Rhapsodies No. 1 and 3

Antonin Dvorak

arranged by E.A.Turrill

2Fl.; Fl./picc; 2Ob.;Cor; 2Cl.;Bass Cl./Cl; 2Bsn.;Contra; 2Hn

If you would like to hear some computer generated  excerpts from each Rhapsody in turn,  click on the quaver sign. It may take a few seconds to load your windows media player

Rhapsody no.1 

Rhapsody No.3

It is always a delight to play the wind parts in any Dvorak work.  The New World Symphony never palls and clarinettists always eagerly look forward to the eighth. Players on our annual chamber music course always scramble for places to perform the Serenade for eleven wind,  cello and bass and  the slow movement has been the highlight of many a clarinettist’s event. Sadly, other than the Serenade , he composed little chamber music specially for wind instruments. 

Dvorak originally wrote several of his major works for two pianos, later scoring them for full orchestra. This and the absence of his own wind chamber works has tempted others to score the same pieces  for wind ensembles. Wind arrangements have been produced of all his Slavonic Dances and the ten Legends.

After conducting my arrangement of the legends, Alan Hacker suggested that I should tackle the Slavonic Rhapsodies. I had to admit that I had not heard them and in fact did not know of their existence. My local record shop offered me lots of recordings of the dances but was unable to supply one of the rhapsodies. Using the internet I eventually found one, but only one, recording by the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Zdenek Kosler and Libor Pesek on Naxos (8.550610). I immediately fell in love and played them over and over until my wife eventually offered me a pair of earphones.

Dvorak wrote his first rhapsody, Opus 12, in 1874 although it was not published until 1912,  after his death.  It is a tone poem very much influenced by Smetena’s Vysehrad . Dvorak was very familiar with Smetena’s works as he earned a living for nine years playing viola with the Prague Theatre Orchestra, sometimes under that composer‘s direction. The three later rhapsodies, Opus 45, were all written in 1878.  No. 3 became the audience’s favourite and is perhaps mine also.

I arranged the Legends for double wind quintet; double woodwind plus two horns.  However, in four of the movements I provided preferred alternative settings in which the second players of the upper three instruments played piccolo, cor anglais and bass clarinet respectively.  They added so much to the colour that I decided to use them throughout my arrangements of the rhapsodies. This time I used 2Fl./Picc.;2Ob./Cor;2Cl./Bass Cl./2Bsn/Contra;2 Hns, although occasionally I use three flutes, or three clarinets.  This has enabled me for example to start no.3 in true Dvorak fashion with a cor anglais melody accompanied by clarinets; to use 2 bassoons , bass clarinet and contra in octaves to drive some of the more exiting moments and the gentle low register of the bass clarinet rather than a bassoon to support some of the more peaceful ones.  I hope Dvorak would have approved of the trio of flutes used at the start of No. 1. I personally find the combination captivating.  

Whilst Dvorak uses four horns in his orchestral version, I settled on only two. The first reason was logistical, the second musical.  Firstly, any fixer will tell you of the problems of assembling four horns. More importantly,  the musical reason was one of balance. Here I followed in the footsteps of Strauss but with a different solution. After writing his youthful serenade and suite for wind instruments,  he recognised that four horns and eight woodwind were difficult to balance. His solution, in his late years, when writing his symphony and sonata for wind, was to introduce three extra clarinets making five in all (C Cl.; 2 Bb/A Cl.; Basset Hn; Bass Cl.). Mine has been more prosaic, employing only two horns, when necessary  using the cor or bass clarinet to make up the harmony.

Tony Turrill