Antonín Dvořák

"From the New World"

and

Cello Concerto in B minor

Eugene Osadchy, Cello

Friday, September 18, 2009 at 7:30pm

At Lakeland Baptist Church, Lewisville  (Directions)

397 South Stemmons, Lewisville TX 75067

Adults $25, Seniors (60+) $20, Students $10

Families $60 no matter how large the family.

Special UNT student and faculty rate: $5

Antonín Dvořák:

Symphony No 9 "From the New World"

Composed in New York 1893

Antonín Dvořák:

Cello Concerto in B minor

Composed in New York 1894

Eugene Osadchy, Cello

Adron Ming, Music Director/Conductor

More on Eugene Osadchy  |  The Cello Concerto |  The New World Symphony | Antonín Dvořák

Eugene Osadchy
Cellist Eugene Osadchy is hailed as having "the most refined and balanced string playing" by the New York Times and has been called "a paragon of Russian élan" by the Vancouver Sun.

Newsday writes he is "a soloist with a clearly defined musical personality" and is noted for his "extraordinary playing" by the Dallas Morning News. "Mr. Osadchy possesses a very rich tone and is steeped in the great classical tradition. It is good to know that there are ardent keepers of the flame." The New York Sun.

Currently Professor of Cello at the University of North Texas, Eugene Osadchy is a Principal cellist with the Plano Symphony and the Dallas Chamber Orchestra. He is also the Artistic Advisor of the Vetta Chamber Music Series in Vancouver, Canada and the Blue Candlelight Music Series in Dallas,TX.

Eugene Osadchy regularly performs and gives master classes throughout Canada, the United States, Europe, Asia, and South Africa. He has performed at the Weill Recital Hall in Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall at the Lincoln Center, and the Glenn Gould Studio in Toronto.

In addition, Mr. Osadchy makes frequent appearances at the Bargemusic series in New York, the Autumn Classic series in Anchorage, Chamber Music International in Dallas, Strings in the Mountains at Steamboat Springs, Colorado, International Niagara Music Festival in Canada and Summit Festival in New York.

Mr. Osadchy has also performed in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. He has participated in numerous festivals around the world including the Amsterdam and Groningen International Festivals in Holland, the Stellenbosch International Music Festival in South Africa, Famalicao Music Festival in Portugal, the Vetta Chamber Music Series in Vancouver (where he formerly served as Artistic Director), Music at Blair Athol in Scotland, the Castel Franko di Veneto Festival in Italy, the Mozart Festival in Woodstock, Illinois, as well as Vancouver, Victoria, Banff, Seattle, Sitka, Durango, the Mozart Festival in Long Island, NY, and Maui Music Festivals.

Other musical credits of Mr. Osadchy include recordings with the CBC Radio Orchestra which have received numerous Juno awards - the Canadian equivalent of the Grammies. He has composed two film scores and has several CD’s on the Melodia label featuring his own compositions and arrangements. Mr. Osadchy has more than 60 arrangements for various cello ensembles. For the past nine years, Mr. Osadchy has presented his Annual North Texas Summer Cello Clinic.

Program notes by Dr. John Green

Symphony No. 9 E minor, Op. 95

 ("From the New World")

Antonin Dvorak
This symphony was composed during Dvorak's first year (1892-1893) in the United States as head of the National Conservatory of Music in America in New York. Dvorak was a disciple of the school of national music. This work, first performed by the New York Philharmonic, created enormous excitement. It was a symphony in which folk-song and folk-dance were pre-eminent. Dvorak felt that Negro and Indian folk sources were the most typical material of that sort in this country. In after years, however, he denied that he made use of any actual folk melody for the "New World" Symphony, but affirmed that he had only incorporated the spirit of it.

I. Adagio; Allegro molto. The Symphony opens with a brief introduction. The horns and low strings announce the theme, which becomes clear at the beginning of the movement proper, Allegro molto. The second theme of this movement has a resemblance to the spiritual, "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot", played by the flute. After the recapitulation, the first theme reappears and is worked up to a climax in the Coda.

II. Largo. The second movement contains the haunting melody which is known as "Goin' Home", heard first as a solo for English horn. The middle portion of this movement, in which the oboe is prominent, represents (according to the composer) the awakening of animal life on the prairie. The wistful English horn theme returns, with sad chords, at the close.

III. Molto vivace. The third movement is a Scherzo in which the composer's mood becomes livelier, even humorous. The first theme is played by the woodwinds and horns, and then by the strings. A second subject, introduced by the flute and oboe, is played in a songful mood. The Coda refers to the opening subject of the first movement.

IV. Allegro con fuoco. The finale contains several dance-like melodies that are animated and gay. The fiery opening theme is sounded by the brasses and elaborated by the strings. The second melody, written for solo clarinet with a tremolo string background, is nostalgic. Near the close of the last movement comes a surprise. The full orchestra plays the principal subject of the last movement, after which the brasses take over with the opening theme of the first movement. The musical score then proceeds to a rousing conclusion.
 

Concerto in b Minor for Cello and Orchestra, Opus 104

Anton Dvorak
   Allegro
   Adagio ma non troppo
   Finale – Allegro Moderato

This work, like the “New World” Symphony, was composed during Dvorak’s stay in the United States when he was teaching at the National Conservatory of Music in New York. In fact, those three years (1892-1895) were particularly prolific for the Bohemian composer and many of his best-known works date from this period.

Allegro. A fiery orchestral introduction opens with the Concerto’s principal theme, and then drops to a quiet cadence to allow for the dramatic entrance of the soloist. The second theme, a nostalgic melody, is introduced by a single French Horn against a background of soft string tones. The recapitulation of the basic themes is reversed in sequence so the yearning melody comes first, and then the opening theme returns to conclude the movement in a brilliant grandioso.

Adagio ma non troppo. A woodwind chorale opens this poetic, songful movement which is in classic ABA form. The central section is almost literally a song which was a favorite of Dvorak’s sister-in-law, Josephine Kaunitova, who was very seriously ill at the time. In the final elaborations on the theme the cellist performs difficult double-stops.

Finale – Allegro Moderato. The finale is a rousing dancelike movement based on three subjects. There is a melodious middle section and finally the Concerto reaches the key of B major, in which the solo cello joins the first violins in a duet. The conclusion brings back the opening theme of the work, followed by a reference to the song found in the second movement, and then a return to the principal theme of the Finale. The work ends with a brilliant crescendo for the full orchestra.
 

Antonin Dvorak
Born on September 8, 1841 in Nelahozeves, Bohemia
Died on May 1, 1904 in Prague, Czech Republic
Dvorak was born in the little town of Nelahozeves near Prague where he spent most of his life. He studied music at Prague’s Organ School in the late 1850s. Through the 1860s he served as a church organist in Prague and played viola in the Bohemian Provincial Theatre Orchestra, which from 1866 was conducted by Bedrich Smetana. In 1871 he gave up playing in the orchestra in order to have more time to compose.

At the age of thirty Dvorak began to be recognized as a significant composer. His music had attracted the attention of Johannes Brahms, whom he later befriended. Some of his notable compositions in the 1870s and 1880s include his Slavonic Dances (1878) and Stabat Mater (1880). Dvorak was invited to visit England where he appeared to great acclaim in 1884. His Symphony No. 7 was premiered in London in 1885, and in 1891 his Requiem Mass was premiered in Birmingham.

In 1892, in response to an offer by a wealthy New York patroness ($30,000, which was a very significant sum of money in that age), Dvorak became the director the National Conservatory of Music in New York. He served in that capacity from 1892 to 1895. Here he met Harry Burleigh, one of the earliest African-American composers, who introduced traditional American spirituals to Dvorak.

In 1893, while in New York, Dvorak wrote his most popular work, the Symphony No. 9, “From the New World”. He spent the summer of 1893 with his family in the Czech-speaking community of Spillville, Iowa, to which some of his cousins had immigrated. While there he composed two of his most famous chamber works, the String Quartet in F and the String Quartet in E-flat.

The last work that he composed during his stay in the United States was the Cello Concerto in B minor. Together with increased recognition in Europe and strong feelings of homesickness he decided to return to Bohemia in the spring of 1895. He was director of the Prague Conservatory from 1901 until his death in 1904.