Antonin Dvorak : Humoresque Op101 No7: Bergmann

Antonin Dvorak : Arrangement by Stuart Weber

Bergmann Edition: 12 pages

Of course this is one of those melodies that everyone knows, but you may not know it by its title .Here Stuart Weber has worked on making this piece as playable as possible on our guitar.

It is set in the key of D with the 5^th string at G, and the 6^th at D, to make all the low G’s and D’s open strings , and therefore solve quite a few of the problems. Immediately however one realises that this is not an easy piece to get your fingers round. For starters, and right from the beginning you find quite a few pull – offs where you are asked to pull off the melody whilst also plucking a chord or a bass note underneath. Now, I don’t know about you, the reader, but that sort of pull – off is something I have found difficult to achieve correctly (and I’ve only been playing 62 years !!) ordinary pull – offs and hammer – ons are absolutely fine, but trying to play other notes in the same moment as the pull – off (or hammer – on) is not an easy thing to do, and I would imagine that there are many , many players who , like me, think the same way. Apart from that the opening theme works really well although there are one or two large stretches at times,  for example bar 4, where you are asked to play an A on string 3, fret 2, and a C# on string 5 fret 6 , not an easy option at all.

The secondary theme has its  8 bars in two voices with the entire melody in artificial harmonics before the opening theme returns until the end of this part, where another finger stretcher occurs in the 9^th position  where you have to play a low B on string 6 with your first finger at fret 9, your 3^rd  finger on the 12^th fret D at string 4 , your 2^nd finger on the F at fret 10 of the 3^rd, and finally the top F on string one at fret 13 with your 4^th finger. (Incidentally there is a misprint on the score here, where it has your 2^nd and 3^rd fingers swapping places! Great if you can do it!)

There follows the middle section where the key changes to the tonic minor where the dotted rhythm of the main section disappears for a while, still difficult in a few moments here too, after which the opening section together with the theme in artificial harmonics returns for one more time .

It’s a lovely piece that unfortunately I didn’t find fitted very well on the guitar. OK, there will be the odd person who can cope with its numerous tricky parts, but a lot of players would find this a little too awkward to play successfully. However, if you have a great technique and are not put off by my comments in a few places, then you might enjoy this.

Chris Dumigan