Josef Suk (4 January 1874 – 29 May 1935) was a Czech composer and violinist. He studied under Antonín Dvořák, whose daughter he married.

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Fantasie for Violin and Orchestra (1902, revised 1903)

Josef Suk, violin and the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Karel Ancerl

Although active as a professional violinist, Suk composed remarkably little for his own instrument, or indeed for string quartet. Most of his compositions for violin, such as the Four Pieces Op. 17 (1900) are relatively slight, intimate works. With the exception of the fourth movement of Op. 17, “Burlesca”, which has long been a favourite with virtuoso violinists, they are not particularly technically demanding, at least in a superficial sense. This is also true of the Fantasie to a certain degree. Suk did not compose a violin concerto and this work, his largest for violin and orchestra, has been referred to as his concerto.

However, the work bears little resemblance to a concerto, at least not in the form that might have been expected in the Prague of 1902. It is a single- rather than a multi-movement work and, in spite of extreme contrast and changes of tempo, there is notably a lack of the slow, expansive material, or the repose usually expected at the centre of a concerto. The slower lyrical themes tend to have an urgency about them. The tonic pedal, G, in the first Andante section (bars 73–91) drives the music forward with its insistent dotted rhythm, for instance. The Fantasie is written idiomatically for the instrument, making use of double-stopping, the impressive effects of rapid string crossing and the resonance of the open strings, as can be seen particularly clearly in the passagework in the section between bars 231 and 242. However, it is not really a vehicle for exhibiting exotic techniques or pyrotechnics. It demands a certain subtlety and modesty of expression, being a dialogue between soloist and orchestra in which the orchestra does not merely play an accompanimental role. Such an unostentatious mastery of technique was apparently characteristic of Suk the performer and is a feature that lives on in the playing of his grandson Josef Suk (b. 1929).

Suk’s musical style, whilst not experimental in the sense of his Parisian and Viennese contemporaries, is original and personal. It resists classification as a continuation of the musical language of Dvořák, who was his teacher at Prague Conservatoire from 1891, or indeed as a forerunner of that of his own pupil Martinů. Op. 24 also defies definition in many respects. As the title suggests, the Fantasie is free in structure, shaped by the frequent recurrence of the opening theme. The nature of its invention, with an economy of thematic material and occasionally adventurous harmonic language, is typical of Suk’s style.

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