Songs I (High Voice)

Description

The volume “Songs I” of the five-volume Urtext edition of Antonín Dvořák’s complete solo songs with piano accompaniment contains 31 songs – from Dvořák’s first publicly performed, previously unpublished song “Remembering” to the five “Evening Songs”, which were published by F. A. Urbánek in 1883 and date from the composer’s mature creative period.

In many cases the exact date of composition and the original language of the songs remain unclear – some have survived only with German vocal texts. With this in mind, the editor decided to divide the edition into two parts: the 24 songs that Dvořák published in print during his lifetime are followed by seven others that have survived only in manuscript form. The order of the songs thus deliberately deviates from Burghauser’s catalogue of works and is based on the presentation that Dvořák himself determined in consultation with his publishers.

Contemporary literary sources, including singable translations, were also evaluated for the edition. For the “Songs from the Dvůr Králové Manuscript”, which Dvořák published twice, the Critical Commentary documents the variants of the first edition, thus enabling performances of both versions. Two fragmentary songs were reconstructed by Jarmil Burghauser and Jaroslav Krček.