LINCOLN CENTER

David Geffen Hall
New York Philharmonic

Christopher Eschenbach - Conductor
Baiba Skride - Violin

Dvorak - Carnival Overture
Bartok - Violin Concerto No. 2
Dvorak - Symphony No. 8

“The Dvořák curtain-raiser blazed with an intensity that blew you back in your seat,” The New York Times said of the New York Philharmonic performing the Carnival Overture. Plus, Bohemian flavors and gypsy tunes abound in Dvořák’s beloved Symphony No. 8 and Bartók’s Second Violin Concerto, featuring acclaimed interpreter Baiba Skride, “a passionate, heart-on-sleeve player” (The Guardian).

Carnival Overture (1891)

Bursting with spirit and energy, Carnival is the second of Dvořák’s three concert overtures (the other two are In Nature’s Realm and Othello, originally titled “Nature, Life, and Love”). The running thread among them is a theme representing the life force, which the composer called “nature,” and which has the power “to create and sustain life, but also, in its negative form, could destroy it,” according to John Clapham’s study of the composer. Dvořák’s own commentary for Carnival describes the music perfectly: “The lonely, contemplative wanderer reaches the city at nightfall, where a carnival is in full swing. On every side is heard the clangor of instruments, mingled with shouts of joy and the unrestrained hilarity of people giving vent to their feelings in their songs and dance tunes.” The vibrant Bohemian flavors so integral to Dvořák’s music depict this joyful scene with bright orchestral colors and rhythms.

BÉLA BARTÓK (1881–1945)

Violin Concerto No. 2 (1938)
Symphony No. 8 (1889)

Bartók’s Second Violin Concerto was commissioned by and dedicated to Zoltán Székely, who requested a “traditional” concerto; but the composer was more in the mood to write a set of variations. Ever resourceful, Bartók managed to please himself and the violinist by incorporating variations into the structure of the work. The concerto’s first movement, which delivers not only gorgeous melodies, but also spicy gypsy pulses, is in the style of a verbunkos (a Hungarian recruiting dance intended to attract new soldiers to service) with an astounding cadenza. The second movement, beginning serenely with an assist from the harp, presents a set of six variations on a peasant tune — no doubt one Bartók had notated on one of his folk song–collecting field trips. The Allegro finale is a variation of the first movement, reinventing all its themes as rambunctious folk dances…more variations. As the composer told Székely: “I managed to outwit you; I wrote variations after all.” A brilliant vehicle for both soloist and orchestra, the concerto offers plenty of opportunities for virtuosic display and audience dazzling. (Thirty years separated Bartók’s two violin concertos; he had composed the No. 1 in 1908 for the young violinist Stefi Geyer (1888–1956), the object of his first, but unrequited, love. No one knew that this work existed until 1956, when it surfaced after both Bartók and Geyer had died.)

ANTONÍN DVOŘÁK (1841–1904)

With his next-to-last symphony Dvořák struck out in a new direction, both in terms of loosening formal Germanic structures and expressing his identity as a Bohemian composer. His peaceful summer retreat at Vysoká no doubt served as the inspiration for the dazzling passages that, after a pensive introduction in a minor key, seem to cascade one after another in the bright opening movement, and for the Bohemian flavors that come into play in the lovely Adagio. A waltz-like rhythm can be heard in the third movement, and the Finale, introduced by a trumpet fanfare, is a theme with variations that features exuberant brass calls before coming to a rousing conclusion. Dvořák once admitted the ease with which he could create a seemingly endless stream of tunes: “Melodies simply pour out of me” — something that is certainly evident in this symphony. Brahms, who was ever a Dvořák “cheerleader,” quipped about his contemporary’s music: “I would be happy if one of his passing thoughts occurred to me as a main idea.”