Show Thy Greening - SA-Pno

Background Notes

 

When Antonân Dvořák wrote the first part of the Moravskě dvojzpěvy (Moravian Duets) in March 1875, no one could imagine that he was making his first step toward fame. These small song forms were written around the middle of the 1870s when the composer maintained himself among others as a piano teacher in the family of the Prague wholesaler, Jan Neff, a native from the Moravian town, Lipnik nad Bečvou.

Neff himself and his wife Marie were avid singers as well as tutors of their children, and so they often sang solos and duets after the piano lessons with Dvořák accompanying them. The wish of the landlord was that Dvořák should adapt some of the Moravian folksongs included in the new collection Moravskě národní písně do textu vřaděnými (Moravian Songs with Tunes included in the Text) by the Moravian folksong collector, František Sušil (1804-1868), into the form of duets for their domestic performances. From Sušil's collection, Dvořák selected suitable native texts but wrote new original music for them.

 

Dvořák's complete set of Moravian duets includes 23 miniatures which are grouped in opus numbers 32 (13 titles), 20 (4 titles) and 38 (4 titles). Two duets remain without an opus number: Na tej našej střeše (On Our Roof) and Život vojenský (Military Life). This order which is common and final today, is based rather on publishers' practice than on the exact chronological order of creation of the individual charming pieces.

 

In March 1875, Dvořák wrote Tři dueta pro soprán a tenor s pru`vodem piano, op. 20 (Three Duets for Soprano and Tenor with Piano, op. 20) . When they were published in Simrock's edition in 1879, they were supplemented by the duet Vuře šuhaj, vuře (The Guy Plows a Field) which was the 5th number of op. 32, in which Dvořák transferred the soprano part into the tenor.

 

The Neff family liked the pieces so much that, a year later, they asked Dvořák to write more, this time for two female voices. The composer readily fulfilled their wish and between May 17th and 21st, he wrote five Dueta pro dva sopríny, op. 29 (Duets for Two Sopranos) that he marked as the 2nd cycle in the manuscript and in the time from June 26th to July 13th of the same year, another ten duets for soprano and piano. They were later published as Čtyři dvojzpěvy (Four Duets), op. 38 — Možnost (Chance), Jablko, (Apple), Věneček (Small Wreath) and Hoře (Sorrow). [see AP-01384 - Four Duets]

 

Neff contributed to their publishing before Christmas 1876 as he had them lithographed at his own expense at the company of Emil Starý in Prague and he simply donated this edition to Dvořák. This first edition of the Duets with the delusive marking "Own edition" is dedicated to "The honest Mr. Jan Neff and his noble-minded wife."

 

In the autumn of the following year, Dvořák attached this first edition of Duets to the repeated application for the Austrian state scholarship for "young, talented and poor artists." A member of the Vienna jury, Johannes Brahms, considered them to be so interesting, that he recommended them immediately to his Berlin publisher, Fritz Simrock for publishing. "When you play them," he wrote in his letter dated December 12, 1877, "you will have the same joy as I had and as a publisher, you will have a special joy of the piquancies. Dvořák is surely a very talented person! And moreover, he is poor! Be so kind as to consider this proposal!" Simrock did not hesitate for a long time and he published the Duets at the beginning of 1878 under the title, Kla'nge aus Ma'hren (Sounds from Moravia) under the uniform opus number 32, with an unfortunate poor translation by Josef Srb-Debrnov and without a fee. In 1880, he published them with the original Czech texts under the title Moravskě dvojzpěvy (Moravian Duets). The reason that Opuses 20 and 38 did not become as popular as Opus 32 could have been because the 1879 Simrock edition was only in German (Josef Seb-Debrnov) and English (John Pierpont Morgan)

 

Moravskě dvojzpěvy (Moravian Duets), mainly Opus 32, is popular due to their attractive musical invention. Dvořák, guided by his genial intuition, gave his melodies a folk nature and applied some elements typical for Moravian folk music. The relation of the composer to the native musical tradition manifested itself in a clean-cut and individual form of ethnic imitation. The Czech text is exquisitely wedded to the music and deserves to be sung in the original for the best musical experience.