mentor Robert Schumann. Indeed, no chamber work can ever have opened in more gloriously lyrical a mood than Dvořák’s quintet, setting off as it does with the cello launching straight into one of the composer’s most unforgettable melodies.
Yet – as with the Schumann – the effervescence is temporarily suspended for the second movement, and a gloomy melody whose march-like tread strikingly recalls the harmonic darkness of its apparent model. This in fact proves to be the first of two essentially Slavonic “dances” which form the centre of Dvořák’s grand conception: the Dumka actually originated in the Ukraine, and was a kind of folk-ballad whose striking contrast between elegiac lament and wild gaiety found creative response way beyond the Czech lands and into Poland and Russia – where it was taken up by Tchaikovsky, amongst others. The Dumka was often paired with another national dance, the Furiant – no stranger at this point in Dvořák’s symphonic and chamber works, yet on this occasion dispensing with the usual hemiola triple-time rhythms. Finally, a high spirited Allegro whose moto perpetuo motif, even when subjected to the somewhat more academic rigour of fugue, never quite gives up its sparkle.
1888 was to prove a significant year for Dvořák, not only on account of the composition of this marvellous quintet and work on his opera Jakobin: there were also important concerts for him in Budapest and Dresden, but February and November saw visits to Prague by none other than Tchaikovsky. The two composers struck up a genuine friendship, resulting in a major trip to Russia in March 1890. London – and the eighth symphony – followed quickly after the Russian adventure, before this increasingly international musician’s travels culminated in 1892 with his long and well documented stay in the USA, where he composed his most famous work, the symphony From the New World. As he remarked himself, “The influence of America can be felt by anyone who has ‘a nose’”. Yet the pentatonic scale, which we think of as being so characteristic of native American music, happens to be no less vital an ingredient of Bohemian folk melodies: listen to the joyful tumbling unisons at the end of this exuberant quintet! Even at the height of Dvořák’s fame the extent of its popularity would likely have come as something of a surprise to this humble and home-loving gentleman.
© Alan George
