Dvořák's String Quartet movements now bearing the title Cypresses (Czech: Cypřiše) are String Quartet versions of 12 of his 18 love songs, B11, of 1865 -also titled Cypresses. These arrangements are numbered B.152 and date from 1887. The 12 pieces he selected for arrangement from B. 11 are Nos. 2-4, 6-9, 12, 14, and 16-18; the original songs are for solo voice and piano, and are settings of poems by Gustav Pfleger-Moravsky.
Contents
Background
10 of these (1-9 & 11) were edited by Joseph Suk and published by Hudební Matice Umělecké Besedy in 1921; the complete set of 12 appear in Soubourne kritické vydání, the Complete Critical Edition, from 1957. They were originally titled Echos of Songs, later Evening Songs, under which name numbers 1-3 & 9 were given their 1st performance by Karel Ondricek, Jan Pelikan, Petr Mares & Alois Neruda, at Umelecka Beseda, 6/1/1888. Dvořák Inscribed them "These little compositions were originally songs(18), four of which were published as Op2 by Stary... I wrote them in 1865 and now, after 22 years, I have arranged them for quartet under the title 'The Echo of Songs'". They were given their present title by Joseph Suk.
Structure
The original songs are clearly recognisable in these String Quartet arrangements, with melodic line, rhythm and harmony unchanged. For No.11, Dvořák changed the key, and half of them he extended by repetition, mostly with some interchange of allocation of lines to the different instruments. The pieces are as follows: