Antonin DvorákIt took Antonín Dvorák a long time to establish his name outside his native country of Bohemia. But by 1891 he had achieved recognition and fame throughout Europe. He had premiered his Seventh and Eighth Symphonies to great success and his chamber music was in great demand. His fame had spread across the ocean, eliciting an invitation from Mrs. Jeanette B. Thurber, a dedicated and idealistic proponent of an American national musical style, to head the first American music conservatory, the National Conservatory of Music in New York.
Just before he embarked on his "New World" adventure, Dvorák composed three overtures, originally titled Nature, Life and Love, later renaming them In Nature's Realm, Carnival and Othello. The three are united by a recurring musical theme, although in Carnival it appears only fleetingly in the slow middle section. These works were not composed as overtures to plays or operas, but were more in the nature of mood-setting concert openers.
According to one scholar Dvorák wanted to illustrate with the three overtures different aspects of nature and her power for good and evil. Age fifty at the time and in middle age, he looked to nature for tranquility, was somewhat disillusioned with love, but retained an unflagging zest for life.
The composer's optimistic side comes through in the Carnival Overture with the explosive energy of the opening bars. 
The overture follows the traditional symphonic sonata allegro form, but as is often the case in Dvorák's most upbeat music, it bears a tinge of melancholy in its second theme and in the addition of a separate Andante section - a poetic English horn solo - that foreshadow the emotional outpourings of the slow movement of the Ninth Symphony, Op. 94 and the Cello Concerto, Op. 105, composed in America shortly afterwards. After this poignant digression, Dvorák snaps back into the original mood of the piece.
Johannes BrahmsIt does not pay to get involved in other people's' marital squabbles. When Brahms's friends of 30 years, the violinist Joseph Joachim and his wife entered into a messy divorce battle, Joachim accused Brahms of taking his wife's side and broke off all contact with his friend. The concerto was Brahms's peace offering; and while it brought the two friends back together, they never resumed the warmth of their original friendship. By adding the cello, Brahms also partially fulfilled a promise to Robert Hausmann, cellist of the Joachim quartet, to write him a cello concerto.
The material for the concerto, composed during the summer of 1887, originated as sketches for a fifth symphony that never materialized. But Brahms continued to revise it even after the premiere, which took place in October 1887 with Joachim and Hausmann as soloists.
By the time of the writing of the Double Concerto, Brahms considered himself an "elder statesman" of music, looking to the past rather than to the future. It has little of the glitter of most Romantic concertos, including Brahms' own, being much more introspective and subdued. There are no technical acrobatics for either of the two soloists, only the intensity of the themes and their variations to drive it.
Most double concertos feature identical instruments or at least instruments of similar range, in order to insure equality when both soloists are in "opposition" or perfect blending when they are in "accord." The combination of extremes found in this concerto had only some distant precedents in double concertos and symphonies concertantes for violin and cello by Vivaldi, Telemann, J.C. Bach, Carl Stamitz and Louis Spohr. Listeners used to pyrotechnic fiddling will find none of that in this Concerto. For one thing, surprisingly, the cello is the dominant instrument of the two soloists, creating a somber, autumnal cast to the entire work.
The presentation of the themes throughout this concerto comes in stages, so that a complete melody emerges often after a considerable length of time. A case in point is the opening of the Concerto, which introduces a motivic unit within the main theme, interrupted by a long cadenza for the cello. The orchestra then presents the beginning of the second theme, after which both soloists engage in another cadenza - the last either soloist will see in this piece. The complete first theme occurs only several minutes into the movement. A mini-development of motivic material from the first theme delays the introduction of the third and final theme for this long movement. After that, the movement becomes a rhapsodic interplay between the soloists and the orchestra in which the three themes are dissected and reconstituted in a myriad of ways, straying into distant keys and exploring the limits of the possible sonorities of the instruments. Formally, the movement strays considerably from the sonata form model.
The Andante is a simple ABA form. The two soloists have nothing more that long singing lines that interweave around each other - in a similar manner to the second movement of Bach's Concerto in d minor for two violins. It opens with a four-note motive in the winds. These four notes form the beginning of the main theme of the movement, introduced by the violin and cello playing an octave apart. There is only one new theme, in the B section.
In the Finale, Brahms roles out an astonishing number of themes, only some of them separated by the rondo. The clue to why so many themes in this movement rests with its relationship to the dances of the time; waltzes and polkas piled on one melody after another, also periodically punctuated by a reprise of a refrain. Popular - and inauthentic - Gypsy music followed the same pattern, and the rondo theme recalls Brahms Gypsy and Hungarian dances. One of the subsidiary themes harks back to the theme of the Andante, opining with the same four notes.
Ralph Vaughan Williams once recalled visiting Berlin in 1897 and hearing the concerto as a piano trio with Joachim and Hausmann as soloists and Karl Barth (not the theologian) as the pianist taking the place of the orchestra. We tend to forget how difficult it was to disseminate orchestral music before the days of sound recording. In those days piano transcriptions were the most popular way to familiarize the public at large with new compositions and were a thriving industry. Brahms' concerto was transcribed as well, probably by Brahms himself, and according to Vaughan Williams it was a strange but memorable experience.
Jean SibeliusWhen Sweden relinquished Finland to the Russian Empire in 1809, it became an autonomous duchy with significant control over its own affairs. But in 1870 Tsar Alexander II gradually began whittling away the Finns' privileges and autonomy. While Swedish had continued to be the language of the educated and of the middle class, Russian repression aroused strong nationalist feelings and initiated a revival of the Finnish language. Jean Sibelius was born into this nationalistic environment and in 1876 enrolled in the first grammar school to teach in the Finnish language.
Sibelius was by no means a child prodigy. He began playing piano at nine, didn't like it and took up the violin at 14. Although he also started composing at ten, Sibelius's ambition was to become a concert violinist and throughout his adult life regretted not following his dream. Lifelong addiction to alcohol produced a persistent tremor in his hands that precluded a concert career.
His first success as composer came in 1892 with a nationalistic symphonic poem/cantata titled Kullervo, Op. 7, which met with great success but was never again performed in his lifetime. During the next six years he composed numerous nationalistic pageants, symphonic poems and vocal works, mostly based on the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala. In order to enable him to work undisturbed, the Finnish administrative government gave him a pension for life in 1897. For the next 28 years he composed the symphonies and tone poems that made him famous. But in 1926, at the age of 60, he suddenly ceased composing for reasons he never disclosed - although probably from the combined ravages of alcoholism and bipolar disorder. His pen remained silent until his death, 31 years later.
Sibelius composed his Symphony No.1 during 1898-99 to immediate success. It was greatly influenced by Russian symphonic music, especially by Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6, ("Pathétique,") which Sibelius particularly admired. While the Symphony still owes much to the Romantics of the nineteenth century, it contains much that is new and gives a foreshadowing of his future works. In orchestral color, Sibelius's unique dialog between winds and strings is already unmistakably in evidence.
The symphony opens with a clarinet solo over timpani serving as an introduction, leading into the typical Sibelius technique of fragments gradually coalescing into themes, & a glimpse of the composer's future musical language.
The second movement opening is most reminiscent of Tchaikovsky. & The movement is replete with Sturm und Drang (storm and stress), containing rapidly changing moods and tempi throughout. The third movement is a rowdy scherzo; the opening bars sounding like Bruckner with a sense of humor. The contrasting trio middle section is gentle and dreamy.
The fourth movement opens with the clarinet theme of the first movement, but now with full orchestra. It is the most dramatic movement, with expansive melodies that foreshadow the later symphonies. It ends in a rousing crescendo that fades into a pizzicato whisper.
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