Suk / Dvorak: Serenades For Strings

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Cat No: 8550419

Release Date: 12 January 2000

Label: Naxos - Nxc / Naxos Classics

Packaging Type: Jewel Case

No of Units: 1

Barcode: 4891030504196

Genres: Classical

Composer/Series: SUK / DVORAK

Description
Josef Suk (1874 - 1935)Serenade For Strings in E Flat Major, Op. 6Antonin Dvorak (1841 - 1940)Serenade For Strings in E Major, Op. 22The Czech composer and violinist Josef Suk, Dvorak's favouritepupil and later his son-in-law, was the son of a village organist and schoolmaster atKrecovice. He was born in 1874 and at the age of eleven entered the Prague Conservatory,where he studied the violin with the director Antonin Bennewitz and theory with JosefFoerster. His chamber music teacher was the cellist Hanus Wihan, for whom Dvorak wrotehis famous Cello Concerto and who trained the distinguished Czech Quartet, in which Sukplayed second violin until his retirement in 1933 and the consequent disbandment of thequartet. In addition to his activities as a performer Suk distinguished himself as acomposer and as a teacher of composition at the Prague Conservatory, exercising a stronginfluence over a whole generation of Czech composers.Suk's Serenade in E FlatMajor, Op. 6, was written in 1892, a year after his graduation from theConservatory, and on the recommendation of Brahms was published by Simrock in 1896,immediately establishing him as a composer of importance. In four movements the Serenadeopens with a movement of charm and lyrical appeal, tinged with occasional sadness and verymuch in the classical tradition. This is followed by a more overtly cheerful Allegro and aslow movement of greater intensity of feeling. The mood changes at once with the energy ofthe final movement that brings to an end a work of remarkable achievement, composed as itwas by an eighteen-year-old, then embarking on an additional year of instruction at theConservatory.Dvorak's own background offered less opportunity, though hisachievement must seem the greater. He was born in a village in Bohemia, where his fatherowned an inn and worked as a butcher. The village band provided early musical interest andtraining of a kind, before, through the help of relatives, Dvorak could be sent away toschool, and finally to the Prague Organ School, at that time a poor relation of theConservatory. He spent the first part of his professional life as an orchestral player,principal violinist in the orchestra of the Czech Provisional Theatre, where he worked fora time under Smetana. He was eventually able to devote himself more fully to compositionand was greatly assisted by the encouragement of Brahms, both by the award of scholarshipsand the necessary recommendation to publishers.Dvorak's career won him an international reputation. Hisvisits to England and the resulting choral compositions won him friends in that countryand in 1892 he was invited to New York to establish a National Conservatory, in pursuanceof the sponsor's aim to cultivate a national American school of composition. At home hehad, after Smetana, been largely instrumental in creating a form of Czech music thattranscended national boundaries, music that was thoroughly Bohemian in its melodicinspiration and yet firmly within the Germ
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