DVOŘÁK VIOLIN CONCERTO, FIRST MOVEMENT

In a work that had a complicated gestation Pavel Šporcl draws on its different influences to celebrate its parts and better understand it as a whole

From Dvořák Violin Concerto in A minor op.53. Urtext edition with marked and unmarked string parts. Ed. Peter Jost. Pno reduction Johannes Umbreit. Vln fingering & bowing Augustin Hadelich. Order no. HN 1597. ISMN 979-0-2018-1597-8. €21.50. Printed with permission of G. Henle Verlag, München © 2023

Czech culture, with its proud tradition of violinist–composers, is very important to me. Through my teacher Václav Snítil and his teacher Jaroslav Kocian I am a direct descendant, in violin terms, of the great Otakar Ševčik. Others can claim direct lineage to Dvořák through his greatgrandson, the violinist Josef Suk, who was also a Kocian student. Snítil was very aware of this lineage and it was his performances of works by Czech violinist–composers of the past – including Jan Kubelík, Kocian, Ševčik, František Ondříček, Ferdinand Laub and Josef Slavík – that have inspired me to find and promote works that are world-class and need to be better known. Even the Dvořák Concerto, which every Czech violinist is expected to play, is still less well known around the world than it could be.

Establishing a relationship between equals

The first movement is based on sonata form but is also a set of variations so, musically, it’s a little complicated and perhaps that is why its dedicatee, Joseph Joachim, never performed it. In the end I think the premiere fell to the right person in Ondříček. He loved the piece and did a lot to popularise it among violinists through his edition and teaching, and among music lovers through his performances.

To me, one of the special qualities of this concerto is the degree to which the orchestra and solo violin are matched in importance. It is not so much a solo with accompaniment as a weighty orchestral piece with solo violin, much like the Beethoven Violin Concerto. That said, I think we can detect the influence of Bruch at the beginning, with the short statements alternately declaimed by the orchestra and the soloist.

THE SOLOIST

FRANTISE KORTMANN

NAME PAVEL ŠPORCL

NATIONALITY CZECH

STUDIED WITH VÁCLAV SNÍTIL, ITZHAK PERLMAN, DOROTHY DELAY

RECORDS FOR HÄNSSLER

‘Like the nuts and bolts of a locomotive, it is all the details of harmonisation, dynamics and articulation that come together to make a piece.’

Pavel Šporcl recorded the Dvořák Violin Concerto with the Czech Philharmonic in 2003 for Supraphon. His latest recording, featuring Jan Kubelík’s Violin Concerto with the Prague Symphony, can be found on major streaming platforms.

With this first theme we have the choice between making the whole of the first two bars sound like a trumpet fanfare or just the first chord, beginning the cantabile part on the triplet up-beat to bar 6. This is where it’s useful to consult the autograph or first edition if you can. Ondříček rehearsed this many times with Dvořák and his edition specifies a low A and E on the acciaccatura in both bars 5 and 6 which suggests to me that the chords in both bars are to be played boldly and simply before developing the expressive line from the up-beat to bar 7.

Slavonic themes and short statements

The piece begins in earnest in bar 29 with the orchestra’s introduction of the two main themes and in bar 55 the violin comes in with the first variation on the fanfare theme. It’s important to begin the semiquaver (s) triplets precisely on the last half-beat and to separate the marcato crotchets (q) in order to bring out the highly rhythmic nature of this variation. Everything has to be really precise and in time until bar 59 or 64 in the second phrase. There are some violinists who may want to play these two-beat flourishes in tempo and certainly Josef Suk does it convincingly, but it’s a moment where the orchestra will wait for you.

Bar 70 begins a long transition section that journeys through harmonically distant lands before the dramatic shift sharpwards to prepare the restatement of the first theme in bar 106. Our first stop on this journey is the charming little theme from bar 78 that features for eight bars and doesn’t return. It’s a sousedska, meaning ‘neighbours song’, just like the fourth Slavonic Dance in F major from Dvořák’s op.46 set. The sousedska is a slow dance and we need to play sweetly but not too melodically, making sure the staccato quavers (e) are really clear so that we don’t lose the sense of a dance.

From bar 88 we go through several bridging sections and in bar 98 you sense the thrust back towards A minor. Because the violin is on its own in these bars, there is a Czech tradition of marking the last two triplet quavers, before the orchestra comes in with a version of the first theme – again, this is just a bridge before the full restatement in bar 106.

The short sections are a particular characteristic of this piece and although they go hand in hand with an approach that uses folk music so prominently, it seems to me that Dvořák, the master of melody, struggled to write a theme with the kind of broadness you would expect for a movement like this. It’s known that when he was facing a creative block Dvořák would go to the train station to admire the locomotives. He would say that the machine is like a piece of music: you see the whole but it is made up of many small parts – all of them important. And just like the nuts and bolts of a locomotive, it is all the details of harmonisation, dynamics, articulation and so on that come together to make a piece.

Deep expression

With this in mind, you can make the most of the new, espressivo setting of the first theme from bar 106, playing into the violin for a substantial sound and exploiting the richness of the G string in bar 109 and 110. The D minor statement in bar 112 is marked to be played more strongly so you can develop your sound and use these few bars to show your deep musicality.

The dance-like triplets at the beginning of the transition in bar 117 need precise articulation to bring out their rhythmic character, recalling the variation in bar 33 of the orchestral introduction. And by bringing out the second triplet of each bar and letting the first of the next bar sound like an echo, which is an idea supported by the orchestra, you naturally crescendo towards the top A in bar 123. From here, while the orchestra is using the question and answer material from bar 37, I feel the violin’s semiquavers should be played with a very even stroke so that they sound like Bach, whose music Dvořák loved.

Beginning with a top D – the highestbut-one note of the movement – the end of the transition from bar 128 gives us just two bars to reach a dolce sound for the second theme. Naturally, the diminuendo extends so that you can still really play into the instrument for a romantic sound in bars 130–133 before reaching a more delicate sound for the countermelody in bar 134, being certain to vibrate on every note to make it sound alive. The following bridge section is simply like a wave of emotion, preparing for the beautiful second theme of this group from the up-beat to bar 148. I like to turn to the oboist at this point, and play it like a double concerto with them. The last variation of this theme is a furiant – another type of Slavonic dance – and I think it should be played not too melodically but with plenty of the scherzando quality inherent in its rhythms.

Pushing to the limits

It’s worth finding the calm in the second thematic section from bar 130 because from bar 169 the development builds, first to the point of highest tension – the declamatory C major chords between solo violin and cellos at bar 197 – and then to the point of greatest release where we generate so much E major energy that the solo line disappears into the ether before the recapitulation.

This part of the movement contains some extremely challenging technical passages. With all the revisions prompted by Joachim it’s often suggested that Dvořák’s violin writing in this piece was unplayable, but we must remember that he was a viola player so he knew what was possible, and it is up to us to find ways to practise these scales, arpeggios, octaves, chords and broken chords. This could be finding five different ways to use the bow effectively on the octave melody from bar 224, refining the intonation of the virtuoso arpeggios in bar 10–14 and bar 252, or bringing out the different voices, Bach-like, in the broken chords of bars 235–239. No matter how hard the technical challenges, we must always put the musical idea first.

With the music driving forward so much of the time and the solo part playing almost constantly from bar 106 it is important to find the moments of relative repose, like the beautiful second thematic section. And that is what makes the end of this movement from bar 247 so special. Finally, we can broaden our senses as we play the theme in duet with the horn, and deepen the sound in the quasi moderato to prepare the mood of the next movement.