Dvorak's Den

[bhodges]

I've just added my analysis video for the 6th Symphony to my Dvorak blog if anyone is interested.

https://dvorakshack.blogspot.com

Thanks, I'm going to check this out! The Sixth is my favorite at the moment (and IMHO a bit underrated, given the attention to 7, 8, and 9). I also subscribed to your YouTube channel.

Which orchestra and conductor did you choose?

--Bruce

[Olias]

Thanks, I'm going to check this out! The Sixth is my favorite at the moment (and IMHO a bit underrated, given the attention to 7, 8, and 9). I also subscribed to your YouTube channel.

Which orchestra and conductor did you choose?

--Bruce

Aww thanks.  My YT channel is rather random but it has a lot of content.    The performances of the Dvorak are the Rowicki/LSO cycle, not my personal favorite but still good.  I only used that one because YT didn't block it on copyright grounds (as long as I don't monetize my channel, which I don't plan to do anyway).

[bhodges]

Just listened to the finale (my favorite), and liked what you've done. Haven't heard the Rowicki/LSO cycle, but yes, quite good. (My fave is Dohnányi/Cleveland.)

Coincidentally, I've been working with a small company on their YouTube videos, and we've run into similar copyright issues (which were successfully resolved). Interesting how the platform is able to survey and identify uploads so quickly.

--Bruce

[Olias]

Interesting how the platform is able to survey and identify uploads so quickly.

Yeah, I've noticed though it often identifies the wrong orchestra/conductor.  It also actually made a claim against one of my own published compositions that I had to get taken off.

[Olias]

New Addition to my Dvorak Blog:

Analysis video of Dvorak's String Quintet #3 "American"

https://dvorakshack.blogspot.com

[Olias]

You can go straight to the video here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSwNB41Z2J4&list=PLDBnumuuGWlc5wtO2-wT32IPLwjGqQbQl&index=12

[SurprisedByBeauty]

Because this seems the best place for it to go, here is my Dvorak Symphony Cycle Survey on the occasion of having just been updated. (Not much updating to do, actually, since no new Dvorak Cycles have come out in the last five years, it seems. But several new re-issues have come on the market. If I've missed something, please do point it out to me in the comments (where I get no notifications, so that's maybe not the best place) or here or on Twitter (@ClassicalCritic))

My favorite, for what it's worth (I've not heard them all), is Rowicki followed by the analog Neuman cycle.



A Survey of Dvořák Symphony Cycles

[DavidW]

I've recently been listening to the Suitner set which is really dynamite, I forgot how really great it is!

[Brian]

Jens, perhaps you can solve a mystery I've long wondered about: what's the deal with the alternative edition of No. 2 used in the Rowicki cycle? My old Philips duo booklet notes make no attempt to explain it but it's an edition I've never heard another conductor use.

[Roasted Swan]

Jens, perhaps you can solve a mystery I've long wondered about: what's the deal with the alternative edition of No. 2 used in the Rowicki cycle? My old Philips duo booklet notes make no attempt to explain it but it's an edition I've never heard another conductor use.

I think we've visited this on the forum before.  I can't find the post(s) but I'm pretty sure when I checked Rowicki against my copy of the urtext score he'd just done some cuts.  Why or by which authroity I can't remember but I don't think its a different "edition" as such just some hacking around of the standard score.  As far as I know there are no editions per se of the Dvorak Symphonies certainly not in the sense that there are say Bruckner editions.  I think that over the years certain performing traditions have grown up around some of the works and I guess this might well include cuts.

[SurprisedByBeauty]

Jens, perhaps you can solve a mystery I've long wondered about: what's the deal with the alternative edition of No. 2 used in the Rowicki cycle? My old Philips duo booklet notes make no attempt to explain it but it's an edition I've never heard another conductor use.

I think we've visited this on the forum before.  I can't find the post(s) but I'm pretty sure when I checked Rowicki against my copy of the urtext score he'd just done some cuts.  Why or by which authority I can't remember but I don't think its a different "edition" as such just some hacking around of the standard score.  As far as I know there are no editions per se of the Dvorak Symphonies certainly not in the sense that there are say Bruckner editions.  I think that over the years certain performing traditions have grown up around some of the works and I guess this might well include cuts.

I wouldn't know to give a better answer than that, either, I'm afraid... And I certainly don't have the score just lying around. 

[Brian]

I hate to harp on the subject and continue my obsession with something we have apparently talked about before. But I do just want to point out one more thing. The most distinctive feature of Rowicki 2 is not a cut but an addition!

You can hear it in the second movement from 13:51 to 14:21. It includes a whole additional final climax to the movement, leading into the ending. I have never heard this on another recording. To compare to Jarvi as a random example on YouTube, I think it replaces the music Jarvi's band plays from about 25:00-26:00.

This has led me to wonder if everyone else is implementing a cut, or perhaps if Rowicki alone has access to an earlier edition of the work.

[Roasted Swan]

I hate to harp on the subject and continue my obsession with something we have apparently talked about before. But I do just want to point out one more thing. The most distinctive feature of Rowicki 2 is not a cut but an addition!

You can hear it in the second movement from 13:51 to 14:21. It includes a whole additional final climax to the movement, leading into the ending. I have never heard this on another recording. To compare to Jarvi as a random example on YouTube, I think it replaces the music Jarvi's band plays from about 25:00-26:00.

This has led me to wonder if everyone else is implementing a cut, or perhaps if Rowicki alone has access to an earlier edition of the work.

Intriguing!  I'm going to dig out my copy of the score and work out what's going on!  The Editio Supraphon scores are the critical editions for Dvorak so they have all the details of what is what...... I'll let you know what I find.

EDIT:  Very interesting - but I have the answer!  You are absolutely right - well done for sticking to your guns Brian.  However it is NOT a different edition.  Rowicki simply plays the movement complete AS PRINTED in the critical edition.  I compared Rowicki to Neumann's analog Czech PO performance (which might be different from Jarvi etc) but Neumann makes a PAIR of short cuts in the score - from the 5th bar after rehearsal letter G for 4 bars, he then plays the next 5 bars(!) then cuts again from rehearsal letter H a further 6 bars with the remaining 6 bars of the movement unaffected/the same in both performances.  Tomorrow I'll check a couple of other classic versions to see what they do - Kertesz/Kubelik/Pesek/Kosler for example.  My guess is that these are "traditional" performing cuts they are in parts when orchestras hire sets of parts so they just do what is marked.  The cut material is - as you no doubt know - actually rather interesting.  Reading the notes that accompany the critical edition Dvorak DID make substantial revisions/cuts to the work as first written but mainly in the outer movements - so they are not in the printed edition.

2nd EDIT:  All the Czechs do the same cut - Kosler, Belohlavek, Pesek (together with Suitner, Anguelov, Serebrier & Andrew Davis) and Kubelik cut.  Of the versions I've checked so far only Kertesz doesn't - he plays the full movement like Rowicki

[Brian]

Thank you so much! I feel so relieved, have been wondering about this for years 

I am going to listen again now. Knowing that there are two short cuts, not one, makes sense of the music there in the "traditional" performances. Agree with you that the cut material is interesting. Arguably, it does a better job providing a satisfying dramatic conclusion to the movement, and it is also a skillful transition to the very last section.

So the printed critical edition includes the cuts Dvorak sanctioned, and then there is a performance tradition, including hired parts, that adds these additionally.

I am slowly listening through every single Dvorak symphony recording in my collection and hadn't gotten to Kertesz yet. It is something to look forward to, hearing another truly full recording.

[Madiel]

Confirmation of Brian's sanity is always welcome.

[Roasted Swan]

Thank you so much! I feel so relieved, have been wondering about this for years 

I am going to listen again now. Knowing that there are two short cuts, not one, makes sense of the music there in the "traditional" performances. Agree with you that the cut material is interesting. Arguably, it does a better job providing a satisfying dramatic conclusion to the movement, and it is also a skillful transition to the very last section.

So the printed critical edition includes the cuts Dvorak sanctioned, and then there is a performance tradition, including hired parts, that adds these additionally.

I am slowly listening through every single Dvorak symphony recording in my collection and hadn't gotten to Kertesz yet. It is something to look forward to, hearing another truly full recording.

Exactly so to the bolded text - and there is nothing either marked in the printed score (sometimes composers will put little symbols that indicate optional cuts) nor in the acccompanying notes at the front of the score to sanction such cuts.  I find it genuinely strange given that a) they are short so its not as if you are removing youthful composing longeurs(!) and b) the material is interesting.

Once I realised that it was a "standard" cut another thing that surprised me was that the 'younger' conductors/more recent cycles still observed them. 

Hold the front page - I've found an Eastern European performance that plays the whole movement - its Gunzenhauser with the Slovak PO on Naxos.  Literally the only other "complete" version I have been able to find of about 14 versions excepting Rowicki and Kertesz.  I was fully expecting that performance to be cut too - as the Slovak PO cut for Kosler and I would assume that orchestra would hold their own set of performing parts in their orchestral library which reinforces the idea that this is a "pencil cut" (literally players cross out bars in the music on their stands)

[aukhawk]

2nd EDIT:  All the Czechs do the same cut - Kosler, Belohlavek, Pesek (together with Suitner, Anguelov, Serebrier & Andrew Davis) and Kubelik cut.  Of the versions I've checked so far only Kertesz doesn't - he plays the full movement like Rowicki

Perhaps worth a mention then, that both Kertesz and Rowicki recorded this symphony with the same orchestra (LSO), with less than 4 years separating the two recordings.

[amw]

Exactly so to the bolded text - and there is nothing either marked in the printed score (sometimes composers will put little symbols that indicate optional cuts) nor in the acccompanying notes at the front of the score to sanction such cuts.

In fact the cuts are marked in the score. However, you're right that no explanation is made for them, as far as I can tell (at least in English).

[Madiel]

Well as has been observed today, and as I think I mentioned last time this came up, Dvorak made revisions. But I'm not at all clear from what people are saying as to whether there is a distinction between cuts that we know Dvorak made, and cuts that others have made. Such as editors of editions other than the critical edition.

"Vide" does indicate a cut.

EDIT: It should also perhaps be noted that the work was never actually performed until after Dvorak revised it.

[Roasted Swan]

In fact the cuts are marked in the score. However, you're right that no explanation is made for them, as far as I can tell (at least in English).

Oops! - I missed the Vide marking - the editorial notes at the beginning of the score make no reference to it but I forgot to look at the back of the score which is where the editors put all the detailed variants/changes.  For this score that amounts to 62 further pages of notes/corrections/alternative passages(!!)  I've attached a scan of the first two pages of these notes.  In a paragraph at the bottom of the 2nd column the editors refer to some pencil changes Dvorak made for an early performance that have been retained in the score with the Vi - de markings.  But there are pages and pages of this stuff!