Josef Suk - Summer Impressions (3/3) Evening Mood

Josef Suk (4 January 1874 - 29 May 1935) was a Czech composer and violinist.

Summer Impressions op. 22b (1902)
no. 3 Evening Mood

Margaret Fingerhut

Evening Mood is in marked contrast and foreshadows the meditative Suk of later years. In it he quotes from his "Love Songs" op. 7, written when he was nineteen and infatuated with the young Otilka. There is also a reference to Dvorak's Requiem of 1890, as if he had a premonition of the tragedies to come him so soon. The piece is gentle and loving but with a touch of sadness in the beautiful lyrical rising figure.

Suk was born in Křečovice . He studied at Prague Conservatory from 1885 to 1892, where he was a pupil of Antonín Dvořák and Antonín Bennewitz. In 1898, he married Dvořák's eldest daughter, Otilie Dvořáková (1878 - 1905), affectionately known as Otilka. He formed the Czech Quartet with three of his fellow students — Suk played second violin with them for most of his life. From 1922 he taught at the Prague Conservatory where his pupils included Bohuslav Martinů and Rudolf Firkušný. He died in Benešov.

Suk's early works show the influence of Dvořák and Johannes Brahms, while later pieces use more extended harmonies to create a more personal and complex style. Unlike many of his countrymen, he made little use of Czech folk music. His best known works are probably the youthful Serenade for Strings (1892) and the Asrael symphony in C minor, (1906), a work written in response to the deaths, firstly, of his father-in-law, and later, his own wife. Norman Lebrecht has singled out Václav Talich's 1952 recording of the Asrael Symphony with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra on Supraphon as #19 in his list of the 100 best recordings of the century.

Other pieces include the Fairy Tale Suite (1900), the cycle of piano works Things Lived and Dreamed (1909), and the trilogy of symphonic poems A Summer's Tale (1909), The Ripening (1917) and Epilogue (1929, for sopran, bariton and bass soli, chorus and orchestra).

He won a silver medal at the Art Competitions during the Olympic Games of 1932 at Los Angeles with his work Into a New Life.

Suk was the grandfather of the violinist Josef Suk.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Josef
• Suk
• Summer
• Impressions
• Evening
• Mood

[thumlyly]

This was linked from "Peformance Today" by a Chris re their summer theme. I don't get a season or time of day from this, but it is quite beautiful to me. Thank you for uploading, I'll try to get back for more.

[lyricaltones]

Thank you very much for posting!