"If the first two parts represented the impressions of Nature and Life as gay and stirring in general, the third overture lets Love appear as a serious and burning passion. The composer has tried to express some of the emotions engendered in him by the final scenes of 'Othello' as an embodiment of both the gentlest and the fiercest expressions of love. The composition is by no means a faithful musical interpretation of the Shakespearean lines, but rather the after-revery of a man whose imagination has been kindled by the theme of the play. It begins with ... the prayer of Desdemona before retiring. While she is still praying for herself and for her husband, weird sounds in the orchestra suddenly announce the approach of the murderer. This is but an effect of the imagination, however, for presently the prayer of Desdemona continues till she falls asleep. Once more the orchestra announces the approach of Othello. This time it is he. He pauses at the threshold. He enters the room, looks long at Desdemona, and kisses her. The theme changes to an allegro. Desdemona awakes, and then follows the cruel, pathetic scene between Desdemona and the Moor:
"'Alas, why gnaw you so thy nether lip?[46]
Some bloody passion shakes your very frame.'"Her entreaties are answered by the deep threats of Othello. Gradually the imaginary conversation becomes tinged with a note of melancholy, and a regretful love scene ensues, according to the composer, till the Moor's jealousy and mad revenge gain the upper hand again. This motif is worked out at some length ... and especially the deep notes of Othello's lion-like anger are sounded repeatedly. In the end he restrains himself no longer. The scene of anguish follows. Desdemona throws herself at his feet:
"DES. Kill me to-morrow, let me live to-night!
OTH. Nay—
DES. But half an hour.
OTH. Being done, there is no pause.
DES. But while I say one prayer!
OTH. (smothering her.) It is too late."Othello rises from the deed, and looks wildly about him. Then comes the wild, remorseful reflection that he may have been deceived.
"'... Had she been true,
If heaven would make me such another world,
Of one entire and perfect chrysolite,
I'd not have sold her for it.'
"The choral motif of Desdemona's appeal surges up from the overlying themes, this time in the deep tones of Othello. It is his turn to make his last prayer."
SYMPHONIC POEM, "THE WOOD DOVE": Op. 110
This symphonic poem, composed after Dvořák's return to Bohemia from the United States in 1895, was published four years later. It is based upon "the like-named [47] ballad of C. J. Erben." Erben's ballad is founded on the Bohemian superstition that the souls of those who, while mortal, have lived godly lives, reappear on earth after death as white doves. The ballad tells a story which is a variant upon the ancient tale of the widow who found prompt solace in the soldier delegated to keep guard over the body of her dead husband. Erben's version, which the music of Dvořák illustrates, is set forth in an argument printed in the score. It runs as follows:
I
"The young widow, weeping and lamenting, follows the body of her husband to the grave.
"(Andante, marcia funèbre)
II
"A jovial, well-to-do peasant meets the beautiful widow, consoles her, and persuades her to forget her grief and take him for a husband.
"(Allegro; andante)
III
"She fulfils her lover's wish. A joyous wedding.
"(Molto vivace; allegretto grazioso)
IV
"From the branches of a freshly budding oak, over-shadowing the grave of her first husband—who had been poisoned by her—the mournful cooing of the wild dove is heard. The melancholy sounds pierce to the heart of the sinful woman, who, overcome by the terrors of an evil conscience, goes mad, and seeks death in the waters hard by.
"(Andante)
V
"Epilogue
"(Andante; più lento)"
[The work by which Dvořák is most familiarly known in America—the symphony in E minor, "From the New World" (composed in 1893 during Dvořák's sojourn in America as director of the National Conservatory of Music)—is not programme-music, except in so far as its slow movement is concerned—the Largo in D-flat major. In this movement, it has been said with authority, Dvořák has essayed a musical publication of the mode which he found in the story of Hiawatha's wooing, as set forth in Longfellow's poem. Mr. H. E. Krehbiel, who, in a sense, stood sponsor for the symphony at the time of its production, observes that there may be here "a suggestion of the sweet loneliness of the night on the prairies"; and he speaks of an episode in the middle of the movement which seems intended "to suggest the gradual awakening of animal life in the prairie scene"; and a striking use is made, he remarks, "of trills exchanged between the instrumental choirs as if they were the voices of the night, or dawn, in converse." The title of the symphony is explained, as most readers will remember, by the fact that in it Dvořák, by his own confession, according to Mr. Krehbiel, "sought to encourage American composers to seek and reflect in their music the spirit of the [negro] folk-tunes which have grown up in America. He does not want them to use the tunes themselves for thematic treatment, for that is not his conception of the meaning of nationalism in music; but he wants native composers to study the characteristic elements of those tunes (for those are the things which make them hit the taste and fancy of the public) and compose soundly on themes conceived in their vein. This he did in his American symphony." The sons of Dvořák have recently (1907) put themselves on record in the following interesting contribution to the history of this much-discussed symphony: "... the passages of the symphony and of other works of this American period, which, as some pretend, have been taken from negro airs, are absolutely our father's own mental property; they were only influenced by negro melodies. As in his Slav pieces he never used Slav songs, but, being a Slav, created what his heart dictated, all the works of this American period—the symphony included—respond to Slav origin, and any one who has the least feeling will proclaim this fact. Who will not recognize the homesickness in the Largo of this symphony? The secondary phrase of the first movement, the first theme of the scherzo, the beginning of the finale, and perhaps, also, the melody of the Largo, which give a certain impression of the groaning negro song, are only influenced by this song, and determined by change of land and the influence of a foreign climate.">[
FOOTNOTES:
[44] The title of this overture in the original Czech is V přirodě, which is said by those who best understand that tongue to be most faithfully rendered by the German In der Natur, by which title the overture is generally known in European concert-halls. Mr. W. F. Apthorp has suggested that Dvořák "might well have chosen Schiller's
'Freude trinken alle Wesen
An den Brüsten der Natur'