DVO RÁK SUK GRIEG WOLF

Eloq uence
DVO ŘÁK
Serenade for Strings
SUK
Serenade for Strings
GRIEG
Holberg Suite
WOLF
Italian Serenade
Stuttgarter Kammerorchester
Karl Münchinger
ANTONÍN DVOŘÁK (1913-1976)
1
2
3
4
5
Serenade for Strings in E major, Op. 22
I
Moderato
II
Tempo di valse
III Scherzo (Vivace)
IV Larghetto
V Finale (Allegro vivace)
6
7
8
9
Serenade for Strings in E flat major, Op. 6
I
Andante con moto
II
Allegro ma non troppo e grazioso
III Adagio
IV Allegro giocoso ma non troppo presto
0
Italian Serenade in G major, WW XV / 3
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Holberg Suite, Op. 40
I
Präludium (Allegro vivace)
II
Sarabande (Andante)
III Gavotte (Allegretto) – Musette (poco più mosso) – Gavotte
IV Air (Andante religioso)
V Rigaudon (Allegro con brio)
4’14
6’13
5’46
4’44
6’11
JOSEF SUK (1874-1935)
5’36
5’43
8’00
7’09
HUGO WOLF (1860-1903)
8’39
EDVARD GRIEG (1843-1907)
Stuttgarter Kammerorchester
Karl Münchinger
Total timing: 79’56
2’46
2’52
3’15
5’28
2’48
Serenades for string orchestra were not a
nineteenth-century invention, but three of the
most popular examples of the genre – those by
Dvo řák, Tchaikovsky and Grieg – were
composed during a ten-year period between
1875 and 1884. Antonín Dvo řák’s Serenade for
Strings is the earliest of the three, and comes
from a particularly happy period in his life. He
had recently become a husband, then a father,
and then the Austrian government awarded him
a sizeable grant, which allowed the erstwhile
teacher to devote more time to composing than
ever before. The recognition that had been
denied him for so many years finally was
arriving, and he composed several ambitious
works in close succession. (His Fifth Symphony
also was composed in 1875, as well as the String
Quintet in G and the opera Vanda).
It took Dvořák only eleven days to write this
Serenade – in this case, an indication of fluency
and not of haste. Historically, serenades were
evening pieces, and were usually meant to be
played outdoors, as in under the balcony of
someone’s beloved. As far as we know, there
was no particular ‘beloved’ associated with this
work, and the first performance (on 10
December 1876) took place indoors. Even so,
Dvořák’s Serenade has a relaxed, old-fashioned
charm, and the composer even tips his hat to
serenades from the previous century by bringing
back the gentle theme that opened the work
near the end of the final movement, as if to
suggest that the theme serves as both entrance
and exit music for the musicians.
Josef Suk was a one-year-old infant when
Dvo řák composed his Serenade for Strings.
While still in his teens, Suk would become
Dvořák’s pupil at the conservatory in Prague, and
while in his twenties, he would become his
teacher’s son-in-law, after marrying Dvořák’s
daughter Otilka. Suk’s own Serenade comes
from 1892, when he was finishing up his studies
with Dvořák. His teacher remarked that Suk’s
works up until that point had tended to be of a
dark and even tragic character. As Suk was
about to embark on his own Serenade, Dvořák
encouraged him to ‘lighten up’ (to use a modern
idiom!) and to give the work a more positive
tone. (Suk seems to have been at his best when
disaster struck, however. His masterpiece, the
massive Asrael Symphony, was composed in
response to Dvořák’s death in 1904, and Otilka’s
death the following year.)
The eighteen-year-old Suk did in fact manage to
‘lighten up’ in his Serenade for Strings. As in
Dvo řák’s parallel work, Suk soft-pedals the use
of Czech folk idioms, or reasonable facsimiles
thereof, in favour of themes that are more
courtly and ‘polite’. There are both cheerful and
wistful moods, but strong emotions are set aside
in favour of a genteel and almost Classical air of
beauty and charm. Dvořák had succeeded in
impressing no less than Johannes Brahms earlier
in his career, and in turn, Suk’s Serenade was
brought to the attention of the ageing German
composer. Brahms, repeating a kindness he had
done Dvořák two decades earlier, successfully
encouraged Simrock, his publisher, to accept
Suk’s score. The youthful Suk, then, enjoyed a
degree of recognition that his teacher only had
dreamed about when he had been Suk’s age.
Edvard Grieg was most successful as a
miniaturist. After tackling a symphony, a piano
concerto, piano and violin sonatas, and a string
quartet relatively early in his career, his increasing
fascination with Norwegian folk music
influenced him to turn his attention to smaller
forms instead. Even longer works of his that
have been more successful – works such as the
Holberg Suite – are frequently compilations of
short works that can stand on their own, and
sometimes do.
The Holberg Suite is not based on folk music,
however. Ludvig Holberg was an eighteenthcentury Norwegian scholar and playwright
who, like Grieg, was born in Bergen. The
Holberg Suite (also known as From Holberg’s
Time) was written in 1884 in celebration of the
bicentennial of the playwright’s birth. (Grieg
also wrote a cantata for men’s voices for the
occasion, but it has been all but forgotten.) The
suite is a pastiche; Grieg imitated styles and
courtly genres of music that were current when
Holberg was alive, but he gave them an
attractive Romantic aftertaste. Apparently
Grieg didn’t rate this occasional work very
highly – he referred to it as ‘a peruke piece’ –
but he recognized its popular appeal. (He didn’t
think much of his incidental music for Peer
Gynt, either). Less than a year later, he arranged
the suite for string orchestra. It is in this version
that it is most familiar today. Indeed, it has been
used literally as a ‘textbook example’ of how to
orchestrate piano music effectively.
Unlike Dvořák, Suk and Grieg, Hugo Wolf is
remembered almost exclusively for his Lieder
and other vocal works. He did, however, write
one piece of purely instrumental music that has
become part of the standard repertory, and that
is his Italian Serenade. Like Grieg’s Holberg
Suite, it did not originate as a work for string
orchestra. The first version, composed in May
1887, was for string quartet, and was labelled
simply ‘Serenade in G major’. The young
composer had planned to write two more
movements, but when his father died not long
He did not drop the idea completely, though. By
1892, he was referring to the single movement
as the Italian Serenade, and he arranged it for
string orchestra, with plans to make it part of a
four-movement suite. In fact, there are
incomplete drafts of the planned suite’s slow
movement, a movement in the style of a
scherzo, and a culminating Tarantella.
(Supposedly the slow movement was
completed, but its manuscript has never come
to light.) In late 1897, around the time that he
was drafting the last movement, Wolf’s longstanding struggle with syphilis caught up with
him. He was committed to an insane asylum,
where he spent the rest of the life, except for a
nine-month respite. For our pleasure, nothing
about the sunny Italian Serenade hints at the
composer’s (by many accounts) difficult
personality, let alone his sad and untimely end.
Raymond Tuttle
In 1960, the Stuttgart-born conductor Karl
Münchinger (1915-1990), made a recording of
Pachelbel’s Canon and Gigue that assured the
piece its immortality in years to come. Although
he recorded extensively for Decca with his
Stuttgarter
Kammerorchester
(Stuttgart
Chamber Orchestra), he also made recordings
for the label with the Wiener Philharmoniker
(notably, several Schubert symphonies and
Rosamunde) and in 1954, of Liszt tone poems
with the Paris Conservatoire Orchestra. It is for
his performances and recordings with his
Stuttgart forces, however, that he is today best
remembered and the first sessions, music of J.S.
Bach, took place in November 1949.
Coincidentally, his last recording, made 36 years
later in January 1985, was also music of Bach –
his four Orchestral Suites. Moderate-size forces,
rhythmic
sprightliness
and
judicious
ornamentation were the hallmarks of his
recordings of 17th and 18th-century repertoire,
and their general airiness also informs his
readings of the Serenades on this anthology.
PHOTO: DECCA
after, Wolf was so devastated he allowed the
idea to drop, composing no more for the rest of
the year.
Karl Münchinger directs the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra
Recording producers: James Mallinson (Dvořák); John Mordler (Suk, Wolf); James Walker (Grieg)
Recording engineers: Colin Moorfoot, Kenneth Wilkinson (Dvořák); James Lock (Suk, Wolf); Gil Went,
Roy Wallace (Grieg)
Recording locations: Evangelische Schlosskirche, Ludwigsburg, Germany, June 1975 (Dvořák); Schloss
Ludwigsburg, Stuttgart, Germany, June 1971 (Suk, Wolf); Victoria Hall, Geneva, Switzerland,
November 1956 (Grieg)
Eloquence series manager: Cyrus Meher-Homji
Cover image: Albert Lynch, Gathering Flowers
Art direction: Chilu Tong · www.chilu.com
Booklet editor: Bruce Raggatt
480 0447