Happy Birthday, Dvořák!

by Scott

Today, September 8, is Czech composer Antonin Dvořák’s 181st birthday! Following the tradition of my earlier composer Birthday arrangements, I took a well-known Classical piece by the composer, and transformed selected themes into Happy Birthday by keeping the rhythm and texture the same as the original, but changing the melody notes and harmonies.

Usually it is me who chooses the piece to transform, but in this case, Clare had the idea to transform the 4th movement of Dvořák’s New World Symphony! We had played Dvořák’s own 4-hand transcription of it two years ago, and enjoyed it immensely, so that was a convenient starting point for my arrangement.

Here are some examples of the transformations that I did.

Opening theme of Dvořák

Happy Birthday opening

I changed the harmony from E minor to E major as a surprise, but it will appear in a minor key later on!

Dvořák’s 2nd theme

Happy Birthday 2nd theme

I had to switch around the harmonies to match Happy Birthday, and put the song in both the main melody and the bass secondary melody

Another G major theme in Dvořák

Transformed theme

The dotted rhythm in the melody fit the “Hap-py Birthday” lyrics very well!

Dvořák recalling the famous “Largo” 2nd movement theme in the primo left hand

Largo theme transformed

Again, the dotted rhythm works well here!