The breadth and variety of Antonin Dvořák's chamber music output has long been overshadowed by the sheer popularity and accessibility of a few standout works, such as the ‘American’ String Quartet and String Quintet (Op. 96 and 97) completed during his famous sojourn in North America in 1892–95. This brief engagement and its long-lasting impact on musical culture in the US has dominated studies of Dvořák and his music to such a degree that it can be easy to forget that the composer's catalogue of chamber music already encompassed some 36 completed works for strings, strings plus piano, and winds in various combinations before he was contacted by his American benefactor Jeannette Thurber. These works run the gamut from Neo-Classical string quartets and piano trios intended for presentation in public concerts, such as the C-major quartet Op. 61 premiered by Joseph Hellmesberger in Vienna, to more intimate pieces intended for domestic consumption like the instrumental ballades, romances and waltzes he created for smaller ensembles, and works that fall in between. Dvořák's most popular and frequently performed works in his lifetime and afterwards, works like the ‘Dumky’ Piano Trio Op. 90 and the String Quartet in E-flat Op. 51 discussed here, utilize characteristic gestures to evoke Czech or Slavonic folksongs and dances to capitalize on the appeal of Dvořák's Bohemian heritage at home and abroad. But his other compositions eschew such nationalist or exotic tendencies as Dvořák sought to be recognized as a composer of ‘universal’ (i.e., Germanic) compositions.Footnote ¹

Situated at the nexus of several important cultural trends and political-ideological concerns in nineteenth-century musical life, Dvořák's music continues to offer modern musicians and scholars opportunities to rethink approaches to musical difference, nationalism, exoticism and its appeal to diverse audiences, and the relationship between commercial interests and artistic innovation, among other issues.

Bärenreiter's publication of Urtext editions of Dvořák's music provides welcome resources for the continuing reconsideration of the composer, his music and his role in musical life in the second half of the nineteenth century in accessible single-volume publications. The editions studied for this review included a study score for the string quartet and full-size performance/conducting scores for the piano quartet and serenade. They augment and update the Complete Edition of the Works of Antonin Dvořák published in the second half of the twentieth century under the leadership of Otakar Sšourek.Footnote ² Bärenreiter's new editions use newly available materials that offer fresh insights into the history of these works. For example, for his edition of the Piano Quartet in D Major, Op. 23 (composed 1875), editor Robin Tait utilizes Schlesinger's first print of the full score and parts (published in 1880) and the autograph score housed at National Library of the Czech Republic, as Jarmil Burghauser's 1958 critical edition did. But Tait was also able to consult a set of hand-copied string parts with additions by the composer. These parts, discovered by David Beveridge (who wrote the detailed preface to this volume) document Dvořák's experimentation with multiple options as he attempted to finalize the quartet.

Most notably, this set of parts reveals a provocative early conception of the first movement's ending that implies the composer thought to have it pause expectantly on the dominant chord of the home key, then launch straight into the second movement, ‘a bold and innovative move’, as Tait notes. Dvořák thought better of it, though, and pencilled in a more decisive ending here, which is carried over into the surviving autograph. (Dvořák rejected this second version, too, and crafted a third and final ending for the first movement, the one published in the first edition of 1880.) These insights into the composer's workshop provide tantalizing clues about Dvořák's experiences bringing his music into alignment with generic conventions and practical considerations, such as the possibility that some groups might perform only a single movement of the work.

The compositional process of Dvořák's String Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 51 (composed 1878–79, published 1879) is similarly detailed in Hartmut Schick's new edition of that work, which relies on autographs from different stages of composition and revision. As the preface explains, these materials show the important role played by publisher Fritz Simrock and his in-house editor Robert Keller in the revision of the quartet prior to its publication. When Simrock arranged a private trial of the quartet along with other works he had received from Dvořák, the musicians apparently found the music filled with errors to the point that, ‘the players had trouble finding their way through’ (x). Keller then offered what seems to be numerous suggestions for changes and corrections to improve the quartet, and a collaborative back-and-forth ensued between composer and editor. Either in response to Keller's suggestions or to his own perception upon finally hearing the quartet in performance later that year, Dvořák made several large-scale changes to the work. Schick's edition summarizes and contextualizes these in the preface and catalogues them dutifully in the critical report. Here as in the other editions under review, the original version of movements or portions of movements that were drastically revised are included as appendices, giving the reader a welcome opportunity to track Dvořák's process in easy-to-read modern notation and giving performers the chance to experiment with these alternate (discarded) versions in their exploration of the piece.

The edition and preface benefit from Schick's deep familiarity with Dvořák's string quartets as developed in his 1989 dissertation and subsequent publications.Footnote ³ The preface also gives useful information on the commission of this work by quartet leader Jean Becker, who requested a work ‘in Slavic style’ for his upcoming tours with the Florentine Quartet. The only missing piece that I would want in this preface is some discussion of the musical elements within the quartet that transmit its Slavic sound – as a pedagogical resource for younger performers or time-pressed players and teachers without ready access to published work on Slavonic music, the edition could have provided in a paragraph or two a brief primer on those features perceived as distinctively folk-influenced.

Dvořák's Serenade for Wind Instruments, Violincello and Double Bass, Op. 44 (composed 1878), has not suffered the apparent neglect that Dvořák's other pre-1892 works have, and the edition presented here correspondingly contains fewer startling revelations about the composer's practice. The Wind Serenade is well known to performers and concert-goers for its breadth and depth of expression and its pleasing grandiosity. Although David Beveridge calls it an ‘unassuming gem’ in his preface to this new edition, the symphonic proportions of the work and the seriousness of its tone in the D-minor outer movements offer wind players a weighty option in contrast to the majority of Harmoniemusik works in a lighter style available up to this point in the history of the format. Like the Piano Quartet reviewed above, this new edition of the Serenade was edited by Robin Tait. It, too, draws upon a wealth of primary sources – including sketches, the autograph score, and the first published materials by Simrock. They indicate the Serenade was less difficult for Dvořák to finalize than either the Piano Quartet or String Quartet.

The composer apparently completed the composition in about two weeks in January 1878 and premiered it on a concert in November that year; before the year ended, Simrock had purchased the rights to the work, and it appeared in print the following June. Tait notes that Simrock's 1879 edition contains some sweeping editorial revisions to articulations and to note/rest lengths: ‘a re-evaluation of those decisions shows that some important details were omitted, with the composer's intentions sometimes altered’ (66). This edition carefully attends to discrepancies between the composer's manuscript and the published edition to improve consistency with what Tait understands as Dvořák's intentions as well as with Dvořák's overall stylistic tendencies.

These handsome new Urtext editions offer performers and scholars a set of convenient and well-crafted scores. As physical objects, they easily justify their reasonable price tag with the high quality of the materials used in their manufacture. The heavy paper, clean and error-free printing, and sewn binding ensure these editions should last through years of study and performance; the soft covers are sturdy, yet light and pliable, making them convenient for use in rehearsals or classrooms. More importantly, the prefaces and critical reports for the Piano Quartet and String Quartet provide new insights into the practical aspects of music publication in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. That and the convenience of their presentation in English makes these essays especially useful for instructors at English-speaking institutions, where younger students are less likely to be able to get the full value from an edition with a critical apparatus only in German or French. I foresee these editions serving as superb demonstrations of the work performed by musicological editors who pull together information from a variety of incomplete sources to illuminate a composer's decision-making process.