Monday Musical Offering

As promised, so delivered. A couple of the delightful Humoresques Opus 101 by Dvorak.


D. is not well known as a composer of piano music--there's a piano concerto that's never played, the Humoresques (despite the annoying popularity of the violin version of one of these, they were originally written for piano), a couple of other collections of short pieces, a few variations. When you do hear Dvorak on the piano, it's typically the Slavonic Dances, which are so fun to play. The humoresques sound so Dvorak-y, good-natured, slightly folksy and lyrical. Playing them, you can hear bits of the "American" quartet and snippets of his other music. Playing them also gives a clue as to their obscurity; Dvorak was a violist, and occasionally the piano writing is just downright awkward.

One last note about the music; there is a Dover edition out there of these pieces, but it's poorly edited and has some questionable stuff in it. Much better to get the edition available on the IMSLP website.