The Hero’s Song, Op.111

The Hero’s Song was Dvorak’s last orchestral work. Perhaps because of that emotive fact - and perhaps also by association with Strauss’s similarly named Ein Heldenleben (A Hero’s Life), which was written a year or two later - it has come to be regarded as Dvorak’s glorification of his own career. But there is no evidence to support the theory and, anyway, Dvorak was not the sort of composer to sing his own praises.

The most likely inspiration of The Hero’s Song is that, having just completed four symphonic poems - The Water Goblin, The Noon Witch, The Golden Spinning Wheel, and The Wild Dove - motivated in detail by the ballads of K.J. Erben, he felt the need to write a similar work in purely musical terms, without the problems associated with following a story. Certainly, if he had any detailed programme in mind he did not disclose it, communicating only a general idea: eager to set out and conquer the world, the hero is set back by an incident which grieves him deeply; but he finds new hope, consolation in nature and, eventually, so much of his former spirit that he goes from strength to strength and from victory to triumph.

The Hero’s own motif and the basic theme of the whole work is the short and aggressive phrase uttered by the lower strings in B flat minor in the first bars. It is firmly imprinted on the opening Allegro con fuoco in a variety of shapes, moods and colours. So there is no doubt that the grief expressed in the beautifully scored Poco adagio lacrimoso is the Hero’s. His motif is incorporated in the last cadence of the clarinet melody and it remains a prominent feature of the texture. It disappears only when he finds consolation in a chorale on clarinets and horns in D flat major and renewed hope in a grandioso version of the same theme on violins.

The Hero’s strength returns in the Allegro con fuoco tempo of the opening and his progress - including a delightful Allegretto grazioso section in E major - is marked by the adventures experienced by his short but infinitely transformable motif. The ultimate glory is, of course, reserved for the triumphant B flat major coda.

The Hero’s Song was completed in 1897 and first performed in Vienna in December 1898 by the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by none other than Gustav Mahler.