V národním tónu (In Folk Tone) Op.73

Dobrú noc, má milá (Goodnight, my darling)

Zalo dievca, zalo trávu (There was a girl, she mowed the grass)

Ach není, není tu (Oh there is nothing left)

Ej, mám já kona faku (I have a horse oh so fine)

When Dvorák set the Moravian and Bohemian folk poems of V národním tónu he was definitely, unlike Martinu in similar circumstances, “composing.” He was composing so hard, in fact, that in its combination of romantic melody and Slovak idiom Dobrú noc, má milá could almost be a romance by Tchaikovsky - an impression that is not contradicated by the decorative arpeggiated harmonies accompanying the pianist’s expressive echoes of the vocal line at the end of each stanza. The second of the three Moravian songs, Zalo dievca, zalo trávu, with its harmonic diversions into and out of the central stanza and its elaborated ending, is more artfully constructed than any folk song. Beginning melodiously and poignantly enough, Ach není, není tu, the one Bohemian setting in the set, develops a surprisingly operatic intensity in the last repetition of its closing line. Perhaps the most sensitive of the four songs is Ej, mám já kona faku. The first stanza seems to demand heroic treatment but is denied it in a setting poised between reflective song and lively dance, an ambiguity preserved through alternations of one with the other until the sad revelation at the end.

V národním tónu was written between 1885 and 1886 for the Berlin publisher Simrock who, on Brahms’s advice, had taken a risk with Dvorák’s Moravian Duets in 1879 and was so impressed by the profits he made that he hastened to commission not only more songs in the same style but also the Slavonic Dances.