Antonín Dvorak
(1841~1904)
Piano Quintet in A Major No. 2, B. 155, Op. 81
This program's stellar ensemble includes virtuosos Lindsay Deutsch and Bei Zhu (violins),
Paul Neubauer (viola), Gary Hoffman (cello), and Weiyin Chen (piano). Series:
"La Jolla Music Society: SummerFest" [1/2007] [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 12086]
Antonín Dvořák's Piano Quintet No. 2 in A major, Op. 81, B. 155, is a quintet for piano, 2 violins,
viola, and cello. It was composed between August 18 and October 8 of 1887(46세), and was premiered in Prague on January 6, 1888. The quintet is acknowledged as one of the masterpieces in the form, along with those of Schubert, Schumann, Brahms and Shostakovich.[1]
Background
The work was actually composed as the result of the composer’s attempt to revise an earlier work, Piano Quintet in A major, Op. 5.[1] Dvořák was dissatisfied with the Op. 5 quintet and destroyed the manuscript not long after its premiere. Fifteen years later, he reconsidered and retrieved a copy of the score from a friend and started making revisions. However, he decided that rather than submitting the revised work for publication, he would compose an entirely new work. The new quintet is a mixture of Dvořák's personal form of expressive lyricism as well as a utilization of elements from
Czech folk music. Characteristically those elements include styles and forms of song and dance, but not actual folk tunes; Dvořák created original melodies in the authentic folk style.
Structure
The music has four movements:
It has a duration of approximately 40 minutes.
The first movement opens quietly with lyrical cello theme over piano accompaniment which is followed by a series of elaborate transformations. The viola introduces the second subject which is another lyrical melody, but much busier than the cello's stately line. Both themes are developed extensively by the first and second violins and the movement closes with a free recapitulation and an exuberant coda.
The second movement is labeled Dumka which is a form that Dvořák famously used in his Dumky piano trio and features a melancholy theme on the piano separated by fast, happy interludes. It follows the pattern A-B-A-C-A-B-A where A, in F-sharp minor, is the slow elegiac refrain on piano with variations, B is a bright D major section on violins and C is a quick and vigorous section derived from the opening refrain.[1] Each time the Dumka (A) section returns its texture is enriched.[2]
The third movement is marked as a Furiant which is a fast Bohemian folk dance. The cello and viola alternate a rhythmic pizzicato underneath the main tune of the first violin. The slower trio section of the scherzo is also derived from the furiant theme, with the piano and violin alternating between the main melodies. The fast Bohemian folk dance returns and the movement finishes aggressively, setting up for the polka in the last movement.
The Finale is light-hearted and spirited. The second violin leads the theme into a fugue in the development section. In the coda, Dvořák writes tranquillo[3] for a chorale-like section, which features the theme of the movement this time in augmentation and played pianissimo, before the pace quickens with an accelerando, and the quintet rushes to the finish.
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ILYA ITIN piano, MISHA VITENSON violin, MARCIA LITTLEY violin
MICHAEL KLOTZ viola ,OLIVER ALDORT cello
March 8 2011 Broward Center for the Performing Arts- Amaturo Theatre
Fort Lauderdale F loridaMiami International Piano Festival
- Composer: Antonín Leopold Dvořák (8 September 1841 -- 1 May 1904)
- Performers: Andreas Haefliger (piano), Takács Quartet
- Year of recording: 1998
Piano Quintet No. 2 in A major, B. 155, Op. 81, written in 1887.
00:00 - I. Allegro, ma non tanto
13:31 - II(a). Dumka. Andante con moto -
22:41 - II(b). Un pochettino più mosso
27:45 - III. Scherzo (Furiant). Molto vivace - Trio. Poco tranquillo
31:53 - IV. Finale. Allegro
In the early 1870s Antonín Dvořák wrote a Piano Quintet in A major that was published as Op. 5 [uploaded in this channel]. Always dissatisfied with it, he attempted in 1887 to revise it for republication. Instead, he cast it aside and immediately set about composing a brand new piano quintet in the same key. This product, the Piano Quintet in A major, Op. 81 (now called No. 2, though Dvořák surely would not have liked to hear it called so), is a complete success and a central masterwork of Romantic-era chamber music. Written between August and early October of 1887, it is a work that now stands alongside the Brahms F minor Piano Quintet [uploaded on this channel] as one of the twin peaks of the repertoire written for piano and string quartet. The three legs of the Dvořák stylistic triad -- Brahmsian depth and warmth, Eastern European folk flavor, and sheer melodicism -- are held in perfect balance here.
The Piano Quintet is in the traditional four movements (though the use of a schizophrenic dumka as the slow movement is more than a bit nontraditional): Allegro ma non tanto, Andante con moto (the dumka), Molto vivace (a scherzo), and Allegro.
- The cello introduces a famous melody atop a warm bed of the piano's arpeggiations at the start of the first movement; but barely a dozen bars go by before the music takes a jolting turn to the minor mode and shoots forth towards a rousing, fortissimo C major phrase (if only four bars are remembered by a listener while driving home from the concert, it will be these). A second theme area in C sharp minor provides the basis for a movement that falls essentially into the long tradition of sonata form.
- The dumka was a Ukrainian lament or ballad that often contained several sections with contrasting moods; Dvořák incorporated dumky into several compositions. The dumka movement in this quintet is in F sharp minor. Its beautiful and introverted main theme is turned on its head first by a lighthearted D major interlude (Un pochettino più mosso) and then, after a reprise during which the viola plays the main tune in canon with the piano, by a fabulous Vivace during which a sprightly version of the main tune's first notes is tossed about between the players.
- The scherzo is called a "Furiant" in the score; at first it shows none of the metric alternations inherent in that particular Bohemian dance, but as the trio section unfolds Dvořák provides some nice three-against-four and two-against-threes rhythmic passages.
- The rondo finale starts with a burst of secco string eighth notes against rapid syncopation in the piano. The refrain theme thoroughly enjoys its time on center stage, hustling and bustling forward on folkish sixteenth notes.