Czech Philharmonic • Semyon Bychkov

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.

Johannes Brahms (1833–1897) wrote his monumental Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor, Op. 15, over the course of five years beginning in 1854. Not long beforehand, in the autumn of 1853, the twenty-year-old Brahms had been introduced in Düsseldorf to Robert and Clara Schumann, and they became his close friends and mentors. In an article in the journal Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, Schumann characterised the young composer and pianist from Hamburg as a very promising and special talent and brought him to the attention of the German musical scene. Brahms’s first compositions appeared in print at the turn of 1853/54. All seemed clear on the horizon: the musician was in contact with such important figures as Joseph Joachim, the baritone Julius Stockhausen, and the composer and pianist Franz Liszt, and he already had a number of compositions to his credit, mainly consisting of chamber and vocal works. However, Robert Schumann attempted suicide in February 1854, and he was confined in a sanatorium in Endenich, leaving his wife Clara alone with their six children (and a seventh on the way). Brahms’s friendship was an important source of support for Clara, and history tells us that they remained friends until Clara’s death in 1896. Under those tense circumstances, Brahms was composing a sonata for two pianos, then after a few months he began giving it a symphonic form. Ultimately, he reworked the first movement of the sonata into the first movement the piano concerto he was creating.

Johannes Brahms was a superb pianist, and already by the 1850s he was giving public performances with both of Beethoven’s last two piano concertos on the programme: G major (No. 4, Op. 58) and E flat major (No. 5, Op. 73, “Emperor”). It is no wonder that Beethoven’s influence is mentioned in connection with Brahms’s Opus 15; in terms of length, Brahms’s concerto even exceeds the dimension of the Emperor Concerto. It was Brahms’s first major orchestral work, and perhaps for that reason it had a lengthy gestation period, during which the composer consulted with others about the orchestration. The premiere took place in early 1859 in Hannover under the baton of Joseph Joachim with the composer himself as the soloist, but the reaction of the audience and critics was lukewarm, and the response to the next performance in Leipzig was even more critical. The work was faulted for resembling more of a symphony with piano obligato than a concerto, from which one would expect virtuosic effects and soloistic exhibition. The Piano Concerto in D minor was only understood later, when it became a model of the new conception of the roles of the piano and orchestra as equal partners. It was first heard in Prague in 1877 in a performance by Karel Slavkovský.

The first movement (Maestoso) in sonata form fully lives up to its tempo marking: the orchestral exposition is already heroic in character. The piano then enters with a melancholy theme, and that contrast permeates the entire movement. The second movement (Adagio) is in the parallel key of D major, and in a letter, Brahms called it “a tender portrait of Clara”. In the autograph, the words “Benedictus, qui venit in nomine Domini” appear beneath the opening bars, leading to the hypothesis that the music in question, like the second movement of the original sonata for two pianos, had been intended as musical material for A German Requiem. The virtuosic third movement (Rondo. Allegro non troppo) takes us to the grand conclusion. In his concerto, Brahms anticipated the further development of the genre, furthering the integration of the piano and orchestra and combining elements of the Baroque concerto grosso and techniques typical of chamber music with a distinctly symphonic vocabulary. The concerto embodies the deep emotions of a 25-year-old composer confronted with the realities of life, yet at the same time it exhibits remarkable maturity in its combination of romantic expression with classical structure.