Thursday 26 October 2017

A Great Composer Has Fun!

Over the last couple of dull, rainy days, I pulled out a piece I hadn't listened to for a long time -- too long, really.  It's a masterly example of structure and organization, to be sure, and can be (and has been) carefully analyzed.  But it's an equally strong example of a composer having some fun and laying a few subtle jokes on his audience in the process. 

It's not as if he didn't warn us that legs would be pulled.  The Italian word scherzo means "joke", while "capriccio" suggests playfulness, quirkiness, and whimsicality (think of the derivative English word "caprice.")  Antonin Dvořák's Scherzo Capriccioso, Op. 66 is the kind of music that can put a smile on my face every time I hear it, and not just because the composer is pulling my leg.  The good humour and high spirits of this single-movement work are generated by its overflowing energy, quirky triple-time rhythms, skillful orchestration, and a whole series of beautiful and obstinately memorable melodies that many composers would give their right arm to have written.  

In its modest 12-minute length this piece wanders through an impressive assortment of keys, and these are not irresponsible modulations just for the sake of being different.  I won't get super-technical on the subject, but all the half-dozen different keys that Dvořák journeys through in the Scherzo Capriccioso are clearly related to one of two tonal centres, which in turn relate clearly to each other.  This is why you can feel like you're being taken on a whirlwind tour around the harmonic universe when you've really been safe at or near home the entire time.  The piece is an undoubted tour de force of harmonic flexibility and cunning.

Nor is this startling, because the composer wrote it in 1883 when he was a fully accomplished master of his art.  This work was written between his sixth and seventh symphonies.

So what happens in this Scherzo Capriccioso that makes it so entertaining?  It begins with a B flat major fanfare on horns in a rather odd rhythmic pattern.  After a few tentative dashes at exploiting this figure, the music builds up in a quick crescendo and the fanfare leads off into the main theme -- but in D flat major instead of B flat.  Go figure.  The main theme makes use of phrase-to-phrase switches of orchestration and alternating loud and soft phrases, but eventually makes its way to A flat (dominant of D flat) in preparation for the conventional second subject.

And what do we hear now?  Dvořák gives us a lush and sweeping waltz melody for the strings in -- wait for it -- G major!  Go figure again.  Best at this point to just stop worrying about the keys and the modulations and enjoy this masterly magic carpet ride.

After a few more incidents, the music goes back to the opening fanfare for a repeat of this entire exposition -- but of course a literal repeat would be out of place in such a scherzo.  Some sections get considerably extended and we also hear the first of several passages which highlight the liquid arpeggios of the harp (the frequent highlighting of flutes and harp is one reason for the unique sound palette of this work).

When the waltz dies away for the second time, we now move on to a kind of trio section, a slower song (but still in triple time) sung by the cor anglais.  It's not long, though, before other instruments join in, raising the music's emotional temperature again, and returning to the most robust and rumbustious statement yet of the first main theme.  Even more vigorous sequels follow, including one final recurrence of that gorgeous waltz, until the music dies away to a quiet level.

A horn intones the opening fanfare twice in a slow and mournful manner, and a cadenza for solo harp points the way to the final coda.  This energetic and resourceful crescendo to the emphatic final chords is marked by one final syncopated joke, making us feel momentarily as if half a beat got away from us somewhere along the line.