Songs on Words by Eliska Krasnohorska
OPUS NUMBER | - |
BURGHAUSER CATALOGUE NUMBER | 23 |
COMPOSED | November 1871 |
PREMIERE - DATE AND PLACE |
No. 5: 10 December 1871, Prague
No. 2: 10 April 1872, Prague
complete performance: ?
|
PREMIERE - PERFORMER(S) |
No. 5: Emilie Bubenickova + ?
No. 2: Anna Kupkova + ?
complete performance: ?
|
FIRST EDITION | Nos. 2 and 4: Schlesinger (Robert Lienau), 1880, Berlin complete edition: SNKLHU, 1959, Prague |
TEXT | Eliska Krasnohorska |
PARTS / MOVEMENTS | 1. Linden Trees (Lipy) 2. The Reason (Proto) 3. Obstacles (Prekazky) 4. Meditation (Premitani) 5. Remembrance (Vzpominani) |
DURATION |
approx. 11 min.
|
composition historyIn November 1871 music critic Ludevit Prochazka published an article in Hudebni listy in which he took issue with the fact that Czech songs were being neglected – by both composers and performers. In order to spark the interest of composers and audiences in this genre, he decided to organise the occasional “informal evening of songs”, which would introduce new songs by domestic composers. Dvorak responded to Prochazka’s appeal by writing a group of songs for which he chose texts from the recently published collection by Eliska Krasnohorska, Life in May. The performance of the fifth song from this cycle, “Remembrance”, at the second “informal evening of songs” on 10 December 1871 is important chiefly for the reason that this was the first ever public performance of a work by Dvorak (the composer was already 30 years old at that stage!); and it was also the first time that he would have read reviews of his work by the music critics of the day. |
![]() No. 2 "the Reason" |