What’s in a number (Dvořák)?
Some music has distinctive titles, like Romeo and Juliette or The Tree-Cornered Hat. More than one composer might use the same title, but so long as we specify whether we mean the Romeo and Juliette by Tchaikovsky or Prokofiev, or anyone else, there is no question of which piece we refer to.
Other music has form titles, like Sonata, Concerto, Symphony, etc. Not only have many composers used those titles over a long period of years, but many use them more than once. We keep them apart by numbering them, among other things. When we see or hear a reference to one of Beethoven’s nine symphonies, one of Brahms’ four, to name only two of many examples, we know exactly what piece is meant.
Not every sequence of numbers is that straightforward. The conductor of the orchestra I play in announced that he intended to play Dvořák’s Seventh Symphony on our next concert, but had second thoughts before the first rehearsal. He said he wanted to decide among that, Franck’s Symphony, and Dvořák’s Ninth. Everyone’s folder included parts for Dvořák symphonies number 2 and 5. Most of the orchestra was confused.
Antonin Dvořák composed five symphonies before he had any published. He issued one now known as his Sixth Symphony as his Symphony no. 1 and the present Seventh as no. 2. Before he wrote another symphony, he decided to publish one of the earlier ones (his Fifth) as no. 3, and so of course he published his last two symphonies as no. 4 and no. 5.
The thematic catalog of Dvořák’s complete works, now universally used as the definitive source of numbering and dating them, restored the four earlier, unpublished symphonies. After it appeared in 1955, it took a while for the new numbering to become accepted worldwide. Somehow it just didn’t seem right for the New World Symphony, known since its first publication as no. 5 to suddenly become no. 9. Now, it’s the older printed music and recordings that people find confusing.
clear as mud! i’m a professional musician and i’m still completely at a loss trying to figure out the numbering of dvorak’s symphonies.
He composed nine and published the last five, but not in the same order he composed them. Not that I’m claiming it should make sense to you. But if a conductor announces the 8th symphony for an upcoming program, and the music on everyone’s stand says no. 4, they need some explaining. Thanks for commenting.
Well, HE didn’t publish any of them. Which is crucial to understanding the mess. Much of the disaster that is Dvorak numbering (including opus numbering) is due to the publisher Simrock, not to the composer.
And it’s a great pity because there’s evidence from Dvorak’s original scores that he wanted to be meticulous about these things. If you look at them on this excellent website you will often find opus numbers that don’t match the ones that Simrock used, and Dvorak often recorded the exact dates he started and ended a composition. http://www.antonin-dvorak.cz/en/works/complete-list-by-genre
Thanks Trevor. Another part of the problem is that the Germans regarded the Czechs as somehow inferior people. Therefore Simrock, a German, felt free to do everything his own way.
Mostly, though, Simon wanted to use ‘bigger’ (later) opus numbers because that implied he was publishing a composer’s more mature music, and of course music of a composer who’d published a lot and was therefore worth hearing… Part of the trouble was inconsistency – it wasn’t as if there was a method, just ‘give it a(nother) high number’…
(Sorry spellchecker beat me – Simrock not Simon!)
Ah yes. Inconvenient conveniences reach out to bite us. It’s not just Simrock using higher opus numbers, though. Beethoven did it regularly. Op. 103 is a very early work. Apparently he figured he couldn’t get away with it any later than that.
Interesting.
I have long been wondering ho Number Four suddenly became Number Eight. Do we have an actual chronological listing of his nine symphonies—kwith dates of composition?
Yes. It’s in Jarmil Burghauser’s thematic catalog of his works.
I’m aware of the renumbering of the five later symphonies following publication of the four early ones – no. 1 in 1961, no. 2 in 1959 and nos. 3 and 4 in 1912. I believe the current numbers were adopted in the 1950s. What I don’t understand is why the old numbers still persist on orchestral parts more than fifty years later. The parts for no. 7 which we played in my local orchestra a few years ago were all printed “no. 2” but I’m sure weren’t 50 or more years old. Some had been altered to 7 in ink. This led our secretary, who writes the programme notes, to comment that the numbering of Dvorak’s symphonies is “bewildering” – surely an exaggeration. Do publishers just reprint parts without checking these details or can they not cope with renumbering?
Haydn’s symphonies need renumbering but I don’t think anyone would risk doing it! And Bruckner’s while we are about it……
A lot of parts available for sale are simply printed from old plates, especially when the come from Kalmus or other reprint publishers. I’m sure a lot of people in a lot of orchestras find the covers of some symphonies by Dvorak and Schubert bewildering. Just think of how much fun it would be if a new Bruckner thematic catalog renumbers Symphony 00 as Symphony 1. It’s bewildering enough as it! As for Haydn, the 6th edition of the Kochel Mozart catalog changed all the K numbers. Who knows what a future editor of Hoboken might do? Two more cans of worms! Any more?
Dvorak composed five symphonies which he regarded as representative. He removed the first four from his catalog since he came to regard them as inferior or formative works. Historians should have respected his wishes, kept the original numbering and simply called the early examples, “Symphony A”, “B”, “C”, and “D”, so we could admire each on its own merits while not comparing them to the endorsed later works. But, since we have to find any means possible to bring the symphony tally to ‘nine’, all were renumbered. Poor Schubert composed eight, but an untenable sketch in E Major had to be called “No. 7” so his could tally nine. No one bothered to renumber those of Mendelssohn since the five numbered plus all of the early string symphonies never would have tallied nine–there would have been no point. Thankfully, Schumann, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, and Sibelius seemed not to care less how each’s own symphonies were tallied.