Wiener OktettJanácek Quartet

Vienna Philharmonia Quintet

DVORÁKString Sextet, Op. 48

String Quintets, Op. 77 & Op. 97

String Quartet, Op. 96 ‘American’

Bagatelles, Op. 47

Eloquence

ANTONÍN DVORÁK (1841-1904)

CD 1 66’51

String Sextet in A major, Op. 48 (B.80)1 I Allegro moderato 13’232 II Dumka (Elegie): Poco allegretto 7’103 III Furiant: Presto 4’374 IV Finale (Tema con variazioni): Allegretto grazioso quasi andantino 7’52

Members of the Wiener OktettAnton Fietz, Wilhelm Hübner, violinsGünther Breitenbach, Josef Staar, violasFerenc Mihaly, Adalbert Scocic, cellos

String Quintet in G major, Op. 77 (B.49)5 I Allegro con fuoco – Più mosso 11’216 II Scherzo (Allegro vivace) – Trio (L’istesso tempo, quasi allegretto) 7’307 III Poco andante 7’148 IV Finale (Allegro assai) 7’10

Members of the Wiener OktettAnton Fietz, Wilhelm Hübner, violinsGünther Breitenbach, violaFerenc Mihaly, cellosBurghard Kräutler, double bass

CD 2 76’40String Quartet No. 12 in F major, Op. 96 ‘American’ B.179

1 I Allegro ma non troppo 7’012 II Lento 8’063 III Molto vivace 3’534 IV Finale (Vivace ma non troppo) 5’50

Janácek QuartetJirí Trávnícek, Adolf Sykora, violinsJirí Kratachvil, violaKarel Krafka, cello

String Quintet in E flat major, Op. 97 (B.180)5 I Allegro non tanto 9’306 II Allegro vivo – Un poco meno mosso 5’117 III Larghetto 10’188 IV Finale: Allegro giusto 8’05

Members of the Wiener OktettAnton Fietz, Wilhelm Hübner, violinsGünther Breitenbach, Josef Staar, violasAdalbert Scocic, cello

Bagatelles, Op. 47 (B.79)9 I Allegretto scherzando 3’040 II Tempo di Menuetto. Grazioso 3’00! III Allegretto scherzando 3’04@ IV Canon. Andante con moto 4’11£ V Poco allegro 4’34

Vienna Philharmonia QuintetWolfgang Poduschka, Alfred Staar, violinsWolfgang Herzer, celloPeter Planyavsky, harmonium

Total timing: 143’31

Although it is difficult to find a smilingphotograph of Antonín Dvorák, the rather stern physiognomy does not tell half the story of theman, who hid immense warmth under his gruffexterior and had a real gift for friendship. Oneof his pleasures, as a professional violist and acompetent pianist, was to play chamber music;and this genre took up a huge part of hiscatalogue of compositions. Just how huge, theworld at large did not know until comparativelyrecently, when the early quartets were publishedand recorded. We can now muster fourteenstring quartets, three string quintets, two pianoquintets, two piano quartets, four piano trios,two string trios and a handful of works for violinor cello with piano, as well as a clutch of singlemovements and miscellaneous pieces.

Considering that a good half of this music is ofhigh quality, it is an impressive achievement.Through his chamber music, we can also get aclose glimpse of Dvorák as both man and musician. We can trace his admiration forBeethoven and Schubert and visit him in hisworkshop, as he devises particular pieces forparticular purposes.

The earliest work here, the second of Dvorák’s three string quintets, stands apart from the othertwo in adding a double-bass rather than a violato the standard string quartet. This scoring

contributes to the carefree, bucolic atmosphereof the piece, which is more like a divertimentothan a concert work. Indeed Dvorák originally gave it five movements, the second being a briefIntermezzo lifted from the Andante religioso ofhis 1870 E minor Quartet. The Quintet waswritten early in 1875, for a competitionorganised by the Umelecká beseda in Prague, and the distinguished judges – Zdenek Fibich,Antonín Bennewitz and Ludevít Procházka –unanimously gave it a special award of fiveducats. For the first performance, at the Umelecká beseda on 18 March 1875, the ensemble was led by the great František Ondricek, who no doubt made a fine effect inthe Poco andante.

When he came to sell the Quintet to Simrockthirteen years later, Dvorák realised he had already sold the Intermezzo to Bote und Bockas the Notturno for Strings, Op. 40, so heremoved it from the Quintet (nowadays someensembles restore it, and it certainly makes acontrasting interlude between the Allegro confuoco and the Scherzo). Dvorák also made a cut in the first movement. The Quintet shouldhave been published as Op. 18 but in the faceof protests from Dvorák, Simrock insisted on giving it a much later opus number. In its four-movement guise, the G major Quintet consists

of an opening movement in sonata form witha slow introduction, a substantial Scherzo andTrio, a lovely slow movement in ternary formand a final rondo.

The next two works followed hard on eachother, in May 1878, just after the first set ofSlavonic Dances. The Bagatelles were written forprivate performance at the home of Dvorák’s close friend and quartet partner Josef Srb-Debrnov, where there was a harmonium – asDvorák was expecting to play this instrument, he did not incorporate a viola part. We canassume that the music, dedicated to Srb-Debrnov – a critic and impresario – was givenquite a few performances in his apartmentduring 1878, with the host playing the cello; andit went down so well that Dvorák took part in a more public performance on 2 February 1879,with Ferdinand Lachner and Alois Nerudaamong his partners. In the first and third of the five movements Dvorák uses part of the catchyfolk melody The Bagpipes were playing atPobuda. The second movement is a slightlyoffbeat minuet and the fourth is a canon. Thebagpipe motif is recalled again in the finale andthe whole suite breathes the air of folk music.

Two days after finishing the Bagatelles, Dvorák began his String Sextet; and it was ready withina fortnight. He was clearly aware of Brahms’s

two Sextets and the marvel was that hecontrived to write something completelydifferent – in four movements like its models buteven more democratically laid out for theinstruments and in Dvorák’s mature style, mixingfolk influences with Viennese romanticism.

The first movement is in sonata form, althoughDvorák – perhaps wanting to avoid comparisons with Brahms – drastically foreshortens thedevelopment. The second movement is one ofDvorák’s attractive Dumkas: he adapted this Ukrainian dance to his own ends and madesomething special out of it, utilising it in severalof his best chamber works. The Scherzo is alsobased on a dance, this time a Furiant, althoughit is not as spicy as some of the composer’s otherFuriants. The finale is a theme and variations, thetheme being given out by the four lowerinstruments. After five variations, the workconcludes with an exciting stretta. Dvorák was very touched to be entertained by the violinistand quartet leader Joseph Joachim in Berlin on29 July 1879, when the Sextet and the E flat‘Slavonic’ Quartet, Op. 51, were played. Joachimand his associates gave the first publicperformance of the Sextet on 9 November,again in Berlin, and introduced it to London on23 February 1880. Joseph Hellmesberger Snr ledthe Viennese premiere on 31 March 1880.

Our last two works are another set of twins,once again composed close together. In 1892Dvorák travelled to America to head the National Conservatory of Music in New York. With him,besides his wife and two of their children, wenta young Czech immigrant to America, Josef JanKovarík, who had been studying in Prague. Heacted as Dvorák’s amanuensis (later he would be a leading member of the New YorkPhilharmonic). When the 1893 summer holidayswere approaching, Kovarík suggested to Dvorák that he and his family would enjoy visiting theCzech settlement of Spillville in Iowa, where theKovarík family had settled. Even if we did notknow that it was an idyllic interlude for Dvorák, the music he wrote in Spillville would tell us so.He was overjoyed to have all six of his childrenwith him and he loved being among fellowCzechs. He took long walks, noting the songsof the native birds, and he played the organ inchurch every morning while Mrs. Anna Dvoráková sang in the choir.

On 8 June Dvorák began sketching out the string quartet which became his most popularchamber work – and is still the only quartetwritten in America to have entered themainstream repertoire. After three days it wasessentially finished and the composer noted:‘Thanks to the Lord God. I am satisfied, it went

quickly.’ By 23 June, having led some domesticperformances with members of the Kovaríkfamily, he had completed a fair copy. Nowknown by the sobriquet ‘American’, the F majorQuartet has all the hallmarks of Dvorák’s late style, with an admixture of the kind of music,including spirituals, that he heard in America.The quartet comes straight after the ‘NewWorld’ Symphony in his catalogue. Comparedwith Dvorák’s other mature quartets, the ‘American’ is quite primitive in its working-out;yet it is so spontaneous, so full of memorablemelodic ideas, that it never palls. It is very muchall-of-a-piece: three of the four movementsbegin and end in F major and recognisablestylistic fingerprints occur throughout. The veryopening of the work is a clear homage toSmetana’s E minor Quartet, ‘From My Life’, withDvorák’s own viola having the melodic interest. The first movement is in a concise sonata form.The lovely Lento gives the melodic burden to theviolin and cello, the inner parts being allottedrepetitive filling-in patterns which must neversound repetitive! The delightful Scherzo featuresthe song of one of the local birds, the scarlettanager (first heard in bars 21-28); and in one ofthe episodes of the rondo finale we can hearDvorák at the organ of St. Wenceslas Church.

Having honoured the viola at the start of the

Quartet, Dvorák went further with the work which occupied him at Spillville from 26 June to1 August, writing a String Quintet with twoviolas which inevitably bore a close familyresemblance to the Quartet. It too is often giventhe subtitle ‘American’. A trademark of theQuintet is the generous amount of exposuregiven to the second viola, which begins the firsttwo movements and often acts as the engine ofthe Quintet.

After a slow introduction, the first movement isin sonata form with, as so often with Dvorák, a condensed development. The Scherzo is theprototype of all the dance music that wouldfeature in Western movies – the contribution ofCzech folk music to American popular culturecannot be overestimated. In the Trio the firstviola has a solo which is taken up by the firstviolin. The heart of the Quintet is the set ofvariations on a hymn-like theme, the second partof which was originally earmarked by Dvorák for a setting of ‘My country, ’tis of thee’. The secondviolin leads for the theme, with the first violinsilent, and each variation has a kind ofinevitability, leading to the seraphic final bars.The main theme of the rondo finale is perhapsnot one of Dvorák’s most inspired, although it is vivacious enough, but the subsidiary episodesmake up for it in their memorability.

During the writing of the Quintet, a group ofNative American medicine sellers visited Spillvillefor several days; and scholars have hotly debatedwhether their drumming and dancinginfluenced the Quintet – Kovarík started thathare running by saying that he heard the Indianssing a tune similar to the second subject of Dvorák’s opening movement. If the composer took any inspiration from the Indians, he turnedit into pure Dvorák. The first performances of the F major Quartet and E flat Quintet weregiven in Boston by the famous Kneisel Quartet,on 1 and 12 January 1894, with violist M. Zachassisting in the Quintet.

Our performers are all out of the top drawer. Forthe F major Quartet, we have the most famousline-up of the Janácek Quartet of Brno, whichwas founded in 1947 under the leadership ofthe outstanding violinist Ji rí Trávnícek (1925-73). This recording has been a mainstayof the Decca catalogue since it was first issued.

The other works are in the hands of two flexibleViennese groups. Like the Janácek Quartet, the Vienna Octet dated from 1947. Founded bythe Boskovsky brothers, violinist Willi andclarinettist Alfred, it was based on theinstrumentation of the Schubert Octet, althoughit ebbed and flowed to take in a wide range ofchamber music. Most of the players were drawn

Janácek Quartet

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from the State Opera Orchestra and its concertwing the Vienna Philharmonic; but two weremembers of the Vienna Symphony Orchestraand Willi Boskovsky’s replacement from 1959,Anton Fietz, led the Zürich Tonhalle Orchestraand its Quartet. Born in Vienna in 1926, Fietzwas the son of cinema musicians and aftershowing early promise, was taught at theAcademy of Music (1936-43) by Ernst Morawec.He played in the State Opera Orchestra and thePhilharmonic and from 1945 led the SymphonyOrchestra. In 1946 he took second prize in theviolin section of the International Competition inGeneva and fell in love with Switzerland. From1948 he led the Radio-Orchester Beromünsterand from 1953 was concertmaster in Zürich,retiring in 1991. He led the Vienna Octet forthirteen years until it disbanded amicably.

The Vienna Philharmonia Quintet, heard inthe Bagatelles, was organised by the violinistWolfgang Poduschka with Vienna Philharmoniccolleagues and performed a wide range ofquintets, with Eduard Mrazek coming in when apianist was required. The ensemble’s title hasbeen revived in recent years by younger players.

Tully Potter

The original Wiener Oktett

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Recording producers: James Mallinson (Opp. 48,77, 97); Ray Minshull (Op. 96); ChristopherRaeburn (Op. 47)Recording engineers: Tryggvi Tryggvason (Opp.48, 77, 97); Kenneth Wilkinson (Op. 96); PhilipWade (Op. 47)Recording locations: Decca Studio 3, WestHampstead, London, UK, October 1963 (Op. 96);Sofiensaal, Vienna, Austria, October 1969 (Op.77), May 1975 (Op. 47), April 1971 (Opp. 48, 97)Eloquence series manager: Cyrus Meher-HomjiArt direction: Chilu Tong · www.chilu.comBooklet editor: Bruce Raggatt

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DVORÁK: Sextet Op. 48String Quintets Opp. 77 & 97

String Quartet Op. 96 ‘American’*Bagatelles Op.47°

°Vienna Philharmonia Quintet*Janácek Quartet

MENDELSSOHN: Octet(rec.1953); SCHUBERT: Piano

Quintet ‘Trout’ (rec.1950)SCHUBERT: Octet (rec.1953)

Walter Panhofer, piano

MOZART: Divertimenti Nos. 7, 10 (rec.1963),

15 (rec.1962), 17 (rec.1961),KV136; March in D, K290

MOZART FROM A GOLDEN AGEDivertimenti

Nos. 1 (rec.1957), 10 (rec.1952),15 (rec.1955), 17 (rec.1950)

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BEETHOVEN: Sextet; Septet(rec.1959); Piano Quintet

SCHUBERT: Octet (rec.1957)Walter Panhofer, piano

BRAHMS: Clarinet Quintet (rec.1953)MOZART: Clarinet Quintet (rec.1954)

BAERMANN: AdagioAlfred Boskovsky, clarinet

MOZART: Clarinet Quintet (rec.1963)Clarinet Trio; Cassation; Piano Quintet

BEETHOVEN: Piano Quintet MICHAEL HAYDN:

Divertimento in G majorAlfred Boskovsky, clarinetWalter Panhofer, piano

SPOHR: Piano QuintetDouble Quartet; Octet

(rec.1959); Nonet (rec.1966)Walter Panhofer, piano

Romantic Chamber MusicMENDELSSOHN: Sextet. BERWALD: Septet

KREUTZER: Grand Septet Op. 62(rec.1968). BORODIN: Piano QuintetRIMSKY-KORSAKOV: Piano Quintet

Walter Panhofer, piano

20th-century Chamber MusicBRITTEN: SinfoniettaHINDEMITH: Octet

POOT: Octet. BADINGS: OctetWELLESZ: Octet

Recording dates are indicated where the Wiener Oktett made multiple recordings of a given work.

wieneroktettTHE DECCA LEGACY

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