ANTONIN DVOŘÁK: The Spectre’s Bride
Pavla Vykopalova - soprano
Richard Samek - tenor
Svatopluk Sem - bass baritone, narrator
Hungarian National Choir (Choirmaster: Csaba Somos)
Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra
Conductor: Tomáš Brauner
It is exciting to think that even the great composers have left us works that are still waiting to be discovered. At the age of 43, Dvořák, the composer of the New World Symphony and the Cello Concerto, wrote a Romantic cantata entitled The Spectre’s Bride, a work that has not yet become part of the repertoire in Hungary, presumably because of the difficulties presented by the Czech-language libretto. This performance by the Hungarian National Choir and the Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra, which employs Czech soloists and a Czech conductor, will introduce us to the beauty of the composition.
In 1883, Antonín Dvořák (1841–1904) was commissioned to write a large-scale oratorio by the Birmingham Triennial Musical Festival. After initially considering adapting the stories of Saint Wenceslaus or Jan Hus, he eventually settled on Karel Jaromír Erben’s ballad The Spectre’s Bride. The composition work lasted from April to November 1884, and the success of the performance in Birmingham, which took place in August 1885 with the mobilisation of mammoth forces (a 400-strong choir and a 150-member orchestra), exceeded all expectations. The story that forms the basis of this dramatic cantata, which consists of an introduction and 18 sections, dovetails well with the 19th-century imagination as it relates the otherworldly wedding of a bride and her dead groom. A nocturnal setting, a cemetery, graves, the spirits of the dead and an open coffin: the ballad’s motifs include all the essential elements of a Romantic ghost story. Together with Prague-based conductor Tomáš Brauner, the three Czech soloists – Pavla Vykopalova, Richard Samek and Svatopluk Sem – featured in this Czech-language performance by the Hungarian National Choir (choirmaster: Csaba Somos) and the Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra guarantee the authenticity of the interpretation in both linguistic and stylistic terms.
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