Dvořák: ‘Songs My Great-Grandfather Taught Me’
Antonín Dvořák has long been known as one of music's supreme melodists, but his songs have not made quite the headway of his best-known works. Now 30 of them are given a new lease of life in transcriptions for violin and viola and piano by his great-grandson, Josef Suk — the viola pieces performed here on Dvořák's own instrument, restored especially for this recording. With Josef Suk joined here by Vladimir Ashkenazy, this disc offers two of the world's greatest musicians playing — together for the first time — some of its most beautiful music, in versions never heard before.
Josef Suk, violin, viola
Vladimir Ashkenazy, piano
Listen To This Recording:
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Gypsy Songs, Op. 55 (1880)
- No. 1, ‘My song of love rings through the dusk’
- No. 2, ‘Hey! Ring out my triangle’
- No. 3, ‘All around the woods are still’
- No. 4, ‘Songs my mother taught me’
- No. 5, ‘Come and join the dancing’
- No. 6, ‘Wide the sleeves and loose the trousers’
- No. 7, ‘Give a hawk a fine cage’
- No. 1, ‘Goodnight’
- No. 3, ‘Oh nothing, nothing can change for me’
- No. 1, ‘Never will love lead us to that glad goal’
- No. 2, ‘Death reigns in many a human heart’
- No. 3, ‘I often wander past that house’
- No. 4, ‘I know that on my love to you’
- No. 5, ‘Nature lies peaceful in sleep and dreaming’
- No. 6, ‘Lonely in the forest I stand’
- No. 7, ‘When your sweet glances fall on me’
- No. 8, ‘Oh, my only dear one, but for you’
- Four Songs, Op. 82 (pub. 1888): No. 1, ‘Leave Me Alone’
- Lullaby, B194 (1895)
- No. 1, ‘Clouds and darkness are round about him’ (Psalm 97)
- No. 2, ‘Thou art my hiding place and my shield’ (Psalm 119)
- No. 3, ‘Give ear to my prayer, O God’ (Psalm 55)
- No. 4, ‘The Lord is my shepherd’ (Psalm 23)
- No. 5, ‘I will sing a new song unto thee, O God’ (Psalm 144)
- No. 6, ‘Hear my cry, O God’ (Psalm 61)
- No. 7, ‘By the waters of Babylon’ (Psalm 137)
- No. 8, ‘Turn thee unto me, and have mercy upon me’ (Psalm 25)
- No. 9, ‘I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills’ (Psalm 121)
- No. 10, ‘O sing unto the Lord a new song’ (Psalm 96)
- Moravian Duets, Op. 32 (1876): No. 11, ‘Captured’
In Folk Tone, Op. 73 (1886)
Love Songs, Op. 83 (pub. 1880s)
Biblical Songs, Op. 99 (1894)
MusicWeb International :
‘they are [piano parts] played with princely refinement by none other than Vladimir Ashkenazy. This is luxury casting all round.
This is a delightful release, attractively recorded, and with a good booklet note from Tully Potter. Suk’s vibrato has inevitably slowed over the years – he was 80 when he made these recordings – and is less vibrant in the lower strings now, but his sense of delicacy and refinement and colour are still there. He remains a marvel.
If you know the songs, or even if you don’t, I think you’ll love these transcriptions’
—Jonathan Woolf, MusicWeb International