According to Florence May, English pianist and biographer of Brahms, in early December 1896 Robert Hausmann visited Brahms at his home. The composer, who was already quite ill, begged the cellist to come to his room to play together the Violoncello Concerto written by Antonin Dvorak in 1895:

He accompanied the entire work on the piano, and broke into enthusiastic admiration at the end of each movement, exclaiming after the last one: “Had I known that such a violoncello concerto as that could be written, I could have tried to compose one myself!”.[1]

The Violoncello Concerto in B minor Op. 104 by Antonin Dvorak (1841-1904) is perhaps the most famous and most played of all cello compositions. Dvorak completed the work in the summer of 1895, while he was living in the United States, and its first performance was given shortly after that, with a success that has still endure in our days. Its appeal does not only refers to beautiful melodies and fine structural organization, but also to its unique coloristic quality, derived from the mixture of his musical style, rooted in traditional Czech folk music, and the influence of Negro American melodies.

Dvorak’s inclination for cello compositions could be traced as back as 1865, when he wrote his first essay on concerto form, the Cello Concerto in A major, one of the only surviving compositions of his early years. This early Concerto was dedicated to his friend and schoolmate Ludwig Peer, a former student of Goltermann, and Dvorak’s colleague in the Czech Provisional Theatre Orchestra. The Concerto was lost until 1925, when it was found in Wurttemberg, and is now preserved in the British Museum. The copy found bears the inscription: Concerto for Violoncello with Piano accompaniment dedicated to my friend Ludwig Peer in friendly remembrance. This piano score was orchestrated in 1929 by Gunther Raphael, and reorchestrated by Jarmil Burghauser, a Dvorak scholar, in the 1970’s. The composition was also published in th 70’s and recorded by the Czech Milos Sadlo for Supraphon. This early concerto is not a significant work in Dvorak’s output, but still remains as an evidence of his early disposition to write for the instrument.

The Concerto in B minor Op 104 was written expressly for another cellist friend, Hanus Wihan (1855-1920), who had requested the composer for a composition for cello before Dvorak left for America. Wihan was an accomplished cellist whose name became famous for his participation in the celebrated Czech String Quartet, considered for over 40 years one of the greatest ensembles of the 19th century. He was student of the celebrated Russian virtuoso Karl Davidov (1838-1889), for whom he had a life long admiration. At 18 Wihan was appointed cello professor at the Mozarteum Salzburg, sharing his teaching activities with orchestral posts at the Bilse Orchestra (which later became the Berlin Philharmonic), the Chapel Royal at Sondershausen (near Weimar), and the Court Orchestra in Munich, wher he got aquainted with such great musical personalities of the time as Franz Liszt, Hans von Bulow and Richard Strauss. Strauss dedicated to him his Romance for cello and piano. With the Czech String Quartet, founded in 1891, Wihan gained public recognition as one of the most important Czech musicians of the time. Dvorak wrote for him his Rondo Op. 94 for cello and Orchestra as well as a few transcriptions including two of his Slavonic Dances and the beautiful Silent Woods from his Piano cycle The Bohemian Forest. Wihan also took part in the first performance of the “Dumky Piano Trio Op. 90 in 1891 with the composer at the piano, a composition whose cello writing was certainly inspired by the brilliant cellist.

Wihan assisted Dvorak in the composition of the Cello Concerto. In September 1895, while the two musicians stayed in Hlávka at Luzany, Dvorak asked the cellist to work at the concerto through with him, and write fingerings and bowings to the part. Wihan relationship with Dvorak was close enough for him to take the liberty of making a few alterations to the original. Among his changes were the introduction of two solo cadenzas in the first and last movement, replacing in the latter case the passage that Dvorak had included in his last revision in the memory of Josefina Kautnitzova, his very dear sister-in-law .[2]Wihan took his new version to Simrock for publishing without the final approval of the composer. Although Dvorak permitted some of Wihan’s alterations, in general the composer was not very pleased about what his friend had done. In a letter to Simrock dated 3 October 1895 Dvorak asked the publisher to stop the impression of the Wihan revision, and to print the work exactly as he had written it:

I must insist on my work being printed as I wrote it…I shall only give you the work if you promise not to allow anybody to make changes-our friend Wihan not excepted-and also not the cadenza that Wihan has added to the last movement.[3]

In spite of this unpleasant incident Dvorak and Wihan performed the work with piano in 1895 in a private reunion in Luzany, in the presence of the members of the Czech Quartet. The Concerto was published by Simrock in 1896.

Although Wihan gave Dvorak the inspiration to write the Concerto, the initial force to write the work came when on 9 March 1894 the composer attended a concert in Brooklyn, New York, in which the Irish-American cellist Victor Herbert (1859-1924) gave the first performance of his own Second Cello Concerto in E minor Op. 30.

Most remembered for his light operettas and Broadway songs, Victor Herbert was a trained classical musician and an excellent cellist. Herbert studied under Cossmann in Frankfurt and at the Stuttgart Conservatoire under Max Seifritz. In 1885 Herbert was appointed cello professor at the newly formed Music school in Stuttgart and shorthly after that took the post of Solo cellist at the Court Orchestra. A year later he married the opera singer Therese Forster and together they traveled to the United States in order to take new job positions at the Metropolitan Opera, she as prima donna and he as principal cellists of the orchestra under Anton Seidl. In America Herbert became a versatile musician taking part in solo, chamber and orchestral performances as well as becoming a popular conductor. In 1889 he was appointed cello Professor at the National Conservatory of Music, a few years before Dvorak became director. An accident in his left hand, which deprived his possibilities to continue his solo career, made Herbert focused more on conducting, being invited by the major American Orchestras of the time. It is said that while he was in residence with the Pittsburgh Symphony the orchestra achieved a very high standard of playing. Herbert also took an important role in the improvement of the copyright laws for composers, and made a few recordings as cellist and conductor, sometimes assisted by Thomas A. Edison. If very proficient as a classical composer, Herbert found fame with his lighter operettas and musicals, so popular that at some point there were five of his shows running simultaneously.

Dvorak and Herbert developed a very close relationship during the years 1892-95 when the Czech composer was director of the National Conservatory. It is known that Herbert often practiced his Second Cello Concerto at Dvorak’s apartment in Greenwich Village, which gave the composer a full insight with the technical aspects of the instruments. Dvorak was so impressed with the “extraordinarily idiomatic writing for the cello”[4] that he attended two of the public performances and raved about how this concerto showed “the sure way in which the cello is made to serve a large-scaled form[5]” . According to scholars Dvorak began his Cello Concerto only a few days after the premiere of Herbert’s. It is also known that although no written evidence has been found, Herbert gave some basic technical advice to the composer.[6]When orchestrating the work Dvorak adopted Herbert’s use of three trombones, a relatively unusual color for a concerto but highly effective when combined with cello solo.

The first performance of the B minor Concerto presented some further complications. In spite of what Wihan had done, Dvorak still kept his affection for the cellist and had him still in mind for the first performance. In early November 1895 Dvorak received an invitation from Francesco Berger, Secretary of the London Philharmonic Society, to come to England and conduct a concert of his own music. Dvorak saw this as the opportunity to perform his new Cello Concerto, and wrote immediately to Wihan, who was glad to accept the invitation if the date of the concert was changed from March to April 1896. After having agreed that the Concerto was to be included in the concert Dvorak received no more news from London until February, when the Society informed the composer that they had engaged the English cellist Leo Stern (1862-1904) for the concert. Dvorak was shocked by the unilateral decision and wrote to Berger (the errors in his English are not corrected):

I am sorry to announce you that I cannot conduct the performance of the celo conzerto. The reason is I have promised my friend Wihan-he will play it. If you put the conzerto into the program, I could not come at all, and will be glad to come another time.

Berger’s reaction was of great embarrassment, but somehow he managed to manipulate the situation and although the letter correspondence of the time is now lost, he managed to convince the composer to talk to Wihan so he could be released from his compromise. Wihan, who obviously felt somehow guilty for the unsuccessful alterations that he had made on the Concerto, agreed to Dvorak’s request and soon after that Leo Stern came to Prague to rehearse the part with the composer:

M. Stern plays every day with me and I hope we will be all right.[7]

Although he was a graduated chemist, Stern was also an accomplished cellist, student of Piatti, Klengel and Davidov. The work was premiered at the Queen’s Hall, London on 19 March 1896. Dvorak was so pleased with Stern’s interpretation of the Concerto that in April of the same year he invited the English cellist to perform it again in Prague, when Wihan turned down a second invitation to play the work. The concerto gained popularity very rapidly, being performed by Stern in London, Chicago and New York, by Fuchs in Manchester, Schroeder in Boston, Becker in Vienna and Hausmann in London. In what seems to be a fateful turn Wihan did not perform the work until 1899, in a concert conducted by Mengelberg at The Hague. Later in the same year he performed it in Amsterdam and Budapest under Dvorak.

[1] Florence May:Life of Johannes Brahms. London 1905

[2] En el segundo y último movimiento del concierto, Dvorak introdujo una cita de su propia canción “Leave me alone” de su Op.82, una canción que su cuñada admiraba especialmente.

[3] Edward Sainati:Bohemian rhapsody. The Strad Magazine. Vol 107. No1279.November 1996. Pag. 1144.

[4] Notas de programa del Lp. Grabación de Leonard Rose, Eugene Ormandy y la Orquesta de Filadelfia.

[5] Notas de programa del Lp. Grabación de Leonard Rose, Eugene Ormandy y la Orquesta de Filadelfia.

[6] Se dice que también buscó el asesoramiento técnico del violonchelista estadounidense Carl Schroeder.

[7] ^[7] Edward Sainati:Bohemian rhapsody. The Strad Magazine. Vol 107. No1279.November 1996. Pag. 1145