Juilliard Faculty Recital: Dvořák Piano Trios

Yesterday afternoon I walked down to Juilliard to hear a faculty recital at Morse Hall that featured Laurie Smukler, violin, Joel Krosnick, cello, and guest artist Ieva Jokubaviciute, piano, in a performance of two Dvořák piano trios.

The program opened with the Piano Trio No. 3 in F minor, Op. 65 (1883).  Though not so well known as the No. 4, this trio represents one of the composer's greatest achievements in chamber music.  It was written a few years after Dvořák had won the 1877 Austrian Prize and had, with the assistance of Brahms and Hanslick, established an international reputation following the publication of the Slavonic Dances.  In light of this, one would have expected to find Dvořák in a cheerful if not exultant mood.  But not in this work.  It is instead, as the use of minor key would indicate, one of the composer's darker and more serious works.  This is particularly true of the third movement adagio in which some have heard a lament for Dvořák's recently deceased mother. Or it may be that things were not progressing as smoothly in Dvořák's career as they appear in retrospect.  In the same year the trio was composed, Dvořák's violin concerto was premiered in Prague but not by his close friend the virtuoso Joseph Joachim who had expressed reservations regarding it.  Meanwhile, the Vienna Philharmonic, in a spiteful show of nationalism, had rebelled against its leader Hans Richter and had refused to premiere the Symphony No. 6.  In any event, the trio, especially in its outer movements, was one of those works that most clearly showed the influence of Brahms.  But no matter how deep a reverence Dvořák felt for his mentor, he never blindly followed the Classical structure Brahms espoused in his own work.  For example, in the second movement scherzo, where the composer's Bohemian roots are most evident, Dvořák did not include any repeats as the form traditionally calls for but instead skillfully inserted in their place slight variations on the preceding material that created in the listener's mind the illusion of a repeat.  

The second and final work was the Piano Trio No. 4 in E minor, Op. 90 (1891), nicknamed the "Dumky" for the Slavic musical form that appears throughout the work.  If in the No. 3 Dvořák had appeared to vacillate between the Bohemian music that had inspired his earliest efforts and the Classical Romanticism of Brahms, he had by the time the No. 4 came to be composed some eight years later managed to reconcile the two.  In the No. 4, Dvořák can be seen returning to his roots with this unapologetic celebration of the dumka and by extension the entire Slavic folk tradition.  The dumka itself is characterized by wild swings between despair and exuberance, and Dvořák made full use of its bipolar nature in all six movements of the trio.  As the composer phrased it:

"It will be both happy and sad. In some places it will be like a melancholic song, elsewhere like a merry dance; but, all told, the style will be lighter or, if I might put it another way, more popular, in short, so that it will appeal to both higher and lower echelons."

And Dvořák certainly did succeed in creating here one of his most popular works.  Its general character is lighthearted and it seems as if a weight had been lifted from the composer's shoulders as he prepared to embark on his journey to New York.  More importantly, in this final piano trio he reaffirmed his belief in the value of folk sources, an interest he would pursue further in the music he wrote in America.

One could not have asked for a better performance of these Dvořák trios than that given yesterday.  All three musicians were consummate professionals who played the music with both precision and feeling.  This was a truly excellent chamber recital that helped one better appreciate the extent of Dvořák's genius.