Suk, Josef

Josef Suk – Fantastické Scherzo, Op. 25

(b. Křečovice, 4 January 1874 — d. Benešov, 29 May 1935)

The years that culminated in the Fantasy for Violin and Orchestra (1902/3) and the Fantastic Scherzo (1903) were perhaps the happiest of Suk’s life. He had married Dvořák’s daughter Otilie (‘Otylka’) in 1898, had his youthful Symphony in E performed by the Czech Philharmonic Society, and completed incidental music to a play which meant a great deal to him, Julius Zeyer’s Radúz and Mahulena, from which he extracted the concert suite Pohádka (Fairy-Tale). However, by the time the Fantastic Scherzo was first played at the Prague Conservatory on 18th April 1905, Dvořák was dead and Otilie had a very short while to live, and Suk’s life and music had begun to change forever. ‘Scherzo’ does not do the work justice, for it is more of a danse macabre – though a most congenial one. The opening woodwind flourishes set the tone, which continues throughout the outer sections of what is a reasonably straightforward ABA structure. Incidentally, the unusual scoring in the early bars (with clarinets in both B flat and A) is because the second clarinet cannot reach the lowest notes in bars 9 and 23 unless the A clarinet is used, even though the B flat would be more natural for the prevailing key. This leaves the unfortunate player having to ‘warm up’ both instruments in advance – no doubt with a few ironic ‘thank you’s’ for the composer! The chattering winds soon give way to a waltz theme on cellos, repeated on violins, which is one of the most memorable ever written – obstinately so (figure 5). No doubt Suk thought so, for he plays it eight times! The central section is decorated with woodwind trills, whilst strings and horns play and aspiring theme in sort of slow processional (figure 33), although the trumpets regularly try to interrupt it. After a moment of quiet reflection at 38 (with Suk’s favourite trick of dividing the cellos, this time in four) the reprise of the opening waltz culminates in a frenzied coda to round off a near-perfect and much under-played concert piece.

Phillip Brookes, © 2008