Czech Philharmonic • Toronto

Personal relationships, friendships, and mutual respect among individuals leave a more tangible imprint on history than one might expect. An illustrative chapter of music history involved Fritz Simrock, Antonín Dvořák, Johannes Brahms, Robert and Clara Schumann, and Joseph Joachim.

Among the compositions for solo instrument and orchestra by Antonín Dvořák (1841–1904), three concertos stand out: the Piano Concerto in G minor (Op. 33), the Violin Concerto in A minor (Op. 53), and the Cello Concerto in B minor (Op. 104). The first two date from almost the same period and were both actually published in 1883, but they underwent a different genesis. While Dvořák apparently came up with the idea of composing the early version of the piano concerto in 1876 on his own, perhaps fondly imagining Karel Slavkovský at the piano, the stimulus for writing the Violin Concerto in A minor was external. The publisher Simrock commissioned the increasingly popular Czech composer to write another composition of “Slavonic” character. The Czech Suite, Op. 39, the Slavonic Rhapsodies, Op. 45, the Slavonic Dances, Op. 46, and the String Quartet in E flat major, Op. 51 were all earlier works by Dvořák that were popular items on the sheet music market and were influenced by the melodic and rhythmic patterns of the folk music of the Czechs, Moravians, and other Slavic peoples. The violin virtuoso, conductor, and director of the Hochschule für ausübende Tonkunst Joseph Joachim, whom the composer had met in early April 1879 in Berlin, also supported the idea of a new concerto. The concerto’s dedication to Joachim shows Dvořák’s regard for the chance to collaborate with the legendary violinist and pedagogue.

Dvořák began composing his violin concerto in 1879 while spending the summer in Sychrov. Two years earlier he had left his poorly paid position as the organist at the Church of Saint Adalbert in Prague’s New Town, and now he was devoting himself solely to composing. The repeated awarding of a state stipend in support of artists made it easier for him to take that step, and it also led to his friendship with Johannes Brahms, who in turn facilitated Dvořák’s contract with Simrock, which was of vital importance to him. By the end of the 1870s, Dvořák had established himself at home and abroad. However, the path to the definitive version of the violin concerto was not easy: Dvořák’s consultations with Joachim dragged on (the composer waited more than two between the spring of 1880 and the autumn of 1882 year for Joachim’s reaction), and the publisher also had conditions through his advisor Robert Keller. Paradoxically, as it turned out, Joachim, who was supposed to have been the first interpreter of the work, and who made changes in particular to the form taken by the solo part, probably never played Dvořák’s Violin Concerto in public. František Ondříček gave the premiere in October 1883, and after the successful Prague performance with the orchestra of the National Theatre, he also introduced the composition to the enthusiastic Viennese public that December with the Vienna Philharmonic and with Hans Richter on the conductor’s podium. Ondříček then continued to promote the Violin Concerto in A minor throughout his stellar career.

Dvořák went about integrating the orchestra with the solo part similarly to his great model Brahms, whose Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 77, dates from about the same time. Brahms also dedicated his concerto to Joachim, who premiered it in January 1879. In both cases, the strongly contoured orchestral sound is combined with a solo violin part that is technically difficult, but also richly expressive. Dvořák displays mastery of orchestration, warmth of melodic writing, and vigorous rhythm. The first movement (Allegro ma non troppo) is in an ambiguous sonata form without a recapitulation, and it is linked directly to the lyrical slow movement (Adagio ma non troppo); this smooth attacca transition was one of the points under discussion during the revisions. The Adagio is in ternary form with variations, and its mood is highlighted by the “pastoral” key of F major. The energetic third movement (Finale. Allegro giososo, ma non troppo) employs the rhythm of the furiant, a Czech folk dance, with a melancholy dumka providing contrast in the middle section.

Gustav Mahler (1860–1911) began writing his Fifth Symphony in the summer of 1901, after a close brush with death: in February he had nearly succumbed to a severe haemorrhage and was saved only by a timely surgical intervention. “As I wavered at the boundary between life and death, I was wondering whether it wouldn’t be better to be done with it right away because everyone ends up there eventually”, he wrote later on. By then, Mahler was already well acquainted with death—seven of his twelve younger siblings did not live to the age of two, his brother Ernst died at age 13, and in 1895 Otto committed suicide at the age of 21. Four years later, the composer buried both of his parents and his younger sister Poldi. This may be why Mahler’s works are unusually full of funeral marches, one of which actually begins his Fifth Symphony.

Mahler greeted the dawn of the twentieth century in a sombre mood. Almost simultaneously, he was composing two cycles on poems by Friedrich Rückert (1788–1866): the Rückert-Lieder and Kindertotenlieder (Songs on the Death of Children), undoubtedly two of the most beautiful song cycles in world literature. (In the Kindertotenlieder, Rückert vented his grief over the loss of both his children, who died of scarlet fever within a mere three weeks at the turn of 1834. Rückert poured out his deep sorrow in a collection of more than 400 poems, only published posthumously, in 1872). At the same time as the songs, Mahler was composing his Symphony No. 5, which opens with unmistakable “fate” fanfares, already anticipated in the first movement of his Fourth Symphony (after which a dance of death is played on the fiddle by the skeleton Freund Hein in the second movement). The first two movements of the new symphony continue in the same vein: “Their content is terribly sad, and I suffered greatly having to write them; I also suffer at the thought that the world shall have to listen to them one day”, he told his friend Natalie Bauer-Lechner (1858–1921). About his symphony, he further noted that it would be “in accordance with all rules, in four movements, each being independent and self-contained, held together only by a similar mood.” It is hard to say how the work might have turned out had Mahler’s life not taken an unexpected turn on 7 November 1901 with the appearance of the young Alma Schindler (1879–1964), who immediately captivated Gustav with her spontaneity. As she later wrote in her diary: “That fellow is made of pure oxygen. Whoever gets close to him will burn up.” They were betrothed in December, Alma became pregnant in January, and the wedding took place on 9 March 1902 at Vienna’s Karlskirche.

The Fifth Symphony is yet another example of Mahler’s innovative approach to form. It consists of five movements grouped into three parts. Part I comprises the opening two movements, which are thematically linked; the first may be understood as an introduction to the symphony as a whole, while the second functions as the first movement proper. The symphony’s central weight is carried by the monumental Scherzo (Part II). The transparently orchestrated Adagietto serves as a kind of intermezzo before the finale, with which it forms Part III of the work. Scored only for strings and harp, the Adagietto has become the most popular movement of the symphony and is often regarded as a declaration of love to Alma. In contrast to the oppressive funerary atmosphere of the opening two movements, it has sometimes been interpreted as a triumph of love over death; however, this view is contradicted by its later use in Luchino Visconti’s film Death in Venice…

The composer conducted the premiere of his Fifth Symphony in Cologne on 18 October 1904. The performance was met with whistles of disapproval, while critics dismissed the work as an “appalling cacophony” marked by “perpetual confusion”. After the premiere, Mahler commented laconically: “No one understood it. I wish I could conduct the premiere 50 years after my death.” Who knows—perhaps Mahler from the perspective of eternity may rejoice in the continuing success of his Fifth Symphony and his other works, still performed on concert stages more than a century after their creation. Yet it is now a mortal conductor who must carry the music forward, along the river of time…