Cypresses, B11

composition history

The composition of the song cycle Cypresses was the result of the young composer's unfulfilled romantic feelings for the actress Josefina Čermáková (Dvořák later married her younger sister Anna). The composer became acquainted with her when they were both working at the Provisional Theatre, and he spent more time with her as her piano teacher. He found a reflection of his state of mind in the poetry collection Cypresses by Gustav Pfleger-Moravský. Its section called Songs he set to music in its entirety in July 1865. Many years later, the composer characterised the ideas underlining the songs, stating: “Just imagine a young man in love – that’s what they’re all about!” Dvořák dedicated the songs to his friend Karel Bendl. 

general characteristics

Cypresses is Dvořák’s first song opus and one of his very earliest surviving works. While writing the settings for his songs, the composer was not looking at individual details, but focusing more on their overall mood. The refined, elegant expression of the music detracts from the somewhat sentimental character of the verse. As regards melody, harmony and form, Dvořák’s songs are highly individual and give us a hint of the mastery to come – particularly in terms of his exquisitely melodic vocal lines, the formal scheme and his ability to capture the essence of the text. On the other hand, the songs also betray problems with the declamation of the Czech text, of which Dvořák was later aware, since he subsequently wrote into the manuscript: “When I played these songs with Mr Bendl, he told me that the declamation was flawed in many places; one year on, when I chanced upon this unripe fruit of mine, I saw to my gratification that Mr Bendl’s comment was entirely justified.” 

subsequent history

Dvořák was very attached to this early work and, even though he never published it in its original version, in a show of great determination, he kept returning to it his whole life. He initially used songs Nos. 6 and 10 in the first version of his opera King and Collier. He returned once again to the tenth song when he was writing his opera Vanda, and used its melody for the heroine’s aria “I was happy, tranquil and cheerful”. A few years later he used the fundamental motif of the song “Here in the forest by a brook” for his piano cycle Silhouettes. In 1881 (or 1882) Dvořák chose six parts from his Cypresses and reworked them for a new edition simply entitled Songs. He proceeded in the same way seven years later, when he rewrote eight songs as Love Songs. In the spring of 1887 he took twelve songs from Cypresses and wrote an instrumental arrangement for string quartet; this version was sometimes given the title Evening Songs since Dvořák had apparently composed the entire cycle mostly late at night (in the manuscript for one of the songs Dvořák had written the note “Composed by moonlight at 11pm.”). Echoes of this, his first song opus, also found their way into the opera Rusalka many years later. Cypresses was first performed in public in its original version in 1983 with an English translation by musicologist John Clapham. The work was first published in 2007.