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Re: Dvorak 9 question

Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2018-05-20 20:03

I remember going into the question of Dvorak 9 a few years ago when the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment performed it in New York on period instruments. The first clarinet in the first performance by the New York Philharmonic was one C. Reinecke, and I wanted to know what sort of instrument he would have been using. (I now see that he published a tutor, and have ordered a second-hand copy of it. Perhaps that will tell me – or perhaps someone here knows?)

On that occasion, however, I played on a pair of Ottensteiner copies, as we were also doing the Brahms violin concerto.

I now see that photos of the NY Philharmonic parts are available in their Archive, and had a look. The manuscript parts used in the first performance clearly indicate Bb and A parts in the slow movement; but a later printed edition contains pencilled evidence that SOMEONE played it all on the A.

Clearly people have done this; but I was charmed by a pencilled note above the unison chalumeau first and second clarinet passage accompanying the cor anglais in this copy: "humming sound"!

Having just had the wonderful experience of our yesterday's Royal Wedding being enlivened by an incredibly inspiring black preacher and choir, I was able to think of this as an orchestral attempt to recreate the sound of a choir humming in accompaniment to a soloist; and then I imagined the possible effect of the rest of the wind section actually humming along with the two clarinets:-)

Can someone persuade a conductor to try this in a rehearsal?

I also read in the Archive that Dvorak was directly inspired by Longfellow's 'The Song of Hiawatha' in the second and third movements. I never knew that.

Tony

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Dvorak 9 question new

Dan Oberlin

2018-05-15 20:56