In 1865, as principal violist in Prague’s Provisional Theater orchestra, Dvořák met gifted sixteen-year-old actress Josefina Čermáková, who along with her younger sister Anna began studying piano with him. He promptly fell in love with Josefina and was heartbroken when she repeatedly turned down his advances. It took him only two-and-a-half weeks that July to pour his feelings into his first song cycle, Cypresses, for which he chose eighteen melancholic love poems by Moravian writer Gustav Pfleger-Moravský. Even that offering failed to win her over.

Eight years later Dvořák embarked on a long and happy marriage with Anna, but he always retained a soft spot in his heart for his first love, and the songs she had inspired. He recycled bits in two operas and in two of his Silhouettesfor piano, revised four of them as his Opus 2 Songs, adapted twelve others for string quartet, and revised eight of those twelve as his Love Songs, op. 83. These last he sent to his publisher in 1888 saying, “Think of these songs as the work of a boy in love.”

Dvořák’s 1887 string-quartet versions—first titled Echoes of Songsthen Evening Songs—were not published until 1921 by his pupil Josef Suk, who made some revisions, omitted two of them, and restored the title Cypresses. More recently all twelve have appeared as the composer intended. In adapting these early songs, Dvořák made few alterations other than entrusting the melody to violin or viola and dispersing the somewhat Schumannesque accompaniments among the other instruments.

Dvořák was originally criticized for his text declamation, which doesn’t apply to the quartet version, but the mood of each piece certainly reflects its text, and he did retain the individual titles. The quartet cycle opens with the sixth of the original songs, “Já vím, že v sladké nad ji” (I know that my love to thee), which tenderly reflects the hope that the protagonist’s love will be cherished, but closes with a presentiment of disappointment.

The dulcet poignance of “V té sladké moci o í tvých” (When thy sweet glances fall on me)—No. 3 in the string quartet version, originally No. 2—is swept aside only briefly at the midpoint. The setting occasionally shows Dvořák’s penchant for pentatonic gestures.

Dvořák’s lighthearted, scherzando setting of “Nad krajem vévodí lehký spánek” (Nature lies peaceful in slumber and dreaming)—No. 11, originally No. 17, provides the ultimate mask for the protagonist’s underlying heartache. Toward the end that sorrow threatens to break through, only to be banished.

—©Jane Vial Jaffe