A Quiet Beginning: Sorrow, Syncopation, and Sequence
Instrumental Colour As a Prime Element: Clarinets and Bassoons, an Outburst By the French Horn
The Opening Tune Again, With Different Instrumental Colouring: Now Flutes and Oboes
The First Big Surprise: Strings, Shattering Drumbeats, Shrieks from Flutes, Oboes, and Clarinets
Cellos and Basses Take Us Into a New Key While Flutes and Oboes Dance In Syncopation.
Horns, Violas, and Cellos Introduce a New Idea, Soon to Evolve Into the Main Theme.
A Tiny Detail from the Opening Culminates In a Wild Drumming That Heralds a Major Event
Introduction (Complete)
A Solo Horn Introduces the Main Theme, Perkily Answered By Bassoons and Horns.
The Theme Moves to G Major; Answering Phrase from Flutes, Oboes, Bassoons.
Long Crescendo, Tremolo Strings, Back to Tonic and Biggest Statement Yet of the Main Theme.
Transition to the Secondary Theme Through the Use of Sequence. Sonata Form; Satability and Flux
Three-bar Groupings and Again the Use of Sequence, Spelling Out a Chord
The Sequence Continues to Rise, and the Four-bar Phrase Returns As the Standard Unit.
The First Violins Start Off the Next Phrase, But the Melodic Shape Is More Compact.
The Violins Fall Silent; the Violas and Cellos Answer With a New Figure
So Now We Have a Two-bar Group, Made Up of Statement and Answer.
The Same Thing Again (Though Not Quite the Same)
Transition Complete. the Secondary Theme Arrives, With French Horns As 'bagpipes'.
The 'bagpipe Drone' Is Taken Over By Cellos, With Their Insistently Repeated G and D.
The Tune Is Taken Up By Cellos and Double-basses, 'shadowed' By the Second Violins.
The Violins Continue a Pattern of Steady Pairs, and the Cellos and Basses Introduce a New Idea.
Unexpectedly, We Find Ourselves Back With the Secondary Theme. a New Idea Emerges.
Again We Hear the Shortened Version of the Secondary Theme
The Suspense Is Heightened As Everything Slows Down
This Beautiful Flute Tune Is Said to Resemble 'Swing Low, Sweet Chariot'.
A Big Crescendo Leads to a Final Statement of the Closing Theme
The Development Section Begins With a Conversation Between Cellos, Double-bases, and Violins.
The Beginning of the Closing Theme Is Taken Up In Turn By the Horn, Piccolo, and Trumpet.
Sequential Chirping from the Oboes Based On the 'answering' Part of the Main Theme, Now In the Major
Much of the Development Comes from a Diminution of the Closing Theme from the Exposition.
A Tiny Detail Becomes a Major Ingredient, Giving an Agitated Quality to an Originally Sunny Tune.
Through a Sequence of Keys So Quickly That It Is Hard to Keep Track of Them
The Main Theme from Massed Cellos and Double-basses, Topped By Two Trumpets Over Tremolo Violas
After That Major Climax, We Arrive At the Threshold of the Recapitulation
Dvorak Flouts Tradition By Setting the Secondary Theme and the Closing Theme In Unexpected Keys.
The Tumultuous Convulsion of the Coda Brings the First Movement to Its Epic Close.
Humpty Dumpty: Putting the Bits Back Together Again
First Movement (Complete)
The Very Opening Chords Unmistakably Herald the Arrival of Something Special.
The Role of Instrumentation In Setting the Scene...
...and In Enhancing the Quality of One of the Most Famous Tunes In Symphonic History.
The Cor Anglais Is Joined By the Clarinet, Creating a Fascinating Change In the Timbre.
For the Closing Part of the Tune, There Is Another New Sonority: Cor Anglais Plus Bassoon.
The Closing Bar Is Repeated By Clarinets and Bassoons, the Horn Adding a New Touch
Back to the Start to Hear the Whole of the Story So Far, This Time Without Commentary
A Change of Scoring: The Slow Opening Chords Return, This Time Played By the Winds Alone.
The Changes In Scoring Are Just Beginning.
The Flutes and Oboes Introduce a New Tune, Over Hushed Tremolo Strings.
A Memorable Combination of Continuous, Asymmetrical Melody With Steady, March-like Counterpoint.
