{"id":6357,"date":"2021-06-07T07:00:08","date_gmt":"2021-06-07T05:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.henle.de\/blog\/en\/?p=6357"},"modified":"2021-06-11T15:53:06","modified_gmt":"2021-06-11T13:53:06","slug":"dvorak-wind-serenade-in-d-minor-op-44","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.henle.de\/en\/2021\/06\/07\/dvorak-wind-serenade-in-d-minor-op-44\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201c\u2026probably the best of Dvo\u0159\u00e1k that I\u2019m acquainted with.\u201d What\u2019s worth knowing about the Wind Serenade in d minor op. 44"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright wp-image-9469 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.henle.de\/de\/files\/2021\/06\/Dvorak_1882.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"263\" height=\"360\" \/>Even though recently the focus of attention owing to their anniversaries has been on composers like Debussy, Beethoven or currently Saint-Sa\u00ebns, Anton\u00edn Dvo\u0159\u00e1k seems to me to be the secret luminary in the Henle programme. Since 2015, no fewer than eleven new Urtext editions of his works have been published by our publishing house, amongst them, many large and central works of his oeuvre such as the late String Quartets opp. 96, 105 und 106, the Piano Quintet op. 81, the Piano Trio op. 65 and the <em>Humoresques<\/em> for piano op. 101. Our new edition of the Wind Serenade in d minor op. 44 (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.henle.de\/en\/detail\/?Title=Wind+Serenade+d+minor+op.+44_1234\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">HN 1234<\/a>\/<a href=\"https:\/\/www.henle.de\/en\/detail\/?Title=Wind+Serenade+d+minor+op.+44_7234\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">HN 7234<\/a>) will be appearing in the next few days, completing the dozen. And so, of course, it goes on: already in progress for this autumn are Dvo\u0159\u00e1k\u2019s \u201cSlavonic\u201d String Quartet in E-flat major op. 51 and \u2013 a special highlight \u2013 his legendary Cello Concerto.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>These composition\u2019s quality and popularity with both musicians and the public is not in dispute \u2013 though in the case of the Wind Serenade, some promotion might seem appropriate, for it is undoubtedly less well known than many of Dvo\u0159\u00e1k\u2019s other compositions. Since the somewhat unusual scoring for 10 wind instruments, cello and double bass is normally too small for an orchestral concert and too large for an evening of chamber music, the serenade is rarely heard in the concert hall. \u201cThanks\u201d to the Covid pandemic, however, such medium-size ensembles have come into vogue as of this last year, bringing us these very successful new recordings by musicians of the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=st6vwMhukSc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">YouTube link<\/a>) and of the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra \u2013\u00a0both highly recommended for listening!<br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Paavo J\u00e4rvi dirigiert Strauss und Dvo\u0159\u00e1k\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/t3fs1yu0qk4?start=606&#038;feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>No less a personage than Johannes Brahms judged: \u201cThe Serenade is probably the best of Dvo\u0159\u00e1k that I\u2019m acquainted with. Good ensembles have to blast it out lustily.\u201d Admittedly, this quote comes from the summer of 1879 when Dvo\u0159\u00e1k\u2019s career was just taking off and his most famous works were still far from being composed. Brahms nevertheless placed the Wind Serenade above at least such well-known Dvo\u0159\u00e1k compositions as the <em>Moravian Duets<\/em>, the <em>Slavonic Dances <\/em>op. 46, the Piano Concerto, the String Serenade in E major op. 22 or the String Quartet in d minor op. 34 (dedicated to Brahms!).<\/p>\n<p>For our new Urtext edition of the Wind Serenade we were able to use sketches and the autograph full score as well as Dvo\u0159\u00e1k\u2019s personal exemplar of the printed score, together with other copies of the first edition score and parts. (As ever, a big \u201cthank-you\u201d goes to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nm.cz\/en\/visit-us\/buildings\/antonin-dvorak-museum\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Dvo\u0159\u00e1k Museum in Prague<\/a> for facilitating in general all our Dvo\u0159\u00e1k editions by providing superb colour scans of the autograph sources.)<\/p>\n<p>Although the autograph is naturally an important comparison source, it documents, as so often, only the initial compositional state. More than a year passed from the inscription of the score in January 1878 to the publication of the first edition, including the premi\u00e8re meantime on 17 November 1878 \u2013 plenty of time and opportunity for the composer to still put finishing touches to small details. Extant, unfortunately, is neither the premi\u00e8re material nor the engraver\u2019s model for the first edition, but a precise comparison of the printed score with the autograph reveals a number of differences that can only go back to Dvo\u0159\u00e1k\u2019s deliberate interventions. Just one spot in the 1<sup>st<\/sup> movement is shown here as representative \u2013 an intentional change in the voice-leading of clarinet 2, bassoons 1\/2 and contrabassoon:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.henle.de\/de\/files\/2021\/06\/Serenade_Takt4.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-9464 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.henle.de\/de\/files\/2021\/06\/Serenade_Takt4.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"685\" \/><\/a><em>Serenade op. 44, 1<sup>st<\/sup> movement, m. 4<br \/>\nAt the right: first edition of the full score, Berlin: Simrock, 1879.<br \/>\nAt the left: autograph full score, \u010cesk\u00e9 Muzeum Hudby, Fonds Anton\u00edn Dvo\u0159\u00e1k, shelfmark S\u00a076\/1522. Reproduced with kind permission from the National Museum \u2013 Anton\u00edn Dvo\u0159\u00e1k Museum, Prague<\/em><\/p>\n<p>For this reason we have chosen the first edition, authorised and proofread by the composer, as the main source for our edition; it is certainly the final version \u2013 and not the autograph, the readings of which should be viewed with caution.<\/p>\n<p>A look at the autograph sources nevertheless enables us to gain valuable insights, especially in terms of scoring questions. On the one hand, it is completely evident that from the outset Dvo\u0159\u00e1k did in fact plan to score the string basses, that is, cello and double bass, not just adding these afterwards (a view occasionally to be found in the literature, for example, in the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Serenade_for_Wind_Instruments_(Dvo%C5%99%C3%A1k)\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">current version of the English Wikipedia article<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>To be found already in the sketches are numerous instrumentation details such as \u201cCello\u201d or \u201cBassi\u201d \u2013 see the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.manuscriptorium.com\/apps\/index.php?direct=record&amp;pid=AIPDIG-NKCR__59_R_2151___3MPC450-cs#result-tabs-2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">digital images in the Czech National Library<\/a>. Even the score autograph shows no signs of a later addition to the string staves \u2013 this would be difficult to imagine in view of the often completely independent voice-leading, especially of the cello at the opening of the minuet, for example. Dvo\u0159\u00e1k even desired a very strong scoring of the string basses \u2013 he notated \u201cat least a twofold scoring\u201d in German and Czech in the scoring information before the stave at the beginning of the score:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.henle.de\/de\/files\/2021\/06\/Serenade_Autograph.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-9465 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.henle.de\/de\/files\/2021\/06\/Serenade_Autograph-747x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"877\" \/><\/a><em>Serenade op. 44, autograph full score, 1<sup>st<\/sup> music page (detail). The entries in pencil and blue crayon come from the Simrock publishing house, which published the first edition.<br \/>\n\u010cesk\u00e9 Muzeum Hudby, Fonds Anton\u00edn Dvo\u0159\u00e1k, shelfmark S\u00a076\/1522. Reproduced with kind permission from the National Museum \u2013 Anton\u00edn Dvo\u0159\u00e1k Museum, Prague<\/em><\/p>\n<p>We know from a newspaper report about the premi\u00e8re that two celli as well as two double basses were actually used there. The fact that only one cello and one double bass are ultimately mentioned in the first edition could go back to the Simrock publishing-house\u2019s purely commercial wish to make the edition easier to sell. There is no written evidence of this, but there is an analogous case of the publisher\u2019s wanting a different scoring simplification: instead of the contrabassoon \u2013 certainly a not very common instrument \u2013 Fritz Simrock seriously suggested that the composer use a bass tuba\u2026! Dvo\u0159\u00e1k thereupon replied: \u201cIn the absence of a contrabassoon, I think it would be better to write: \u2018Contrabassoon ad libitum\u2019. The tuba would really spoil the delicate colouring of the winds. So, if you have the bassoon, you should play it, if you don\u2019t, you can do without it.\u201d Thus, the \u201cad libitum\u201d statement was made only at the publisher\u2019s urging, and ensembles wanting to come as close as possible to the composer\u2019s original sound concept should experiment with scoring both contrabassoon and double strings.<\/p>\n<p>In closing, a curiosity should be pointed out in the scoring information shown above: the two flutes that Dvo\u0159\u00e1k initially notated and crossed out again, probably found their way into the score out of sheer absent-mindedness; there is not a single reference to this instrument even in the above-mentioned sketches. Flutes would not have been inconceivable in this context, though: published just a few years before Dvo\u0159\u00e1k\u2019s Serenade were two works that used flutes in larger wind-ensemble scorings, Franz Lachner\u2019s Octet op. 156 and Joachim Raff\u2019s <em>Sinfonietta<\/em> op. 188. Dvo\u0159\u00e1k could have known these works, but he presumably preferred Mozart\u2019s and Beethoven\u2019s classical serenade sound using oboes as the leading upper voices. Anyone, incidentally, seeing similarities to Mozart\u2019s Gran Partita, K.\u00a0361, and surmising this as an inspiration for Dvo\u0159\u00e1k, is certainly correct \u2013 but that\u2019s the topic for another blog post!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Even though recently the focus of attention owing to their &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.henle.de\/en\/2021\/06\/07\/dvorak-wind-serenade-in-d-minor-op-44\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[86,491,312,677,3,763],"tags":[480,9,762],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.henle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6357"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.henle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.henle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.henle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.henle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6357"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/blog.henle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6357\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6359,"href":"https:\/\/blog.henle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6357\/revisions\/6359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.henle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.henle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.henle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}