Dvořák: "Hussite" Overture, Op. 67, B 132 (with Score)

Antonín Dvořák:
"Hussite (Husitská)" Overture, Op. 67, B 132 (with Score)
Composed: 9 August - 9 September 1883
Conductor: Witold Rowicki
Orchestra: London Symphony Orchestra

Dvořák wrote this work in the summer of 1883 at the request of the Committee for the Completion of the Prague National Theatre. The composition was originally intended as a musical introduction to a planned trilogy set in the Hussite era, written by the director of the National Theatre, Frantisek Adolf Subert. The latter, however, did not realise this objective and so the Hussite Overture was performed for the first time at a gala concert held on the day the theatre was reopened to the public on 18 November 1883. Dvořák regarded this commission from the National Theatre as a task of honour, which is evident from the fact that he cancelled his planned visit to see his closest friend Alois Gobl at Sychrov castle in order to devote himself to his writing. Dvořák worked on the Hussite Overture at his summer residence in Vysoka near Pribram; it took him exactly one month, from 9 August to 9 September.
From a formal point of view the composition might be characterised as a sonata-form movement with a slow introduction. The solemn opening bars most likely represent the dawn of the Hussite movement, the exposition and development describe the Hussite wars, and the recapitulation and coda are a noble apotheosis celebrating the final victory of Hussite ideals. The thematic treatment reflects Dvořák’s exceptional musical imagery, from which the composer builds the individual passages and artfully combines the various motifs in order to achieve maximum impact. The exquisite instrumentation is a triumph in itself – one of the greatest accomplishments of Dvořák’s entire oeuvre. Music critic Eduard Hanslick noted after the Viennese premiere that the music “is so fanatical that, in places, it seems to have been orchestrated using scythes, flails and maces”. Yet Dvořák achieves these devastating sound effects (Hussite battles) while essentially still employing a classical orchestral roster.
Dvořák’s Hussite Overture was one of the composer’s most performed works during his lifetime. This interest was probably also fired by its non-musical subject matter, rather than by its worth as pure music.

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