Asrael - Symphony in C minor, Op. 27
The Asrael Symphony in C minor op. 27 In memory of Antonín Dvořák and his daughter, my wife Ottilie (1905/06) is a symphony in five movements by the Czech composer Josef Suk .
Emergence
Suk began composing his symphony at the beginning of 1905, about eight months after the death of his father-in-law Antonín Dvořák . The composition was named after Asrael (Azrael), the angel of death and bearer of souls after death in the Islamic faith. Suk completed the sketches of three movements in less than six months later. On July 6, 1905 - Suk was in the middle of his work - his wife Ottilie died. Although the work was conceived as a reminder of Dvořák's life and work, he now discarded the optimistic tonal language for the rest of the piece. Suk later recapitulated:
“The fearsome angel of death struck a second time with his scythe. Such a misfortune either destroys a person or brings all the dormant forces in him to the surface. The music saved me and after a year I started the second part of the symphony, starting with an adagio, a delicate portrait of Otilka. "
Suk completed the score on October 4, 1906. He dedicated the work To the memory of Antonín Dvořák and his daughter, my wife Ottilie , especially the last two movements to Ottilie.
The symphony was premiered on February 3, 1907 under the direction of Karel Kovařovic in the Prague National Theater. Karel Hoffmann and Jiří Herold - members of the Bohemian String Quartet to which Suk himself belonged - were present at the premiere as concert masters of the National Theater Orchestra.
To the music
The symphony consists of five movements:
- Movement: Andante sostenuto
- Movement: Andante
- Sentence: Vivace
- Movement: Adagio
- Movement: Adagio e maestoso
A concise motif runs through the work, which at first seems cold and merciless, but at the conciliatory end it fades away in the distance in the style of a solemn chant. In the piece, the composer uses a motif from his previous work Pohádka op. 16, which is of great importance here as a "death motif". Although the Asrael symphony contains quotations from Dvořák's work, the basic motif of the requiem in the second movement, and an echo of the song of the hunter's man from Rusalka in the middle part of the third movement , the compositional influence of Dvořák - as it appeared in Suk's previous work - is not visible . Rather, he develops his tonal language in the direction of modern polyphonic music and harmonic techniques.
The duration of the performance is approximately 62 minutes.
occupation
A piccolo flute, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets in Bb (A, E-flat), bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 6 horns (5th and 6th horn ad lib.), 3 trombones, 3 trumpets, tuba, Timpani, triangle, cymbals, bass drum, harp and strings.
literature
- Suk, Josef; ed. Jana Vojtěšková: Dopisy o životě hudebním i lidském, Ed .: Edition Bärenreiter. Prague 2005, ISBN 80-86385-31-0 .
- Vysloužil, Jiří (2001). Hudební slovník pro každého II. Vizovice: Lípa. ISBN 80-86093-23-9 .
- Roubíček, Vít (2006). Asrael, A Summer's Tale, The Ripening, Epilogue, Fairy Tale, Praga (Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, cond.Václav Neumann, Libor Pešek) (CD). Josef Suk; translated by Ted Whang. Prague: Supraphon. Pp. 8-12. SU 3864-2.
- "We Generally Drink Our Pain Alone". Stabat Mater (Dvořák), Asrael (Czech Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir, Václav Talich) (CD). Josef Suk. Prague: Supraphon. 2005. pp. 8-15. SU 3830-2.
Web links
- Asrael Symphony in C minor op.27 : Sheet music and audio files in the International Music Score Library Project
Individual evidence
- ↑ Dopisy o životě hudebním i lidském, p. 60
- ^ 'The Independent from February 19, 2010: Jessica Duchen - Observations: Suk's Angel of Death is not for the faint-hearted' , last accessed on August 5, 2017
- ↑ Vysloužil, Hudební slovník pro každého, p. 518