Copyright by Kaitlin Lee Ericson 2010
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Copyright by Kaitlin Lee Ericson 2010 The Report Committee for Kaitlin Lee Ericson Certifies that this is the approved version of the following report: Forging a National Identity: Ideological Undercurrents in Smetana’s Vltava APPROVED BY SUPERVISING COMMITTEE: Supervisor: James Buhler Byron Almén Forging a National Identity: Ideological Undercurrents in Smetana’s Vltava by Kaitlin Lee Ericson, B.M. Report Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Music The University of Texas at Austin May 2010 Abstract Forging a National Identity: Ideological Undercurrents in Smetana’s Vltava Kaitlin Lee Ericson, MMusic The University of Texas at Austin, 2010 Supervisor: James Buhler Smetana’s Vltava is widely described as a musical depiction of sights and scenes on a journey down the Vltava River that glorifies the river as a defining national landmark. While this understanding of the piece complies with its program and produces a formal and thematic analysis that reveals a general adherence to the conventions of the nineteenth-century symphonic poem, the interpretation only considers the work in isolation and does not account for its most exceptional features. My paper will analyze Vltava in its larger context as a part of the symphonic cycle of Má Vlast to uncover a deeper programmatic significance to the movement’s formal and thematic design, one inextricably bound up with Smetana’s Czech nationalism. The analysis will consider all of the movements of the cycle and their relationships to one another, with particular emphasis on the crucial relationship between Vltava and Z českých luhů a hájů. iv Table of Contents Vyšehrad's Vision .................................................................................................... 1 Šárka's Rage .......................................................................................................... 14 Hus' Song ............................................................................................................... 34 Bibliography .......................................................................................................... 42 Vita ........................................................................................................................ 44 v Vyšehrad’s Vision The symphonic poem Vltava, the second of six in the collection Má Vlast (My Country), has long been one of Bedřich Smetana’s most well-known and most celebrated works.1 Composed in 1874, Vltava is widely described as a musical depiction of the course of the Vltava River (known in German as the Moldau) that runs through the Czech city of Prague.2 In his biography of Smetana, Brian Large portrays the work as “a delicate watercolor inspired by the Czech countryside, its rivers, valleys, and above all by its people.”3 Smetana’s brief notes for the piece include the following: The composition depicts the course of the river, from its beginning where two brooks, one cold, the other warm, join a stream, running through forests and meadows and a lovely countryside where merry feasts are celebrated; water-sprites dance in the moonlight; on nearby rocks can be seen the outline of ruined castles, proudly soaring into the sky. Vltava swirls through the St. John Rapids and flows in a broad stream towards Prague. It passes Vyšehrad and disappears majestically into the distance, where it joins the Elbe.4 Smetana’s notes have commonly inspired an interpretation of Vltava as a kind of travelogue in its musical portrayal of the river’s course and the various scenes we 1 John Clapham, Smetana (New York: Octagaon Books, 1972), p. 80. 2 Marta Ottlová et. al., “Smetana, Bedřich *Friedrich+,” Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed 23 March 2010), http://www.grovemusic.com. 3 Brian Large, Smetana (New York: Da Capo Press, 1985), p. 269. 4 Ibid., p. 273. 1 encounter along the way.5 Indeed, as we listen to the composition, clear in its formal divisions and effective in its thematic treatment, we may readily identify each of the events outlined in the above program. Figure 1 shows Vltava’s basic formal divisions along with the corresponding programmatic events. Enriching this basic interpretation is the work’s overtly nationalist origins, in light of which Vltava also distinctly evokes nationalistic pride in the river as a defining Czech landmark and unifying symbol of Czech life and culture.6 As this understanding of the work accords with the account Smetana provides as well as with explicitly nationalist appeals, most analysts have been content to work within this interpretive framework.7 Figure 1: Smetana, Vltava, formal diagram with programmatic events Water Vltava Introduction Vltava Forest/Hunt Wedding sprites Vltava Rapids broad Vyšehrad "River" + "River" ≈ T1 T2 ≈ T3 T4 ≈ T1 T1 T1' * 36 80 118 181 239 271 333 359 e C → E G Ab c V/e e ( x) E Interpreting Vltava as a travelogue highlights the composition’s essential adherence to the generic conventions of the nineteenth-century symphonic poem. The invention of the symphonic poem in the mid-nineteenth century is generally credited to Liszt. Defined in the current online edition of Grove Dictionary as “an orchestral form in 5 Alexander C. MacKenzie, “The Bohemian School of Music,” Sammelbände der Internationalen Musikgesellschaft 7 (1906): 158. 6 Michael Beckerman, “In Search of Czechness in Music,” 19th-Century Music 10.1 (1986): 73. 7 Large, Smetana, 273-276. 2 which a poem or programme provides a narrative or illustrative basis,”8 the symphonic poem has also been described as “an orchestral composition inspired by a literary, historical, or pictorial subject – or indeed by anything which exists also outside music (a natural scene, for instance) – and deriving its structure rather from the events or incidents or objects which it seeks to portray than from the inherited forms of the art of music itself.”9 In other words, the form of the symphonic poem arises from the given programmatic sequence and thus will often deviate from the conventional formal structures, especially sonata form, that nevertheless remain at the core of its organization. Liszt’s conception influenced many subsequent composers, including Smetana, to whom he was a mentor and friend.10 Liszt’s influence is evident in Vltava and the cycle of Má Vlast, where Smetana turned the genre into a means of nationalist expression.11 The structural features of Vltava, which unfold as an expression of the work’s programmatic content, ultimately invoke principles of both sonata and rondo form as well. The piece opens in the tonic key of E minor with a short introduction depicting the river’s two source streams, “one cold, the other warm,” that will eventually merge into one. As shown in Example 1, the musical material of the opening consists of the initial 8 Hugh Macdonald, “Symphonic Poem,” Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed 31 March 2010), <http://www.grovemusic.com>. 9 R.W.S. Mendl, “The Art of the Symphonic Poem,” The Musical Quarterly 18.3 (1932): 443. 10 Vladimir Helfert, “Bedřich Smetana (1824—2 March—1924),” The Slavonic Review 3.7 (1924): 148. 11 Macdonald, “Symphonic Poem.” 3 development of what may be called the “river motive,” which is comprised of running sixteenth notes that musically imitate the river’s running waters. The orchestration of this passage also illustrates the idea of a divided stream, as the motive passes back and forth first between the two flute parts and then between the two flute parts and the two clarinet parts. Example 1: Smetana, Vltava, flute parts, mm. 5-9. The somewhat long introduction leads directly into the main theme (mm. 36 ff.), also in E minor, which consists of a soaring, expansive melody (Example 2) played over the river motive and which programmatically announces the arrival in the Vltava mainstream. The historical origins of this theme are disputed, as the tune in various forms had previously appeared in a number of compositions and seems to have been widely circulated throughout Europe beginning as early as the seventeenth century.12 Biographers note that the theme resembles several indigenous folk tunes, most closely the Czech nursery rhyme “Kočka, lese dírou, pes oknem.”13 Large also suggests that Smetana may have heard the melody when he lived for several years in Sweden, as the 12 “The canzonetta Fuggi, fuggi, fuggi da questo cielo . became known as the Aria di Mantova through sonata treatments by Biagio Marini and Marco Uccellini. Its melody was used for a popular noël in 18th- century France, and it eventually emerged as the principal theme of Smetana’s Vltava" (John Walter Hill, "Cenci, Giuseppe," Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy [Accessed 11 April 2010], http://www.grovemusic.com). 13 Clapham, Smetana, p. 80. 4 melody appears in a popular Swedish folk song that he likely encountered.14 Whatever its actual origins, it seems clear, given how the theme is deployed in the tone poem, that Smetana used it because of its Czech associations. Example 2: Smetana, Vltava, opening of the main theme, mm. 36-43. The main theme is followed by three different episodes, labeled by name in Figure 1 and shown in Example 3. Each clearly contrasting in style and in key, these episodes are musical depictions of different sights and scenes someone might see on a journey down the river, including woodsmen hunting in the forest (mm. 80 ff.), a wedding ceremony taking place along the riverbank (mm. 118 ff.), and water sprites dancing in the moonlight (mm. 181 ff.). Up to this point in the piece, the unfolding episodic organization most closely resembles the formal principle of the rondo. While rondo form traditionally requires a return of the main theme between each episode, Smetana’s use of the river motive to transition between the episodes serves to link the contrasting episodes together with music associated with the river. Thus, the river motive arguably functions as a substitute for the main theme’s reference point. Programmatically, the ubiquitous presence of the river motive serves to unify 14 Large, Smetana, p. 275. 5 Example 3a: Smetana, Vltava, Woodsmen, mm.