Leave Me Alone, Op. 82 No. 1

Composer: DVOŘÁK, Antonín
  • “Leave Me Alone” is part of Dvořák’s Opus 82, a set of four songs for voice and piano which he composed in 1887-88. The songs were originally published in German, so the song is often known by its German title, “Lasst mich allein.”1
  • Dvořák wrote the Opus 82 set to conciliate his publisher Simrock, because Dvořák had (due to lack of business acumen) let another publisher get their hands on an earlier song set he had written, and Simrock felt they were losing profits because of this blunder.2
    • Dvořák wrote to his publisher, saying he would send “a set of songs as beautiful as the Op. 7 I wrote fifteen years ago, if not better,” and set to music four recently-published German poems by Otilie Malybrock-Stieler as his Opus 82.3
  • Dvořák quoted the melody of “Leave Me Alone” in the 2nd and 3rd movements of his Cello Concerto in b minor, Op. 104. “Leave Me Alone” was a favorite of Dvořák’s sister-in-law Josefína, who was gravely ill while he was composing the concerto’s 2nd movement.4
    • Dvořák and Josefína were close: Dvořák had been in love with Josefína before he married her sister Anna.
    • Josefína died while Dvořák was writing the concerto’s final movement; in that movement, he quotes the song one last time in her memory.5

Leave me to walk alone in my dreams,
Do not disturb the ecstasy within my heart!
Leave me all the rapture, leave me the pains
That have filled me ever since I saw him!

From the song text, translated by Sharon Krebs

“With the song ‘Leave Me Alone,’ Dvořák has attained Schubert’s heights. In the past, the latter was his example; now independent, he stands at his side as his equal.”

A critic of Dvořák’s day, on his Four Songs Op. 826

Sources

  1. Klaus Döge, “Dvořák, Antonín,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed September 5, 2019,  https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000051222.
  2. “Four Songs,” Antonin-Dvorak.cz, accessed September 5, 2019, http://www.antonin-dvorak.cz/en/four-songs.
  3. Ibid.
  4. Döge, “Dvořák, Antonín,” Grove Music Online.
  5. Betsy Schwarm, “Cello Concerto in B Minor, Op. 104,” Encyclopædia Brittanica (March 15, 2016), accessed September 5, 2019, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Cello-Concerto-in-B-Minor-Op-104.
  6. Quoted in “Four Songs,” Antonin-Dvorak.cz, accessed September 5, 2019, http://www.antonin-dvorak.cz/en/four-songs.

Cut IDs

18786