Cello Concerto

Antonin Dvorak, born in Nlahozeves, Czechoslovakia was the eldest son of Frantisek, the local butcher and innkeeper, and Anna, the daughter of an estate steward. Healthy and high-spirited, he soon learnt the basics of violin playing; enough at least to help his father in his capacity of village musician. The study of the rudiments of music were entrusted to a local organist. Aged sixteen he went to Prague to study organ and composition, earning his crust as a viola player and piano teacher. He was fortunate to receive encouragement, recommendations and advice from both Brahms and Liszt and this, together with the immense popularity of his first set of Symphonic Dances, set him on the road to international recognition. He was greatly respected in England, writing his Seventh Symphony and oratorio “Ludmilla” for English musical societies. From 1892-1895, Dvorak was the Director of the National Conservatory of Music in New York where he wrote the New World Symphony and the American Quartet. He returned to his homeland in 1895 where he was appointed the Director of the Prague Conservatoire a few years later.

Dvorak completed his Cello Concerto in that same year for his friend Hans Wihan - the sketches for the Concerto were in his luggage on his return from New York. Wihan, who was an acknowledged master of the cello, took it upon himself to amend the score. However, Dvorak was utterly opposed to his friend's ideas. In a letter to his publisher, Simrock, he wrote: "My friend Wihan and I have differed as to certain things. Many of the passages do not please me and I must insist that my work be printed as I have written it. In certain places the passages may indeed be printed in two versions a comparatively easy and a more difficult one. Above all, I give you my work only if you will promise that no-one, not even my friend, Wihan, shall make any alteration in it without my knowledge and permission; also no cadenza such as Wihan has made in the last movement; its form shall be as I have felt it and thought out. The cadenza is not to exist either in the orchestral or the piano score; I informed Wihan, when he showed it to me, that it is impossible to insert one. The Finale closes gradually, like a breath, with reminiscences of the first and second movements; the solo dies away to a pianissimo, then there is a crescendo, and the last bars are taken up by the orchestra, ending stormily. That was my idea and from it I cannot recede".

Dvorak was a prolific composer in all forms and his music has a spontaneous freshness that makes light of the skill of its construction. Like Schubert, whom he greatly admired, he was a melodist of genius and, like Brahms, he wrote within the confines of traditional classical forms while breathing new life into his beautifully orchestrated compositions. The Cello Concerto is a fine example this talent; set in three contrasted movements, it displays power in the first, warm lyricism in the second and bravura in the third. No wonder that it is so highly prized by both performers and audiences throughout the world.