Dvořák: Piano Concerto, Op. 33 (reference recording: Rudolf Firkušný, Rafael Kubelík / Remastered)

Album available // Dvořák: Piano Concerto, Op. 33 by Rudolf Firkušný
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00:00 I. Allegro agitato (2025 Remastered, Studio 1960)
17:30 II. Andante sostenuto (2025 Remastered, Studio 1960)
26:00 III. Allegro con fuoco (2025 Remastered, Studio 1960)

Piano: Rudolf Firkušný
WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln
Conductor: Rafael Kubelík
Recorded in 1960 (mono)
New mastering in 2024 by AB for https://classicalmusicreference.com/
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While Dvorak's music for solo piano represent a considerable share of his musical legacy, and his group of chamber music works with piano are also a significant part of this, the Piano Concerto in G minor is his only work for piano and orchestra in his entire oeuvre. If we discount his early concerto for cello with piano accompanime it, it is also the first of the composer's three instrumental concerto's (later followed by the violin and cello concertos). Dvorak was a fine pianist, but never a virtuoso in the true sense of the word. He was well aware of this, and accordingly restricted his occasional appearances on the concert platform to performances within an ensemble or together with vocal soloists whom he would accompany at the keyboard. To this day we are unaware of the reasons which led him to choose the piano as the solo instrument for the first of his concertante works with orchestra. Although there is no direct documentation in existence, Dvorak literature often states that the composer - at that time not very well known - opted for the piano concertante form for "practical" reasons: he had great hopes in its performance by the excellent young pianist Karel Slavkovsky, who showed a lively interest in new works by the Czech composers and took the initiative by presenting them at his concerts. This supposition is also supported by the fact that Slavkovsky did indeed perform the work's premiere later on. Dvorak worked on the concerto for about one month, at the end of August and beginning of September 1876, soon after completing his third cycle of Moravian Duets (op. 32). He dedicated the piece to leading aesthetician and music critic of his day Eduard Hanslick as an expression of his appreciation for the attention the latter devoted to his work.

The final shape of the piano concerto was the result of countless revisions and adjustments the composer made while he was finishing the work at the end of the summer of 1876, and of many other undertaken before its publication (1883). In the intervening period the score passed through the hands of a number of publishers and pianists and it is feasible that the composer decided to make certain revisions on the basis of their observations. At the beginning of the 21 century the Moravian Provincial Museum in Brno unearthed a hitherto unknown unknown copy of the concerto which proved to be an early version of the score. Research carried out by musicologist Ludmila Smidova shows that the final version reflects much greater elaboration of the solo part, giving rise to a more ostentatious virtuosity and a broader range of expressional means, also a more colorful instrumentation, and interventions in the musical development of the thematic texture. The original version of the work thus provides, above all, an important document of the composer's creative process.

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Other Album available // Dvořák: Slavonic Dances Op. 46 & 72 by Karel Šejna
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Antonín Dvořák PLAYLIST (reference recordings): • Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904) & Czech Compose...