DVORAK: Songs My Great-Grandfather Taught Me = 30 Transcriptions by JOSEF SUK: 7 Gypsy Songs, Op. 55; In Folk Tone, Op. 73: 2 Songs; 8 Love Songs, Op. 83; “Leave Me Alone,” Op. 82, No. 1; Lullaby; 10 Biblical Songs, Op. 99; “Captured” from Moravian Duets, Op. 32, No. 11 – Josef Suk, violin and viola/Vladimir Ashkenazy, piano
– Toccata Classics TOCC 0100, 60:05 [Distr. by Allegro] **** :
Violinist Josef Suk (b. 1929) exercises a family tradition in this ambitious album: wishing to disseminate the beauty of his great-grandfather’s song legacy–the least known aspect of Antonin Dvorak’s vast oeuvre–Suk has transcribed thirty songs. The last set – the 1894 Biblical Songs – adjusted for the viola, the composer’s own instrument. Dvorak himself had returned to his early Cypresses vocal collection in the 1880s and transcribed them for string quartet, aware that their many vibrant ideas should not pass unnoticed. “Leave Me Alone” from the Op. 82 became the major motif of the Cello Concerto’s second movement Adagio. Only “Songs My Mother Taught Me” from the 1880 Op. 55 achieved popular recognition on a scale with the little Humoresque from Op. 107. The 1895 Lullaby basks in a direct style in honor of the composer’s homecoming from his sojourn to America.
Since the Op. 55 Gypsy Songs partake more of the Slavonic cabaret style than anything of the “authenticity” we associate with Novak and Martinu, the violin-piano renditions carry a decided fiery populist flair. The last of the set, “Give a hawk a fine cage,” combines a parlando style with some bravura passages for both instruments. “Goodnight” and “Oh nothing, nothing can change for me” from the 1886 In Folk Tone set, Op. 83, exhibit a naïve directness, a melancholy ingenuousness reminiscent of Tchaikovsky. If the harmonic patterns look to Schubert, the melodic plaint remains strictly Slavic, respectively Moravian and Bohemian. The Op. 83 Love Songs–originally the Cypresses— derive from Dvorak’s early infatuation with Josefina Cermakova, a love that he sublimated by marrying her sister Anna. The most plangent and harmonically rich, “Death reigns in many a human heart,” proves as affecting in this transcription as it does for full string quartet. Ashkenazy’s keyboard part infuses the bass with a definite Schubertian pathos. The piano part for “I often wander past that house” reminds one of the Schubert Moment musicaux in F Minor, Op. 94, No. 3. The waltz-like “Nature lies peaceful in sleep and dreaming” touches us with its folkish simplicity. “When your sweet glances fall on me” strums a gorgeous nocturne, almost at moments a hymn to love, utilizing a melody close to the opening of the composer’s Piano Quintet. Both Delibes and Debussy seem close to the final entry, “Oh, my only dear one, but for you,” in which soft violin sighs and plaints enjoy cascades of sound from the keyboard.
Dvorak’s 1894 Biblical Songs combine intimacy with the composer’s natural Roman Catholic piety. Death–which claimed Tchaikovsky, Gounod, Bulow, and the composer’s own father–provides a dark color to these meditations, some of which find consolation and release amidst the sorrow. The tenor of the viola places the ten Psalm settings on a par with the Brahms Four Serious Songs, especially the powerful Psalm 55, “Give ear to my prayer, O God.” In their modal harmony, many of the songs exert a kind of Ozark or American South affinity, as well known from Dvorak’s absorption of Negro melodies in his New World Symphony and American String Quartet. “Hear my cry, O God” (No. 6 from Psalm 61) opens with chords almost akin to “Going Home” by Burleigh. “By the Waters of Babylon” (Psalm 137) could be sung by Paul Robeson or Roland Hayes just as naturally as Suk performs it here. No. 4 sets “The Lord is my shepherd” of Psalm 23 to music, the text drawn from the Czech Kralice Bible. Nos. 5 (Psalm 144) and 10 (Psalm 96) each proclaim “a new song” unto the Lord, and so reveal a note of hope and charity even in the emotional wake of mortality. The No. 8 “Turn thee unto me, and have mercy upon me” (Psalm 25) and No. 9 “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills” (Psalm 121) cast Hebraic allusions through its plaintive doxology, almost prophetic of Ernest Bloch.
Finally, Josef Suk–through the process of over-dubbing–performs both violin and viola parts for the Moravian duet “Captured,” a blissful lullaby devoutly sincere, whose keyboard part provides a prologue and epilogue in the manner of plainchant – a real labor of love on several levels.
— Gary Lemco
