Dvorak's 8th Symphony - minor musical mystery solved?...

[jeffok]

Hello Dvorak fans.

For decades I've been a fan of the 8th symphony. Many years ago I bought a piano solo arrangement of it and have been spending time with it recently. The 2nd movement of the symphony is in C minor but has some longer passages in C+. In the latter there is a figuration which starts out as descending parallel 6ths in 32nd notes for the right hand (it's pizz strings in the original). Later, Dvorak fills in the 6ths to make them into first-inversion triads. It occurred to me years ago that in the piano arrangement, this passage can only easily be played in C major. Add 2 or more accidentals to the key signature and it would be nearly unplayable.

So what I've always wondered was, did Dvorak - knowing full well that his publisher would issue a piano duet and/or solo arrangement choose C+ for this passage to make sure that it would be playable in the piano arrangement? (There are other possible reasons - the choice of C- for the home key of the movement associates it with the 2nd movement of the "Eroica", and the movement is rather like a funeral march from which the steady march tread has been excised.)

Anyway, yesterday morning with a little help from my cat I was able to determine that Dvorak definitely had the pianist's convenience in mind, but even more specifically, he wanted to write the passage so that a pianist could continue to play the music undisturbed while a cat walked from the top end of the keyboard to the bottom. Bella stepped exclusively on black keys and for whatever reason I played this passage better than I ever have before (discounting Bella's Sorabji-esque overlay). When she reversed course and walked back up the keyboard, I did have to drop an octave-doubling in the left hand but was otherwise OK.

So, now you know - Dvorak was being very thoughtful to pianists with cats and probably tested this out with a cat of his own. 

All in fun, and best wishes,

jeff ok