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| Josefina and Anna Cermakova |
Featured Recording
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCYtEAWBpNs
Cello: Jan Lewandosky (Allegro)
Maciej Kutakowski (Adagio, Finale)
Director: Sylwia Anna Janiak
Gdansk Symphony Orchestra
Polish Nationwide Symphonic Orchestras Competition 2014
In the early pages of Shadow Lines by Amitav Ghosh the reader is introduced to May Price. May - apart from her breezy name - is a character who is integral to the novel. She makes an impression on the reader when the nameless narrator goes over to her digs. She is described with great felicity. What is immediately striking is her love for the arts. She is a cellist. The narrator comes upon her accidently when he reads that she is part of the orchestra playing Dvorak's cello concerto.
She also practises the recorder and sympathizes with the narrator if he finds it too boring. Her bookshelf contains Russian novels interspersed with musical scores. On her diwan she has cushions with cushion covers with applique work from Gujarat - though her room has seldom seen visitors. She gets scared, so her only penchant is to keep the light on always.
Her strength of character comes later in the novel when she slits the dog's throat in Kolkata to put it out of its misery. The incident foreshadows the violence that will erupt in Khulna.
Dvorak's cello concerto in B minor, Opus 104, was first played in London in 1896. It was inspired by Josefina - the sister of his wife Anna. When Dvorak ((pronounced Dvojaak) learned that Josefina was ill he weaved a poetic phrase dear to Josefina into the composition. The concerto has 3 movements:
1. Allegro (17 mins)
2. Adagio ma non troppo (12 mins)
3. Finale - Allegro moderato (16 mins)
The phrase can be made out in slow movement.
In a sense, the theme of unrequited love in the composition plays out in the novel too. May Price does not find fulfilment since in order to save her, Tridib (who she loves) sacrifices his life. The narrator has feelings for May but he oscillates between May and Ila.
Antonin Dvorak (1841-1904) was a composer from Czechoslovakia. The cello concerto was from the ending years of his life when he was in the US where he came in 1892. Yet he always loved his homeland and yearned to return to Bohemia. So he asked permission to return. The cello concerto was the last composition of Dvorak in the US. He completed it on his son Otakar's 10th birthday.
The cello concerto is said to be an expression of his nostalgia for his homeland. Josefina passed on soon after Dvorak returned to Bohemia. He wrote a coda in her memory which somewhat dampens the enthusiasm of the finale he composed in the US.
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Sources: classicfm(dot)com; cso(dot)org; pic courtesy: antonin-dvorak(dot)cz. Updated 5 May 2021
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