4/3/2008 - 5/22/2008
Thursday 10:00 AM - 12:30 PM
$340 registration

Dvořák is an archetypal nationalistic composer. Czech language and culture became a point of ethnic pride during centuries under the German-speaking Hapsburg empire. As Smetana had done in The Bartered Bride and Mà Vlast, Dvořák composed in Czech, incorporated Bohemian themes into works like the Slavonic Dances, and composed for an international audience eager for works with national flavor. His countryman, Janáček, typified the scholarly approach of 20th-century nationalistic composers by researching and composing in folk modes and scales. We will also consider Dvořák’s American sojourn, discussing what American elements he incorporated into the New World Symphony.

Syllabus

Printable Syllabus: MS Word | PDF 

Note: To hear the listening samples, you will need to allow popups from Rhapsody.com. 

Week 1 - Smetana

• Modest beginnings, Travels abroad,Tragic family life
• Return to Bohemia Burgeoning of Czech nationalism

Works

• Early piano music in style of Schumann and Liszt
• Macbeth and the witches
• Many polkas - Play (Polka from Bartered Bride)
  
• Early operas: Brandenburgers in Bohemia (1866),
• Dalibor (1868) - Play
  
• Bartered Bride (1870) - Play
  
• Libuše (1881)

Week 2 - Smetana

Later career; deafness; madness

Tone Poems: Mà Vlast (1879) - play

Week 3 - Dvořák

• Early career in Zlonice
• Organ school at Prague.
• Orchestral musician.
• Relationship with Josefina Čermáková; marriage to Anna Čermáková.
• Friendship with Brahms

Works

• Symphonies 1 (1865) - play
  
• Symphony 2 (1865) - play
• Symphony 3 (1873) - play
• Early piano music (selections TBD) -  vol 1 | vol 2 |vol 3
  
  

Week 4 - Dvořák

• Symphony No. 4 (1874) - play
• Symphony No. 5 (1875) - play
• Stabat Mater (1877) - play
• Slavonic Dances Op. 46 (1878) - play
  
• Piano Concerto (1876) - play
• Violin Concerto (1880) - play

Week 5 - Dvořák

• Symphony No. 6 (1879) - play
• Opera Dimitrij (1882)
• Scherzo Capriccioso ( 1883)
• Symphony 7 (1885) - play
• Possibly St. Ludmila (1886)

Week 6 - Dvořák

• Befriended by Tchaikovsky in Prague (1888)
• Teaches at Prague Conservatory

Works

• Symphony No. 8 (1889) - play
• Poetic Tone Poems for Piano (1889)
• Requiem (1890)
• “Dumky” Trio (1891)

Week 7 - Dvořák

Dvorak in America

• Cello Concerto (1895)
• Symphony No. 9 “From the New World (1893) - play
• Tone Poems esp. The Wood Dove (1896)

Week 8 - Dvořák and His Heirs

Inheritors of the Czech nationalist tradition

• Josef Suk
• Bohuslav Martinů
• Leos Leoš Janáček

Opera: Rusalka