Symphony No. 2 in C Minor

Suk’s Asrael Symphony, named after the Angel of Death in the Christian and Islamic religions that transports the human soul from earth to the next world, was composed between 1905 and 1906, and received its first successful performance in Prague the following year. It’s a powerfully driven work born out of the deepest personal tragedy, mourning the loss of the two people that were closest to Suk—his beloved composition teacher Dvořák, who had passed away in 1904, and the unexpected death two years later of Dvořák‘s daughter, Otilie, to whom he had been happily married. The Symphony, cast in five movements, employs large orchestral forces and an intense, almost expressionist late-Romantic musical language that marks a change in Suk’s style from his earlier works which were strongly influenced by Dvořák. A fate motif, announced ominously in the cellos at the opening of the “Andante sostenuto”, recurs with increasing vehemence throughout this turbulent first movement. In contrast, the ensuing “Andante”, with its shadowy intimations of a funeral cortège, projects a feeling of complete numbness before Suk ratchets up the tension once again with a ghostly and grotesquely scored scherzo (“Vivace”). In the “Adagio”, Suk retreats into a dreamworld, painting a profoundly affectionate musical portrait of his wife. The dream, however, is abruptly shattered by the furious opening to the Finale—“Adagio e maestoso”—a movement that intensifies the struggles already experienced earlier in the work before a mood of calm acceptance closes the Symphony.