The FEU Center for the Arts presents Antonin Dvorak’s Gypsy Songs, Op.55 featuring pianist Mariel Ilusorio and soprano Anna Migallos.

The concert featured pianist Mariel Ilusorio, violinist Denise Huang, and soprano Anna Migallos. They performed Twilight Way from Poetic Tone Pictures for solo piano, Humoresque arranged for violin, the Sonatina and Romance for violin and piano, In Folk Tone, Gypsy Songs, and Song to the Moon from the opera Rusalka.

These performances were all recorded in the historic FEU Auditorium. Two of them were recorded on the exact date of Dvorak’s 180th birthday, September 8, 2021.

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One of Dvorak’s foremost gifts was the way he effortlessly crafted melodies that both shimmered with originality, and yet settled into the listener’s heart as naturally as if they had been born there, just like in his Ciganske Melodie or Gypsy Songs. Rather than use existing folk melodies, Dvorak invented his own. He retained the characteristic features of the Romani musical style while moving to a more idealized or romanticized notion of gypsy aesthetics.

The Romani are “traditionally nomadic itinerants living mostly in Europe.” (Source) Gyspy life was about freedom – something the Czech people struggled for being under the Austro-Hungarian empire. It was this longing for liberation that caused this fascination with Gypsy music and the gypsy spirit. It transcended exoticism—to the Czech, it represented freedom. How serendipitous that when the FCA’s Tribute was premiered, we not only celebrated the 180th birthday of Dvorak but also the 103rd Independence Day of his beloved country.

“Ma pisen zas mi laskou zni” (My song sounds of love) is the first song in a set of seven.

My song resounds with love
when the old day is dying.
It is sowing its shadows and reaping a collection of pearls.
My song resonates with longing while my feet roam distant lands.
My homeland is in the distant wilderness -
my song stirs with nationalism.
My song reverberates with love while unplanned storms hasten.
I rejoice in the freedom that I no longer have
a part in the dying of a brother.

“Kdyz mne stara matka” (Songs My Mother Taught Me) is the fifth in the set and is among the most well-known of all Dvořák’s songs.

When my old mother taught me to sing,
Strange that she often had tears in her eyes.
And now I also weep,
when I teach Gypsy children to play and sing.

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