Sorrowful Beauty Part 2

Hi again!  Sorry I've been off for so long, life just gets busybusybusy sometimes!

So here's another symphonic work created out of the impulse of grief.  The composer is a Czech, Josef Suk, who was married to Antonin Dvořák's daughter, Otilie (known familiarly as Otilka).  Suk was a pupil of Dvořák's at the conservatory, and the older composer was very much his father in art, as can be seen in Suk's earlier works.  So it was a very great shock to Suk when his father-in-law died in 1904, and a year later Otilka followed him to the grave.

Out of this double loss was born one of Suk's largest and most heartfelt compositions: a symphony in C minor which he entitled Asrael, after the name of the Islamic Angel of Death who leads the souls of the departed to Paradise.  Originally he planned the concluding portion of the symphony as a celebration of Dvořák's life and work.  But when Otilka also died, Suk revised his plans and began an entirely new fourth and fifth movement.  The first three movements (the tribute to Dvořák) are to be played without a break.  Suk calls for a pause after the third, and the fourth is specifically entitled "To Otilka".  The final movement then ends the work, after a final struggle, in a kind of calm acceptance of death and tragedy.

The symphony lasts for almost an hour.  Only the third of the five movements is in a fast tempo marked vivace.  Otherwise, the work is solemn and for the most part dark and sombre.  In the second movement, Suk repeatedly uses a 4-note motif from Dvořák's late Requiem:  D - D# - Db - D.  Suk's repeated use of this despairing sound in a limited time makes it even more a motif of death than the elder composer's unifying use of it throughout his massive cantata setting of the Mass for the Dead.

Lest all of this sound too dark and heavy, Asrael also has a kind of luminosity in its scoring which glows with subdued light throughout.  The composer's own voice comes through loud and clear, and the result is a piece which deserves more frequent hearings.

The famous commentator Norman Lebrecht selected Václav Talich's 1952 mono recording on the Czech Supraphon label as one of his 100 top recordings of all time.  I haven't heard it myself, but would like to -- Lebrecht's judgement in these matters is uncannily like mine so if it impressed him I am sure I would like it too.

The modern digital recording I have is certainly as fine a performance as you could wish to get in modern sound.  It's a Chandos CD from 1992 with the rich acoustic that is this label's signature mark, and a deeply-felt performance by the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Jiří
Bělohlávek.