Piano Quintet in A major , Op. 81 (1887)
Allegro, ma non tanto
Dumka: Andante con moto
Scherzo (Furiant): Molto vivace
Finale: Allegro
Dvorák’s music has often been linked to Janácek’s for superficial reasons. Commentators keen to dub them both "Czech" composers overlooked Janácek’s Moravian origins; equally misguidedly Czechoslovakian musicologists for years extolled Dvorák as a folk or nationalist composer and disparaged Janácek for his supposed lack of "national" character. Yet the two composers do have an unmistakeable artistic kinship, albeit on a deeper level than simple national characteristics. Dvorák’s splendid Piano Quintet of 1887 was written at the peak of its composer’s artistic maturity and international success. It is a cosmopolitan work, showing the influence of German tradition in its layout and its expansive character; it is also labelled with the unmistakeable badges of a nationalist identity – the use of a Czech Dumka as a slow movement, a Furiant as a scherzo (although this lacks the fiery cross-rhythms which usually define this dance; it seems closer in character to Schumann), and a lively Skocna as the rondo-subject of the finale. Yet where it seems closest in character to Janácek is in its rapidly shifting keys and tone colours – the opening of the first movement alone presents a gallery of different tonalitys and instrumental combinations. The viola - led Dumka is another instance of Dvorák’s readiness to experiment with tone-colour; and the very form of the Dumka itself, used by Dvorák in many of his major chamber works, entails a rapid succession of contrasting moods, fast and slow, dancing and lamenting. It’s telling that in the months before he started the Quintet, Dvorák had written a series of intimate, often unusually scored, miniatures for chamber ensembles – the Terzetto for two violins and viola, the lovely "Cypresses" for string quartet, and numerous Bagatelles for violins, ‘cello and harmonium. Although he was comfortable with large symphonic forms in a way that Janácek never was, it was in this vivid, sensitive miniature realm that he was most evidently an inspiration to the younger composer, as musician and man. The two composers were acquainted in Janácek’s youth; and Janácek acknowledged his emotional and artistic debt to Dvorák in the last years of his life, in his Uncollected Essays (1928): "Do you know what is like when someone takes your words out of your mouth before you can speak them? This is how I always felt with Dvorák. I can interchange his personality with his work. He has taken his melodies from my heart. Nothing on earth can sever such a bond".
R.G.Bratby, 1998
Copyright Classical Notes.co.uk 2000
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