Antonín Dvorák

As is the case with the Nocturne for strings, Op. 40, Antonín Dvorák's Romance in F minor for violin and piano (alternately orchestra, both versions being authentic to the composer), Op. 11 is in fact salvaged from an aborted string quartet. Dvorák seems to have been born to write slow movements; it was the crafting of workable outer movements that took painstaking work. It comes as no surprise, then, that when he decided to disown the String Quartet in F minor, Op. 9 (1873), it was only the slow movement that he saved and revised. The result of this revision, carried out over the course of the following few years, is the Romance in F minor.

Much of the music in the Romance is original and had no place in the abandoned string quartet movement -- it is only the principal theme, a thoroughly lovely cantabile, that is shared by both. Dvorák mines a rich vein of expression even in the piano introduction -- the ephemeral modulation to G flat major and the bell-like countermelody are especially memorable. There is a second theme that rises up as if it is lighter than the musical air around it. Throughout the piece there is plenty of fingerwork for the violinist, but even at its most bravura there is always a lyricism to it that makes one think twice before calling it virtuosic.