How good is unsung music--and how would we know?

[Alan Howe]

One excellent (and cheap) way of exploring the Dvorak symphonies further is to get hold of the Suitner complete set:
http://www.amazon.com/Dvorak-Symphonies-Antonin/dp/B0036ULAXW?ie=UTF8&keywords=dvorak%20suitner&qid=1464299722&ref_=sr_1_1&sr=8-1

[mbhaub]

It's a shame about Dvorak: whenever a symphony is scheduled it's always 9, 8, or 7 - that's the order of popularity for sure. Masterworks all, to be sure. I've tried repeatedly to cajole conductors into doing 3 or 6 by providing scores and recordings. While they say they like them both very much, getting that to turn into a performance hasn't happened. Carnival, Slavonic Dances, the wind or string serenades, the violin or cello concertos are done quite frequently. Dvorak has got to be the most agreeable, least offensive composer of them all, yet six of the symphonies lie in wait. I push for Fibich, too, with no success.

[Double-A]

Here I have to disagree because the question of quality really does come up with Dvorak.  I never systematically explored his early symphonies, so I won't talk about them, but I did the same with his quartets.  And it was worth it, but it didn't bring up an undiscovered masterpieces.  Rather we learned what a long route Dvorak had to travel before he got to writing his greatest works.  I do think we do Dvorak a favor by NOT scheduling the early quartets for performance--and even recordings.

Even among his mature works the quality is uneven; his VC for example is nowhere near the cello concerto.  I like the middle movement with it major/minor switches (though they probably appear a tad too often), but the last movement's musical material outstays its welcome before the middle of the movement.  The second string quintet is often presented as a sister piece to the "American" quartet, but it isn't as inspired.

Dvorak has got to be the most agreeable, least offensive composer of them all, yet six of the symphonies lie in wait.

Maybe this is (part of) the problem:  His music is too "agreeable":  If there is nothing at all going against the grain it is hard to maintain interest.  It's not wholly true for all his works though:  The f minor piano quartet is truly dark at places and full of almost evil energy in the first movement.  The Terzetto for 2 violins and viola has a last movement that is quite dark--almost un-pleasing.

[Alan Howe]

his VC for example is nowhere near the cello concerto

Well, that would be to compare a very fine near-masterpiece with the greatest cello concerto in the repertoire.

His music is too "agreeable"

Really? Symphony No.7 certainly doesn't fit that profile. It's surely more accurate to say that Dvorak is one of the supreme melodists of the 19th century; that's what makes him such an attractive listen. To characterise his music as 'too agreeable' is a perverse underestimate. IMHO, of course.

[Double-A]

I can't resist responding to this.   You are of course right, he was a supreme melodist (though there are quite a few of those in the 19th century), but he was more than that:  He knew how to give his melodies just the accompaniment they need:  Melody along with the accompanying texture as one item.  Listen to the beginning measures of the first piano quartet:  Dvorak takes you straight to Paradise, getting even more beautiful when the piano takes the melody.  This is I believe in part--only in part--the consequence of his being a professional viola player; he knew better than anybody else in the century how to deal with string instruments (pianists tell me that his piano parts are not particularly pianistic).  But the problem with the movement is that you stay in paradise for 15 minutes --until you get bored*--and this is what I meant in the post above.

I will say something else in his praise:  I don't know another composer whose works are such a joy to play.

*  Everybody who has seen paintings of heaven and hell from the middle ages knows that Paradise is a boring place.

P.S.  Don't listen to the recording of the piano quartet that is on IMSLP; the players never manage to get to Paradise.

[Alan Howe]

you stay in paradise for 15 minutes --until you get bored

I'm never bored. Paradise is a place precious few composers take you to...

[sdtom]

I'm going to explore 1-5 in the set that Alan recommends.

[TerraEpon]

I drive around Paradise almost every day. I'll be there in about three hours...

Ok bad joke. But one thing I think should always be considered is that if you ONLY listen to the top tier pieces of music you can't really appreciate just WHY they are top tier. You need the 'lesser' music in your ear, to contrast with it.

But also perhaps another way to look at it. Sometimes you want a well made steak lovingly prepared from a high quality cut of meat. But only eating that would be boring. Sometimes a nice greasy burger is what hits the spot.

[Alan Howe]

Dvorak's never a nice greasy burger, though.

[matesic]

Maybe it's time to come back on thread, even if we're hardly talking "Unsung Composers" here! In my view, many of Dvorak's works that don't work and therefore remain unsung are those in which he tries too hard to achieve epic proportions (e.g. the first two symphonies and the early string quartet B.18 which plays for over an hour) or harmonic "depth". Even late in his career he sometimes failed to hit the right note. While not attempting to hide his admiration for Brahms (the sixth and seventh symphonies surely represent his tribute to Brahms's second and third), his greatest achievements came when he fully embraced the Czech nationalist school alongside Smetana and Fibich - light textures, stylistic simplicity, rhythmic vigour and straightforward melody. I do grant there are exceptions to this, but these are all qualities that contribute vitally to Dvorak's unique "voice".

[Alan Howe]

his greatest achievements came when he fully embraced the Czech nationalist school alongside Smetana and Fibich - light textures, stylistic simplicity, rhythmic vigour and straightforward melody. I do grant there are exceptions to this, but these are all qualities that contribute vitally to Dvorak's unique "voice".

That's far too simplistic, I fear. The composer's greatest achievements actually occured when he successfully synthesised the three main elements that make up his unique voice, i.e. classicism (deriving from, say, Brahms), progressivism (deriving from Wagner and Liszt) and Czech nationalism. To chraracterise his best music as consisting merely in 'light textures, stylistic simplicity, rhythmic vigour and straightforward melody' is to do him a great disservice. There's a depth that such a description doesn't even begin to plumb...

[Double-A]

I was going to qualify this from the other end:  Simplicity is not simplemindedness (and I don't suggest Matesic thinks it is, I just think we need to clarify).  The beginning of that piano quartet is as good an example as you can find:  Repeated quavers, above them "floating" syncopated crotchets:  The texture.  The melody begins 2 measures in with a simple travel up and down the scale.  Harmonic progression is slow.  That's it.  There is plenty equally simple stuff around, but this one takes you to Paradise as I said.  It looks simple, but it is very hard to invent indeed.  And an example for greatness (not the whole piece, but this beginning) which I believe at the end defies rational analysis.
Another example is the fourth dumka in the dumky trio.  A simple repeated rhythm arpeggio in the piano, repeated crotchets in groups of two in the violin and a melody--again a simple scale--in the cello.  That's all and how wonderfully melancholy it comes across!  How one invents this sort of thing can not be found in a manual.

Personally I don't hear the synthesis you allude to in his masterpieces; I hear somebody who finally got around to trust his own voice and stopped trying to write something "serious" like Brahms and/or Wagner did.

[Alan Howe]

I hear somebody who finally got around to trust his own voice and stopped trying to write something "serious" like Brahms and/or Wagner did

Really? The Cello Concerto isn't serious? Or the 7th Symphony? Or the Symphonic Variations?

The point about Dvorak's synthesis is that he wasn't merely a nationalist, progressive, or classicist - he was a mixture of all three, which is what makes his music so unique. In fact, it's the mixing of these tendencies which makes much of later 19th century music so fascinating. Wikipedia puts it like this:

Many of Dvořák's compositions, such as the Slavonic Dances and his large collection of songs, were directly inspired by Czech, Moravian, and other Slavic traditional music. As the basis for his works, Dvořák frequently used Slavic folk dance forms, such as skočna, Bohemian odzemek, furiant, sousedská, and špacirka, Polish mazurka and polonaise or Yugoslav Kolo, and also folk song forms of Slavic peoples including Ukrainian dumka. His 16 Slavonic Dances. Op. 46, which first gained him a wide reputation, and Op. 72, include at least one of each of these forms. He also wrote an orchestral Polonaise (1879). He called the third movement of his 6th Symphony "Scherzo (Furiant)". His Dumky Trio is one of his best-known chamber works. His major works reflect his heritage and the love he had for his native land. Dvořák followed in the footsteps of Bedřich Smetana, the composer who created the modern Czech musical style.

Dvořák had been an admirer of Wagner's music since 1857. Late in life, he said that Wagner "was so great a genius that he was capable of doing things that were beyond the reach of other composers." Wagner especially influenced Dvořák's operas, but also some orchestral pieces. According to Clapham, the theme of the Andante Sostenuto from his fourth symphony "could almost have come directly out of Tannhäuser".

From 1873 on, Dvořák's style was "moving steadily in the direction of classical models." To be more specific about "classical models", in 1894 Dvořák wrote an article in which he said the composers of the past he admired most were Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert. As the article was specifically on Schubert, three years in advance of the centennial of Schubert's birth, it seems Dvořák had a special predilection toward Schubert.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton%C3%ADn_Dvo%C5%99%C3%A1k#Style

[matesic]

I think my words were clear enough, but we can all be misunderstood. I certainly didn't say those four qualities were the only ones responsible for Dvorak's greatness ("..these are all qualities that contribute vitally to Dvorak's unique 'voice'"). His inherent simplicity and straightforwardness were present from the start but in his less successful pieces seem to have become submerged by a striving for greater profundity. It is interesting that his last two string quartets (Op.105 and Op.106) have never achieved the same acceptance from audiences (or affection of players) as the earlier Op.51 and Op.96 quartets. I simply believe that in these pieces he was trying too hard.

[Double-A]

Very shortly:  I put "serious" in quotation marks for a reason.  Of course these works are serious (personally I don't like the Symphonic Variations, his voice doesn't seem to come through, but even so I know they are serious).
Wikipedia confirms Dvorak's admiration for Wagner but doesn't really back up the synthesis-hypothesis, mentioning as models instead Mozart and Schubert, both of which I can hear (with Schubert it is maybe more a sort of kinship than actual artistic influence).  I don't recall ever hearing one of his operas where presumably Wagner's influence would be more clearly traceable (Leitmotifs for example).  Anyhow I don't dispute the synthesis exists (I have read it elsewhere before now), I just don't hear it in the works I esteem highest.  And while he belongs to the Czech "school" his voice is very much his own, quite different from Smetana's.

A to the quartets, Matesic, I think his last two quartets are on the level, as attractive as op. 51.  Op. 96 is a one off; nobody before or after ever wrote something quite like it, but the other three form a nice group of "normal" but great string quartets.  I don't know why the last two are less popular (though not that much less than op 51); could it be because they are considerably more difficult to play?  E.g. one of the scherzi has whole-bar-quintuplets and similar tricks to soften the rhythm.  I have never hear that played the way I imagine it (and yet can't play myself...).