unexpected music
The loving passions that have moved the human being since the beginning of time have the most picturesque consequences. The rejection of the loved one is difficult to digest and generates reactions of a very diverse nature. The history of music is full of composers who suffered the definitive rejection of idealized young women as “the woman of his life” and who tried to mitigate by marrying their sisters.
This type of marital strategy in order not to lose contact with platonic love was shared by musicians like Haydn, Mozart or Dvorak with uneven fortune. The scars of the heart last forever and the fact of consolidating a bond that was already defective from the beginning, usually generates misery in all those involved.
The Czech composer Antonin Dvorak (1841-1904) was a poor teenager who played the viola at the Provisional Theater in Prague and who fell in love with Josefina Cermáková, a young seventeen-year-old actress who performed successfully on that stage. Mr. Cermak, the girl’s father and a wealthy jeweler in the city, hired him as a piano teacher for his daughters, so he could have his desired lady very close.
However, Antonin was unable to express his feelings given the different social status between the two and decided to confess his love to Josefina by composing the cycle of songs entitled “Cypreses”. The actress was a successful woman in the theater and she showed no interest in a hitherto unknown musician. Dvorak changed his mind and directed his affection towards Anna, the younger sister he also taught.
Antonin and Anna were married in November 1873, and four years later Dvorak would be godfather at Josephine’s wedding to Count Kounic. Since then, the two couples lived together for seasons in the same Vysoká mansion, owned by the count, without any relationship problems or reasons for jealousy. Dvorak’s social status had changed and he was already a recognized composer. Josefina was diagnosed in 1882 with a progressive and incurable disease and five years later, Dvorak composed the cycle “Four Songs” opus 82, showing her sister-in-law a special predilection for the piece “Kez duch muj san” (“Leave me alone »).
During the end of his three-year academic stay at the New York Conservatory, Antonin wrote the last bars of the concerto for cello and orchestra opus 104. At that time he foresaw the end of Josefina and inserted a variation of her favorite theme in the second movement of the concerto and decides to return with the family to his native Bohemia. Just a month later, the love of his life passed away.
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