The People, Yes! Let’s Crush the Woke Plutonomy! An Interview + Review Of "The Populist’s Guide to 2020: A New Right And New Left Are Rising" By Krystal Ball And Saagar Enjeti

-by John Siman

As I reread in his book, Hate Inc. Matt Taibbi’s analysis of how the corporate media have worse-than-cynically divided our nation into mutually-despicable but highly profitable demographic silos, and as I await the publication of Thomas Frank’s forthcoming book The People, No!, which will, I believe, be about the grim suppression of Populism in American history, I have been utterly surprised by the sudden appearance-- as if out of nowhere-- of Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti’s delightful YouTube show Rising, which every day now dispenses brilliantly produced, multiple doses of actual Populist conversation. Glenn Greenwald, who Krystal says is one of her heroes, calls it “the super-perky radical trans-ideological 21st-century subversive sequel to the Katie Couric/Matt Lauer morning Today Show in its heyday minus all that unpleasantness.” The People, Yes!

And, mirabile dictu, Krystal and Saagar’s Rising originates from within the most bubblicious confines of the D.C. bubble-- their studio is literally on K Street-- how is this even possible? How, that is, can their show even be permitted to air in the 21st-century USA, where next-level corporate control requires, as Taibbi has explained, the manufacture of media products as strictly standardized and aggressively dumbed-down as McDonald’s food products are, and in an eco-system even more deleterious to the nation’s health?

Perhaps Krystal and Saagar’s new right + new left friendship presages the actual rising up of a new Populist movement in the USA, out of the long-awaited ruins of neoliberal oligarchy. Well, that might be too much to hope for, but in any event their appearance on the political scene is good news coming at a time when I, for one, thought that good news had gone extinct.

And to top it all off Krystal and Saagar have just written a book, The Populist’s Guide to 2020: A New Right and New Left are Rising. It’s a collection of thirty-nine of their YouTube essays (twenty written by the nominal Democrat Krystal and nineteen by the nominal Republican Saagar; all thirty-nine were broadcast between last July and this January), with some useful updates and analysis added. Their essays are arranged not chronologically, but according to four rather audacious themes:

Core Rot (the ugly result of the elites’ utter betrayal of the American working class)

Media (why most all Americans hate it)

Identity (understood as a woke intersectionalist weapon effecting societal division)

Theories of Change (Krystal and Saagar really are envisioning a working-class revolution)

Each of these four themes is introduced by a short, insightful, jointly-written essay. The whole thing weighs in at a very lively and readable 243 pages, and it’s a remarkable feat of modern publishing that so many of the essays in the printed-on-paper book had so recently been broadcast on the Internet -- about a quarter of them since Thanksgiving. Soon after its launch on February 8, Krystal and Saagar’s book made it into the top ten on Amazon’s list of new releases.

And while their book was selling so briskly on Amazon, their YouTube viewership continued its months-long increase: Rising reached 300,000 subscribers in February. (The now-venerable Jimmy Dore Show has about 700,000 subscribers.) “The runaway success of our show and of so many others on YouTube,” they write, “is a direct indictment of the mainstream media” (p. 82).

So then, if we really are witnessing the risingof a new Populist movement, it seems that it will be characterized by media content of sparklingly high production value and remarkably quick turnaround. Leonidas Lafayette Polk and William Jennings Bryan would be duly impressed.

Indeed Krystal is so TV-polished and camera-ready that when I first saw her electronic image on Rising a few months ago (I had never seen her in the three years during which she was a co-host on MSNBC), I instinctively assumed that she would be just another plastic mouthpiece of official Neoliberal opinion, another “super-perky” (pace Glenn Greenwald) robot for the National Security State. Saagar, similarly, who is a decade younger than Krystal, presents himself as a very cheerful, very well-adjusted, very well-dressed (awesome ties!) D.C. politics nerd and describes himself as a conservative Trump-supporter who vehemently opposes socialism. And yet, when they come together, they write and say things like this: “The old order will die. It is dying before our eyes. The only question is how long before a new order is born” (p. 23).





They are intellectuals, and they are writing from the gut. Here is a sentence from Saagar’s essay, “My Dire Warning for the American Right”: “[W]e need to turn an eye toward our decrepit city in Washington to highlight just how exactly we got to a point where polling indicates that almost half the American public wants to burn our institutions to the ground” (p. 194).

Both Krystal and Saagar, I should point out here, are fascinated with the mechanics of the New Deal, with all the details of how Franklin Roosevelt was able to engineer a revolutionary transformation of the federal bureaucracy. Krystal, in fact, has written a book in which she envisions a new New Deal, Reversing the Apocalypse: Hijacking the Democratic Party to Save the World, and Saagar gave us a mini-lecture about the insider political genius whom he calls “the chief architect of the New Deal,” Thomas “Tommy the Cork” Corcoran. Saagar’s point was to illustrate just how gargantuan a task it is to reinvent government. It’s something he obviously thinks about a lot.

Also salient: Krystal was born and raised and continues to live in-- and to commute to K Street from-- rural King George County, Virginia. She retains the good manners of someone who grew up in the South. Saagar, the son of immigrants, grew up in College Station, Texas. Flyover country. My point here is that they both have, in real life, rubbed shoulders with actual... deplorables.

And so it is altogether fitting that it is from Krystal and Saagar that I have learned the revolutionary word plutonomy. It looks like plutocracy, like a word from Ancient Greek, but it isn’t. It is, as we shall see, more badass than that.

Back in Ancient Athens, when Plato and Xenophon were recalling how Socrates had described the type of regime in which private wealth determines public power, Plato used the word oligarchy and Xenophon the word plutocracy. Two words, but a single outcome: the rich rule and the poor are disenfranchised. And so Plato in The Republic observes the fundamental political failure of oligarchy/plutocracy: it causes a city to be divided against itself, into a city of the rich and a city of the poor, which, though they continue to dwell together in the same spot, continuously plot against one another.

And what then becomes of these disenfranchised poor? In The Constitution of the Athenians Aristotle presents us with a worst-case scenario, but a historical one nevertheless:

[In the time before Solon, Aristotle writes] the Athenian regime was in all respects oligarchical, and the poor and their wives and their children were enslaved to the rich, and they were called Dependents and Sixth-part-sharecroppers, for it was under a sixth-part rent that they farmed the fields of the rich-- all the land was owned by the rich. And if they ever failed to pay their rents, both they and their children were liable to arrest...

So much for economic plight of the disenfranchised poor-- what of the ruling rich, the oligarchs /plutocrats? Well, they get richer and richer of course. And this is why plutonomybecomes for us an essential term of analysis: it denotes the economic arrangements that arise naturally from oligarchic/plutocratic political arrangements.

Plutonomy means that wealth grows only for the wealthy. It’s the economy of a plutocracy. And so plutonomy is not, as we have seen, an ancient word, but a modern portmanteau word, a fusion of plutocracy + economy.

And Krystal and Saagar describe the dynamic of plutonomy with vividness, as in this passage from their book:

Our entire economy has become increasingly oriented around the special flowers of Richard Florida’s so-called “Creative Class” [Thomas Frank uses the term “Liberal Class”; during our conversation Saagar used the term “Cosmopolitan Class,” and Krystal the term ”Professional/Managerial Class”; I am old enough to remember “Yuppie Scum”]. These are the lucky, mostly college-educated, types to whom the entire low-wage service community caters: the ones who came mostly from big cities or were identified as “special” in their small towns and put on the college track. They are the Pete Buttigiegs of the world, whose privilege and particular type of intellect gained them access to the elite world and all the stamps of elite privilege that come with it: the people who expect their sustainable [!] sushi to be available at 2 a.m. and for whom an entire army of exhausted and underpaid workers has been marshaled (p. 22).

Michael Hudson describes plutonomy with statistics: “[A]ll the growth in GDP has accrued to the wealthiest 5 Percent since the Obama Recession began in 2008. Obama bailed out the banks instead of the 10 million victimized junk-mortgage holders. The 95 Percent’s share of GDP has shrunk” (The Democrats’ Quandary-- In a Struggle Between Oligarchy and Democracy, Something Must Give). The rich get richer, and the poor get uninsured gig jobs serving the rich.

Krystal told me that she learned the word plutonomy in the context of Wall Street, from an analyst who communicated the message: “Look. All the money to be made comes from catering to the plutocrats-- with luxury goods, with luxury experiences, with luxury services. That’s where all the money is to be made because no one else has anything.”

She continued: “So our whole economy has become a plutonomy, where you have a small slice of people who are very fortunate, who have their credentials and their ticket to the elite class, and they can get their sushi on demand delivered to them by Uber Eats at 2 a.m., and the whole society is set up to cater to their every whim and desire. And they are the only people who in their workplace and in their life are actually treated like human beings.”

“The Meritocracy,” Saagar interjected.

“The Parasite Class,” I thought to myself.

Krystal resumed: “Which is why I responded so much to Andrew Yang’s message-- the core of his message-- which was very simple: that everyone deserves to be treated with humanity, like a human being. But that is the opposite of how our economy is structured.”

Plutonomy is so bad that Socrates and Plato and Xenophon and Aristotle didn’t have a word for it.

How in heaven’s name then is it being shoved down America’s throat? One way is by its being sugar-coated with a gooey layer of identity politics, of intersectional wokeness. Krystal and Saagar write:

There is genuine racism, sexism and hatred in this country-- bigotry of all kinds. But what animates American politics right now is not a true desire to make America a place free of the systemic legacy of racist and sexist policies: what animates American politics is the desire for elites to cling to power, engage in rent-seeking behavior and hog all the spoils of plutonomyfor themselves. Identity politics is the sop thrown to working class people to keep them in line [italics mine]. It keeps us all running around yelling: “Racist!” and “Sexist!” and “Un-American” at each other rather than noticing the way that we are all united in a shared struggle” (pp. 134-135).

With the phrase “united in a shared struggle” Krystal and Saagarget to the heart of the matter. For the most horrible of the many horrors of identity politics is its rejection of the very possibility of human solidarity. Oligarchy, as Plato described it, was bad enough, for it causes a city to divide against itself, to divide into two hostile factions, but woke identity politics divides and divides again, into as many hostile factions as there are countable identitarian intersections. And so, just as plutonomy arises naturally from oligarchy, so likewise does a truly anti-human viciousness arise from identity politics.

The horrors of identity politics and woke anti-capitalism can perhaps best be fought by means of satire, as Andrew Doyle has been doing with his Twitter character, Titania McGrath, an imaginary “radical intersectionalist poet committed to feminism, social justice and armed peaceful protest.” He and his colleague Douglas Murray are the two greatest heroes of the war against woke in the UK, and I have often wondered who has risen up to their level of moral and intellectual valor here in the USA. In an important way, Krystal and Saagar’s critique of identity politics is even more powerful than Doyle and Murray’s, for while the two Englishmen write from a sensibility that is at its core literary-- Doyle has a doctorate in Elizabethan literature from Oxford and Murray wrote a major biography of Oscar Wilde while still an undergraduate there-- Krystal and Sagaar have politics in their bone marrow. They are therefore able to analyze the monstrosity that is the woke corporation, to unveil the intersectionof identity politics with plutonomy. “So the big insight I got from your book,” I told them, “is that Woke is the next level of union busting.”

“I agree,” Saagar said, “I think it’s a pernicious attempt... I don’t think it started out this way, [but now] corporations realize that they can buy off key elements of the left by sponsoring critical race theory and identity stuff, and by using that they can basically not answer for any of the structural and economic damage that they have caused to American workers. I don’t think it started out this way... I don’t think these critical race theorists-- [for example] I don’t think the founder of the 1619 Project, Nikole Hannah-Jones, was ever like, Yeah, I’m gonna get funded by the Shell Corporation, but, because she thinks that race is the fundamental divide amongst Americans, taking that money is fine... 1619 to me encapsulates all of this: the New York Times telling a bunch of upper-middle-class white liberals that they’re actually fundamentally racist from the very beginning, and that race in and of itself-- and not class-- is the primary dividing line in this country.”

Saagar continued: “And what I would say is: ...This is the worst possible thing you can actually do to a lot people of color in this country … who are disproportionately affected by class-based policies, which destroy unions, which go after wages. I mean, who do you think is affected when we have union-busted jobs or low-wage work, which is fundamentally catering to an upper class, to a Cosmopolitan Class which is diverse in name only?” (The contrived diversity of what Saagar here calls the “Cosmopolitan Class” is one of Adolph Reed’s most insightful observations-- I asked about this, and of course Krystal and Saagar admire Reed’s work, and of course they’ve had him on the show.)

“Yes,” Krystal agreed, “it’s a way to keep the working class divided so they do not accumulate power-- because there’s many more of them than there are of the elites. But the Republican Party uses white identity, and the Democratic Party uses: Look, at least we’re not racists like those guys!-- to be able to keep people in the tent so they can center the party around the interests of the Professional / Managerial Class.”

Krystal paused and continued: “Identity politics to me means taking something that is real... bigotry... and weaponizing it to maintain the status quo.”

“Yeah,” I said.

Back to Krystal: “To say: Look, if we have a gay millennial mayor, we’ve made progress, even when he’s pushing the same status quo politics. Or-- having the first black president. We have made progress. And I don’t want to say that that’s nothing. It is something. It does matter for children to be able to look up and see a black man as our president. But does it really make you feel better if it’s like Kamala Harris prosecuting you as a single parent for your kids being truant or possessing marijuana? Does it matter to you if it’s black woman who did that? No! Personally, my aspirations are much greater than changing the gender ratio or racial makeup of, of...“

“...of the Fortune 500!” Saagar interjected.

“Great!” Krystal said, and we all laughed, “We have our first female CIA torturer. Fantastic!”

Ha! What fun it is to visit K Street! The People, Yes! When, a year or so ago, I met Thomas Frank at a similarly bubblicious location and told him that I had travelled there from West Virginia, he entertained me with an anecdote about a trip he had once made westward across West Virginia: each time he crossed a mountain ridge, he told me, the only station he could pick up on his car radio would be broadcasting the Rush Limbaugh Show. Then he’d be crossing over the next ridge, and the station would fade out … only to be replaced by a successor station broadcasting the same episode of Rush on the same schedule. So up and down, up and down, again and again, over a couple hundred miles, Thomas Frank was able to listen to an entire episode of Rush Limbaugh virtually uninterrupted from a half a dozen or more West Virginia radio stations, operating a sort of aural relay race.

Maybe the Thomas Frank Phenomenon works in reverse too, for as I headed home from the bubble, before I crossed back over the mountain and into West Virginia, I heard a broadcast of a new NSO recording of Dvořák‘s New World Symphony. As I listened I thought of Thomas Frank progressing happily up and down those West Virginia mountains, and then I thought, Yes, I am hearing an intimation of a better post-woke American futureand this future will be like Dvořák‘s music moving seamlessly back and forth between echoes of Beethoven and echoes of old slave spirituals. Dvořák, I was thinking, had seen what could go wrong in America, but he also had seen what could go right: pure beauty set free from social class or caste or race. America was-- is-- the place where that can happen. Maybe, I thought, Dvořák‘s symphony could be the theme song for a new, a rising Populist movement. A half century ago Neil Armstrong took a recording of it to the moon, you know.





Maybe the Thomas Frank Phenomenon works in reverse too, for as I headed home from the bubble, before I crossed back over the mountain and into West Virginia, I heard a broadcast of a new NSO recording of Dvořák‘s New World Symphony. As I listened I thought of Thomas Frank progressing happily up and down those West Virginia mountains, and then I thought, Yes, I am hearing an intimation of a better post-woke American future, and this future will be like Dvořák‘s music moving seamlessly back and forth between echoes of Beethoven and echoes of old slave spirituals. Dvořák, I was thinking, had seen what could go wrong in America, but he also had seen what could go right: pure beauty set free from social class or caste or race. America was-- is-- the place where that can happen. Maybe, I thought, Dvořák‘s symphony could be the theme song for a new, a rising Populist movement. A half century ago Neil Armstrong took a recording of it to the moon, you know.

Grim Reaper by Nancy Ohanian

Sunday Classics: Dvořák's "Slavonic Dances": a world, or 16 worlds, in 16 miniatures

Probably the greatest Czech conductor (at least of the stay-at-home-Czech variety) of whom we have record, Václav Talich, conducts the Czech Philharmonic in Dvořák's Slavonic Dance No. 10 in E minor, Op. 72, No. 2 (a dumka), in this 1955 video.

by Ken

I've made this point before, but we need to make it again before proceeding to the Slavonic Dances, as promised in Friday night's preview (when we heard both the first of them in both the original piano-duet version and the composer's orchestration. Although it was obvious from the outset that Dvořák's Slavonic Dances were inspired by Brahms's Hungarian Dances, which proved a huge commercial success, what Brahms was producing was genuine trifles -- luscious trifles, but still (mostly) trifles, which doesn't seem to me at all the case with the Slavonic Dances.

I've also argued that the Hungarian Dances seem to me more effective, more atmospheric, in their original piano-duet form, where they really create a sound world of their own -- though necessarily a sound world limited by what you can get from four hands pounding a single piano keyboard.

An obvious example is the most famous of the Hungarian Dances. Note that the prevailing form in all these dances is our old friend A-B-A, most often either fast-slow-fast or slow-fast-slow, but in any case with a contrasting mood for the middle section.

BRAHMS: Hungarian Dance No. 5: Allegro

original version for piano duet: in F-sharp minor

Alfred Brendel and Walter Klein, piano. Vox, recorded 1956

orchestral version by Martin Schmeling: in G minor

Staatskapelle Berlin, Otmar Suitner, cond. Denon/Deutsche Schallplatten, recorded Aug. 28-Sept. 2, 1989

violin-and-piano version by Joseph Joachim: in G minor

Fritz Kreisler, violin; Carl Lamson, piano. Victor, recorded Feb. 17, 1916


FOR MORE ABOUT (AND OF) THE HUNGARIAN
DANCES PLUS OUR SLAVONIC DANCES, CLICK HERE

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Sunday Classics preview: Sampling the musical relish of Dvořák's Slavonic Dances

Seiji Ozawa conducts the Vienna Philharmonic in the first of Dvořák's Slavonic Dances, in C minor, Op. 46, No. 1.

by Ken

I could swear that we've sampled Dvořák's Slavonic Dances in Sunday Classics, but so far I haven't been able to find a link. (I really have to do something about updating the index.) I've had it in mind for a while now devote a post to these little treasures. I had fantasies of a really incisive in-depth listen, which might have been possible considering the miniatureness of the form. That's not going to happen, though, at least not this week.

I thought for tonight we'd just start at the beginning, with the blazingly proclamatory opening dance, with -- naturally -- its contrastingly tender central section. So here's how Dvořák composed it originally, for piano duet, and then how he opened it up into a new world of color and excitement when he orchestrated the Slavonic Dances.

DVOŘÁK: Slavonic Dance No. 1 in C, Op. 35, No. 1: Presto

Original version for piano duet

Michel Béroff and Jean-Philippe Collard, piano. EMI, recorded Feb. 9-12, 1976

Orchestral version by the composer

Cleveland Orchestra, George Szell, cond. Columbia/CBS/Sony, recorded Jan. 4-5, 1963

IN THIS WEEK'S SUNDAY CLASSICS POST

Well, we're going to hear some more of the Slavonic Dances. Surprise!

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Sunday Classics: Finally we reach Dvořák's glorious "New World"

The Scherzo from Dvořák's New World Symphony played by the Kamuela Philharmonic under music director Madeline Schatz at the Kahilu Theatre in Waimea (on the Big Island of Hawaii), Jan. 6, 2008

by Ken

As I noted in Friday night's preview, after poking around Dvořák's Eighth Symphony and then his Seventh, we arrive at the Ninth, his final symphony, which he himself called From the New World, recalling his 1892-95-year sojourn in the U.S. as director of the National Conservatory of Music in New York.

In the Friday preview we sneak-peeked the first and second movements of the New World Symphony, so I thought we'd start today with some teasing from the third, once again a scherzo. Dvořák has built rhythmic quirkiness into the main theme of the Scherzo, but that doesn't prevent him from playing with those rhythms -- and transforming them into something very different!

Philharmonia Orchestra, Otto Klemeprer, cond. EMI, recorded Oct. 30-Nov. 2, 1963 [audio link]

Our other tease again involves playing with rhythm as part of the toolkit for transforming the musical mood, in this case paving the way for the outbreak of the jolly trio section of the Scherzo.

New York Stadium Symphony Orchestra, Leonard Bernstein, cond. American Decca, recorded in Carnegie Hall, July 28, 1953 (mono) [audio link]


FOR TODAY'S JOURNEY THROUGH DVOÁK'S NEW WORLD,
AND SOME FORWARD EXTRAPOLATION, CLICK HERE

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Sunday Classics preview: Counting back from 8 to 7, then jumping forward to 9, we arrive at Dvořák's "New World" Symphony

Is this any way to start a symphony? For a lot of composers it would be hunky-dory, but Dvořák had a better idea.

by Ken

Let's say you had a vivid musical imagination, and had come up with what seemed like a bunch of highly workably musical ideas out of which to fashion a symphony. You could certainly start a symphonic first movement this way:

[audio link]

And you could start a symphonic slow movement -- a Largo, say -- this way:

[audio link]

But --

THAT'S NOT THE ONLY WAY YOU COULD START THESE
MOVEMENTS. FOR OTHER POSSIBILITIES, CLICK HERE

A REMINDER ABOUT THE "AUDIO LINKS"

These are only backups in case you're having trouble getting the clips to play "normally." If you're not having trouble with the clips, you're not going to find anything "extra" on the actual server pages. (It would be nice to know if the backup links are doing anyone any good, because they're a pain to do.)

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Sunday Classics: Moving backward, we arrive at Dvořák's Symphony No. 7

Vienna Philharmonic, Rafael Kubelik, cond. Decca, recorded October 1956

by Ken

My first thought after we did Dvořák's Eighth Symphony week before last ("From bucolic depths to blazing glory: Dvořák's Symphony No. 8," with a "refresher" Friday night), once I realized that all we'd heard from his next and last symphony, From the New World, was the Largo, was to forge right on ahead. Then I thought, why not instead go backward to the Seventh, the start of what has become a common grouping of "Dvořák's last three symphonies." Then I thought, well, why not go back to the beautiful Sixth Symphony, or even the Fifth? But I figured we can always come back to those, so this week's subject is the Dvořák Seventh Symphony.

I think everyone is familiar with the phenomenon of a special moment in a piece of music, a moment that suddenly makes you sit up, maybe even lifts you out of your chair,- and that has if anything a stronger effect the more times you listen to the piece.

We're about to encounter what for me is one of them, following hard upon the fairly straightforward yet haunting eight bars we've just heard. Of course if you listen more closely to those eight bars -- basically a haunting little chorale for oboe, two clarinets, and two bassoons, with plucked accompaniment from second violins, violas, and cellos -- you'll notice that in their casual way they're concealing a series of pretty unexpected harmonic juxtapositions. (You'll find the score page that includes bars 6-8 in the click-through, along with bars 9-10.)


None of which prepares us, for what comes next, as the previously plucking strings, now led by the first violins, take up their bows and are promptly joined by the bassoons, horns, and double basses, with the other woodwinds (including the previously unheard flutes, who promptly assume a leadership position) and the timpani chiming in -- for an upwardly sweeping little tune that seems to me pure magic. We'll hear it right after the click-through.


TO HEAR THE CONTINUATION, CLICK HERE

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Sunday Classics refresher: In which we take another listen to Dvoŕák's Symphony No. 8

Klaus Tennstedt (1926-1998)

DVOŘÁK: Symphony No. 8 in G, Op. 88:
i. Allegro con brio
London Philharmonic Orchestra, Klaus Tennstedt, cond. BBC Legends, recorded live in the Royal Festival Hall, Apr. 2, 1991

by Ken

When we heard Dvoŕák's Eighth Symphony week before last ("From bucolic depths to blazing glory: Dvořák's Symphony No. 8"), you may recall that the "A" group of recordings I initially plucked off the shelves for consideration mysteriously vanished. They reappeared, of course; it turns out they were cunningly camouflaged by having the Tennstedt-EMI CD of Beethoven overtures (which I used for the Egmont Overture post) sitting on top. Now a number of those discs/sets also included the Dvoŕák symphony we're going to hear on Sunday, and so those distinguished conductors -- George Szell, Christoph von Dohnányi, Václav Neumann, Rafael Kubelik, and Mariss Jansons -- will be represented then along with some distinguished colleagues Carlo Maria Giulini, Leonard Bernstein, and Zdeněk Košler.

However, with regard to the other conductors in that "A" group, either they didn't record the Dvoŕák symphony we'll be adding to our "repertory" Sunday or I don't have their recording, at least on CD. So I thought tonight we would refresh our memory of the Dvoŕák Eighth with their able assistance.

For the lovely first movement we've just heard that glorious live performance -- grandly scaled, brimming with delight -- by Klaus Tennstedt. (To be honest, this wasn't really in the missing "A" group. At the time I had forgotten about it, since it's contained in a BBC Legends four-CD "Portrait of a Legend" set.) In the click-through we'll have our old friend Bruno Walter conducting the haunting Adagio and the great Czech conductor Václav Talich conducting a decidedly "grazioso" performance of the Scherzo. Finally, we finally get to hear Herbert von Karajan raise the roof in the Finale in his great 1961 Decca recording.

TO CONTINUE WITH OUR DVOŘÁK EIGHTH REFRESHER, CLICK HERE

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Sunday Classics: From bucolic depths to blazing glory: Dvořák's Symphony No. 8

The finale of the Dvořák Eighth Symphony is played by the University of Suwon Symphony Orchestra under Piotr Borkowski at the Seoul Arts Center, October 2005.

by Ken

In last night's preview, I proposed Dvořák's Eighth Symphony as one of that category of pieces that build to such a rousing finale that the music, despite its uniformly high quality, tends to seem like a preparation for it, and offered the examples of Beethoven's Egmont Overture and, on the symphonic scale, Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony, which culminates in an even more blazing blaze of glory. One obvious difference is that the Tchaikovsky Fourth begins about as dramatically full-throatedly as a symphony can:

Boston Symphony Orchestra, Pierre Monteux, cond. RCA/BMG, recorded Jan. 28, 1959

Whereas the Dvořák Eighth begins . . . well, we'll hear in just a moment in the click-through.

I have to say that, having now written the portion of this post you'll find in the click-through, I find that I haven't devoted any more attention to the finale than to the other three movements. Indeed, partly because of the quality of the two performances we'll be hearing, I'm inclined to think that the gorgeous Adagio is going to walk off with the post.

My first thought is, hmm, if only I'd had one of those Karajan recordings handy! But of course the enforced deemphasis of the finale is in fact a good thing. As I was suggesting last night, Dvořák worked awfully hard to make the musical results sound so simple and straightforward, and listening to a piece like the Eighth Symphony, I find it hard not to be struck by both the diversity and the extraordinarily uniform quality of the component parts.


FOR OUR TOUR OF THE DVOŘÁK EIGHTH, CLICK HERE

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Sunday Classics: Dvořák's music isn't just music to love, it's music that loves you back

UPDATE, 9:05am ET: Crisis! The site that hosts the audio clips doesn't seem to be hosting at the moment. I don't think there's anything I can do except hope it spontaneously regains its equilibrium. (I thought it was too much to believe I'd actually gotten control of this process. Ha!) Well, you can still enjoy the "Song to the Moon."

UPDATE, 9:15am ET: Seems to be OK now. Don't ask me. (I don't plan to hold my breath though.)


Okay, I suppose the lip-synched visuals are kind of hokey, but in this undated German TV clip Lucia Popp (1939-1993) sings the daylights out of the water nymph's haunting "Song to the Moon" from Dvořák's Rusalka, in which Rusalka sings of her love for a handsome young prince -- one of those inter-life-form relationships that rarely seem to end well.

Silver moon upon the deep dark sky,
Through the vast night pierce your rays.
This sleeping world you wander by,
Smiling on men's homes and ways.
Oh moon ere past you glide, tell me,
Tell me, oh where does my loved one bide?
Oh moon ere past you glide, tell me
Tell me, oh where does my loved one bide?
Tell him, oh tell him, my silver moon,
Mine are the arms that shall hold him,
That between waking and sleeping he may
Think of the love that enfolds him,
May between waking and sleeping
Think of the love that enfolds him.
Light his path far away, light his path,
Tell him, oh tell him who does for him stay!
Human soul, should it dream of me,
Let my memory wakened be.
Moon, moon, oh do not wane, do not wane,
Moon, oh moon, do not wane....

by Ken

So, finally, we get to the long-delayed and much-previewed Dvořák piece. In case anyone's keeping track, I can report that back on January 17 I mentioned that that week's intended subject was being put on hold -- for a week, I thought at the time! By way of easing into the still-unnamed subject, I did some speculating on who might be "the world's greatest tunesmith," focusing that day on Puccini and the next day on Schubert.

The point was that when it comes to sheer melodic inspiration, this is the company in which I would place Dvořák. It's the top rank. And in the case of Rusalka's aria, his melodic and also harmonic radiance is equally apparent in the orchestral accompaniment, and this too is characteristic of the composer.

Which is practically a cue for the second-movement Largo of Dvořák's last symphony, From the New World, written during the spring and summer of the composer's first academic year in New York, 1892-93, as director of the new National Conservatory of Music. (The New World was long known as Symphony No. 5, but by now is securely established as No. 9, thanks to numerical fixes starting with the inclusion of four earlier, previously unnumbered symphonies.) For this post, after listening to the Largo in a sizable stack of New Worlds I have on CD, I was set to go with Bruno Walter's Columbia Symphony recording(the CD that coupled it with his lovely Eighth Symphony is hard to find now, and therefore expensive, but Amazon offers an MP3 download), until it was nosed out by one last contender, Otto Klemperer's EMI recording with the Philharmonia Orchestra (not available at all now except at silly prices).

Yes, this is the entire English horn part of the New World Symphony; note that the instrument "tacet" (is silent) in movements I, III, and IV.



You'll note that the English horn part begins with six bars of rest. (That's what that "6" over the printed rests at the very start means.) In those six bars you'll hear the kind of intensity and emotional resonance Dvořák could build out of such seemingly materials as the four-bar chorale for lower woodwinds and all the brasses, which offers a textbook demonstration of the fundamental process of harmonic "resolution," where the chords go through harmonies that tease the ear as it craves for those harmonies to "resolve" into a satisfactory "root" chord. When it finally does, Dvořák brings the timpani in, tapering off then to set the stage for a segue into a gentler string chorale. (The wind chorale recurs in varied forms at strategic points through the movement.) Shockingly, you'll hear conductors simply chug through these six opening bars as if they were mere filler inserted to delay the entrance of the English horn -- amazing.

As for that entrance of the English horn (or cor anglais, the slightly larger and deeper and significantly reedier and more plaintive cousin of the oboe; the English horn, as always needs to be pointed out, is neither English nor a horn), sounding that ineffably beautiful melody, you may be thinking that surely this melody is the Negro spiritual "Going Home"? Indeed it is. But as far as I know, the scholarly position is still that the spiritual borrowed the tune from Dvořák rather than vice versa. Clearly, though, the tune is in the spirit of the spiritual. During his time in the U.S., Dvořák made no secret of his admiration for the spiritual, which he thought could help form the basis for a truly American music.

ENCORE! LET'S HEAR THE LARGO AGAIN!

I couldn't resist buying it (it was only $2.99 [note: and that includes a second CD containing the great cycle of overtures, In Nature's Realm, Carnival, and Othello, Opp. 91-93! -- Ed.]), and now I can't resist sharing it. Sometimes you can be blown away by a recording and it turns out it kind of hit you "just right." But as I was transferring it, I just listened again to the Largo in this 1999 recording of the New World Symphony by the Czech Philharmonic under pianist-turned-conductor Vladimir Ashkenazy, who was principal conductor of the orchestra from 1996 to 2003, and wow! It's a genuinely great performance, in authentically Czech orchestral colors, remarkably vivdly recorded (by a Japanese recording team, whose tape was subsequently licensed by the Finnish label Ondine,which has been recording and/or releasing Ashkenazy with several orchestras).

The case of "Going Home" isn't unique in Dvořák's output. Even now people probably tend to assume that those 16 glorious Slavonic Dances, of which we heard the second last week, are arrangements of folk melodies, as Brahms's Hungarian Dances, the obvious model for them, mostly are. In fact, the musical material is almost all original.

Like Brahms's Hungarian Dances, Dvořák's Slavonic Dances were written originally for piano duet. Brahms orchestrated some of his dances but doesn't seem to have felt any urgency about it. Almost immediately the Brahms dances began to be arranged for every imaginable combination. Dvořák, however, was systematic about orchestrating his dances, and while it's fun to hear them occasionally in the four-hand piano originals (and probably more fun to play them), I don't think there's any question that these amazing miniatures achieve their full stature in their full orchestral garb. The Hungarian Dances, by contrast, seem to me most fully imagined in their original form, at least theoretically; I can't say I can point to any performances that back me up. Still, it seems to me that Brahms was expressly trying to create an artificial -- or should I say artistic? -- miniature world conjured by these wonderful exotic tunes.

I don't doubt that Brahms himself understood what Dvořák was up to. The generous support he gave his young Bohemian colleague was no doubt a repayment, in his mind, of the patronage that had been so generously extended to him. And if you set the two composers' bodies of work side by side, it's clear how closely Dvořák absorbed Brahms's view of the musical world, working so many of the same forms in such similar ways.

I don't mean to say that there's anything unoriginal in Dvořák's working method, but rather that, like most creative artists, he learned by example, and he had the excellent taste to find and set his standards according to the best model there was. It's the good way that values are passed on. (Dvořák also seems to have absorbed Brahms's ferocious work habits and self-critical faculty.) My mental image is that at the intersection between Schubert's lyrical genius and Brahms's feeling for musical structure and discipline, you find Dvořák.

There's good reason for Americans to feel a special kinship with Dvořák: He felt the same for us, having taken his mission at the National Conservatory seriously. And while he semms to have experienced feelings of loneliness and separation from his own home, nevertheless his time here clearly provided a burst of creative stimulus, starting with the New World Symphony, written as we noted during his first academic year in New York.

The following summer, the summer of 1893, Dvořák and his family spent in the Czech-speaking community of Spillville, Iowa. And during that time he produced two more indelible masterpieces: the String Quartet in F major, Op. 96, known as the American, one of the best-loved of all chamber works, and its almost as wonderful fraternal twin, the String Quintet in E-flat major, Op. 97, also known as the American.

I don't know that we need to say anything more about the American Quartet before plunging in. We're hearing the first two movements, Allegro ma non troppo and Lento, played by the mystery quartet we heard playing Haydn Friday night and Smetana last night. Unlike in the Haydn movements we heard, in particular, all four players get a good workout here. The American is especially rich in viola opportunities. It may not come as a great surprise to learn that among Dvořák's musical accomplishments, he was a professional-caliber violist.

That's the first page of the first violin part of the American Quartet (you can click to enlarge),taking us up to about 2:36 of the movement -- note that the repeat in the bottom line at rehearsal no. 6 isn't observed.



NOTE: I'll add an update with the identity of the mystery quartet about 3pm PT (6pm ET). UPDATE: Update added below.

Just to complete the tale of Dvořák in America, between homesickness and growing discord with the conservatory management, he didn't make it through the 1894-95 academic year. But before he departed for Europe, he composed yet another towering masterpiece, the B minor Cello Concerto. But I don't think we hear any of his musical image of America in the Cello Concerto; his mind, it seems, was already back home.


UPDATE: OUR MYSTERY ENSEMBLE IS THE JANACEK QUARTET

And what a glorious run the Janáček had, though it was never accorded the prestige its remarkable musical standards warranted. These wonderful musicians were violinists Jiří Trávníček and Adolf Sýkora, violist Jiří Kratochvíl, and cellist Karel Krafka. Since the Brno-based Janáček never had the status domestically of Czechoslovakia's ranking Prague-based quartets, it generally had fewer opportunities at home for both studio recordings and radio broadcasts. Ironically, it seems to have been more appreciated abroad, and when it toured, it was hustled into recording studios by Deutsche Grammophon, Decca, and even the American Westminster company.

It happens that all of these companies have wound up under the umbrella of Universal Classics, and as a result the 2002 seven-CD DG Original Masters boxdevoted to the Janáček Quartet, billed as "The Complete Recordings on Deutsche Grammophon," is, happily, the complete DGs, Deccas, and Westminsters. While copies can still be found at reasonable prices, they should be snapped up. Amazon also offers also an MP3 download version.

The Original Masters box is the source of all our samples. The Haydn and Dvořák quartets are from gorgeous 1963 Decca stereo originals made in Vienna (Haydn) and London (Dvořák), the Smetana from a 1956 DG mono. (The Haydn LP, from which we heard a movement each of Op. 3, No. 5, and Op. 33, No. 2, and which also included Op. 76, No. 2, may be the most beautiful quartet record I've ever heard.) On at least two occasions, the Janáček joined its more celebrated (but to my hearing nowhere near asx musically disciplined or structurally sophisticated) colleagues the Smetana Quartet to record Mendelssohn's splendid Octet for strings. The version recorded by Westminster in 1959 is included in the Original Masters box. It's heaven.

Beyond that, Supraphon recordings turn up sometimes. There's a set of the three Brahms string quartets, for example.


QUICK HITS: DVORAK BASICS

SYMPHONIES: I can't imagine being without the last three symphonies, Nos. 7-9, of which there are of course lots of first-rate recordings (and of course many more less-than-first-rate ones). It has become increasingly common to package these symphonies in a CD twofer with at least some other filler material, and two that seem to me esepcially recommendable both feature the Cleveland Orchestra. Yesterday I mentioned the Sony reissue of George Szell's classic Epic recordings, also including Dvořák's Carnival Overture and Smetana's Moldau and From My Life String Quartet as orchestrated by Szell and recorded in 1949. More recently, Christoph von Dohnanyi'srecordings of the three symphonies plus the wacky and wonderful Scherzo capriccioso, which we heard last week, are highly recommendable. With Witold Rowicki's excellent Philips traversal of the complete symphonies available in three attractively priced "twofer" sets, the middle volume, containing Nos. 4-6,is an obvious next step.

CONCERTOS: The great B minor Cello Concerto, Op. 104, one of Dvořák's most gripping and powerful works, is hard to spoil, while the more fragile Violin Concerto in A minor needs really sympathetic and understanding performers to realize its true stature. For the Cello Concerto, I still love Janos Starker'sMercury recording with the London Symphony under Antal Dorati. (There's also a hybrid SACD edition.) Last week we heard the finale from my much-loved Suk-Ancerl recordingof the Violin Concerto. An excellent bargain is the Sony Essential Classics CD containing beautiful Ormandy-conducted performances of both the Cello Concerto, played by Leonard Rose, and the Violin Concerto, played by Isaac Stern; Amazon.com lists new copiesas cheap as $2.83 plus shipping and used onesas cheap as $1.62.

SLAVONIC DANCES AND OTHER ORCHESTRAL WORKS: It's deleted now, of course, but as long as you can still find it as cheaply as it's still being offered on Amazon.com, the DG Trio set of Rafael Kubelikconducting the Bavarian Radio Symphony in the Slavonic Dances (the source of the performance of Op. 46, No. 2 we heard last week) and a whole bunch of other beautiful shorter orchestral works -- these are three really well-filled (in both senses) CDs -- is a no-brainer.

CHAMBER WORKS: There are excellent series of the string quartets and quintets by the appropriately Czech-flavored Vlach Quartet Prague (Naxos) and the more robust Chilingirian Quartet (Chandos). The eminently logical coupling of the American Quartet and American QuINtet is available from the Talich Quartet.There are outstanding recordings of the four piano trios by the Suk Trio (Supraphon)and the Borodin Trio (Chandos).

VOCAL WORKS: The most immediately appealing of Dvořák's operas, Rusalka, has been a happy vehicle for Renee Fleming, who has recorded it for Deccawith tenor Ben Heppner and Charles Mackerras conducting. (There's also a video recording from Paris with tenor Sergei Larin and James Conlon conducting.) The Supraphon-DG coproduction of Dvořák's Requiem with Karel Ancerl conducting the Czech Philharmoninc is available both from Supraphonand from DG.Of the lovely Stabat Mater there are lovely recordings conducted by Rafael Kubelik and Zdenek Macal,among others.

OR IN ONE FELL SWOOP: As I've mentioned, the 40-CD Brilliant Classics Dvořák anthology,which contains all of the above (yes, including a complete recording of Rusalka) plus much more, is surprisingly solid musically as well as a great buy. (You can easily find it for not much more than $80.)


SUNDAY CLASSICS POSTS

The updated list is here.

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Sunday Classics: Our composer is Antonin Dvořák

MONDAY UPDATE: Apologies to contest-whiz Mimi, whose name I managed to misremember so successfully that it didn't occur to me to double-check.

This statue of Dvořák stands in Manhattan's Stuyvesant Square Park, near the now-demolished house on East 17th Street where he composed the New World Symphony while he was director of the National Conservatory of Music in New York (1892-95).

by Ken

Yes, the music in our Friday and Saturday night preview installments all came from the pen of Dvořák (1841-1904), though only one of the two arrangements did.

Kudos to our friend Mimi, who got from Friday's mystery waltz "a Smetana or Dvorak feeling" (as it turns out, Mimi, not "weird" at all -- good ear!) and guessed Dvořák, having already reasoned sensibly that the piano version is the original: "I would think that whoever the composer is would write a larger work for the strings, but short piano pieces are always in abundance for a composer who used the piano." (For extra credit, Mimi also correctly identified Fritz Kreisler as the arranger of the Dvořák "Humoresque" from last night.)

In fact, Dvořák did write all sorts of odd little chamber pieces, but good job, Mimi! As reader Woid noted, this waltz indeed originated as a piano solo, No. 4 of the Op. 54 set of eight. Mimi also got the key, well, half-right on the second try. The thing is, the piano and string quartet versions aren't quite in the same key. The piano original is in D-flat major (making it a heavily black-key composition), but when Dvořák arranged this and another of the Op. 54 waltzes for string quartet (under the same opus number), he jacked this one up a semitone to the much string-friendlier key of D major. The tempo marking, though, is Allegro vivace either way. Note how differently our pianist and string quartet interpreted that. Which brings us to --

THE WALTZ PERFORMANCES

Our piano performance is by Kai Adomait, from Brilliant Classics'surprisingly interesting 40-CD "Dvořák: The Masterworks" anthology, which among other things includes the Stamitz Quartet's Bayer-label traversal of the complete music for string quartet (not to mention a complete performance of the opera Rusalka).

The Stamitz series is not the source of our string quartet performance, which is, as Woid guessed, by the Vlach Quartet Prague, from Vol. 5of its lovely, flavorful Naxos Dvořák series. (The Vlach Quartet Prague, by the way, is a reincarnation of one of the great Czech quartets, the Vlach Quartet, led by violinist Josef Vlach -- and Woid filled in some fairly astonishing background about that quartet. The Vlach Quartet Prague's name was not just officially sanctioned but was bestowed with paternal pride on the young ensemble: First violinist Jana Vlachová is Josef V's daughter.)

I might add that the principal work on this Vlach Quartet Prague CD is one of Dvořák's most astonishingly original and beautiful creations, actually put together for publication after the composer's death by his son-in-law, the composer Josef Suk (the grandfather of the great violinist Josef Suk), the utterly unexpected Cypresses, a set of ten miniatures that are in fact string quartet arrangements of early Dvořák songs.

Since the first few times I heard this deceptively simple little waltz, it has burrowed into my consciousness, which is why I wanted to put it out there, as a specimen of Dvořák's signature melodic and rhythmic genius and his distinctive way of taking control of the listener's imagination and messing with the subconscious. It's also a sample of the treasures you often find when you venture into the byways of his sizable output, in particular the lesser-known chamber music, often for decidedly curious instrumental combinations. There's a splendid Terzetto for two violins and viola, for example, and a Gavotte for three violins, and a set of five Bagatelles for two violins, cello, and harmonium.

MOVING ON TO LAST NIGHT'S CLUES

The orchestral work was of course one of Dvořák's inexhaustibly stimulating and soul-satisfying Slavonic Dances, No. 2 in E minor from the first set of eight, Op. 46, published with a generous push from Brahms, whose Hungarian Dances were the obvious model (though the younger composer set the bar much higher than the master; we'll be talking about this in the main piece). The success of the Op. 46 set created demand for more, and the composer duly produced a second set of eight, Op. 72. By happy chance, the 16 Slavonic Dances usually fit nicely on a single CD.

And if anyone didn't recognize Dvořák's little "Humoresque," hello! This too was originally a solo-piano work, No. 7 of the Op. 101 set of eight Humoresques. The violin-and-piano arrangement is by the great violinist Fritz Kreisler (1875-1962), and sounds more like Kreisler than Dvořák (especially as played by Kreisler in his many recordings of it). For a lot of people, once they discover that it's by Dvořák, this may be the only work of his they know, or the only one they think they know.

THE MYSTERY CONNECTION?

Ah yes, the connection between last night's selections. The Slavonic Dance was conducted by the distinguished Czech-born conductor Rafael Kubelik (1914-1996, from his last complete traversal of the Slavonic Dances, with the Bavarian Radio Symphony for DG), while the "Humoresque" was played by his father, the world-famous violin virtuoso and heartthrob Jan Kubelik (1880-1940).

EQUAL TIME FOR FRITZ?

It happens that the Jan Kubelik clip nearly didn't make it to last night's post (only to make it twice in the original posting!). The, er, conceptualization of this name-the-composer contest dates back to January, only to be shelved -- for what I thought at the time would be a matter of a week, while I tried to figure out how to rig up my own audio files. Well, heck, we're still in the same calendar year, no?

The technical kinks are far from worked out, but when it came time to reassemble the project, I found to my horror that among the MP3 files I'd ripped way back when, the Jan Kubelik's "Humoresque" was nowhere to be found. And neither was my copy of the two-CD Biddulph set devoted to the violinist from which it had been taken, since most of the CDs I'd used for the seemingly doomed project had never been reshelved. (This is why I've discreetly avoided giving a date for the recording. I'm vaguely recalling something like 1912, but it sounds earlier. Maybe someone can help?)

In panic mode, where I was thereby thrust, I find that the looniest ideas often seem like brainstorms. The loony idea I came up with was to substitute Kreisler's own first recording of the "Humoresque," made in New York in 1910. (Goodness only knows how many he made. The 1995 RCA compilation of all his Victor recordings included four, and again, that's just his Victor recordings.) The connection between the two clips would have gone something like this: The Slavonic Dance is conducted by Rafael Kubelik, and the "Humoresque" is played by Fritz Kreisler, whose arrangement was also recorded by Rafael's father. Well, it would have had to do if I hadn't found a copy of the missing MP3 file. I'm reluctant to say where, as it could get me into trouble.

Anyway, I've still got the Kreisler performance ready to roll, so why don't we listen to it?

BONUS DVORAK ('CAUSE I CAN)

I'm trying to remember if I've encountered any indication that Kreisler played the Dvořák Violin Concerto. I'm certainly not aware of his recording any of it, which is too bad; I'll be he would have played it beautifully.

Now that the subject of the subject of the Dvořák Violin Concerto has fortuitously arisen, I might mention that one of the pieces I really, really wanted to include in the upcoming main Dvořák piece was the concluding rondo of, yes, the Violin Concerto. The last time I went looking on YouTube, I was horrified by the performances I found. In the best recording I know, by the violinist (and Dvořák great-grandson) Josef Suk, with the Czech Philharmonic under Karel Ancerl, it's pure spun-silver magic. While I see it's been issued on CD, I don't have that. So let's hear Nathan Milstein with the Pittsburgh Symphony conducted by William Steinberg, in 1957:



I'M AFRAID WE'RE OUT OF TIME FOR NOW, BUT BEFORE WE ADJOURN TILL NEXT WEEK, SHOULDN'T WE SETTLE THE MATTER OF PRONOUNCING THE COMPOSER'S NAME?

Sorry about that, but I've dithered so about getting the ground cleared that I'm afraid we're going to have to put the actual Dvořák post off till next week. On the plus side, the music is all in place, and it's a good part of the way written. Oh wait, that's only on the plus side for me. What's in it for you?

Well, I can tell you we've got some really glorious music set to go, and since you had to endure my quiz this week, for next week let me answer the question before it's asked. We'll be leading off with a video clip of Lucia Popp singing the daylights out of the "Song to the Moon" from Rusalka. Then we've got Otto Klemperer conducting the Largo from the New World Symphony -- audio only, so that we get to hear the whole thing; on YouTube, of course, they call time on you at about the 10-minute mark. And we've also got not one but two movements, the first two, of the American String Quartet, played by . . .

No, I think I'll keep one surprise. Let me just say that this may be . . . well, all-around these fellows may be greatest string quartet I've heard. If you want to guess who (if, in other words, you want to try to identify a performance you haven't heard yet), heck, it's a free country.

Now, as to the pronunciation of Dvořák's name: Because the Czech "ř" comes out as "rzh," that gives us something like "DVOR-zhock."

DO I HEAR A CARTOON? CLOSING OUR
MUSIC GAP WITH THE SCHERZO CAPRICCIOSO

Now I guess I owe you some music. Here I've been trying to be good, knowing the Dvořák goodies we have in store. But now that they're all postponed to next week, we may have a music gap.

I would have loved to slip in a movement of the B minor Cello Concerto. (But which?) Still, we've just had the finale of the Violin Concerto. For a time in the conceptual stage, I was sure we would have the trumpets-blazing finale of the Eighth Symphony, maybe in one of Herbert von Karajan's terrific recordings -- he clearly had an affinity for the piece. Or maybe some bits of the glorious Dumky Piano Trio? (But again, which bits?) Certainly worthy. However, we've got a symphony movement and a string quartet movement already on the program.

So how about a piece that hardly anybody would think to include on a Dvořák short list? I'm thinking of the wild and wacky Scherzo capriccioso. Actually, it seems to have snuck up on the public. It used to be that it got the occasional performance from a devotee or a thrill-seeker. Now everybody seems to be playing it. And deservedly so. It has the frequent Dvořákian characteristic of leaving you hardly any idea where it may be going next, while always taking you someplace so wonderful, you wouldn't want to be anyplace else.

Listen, for example, to the weirdly wonderful orchestral celebration that breaks out at the opening. Would you ever guess that it's leading us to the sweetly sighing tune that arrives at 1:12? (It's a tune that should be familiar to all aficionados of cartoons and silent-movie music.) And again, the Scherzo capriccioso has that singularly Dvořákian characteristic of burrowing into your subconscious. At a certain point, after a certain number of hearings, you discover that it's become woven into the fabric of who you are.

It's also a piece that would be truncated by YouTube's ten-minute limit, even if there were a performance there worth regretting. Here's a fine one by Mariss Jansons and the Oslo Philharmonic:




UPDATE FROM THE DWT "SEEK AND YE
SHALL FIND" DEPT.: SUK PLAYS DVORAK

Once I knew it was a Karel Ancerl CD I was looking for, and not a Josef Suk one, a single visit to my local used-CD emporium turned up a copy for $4.99! (I wish I could say that's all I bought. The problem is that when I struggle so hard to stay away, by the time I pop in, there are just too many too-cheap-at-the-price treasures.)

So here is the sweetest-toned and most elegant of violinists playing the rondo finale of the Dvořák Violin Concerto, with Maestro Ancerl conducting the Czech Philharmonic.



By the way, my statement about the violinist Suk's lineage, although not incorrect, may have been confusing. He is indeed the grandson of the composer Josef Suk (1874-1935) and also the great-grandson of the great Dvořák, but the one is not, strictly speaking, the cause of the other. As I also mentioned, the elder Josef Suk was the composer's son-in-law, marrying his oldest daughter, Otilie Dvořáková (1878–1905), in 1898. That's what makes their grandson the great composer's great-grandson.

Alas, when "young" Josef was born (since that was in 1929, "young" Josef is perhaps a bit of a stretch, but everything's relative, especially where actual relatives are concerned), Grandma Otilie had been dead for almost a quarter-century. However, given that the future violin virtuoso was all of five when Grandpa Josef died, I like to think he has some memories of him.


SUNDAY CLASSICS POSTS

Here is the updated list.

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