{"id":1182,"date":"2009-03-21T22:22:23","date_gmt":"2009-03-22T02:22:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/s265039441.onlinehome.us\/philpaine\/?p=1182"},"modified":"2026-01-28T00:03:33","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T05:03:33","slug":"antonin-dvorak-symphony-1-in-c-m-the-bells-of-zlonice-op-3-b-9","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=1182","title":{"rendered":"Anton\u00edn Dvo\u0159\u00e1k: Symphony #1 in C m \u201cThe Bells of Zlonice\u201d, Op.3, B.9"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"http<\/a>

Anton\u00edn Dvo\u0159\u00e1k lived in Zlonice, a small town in Bohemia, from 1853 to 1856. He must have been fond of this church\u2019s bells.<\/p><\/div>\n

I have an odd advan\u00adtage over Dvo\u0159\u00e1k. I\u2019ve heard this sym\u00adpho\u00adny, while he nev\u00ader did. It was com\u00adposed in 1865, when Dvo\u0159\u00e1k was only 24. He sub\u00admit\u00adted the man\u00adu\u00adscript to a com\u00adpe\u00adti\u00adtion in Ger\u00admany, and the only copy dis\u00adap\u00adpeared, so he nev\u00ader had a chance to hear it per\u00adformed, or even to revise it. He dis\u00admissed it as lost, and did not num\u00adber it among his com\u00adpo\u00adsi\u00adtions. How\u00adev\u00ader, in 1882, it was found by a Ger\u00adman stu\u00addent in a sec\u00adond-hand shop in Leipzig, and kicked around until it final\u00adly resur\u00adfaced in 1923. It did not have a com\u00adplete and unal\u00adtered per\u00adfor\u00admance until 1973.<\/span><\/p>\n

How does it sound? It\u2019s pret\u00adty much Mendelssohn, or rather Mendelssohn when he sounds most like Beethoven. But it\u2019s damn good for a cal\u00adlow youth\u2019s first sym\u00adpho\u00adny, and could stand on its own at any con\u00adcert. Every now and then you hear a pre\u00admo\u00adni\u00adtion of dis\u00adtinc\u00adtive\u00adly Dvo\u0159\u00e1kian fea\u00adtures. Many pas\u00adsages are beau\u00adti\u00adful, or at least enter\u00adtain\u00ading. It just does\u00adn\u2019t come togeth\u00ader in a com\u00adplete\u00adly sat\u00adis\u00adfy\u00ading way. The record\u00ading I have is con\u00adduct\u00aded by Stephen Gun\u00adzen\u00adhauser, with the Czecho-Slo\u00advak Radio Sym\u00adpho\u00adny Orches\u00adtra, and was made in 1993 (only 27 days after the sep\u00ada\u00adra\u00adtion of the Czech and Slo\u00advak Republics, hence the odd\u00adly hyphen\u00adat\u00aded name). It isn\u2019t clear why it was called \u201cThe Bells of Zlonice\u201d \u2015 there are no bells in it, or bell-like pas\u00adsages, and the phrase is nowhere on the score \u2015 but Dvo\u0159\u00e1k is reput\u00aded to have called it by that name in lat\u00ader years. He lived in the small town of Zlonice for three years, and it has rather nice look\u00ading church. Per\u00adhaps its bells were par\u00adtic\u00adu\u00adlar\u00adly fine. How much of this youth\u00adful work did he remem\u00adber? Could he play parts of it in his head, in old age, or did it sim\u00adply dis\u00adolve into a vague impres\u00adsion? Sad\u00adly, we get to indulge in the guilty plea\u00adsure of lis\u00adten\u00ading to some per\u00adfect\u00adly good Dvo\u0159\u00e1k that Dvo\u0159\u00e1k him\u00adself nev\u00ader heard. So let us at least hoist a pil\u00adsner to his hon\u00adour, when\u00adev\u00ader we do so.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have an odd advan\u00adtage over Dvo\u0159\u00e1k. I\u2019ve heard this sym\u00adpho\u00adny, while he nev\u00ader did. It was com\u00adposed in 1865, when Dvo\u0159\u00e1k was only 24. He sub\u00admit\u00adted the man\u00adu\u00adscript to a com\u00adpe\u00adti\u00adtion in Ger\u00admany, and the only copy dis\u00adap\u00adpeared, so he \u2026<\/p>\n

Read more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[947,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-c-listening","category-cr-listening-2009"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1182"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1182\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8073,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1182\/revisions\/8073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}