Dvorak The Noon Day Witch Sheet Music and Program Notes

Program Notes & Analysis

A Homecoming to the Dark Heart of Bohemia

When Antonín Dvořák returned to his beloved Bohemia in 1895, he was a world-renowned celebrity, the celebrated composer of the magnificent "New World" Symphony. The world expected more grand symphonies in this optimistic vein. Instead, the composer turned inward, reconnecting with the deepest roots of his national identity. He immersed himself in the dark, fatalistic, and often gruesome folk ballads of the Czech poet Karel Jaromír Erben. It was a conscious decision to move from the universal language of the symphony to the intensely specific and nationalistic language of the symphonic poem, a form perfected by Franz Liszt. In the space of a single year, he produced a series of four orchestral works based on Erben’s poems, including The Water Goblin, The Golden Spinning Wheel, and this chilling masterpiece, The Noon Witch. It was the work of a composer reaffirming his identity, diving deep into the shadowy folklore that had shaped his culture for centuries.

The Symphonic Poem: Music as Narrative

Unlike a symphony, which is typically structured around abstract musical ideas, a symphonic poem is a single-movement work for orchestra that tells a specific story, illustrates a poem, or evokes a scene. Following the lead of his countryman Bedřich Smetana in his Má Vlast cycle, Dvořák used this form to explicitly bind his music to Czech national literature. In The Noon Witch, he follows Erben's ballad with cinematic precision, using recurring musical themes, or leitmotifs, to represent characters and ideas, a technique he had mastered from listening to the operas of Richard Wagner.

The Grim Tale of Erben's Ballad

The story Dvořák sets is a truly terrifying cautionary tale. A mother is trying to cook lunch while her young child will not stop crying. Exasperated, she loses her patience and tells the child, "Hush, or the Noon Witch will come and take you!" As she says this, the church bell begins to strike noon. The door creaks open, and a grotesque, shadowy figure—the Noon Witch—limps into the room and demands the child. The horrified mother screams, grabs her son, and presses him to her chest. The witch begins a horrifying dance around them. The mother faints. Later, the father returns home from the fields for lunch to find his wife unconscious on the floor. He revives her, but when they look at their son, they discover he is dead—not taken by the witch, but accidentally suffocated in his mother's terrified, protective embrace.

Scene I: The Peaceful Home and the Crying Child

Dvořák brilliantly sets the scene with music of idyllic, pastoral simplicity. The main theme, introduced by the cellos, is gentle and warm, depicting a peaceful domestic scene. This tranquility is soon interrupted by the fussy, nagging cry of the child, represented by a whining, repetitive motif in the oboe. As the scene unfolds, Dvořák masterfully builds the tension. The child's crying becomes more insistent, and the orchestra mirrors the mother's rising frustration and anger, with the music growing more agitated and dissonant until she finally snaps and issues her fateful threat.

Scene II: The Witch's Terrifying Arrival

This is the dramatic heart of the work. The mother's threat hangs in the air, followed by a moment of dreadful silence. Then, a solo clarinet softly marks the beginning of the clock striking twelve, a sound later reinforced by the bassoon and the tolling of a low bell. A grotesque, limping theme appears in the low clarinets and bassoons—this is the Noon Witch. Dvořák's orchestration here is masterful, creating a sound that is both pathetic and terrifying. A horrifying musical dialogue ensues: the witch’s creeping, chromatic music is answered by the mother’s frantic, pleading phrases in the violins. The music accelerates into a wild, demonic dance, a whirlwind of orchestral terror that builds to an unbearable climax as the mother faints.

Scene III: The Father's Return

The music abruptly changes character. A simple, unsuspecting folk-like theme is heard in the orchestra, representing the father returning home from the fields, expecting his lunch. There is no hint of the horror that has just transpired. This moment of dramatic irony is incredibly effective. As the father enters the silent cottage and discovers his unconscious wife, the music becomes hushed and filled with a terrible sense of foreboding and confusion.

Scene IV: The Tragic Discovery and Lament

The father manages to revive his wife. As he does, the orchestra surges with a desperate, questioning urgency. Then comes the horrifying moment of discovery. A powerful, tragic outburst from the full orchestra marks the realization that the child is dead. The work concludes with a heartbreaking funeral lament. The child’s fussy oboe theme returns, now transformed into a slow, mournful dirge. The idyllic opening music of the peaceful home is heard one last time, now shattered and filled with sorrow, as the music fades away into a final, devastating silence. It is a conclusion of profound pathos and one of the most powerful endings in all of Dvořák's music.