Another Dvorak Cello Concerto?
xxxxxxx did some more digging on the rumored other Dvorak Concerto.
Below is what he found out:
According to Elizabeth Cowling's book, 'The Cello,' "Dvorak wrote an
earlier cello concerto in A Major in 1865, which he had written out with
only a sketchy piano accompaniment and never did orchestrate. It was
rediscovered in 1925. Clapham, commenting on Gunter Raphael's attempt to
complete the work, which was then published, says, in view of his extended
alterations...'it would be more accurate to describe it as reshaped and
newly composed."
... and from some liner notes in Midlo Sadlo's recording on the Artia label:
"Concerto in A Major dates from the period of Dvorak's engagement as a
violist in the Provisional Theatre Orchestra. The assumption that the work
was motivated primarily by his friendship with the cellist Ludevit Peer
appears to be well-founded. After all, the work, with only piano
accompaniment in the 1865 version, is dedicated to Peer and it was Peer who
took it abroad. The manuscript was not discovered until after the First World
War, and is now in the British Museum in London. Breitkopf and Hartel of
Leipzig published the score in 1929, but Gunther Raphael, the editor dealt
with it with a rather heavy hand, changing the structure to no mean extent by
excluding certain parts and adding others composed by himself. More recently,
Prof. Milos Sadlo did some minor retouching, resorting to major changes only
by letting other instruments of the orchestra take over some of the
figurations from the cello, which, in Dvorak's original version, was supposed
to play almost continuously. The new orchestration, in the spirit of Dvorak's
style of the time, is by Jamil Burhgauser.
"The three-movement composition actually flows without interruption. The
composer was not completely successful in his attempt at a grand symphonic
work there is a lack of balance of form, and verbosity in some places.
Nevertheless, there is much more to the work than merely historic interest,
and - in the interest of justice - one must say that this is an attractively
daring attempt to produce a concertante composition for the cello, neglected
until then, as a solo instrument by prominent composers. The score shows that
Dvorak was perfectly aware of the technical and sound potential of the
instrument, and even now the work does not fail to fascinate with its
emotional vigour and inventive melodic line.
"-- Jaroslav Holecek 1977"
Tim Janof
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