Cello Concerto in B minor Op.104

Dvorak first attempted a cello concerto as early as 1865, when he was still in his early twenties. At the time he was in love with one of his pupils Josefa Cermáková who, unhappily, did not share his feelings. The concerto remained unfinished and, eight years later, he married Josefa’s sister Anna. Another 22 years later, during his second visit to America, homesick for Czechoslavakia and distressed by the now serious illness of Josefa, Dvorák was working on another cello concerto, which he did complete.

The intimate emotional background of the Cello Concerto in B minor is less evident in the first movement than in the other two. Dvorák, always one of the most spontaneously crreative of composers, had also developed a structural conscience founded on classical principles. So the first subject of the first movement – presented by clarinets and bassoons in the opening bars – is no self-indulgent melody but a sturdily memorable and yet usefully adaptable thematic motif. Nostalgia there is, however, in the second subject, introduced by a solo horn over a quiet string accompaniment. Following classical precedent, the soloist presents his version of the exposition, offering a few new variants of the first subject but, with remarkable self-restraint, adding little but a change of colour to the horn tune.

The soloist’s great moment of eloquence is actually in the development section, where, among the several variations on the first subject, the cello utters a highly expressive version in a much slower tempo. On the other hand, it seems to be as a direct result of the soloist’s subsequent virtuoso efforts – in double-stopped thirds and sixths and then in a brilliant scale in parallel octaves – that the second subject is re-introduced before the other, purged of its former pathos, on full orchestra. Under its influence the first subject loses its sinister character and the movement ends in grandioso triumph.

The Adagio begins with a lovely clarinet melody which, like several tunes in the last two movements, might just be derived from the main theme of the opening Allegro. Certainly, cello and woodwind take full advantage of its intimate lyricism before the full-orchestral protest at the beginning of the middle section – a section devoted largely to one of Dvorák’s songs, “Leave me alone,” which was a particular favourite of the ailing Josefa Cermakova. Tranquillity is restored, however, before the first theme is reintroduced on the three horns. This last section, which is more an improvisation than a regular reprise, contains what Dvorák describes as a “quasi-cadenza” for the soloist and several veiled reference to the main theme of the first movement.

Dvorák completed the first version of the last movement in February 1895 when he was still in America. At that stage it was presumably a conventionally constructed rondo. And so, for the most part, it remains – a stirring march theme, a contrasting slow first episode with a melody jointly introduced by clarinet and cello, the first return of the march theme, a still slower contrasting episode featuring mainly cello and woodwind. But at the point where the rondo theme ought, conventionally, to return and bring the movement to a brisk end there is a long and thoughtful coda, much of which Dvorák added after his return home to Czechoslovakia and after the death of Josefa in May 1895. It includes several allusions to the influential main theme of the first movement and a last, touching reference to Josefa’s favourite song before the decisive and lively ending.