Shakespeare & Dvořák with the New York Philharmonic

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Friday, 31 January 2025 15:16

Written by Jack Angstreich

Daniele Rustioni, photo by Chris Lee

At Lincoln Center’s superior David Geffen Hall, on the night of Thursday, January 9th, I had the privilege to attend another excellent concert—amidst a strong season—presented by the New York Philharmonic, under the distinguished direction of Daniele Rustioni, who debuted with the ensemble with these performances.

The event began brilliantly with one of its highlights, i.e., a sterling account of Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s marvelous, seldom played Overture to The Merchant of Venice, from 1933, after the famous play by William Shakespeare, who—according to the useful program note by Jack Sullivan—was the composer’s “favorite author.” Sullivan adds that he “wrote some 200 film scores, including Gaslight, And Then There Were None, and The Picture of Dorian Gray.” And further, that “He joined the faculty of the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music, becoming an influential teacher who had a huge impact on American music: among his pupils were John Williams, Henry Mancini, Nelson Riddle, André Previn, and Jerry Goldsmith.” And finally:

He composed 11 Shakespeare overtures over a span of two decades, including The Taming of the Shrew, Twelfth Night, Julius Caesar, Coriolanus, The Winter's Tale, A Midsummer Night's Dream, As You Like It, Much Ado About Nothing, King John, and Antony and Cleopatra. He called these “the overtures to operas I will never compose,” though in the late 1950s he did write two Shakespeare operas, All's Well That Ends Well and The Merchant of Venice.

The brilliant and celebrated soloist Joshua Bell then entered the stage for an impressive account of Antonín Dvořák’s rewarding Violin Concerto in A minor, Op. 53, an undervalued work even if it is surpassed in greatness by the composer’s extraordinary Cello Concerto. Annotator James M. Keller provides a detailed background of its genesis:

He wrote it at the instigation of violinist Joseph Joachim, who had played the premiere of Brahms's Violin Concerto on New Year's Day, 1879. After composing the concerto in the late summer of that same year, Dvořák promptly sent it to Joachim, who responded appreciatively and promised that he was “looking forward to inspecting soon, con amore, your work.” In early April 1880 Joachim finally invited Dvořák to meet with him in Berlin, after which the composer embarked on a thorough revision. On May 9 Dvořák wrote to [his publisher Fritz] Simrock (who was eager to be informed of what was going on with the piece):

According to Mr. Joachim's wish I revised the whole Concerto and did not leave a single bar untouched. He will certainly be pleased by that. The whole work will now receive a new face. I kept the themes and added a few new ones, but the whole conception of the work is different. Harmony, orchestration, rhythm — all the development is new. I shall finish it as soon as possible and send it to Mr. Joachim immediately.

This Dvořák did, and there the piece sat again, this time for more than two years. Finally, on August 14, 1882, Joachim dropped a note to the composer:

Recently I made use of some spare time I had to revise the violin part of your Concerto and to make some of the passages, which were too difficult to perform, easier for the instrument. For even though the whole proves that you know the violin very well, from some single details it may still be seen that you yourself have not played for some time. While making this revision I was pleased by the many true beauties of your work, which will be a pleasure for me to perform. Saying this with the utmost sincerity, I may — without the danger of being misunderstood — confess that I still do not think the Violin Concerto in its present shape to be ripe for the public, especially because of its orchestral accompaniment, which is still rather heavy. I should prefer you to find this out by yourself by playing the work with me.

In mid-September 1882 Dvořák accordingly traveled again to Berlin to consult with Joachim, returning two months later for an orchestral reading. Quite a few changes inevitably followed, mostly involving small cuts and lightened orchestration. Simrock's adviser Robert Keller also attended the orchestral run-through and added his two cents, arguing that the first two movements, which Dvořák had laid out as a single, essentially connected span, should be separated entirely. At this Dvořák drew the line. To Simrock he wrote on December 16, 1882:

You know that I esteem this man and can appreciate him, but this time he went too far. The first movement would be too short and cannot be complete in itself: it would be necessary to add a third part and to this — sincerely speaking — I am not inclined. Therefore: first and second movement without any changes, some cuts in the third movement where the main motif in A major appears.

After all this, Joachim did not end up introducing the piece, notwithstanding his involvement in its difficult birth and the fact that his name remained at the head of the score as its dedicatee. The honor of the premiere went instead to František Ondřiček, who went on to premiere it also in Vienna and London and who became the work's most ardent champion. It seems that Joachim never played the piece in public.

The initial, Allegro ma non troppo movement, which opens with a lyrical statement of the primary theme, is largely affirmative and melodious with dramatic and passionate moments, while the ensuing Adagio ma non troppo is song-like and Romantic and closes quietly. The Finale—marked Allegrogiocoso, ma non troppo—is a rondo the principal theme of which is a furiant, a Bohemian folk dance, and a central interlude is a dumka, a Slavonic folk dance; jaunty—even exuberant—and virtuosic, the movement concludes triumphantly. Enthusiastic applause elicited a wonderful encore from Bell, accompanied by harpist Nancy Allen: an arrangement of Frédéric Chopin’s lovely Nocturne in C-sharp.

The second half of the evening was even more remarkable: a magnificent realization of Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s fabulous Symphony No. 4 in F minor, Op. 36. About it, to his pupil and friend the eminent composer Sergei Taneyev, Tchaikovsky wrote: 

Of course my symphony is program music, but it would be impossible to give the program in words. … But ought this not always to be the case with a symphony, the most lyrical of musical forms? Ought it not to express all those things for which words cannot be found but which nevertheless arise in the heart and cry out for expression?

In a letter from the late summer of 1877 to his patroness Nadezhda von Meck, he wrote:

Our symphony progresses. The first movement will give me a great deal of trouble with respect to orchestration. It is very long and complicated: at the same time I consider it the best movement. The three remaining movements are very simple, and it will be easy and pleasant to orchestrate them.

In another letter to von Meck, he described the opening movement:

The introduction is the seed of the whole symphony, undoubtedly the central theme. This is Fate, i.e., that fateful force which prevents the impulse toward happiness from entirely achieving its goal, forever on jealous guard lest peace and well-being should ever be attained in complete and unclouded form, hanging above us like the Sword of Damocles, constantly and unremittingly poisoning the soul. Its force is invisible, and can never be overcome. Our only choice is to surrender to it, and to languish fruitlessly. … When all seems lost, there appears a sweet and gentle daydream. Some blissful, radiant human image hurries by and beckons us away. … No! These were dreams, and fate wakes us from them. Thus all life is an unbroken alternation of harsh reality with fleeting dreams and visions of happiness … There is no escape. … We can only drift upon this sea until it engulfs and submerges us in its depths. That, roughly, is the program of the first movement.

The movement starts with a stirring fanfare that recurs throughout it, but much of it has a lugubrious quality, although there are lighter passages that alternate with more emotionally charged ones; it finishes forcefully. The second movement, marked Andantino in modo di canzona, is charming but also melancholic, with a beautiful main theme; it increases in intensity, ending softly. The brief Scherzo, an Allegro, is not unexpectedly more playful, even ebullient. The Allegro con fuoco Finale has a brash beginning and is dynamic in the extreme, although with more subdued interludes; it ultimately builds to an exhilarating—even extravagant—climax.

The artists deservedly received a standing ovation.

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