Janącek's London Visit

JanàCek's London Visit ZDENKA E. FISCHMANN Janacek and his music are not very well-known in the Anglo-Saxon countries, and have only begun to penetrate there since the end of World War II. Some reasons for this lack of popularity are common to all Czech music, not Janacek alone. To mention the most obvious reasons: there are unequal opportunities for performances in different musical media. Symphonic, instrumental, and chamber music have a readier audience than vocal music in as unfamiliar a language as Czech. Therefore, Dvorak is better known and better represented in the American repertoire than Smetana. The lack of numerous opera houses on the North American continent, as compared with Europe, is another reason why essentially operatic composers like Smetana and Janacek are less often heard. But these are well-known facts. The question of style is subtler and, perhaps, open to discussion, but one might say simply, that Dvorak is more generally Slavic, Smetana most purely Czech, and Janacek much more personal and original; and this has set the order of preference to date, although these composers are now being reevaluated. Lack of in- formation and difficulty to access to Czech-language sources are also serious obstacles to the popularization of Czech music, especially that of Janacek. Nevertheless, Janacek is at last becoming known; his music is played more frequently than before, and the chronological sequence of "Smetana - Dvorak - Janacek" as "The Big Three of Czech music" is beginning to be firmly established. In Janacek's case, achievement of international recognition during his lifetime followed a certain pattern. He became very well known, even popular, in Germany and the continental Europe during the twenties. Selected dates demonstrate this: Jenufa was first performed in Vienna in 1918, and in Berlin in 1924. In 1928, Janacek could write proudly that this opera had been presented on about seventy stages in Germany and some other European countries.1 This German popularity was due 1 J-XIX, from January 12, 1928. Janâcek's London Visit 1337 primarily to the work of Max Brod, but there were other agents, also. One result was the New York premiere (in German) of Jenufa in 1924, after which there was a hiatus of 35 years until the 1959 Chicago presentation in English. In a way, too, the Latin American Jenufa in Buenos Aires derived from its German popularity, because it was performed there in 1950 and again in 1951 under Karl Böhm, and in 1963, under Ferdinand Leitner, with German singers. The only Czech per- former was the mezzo, Rûzena Hofâkovâ. Jenufa is the example chosen, because Janâcek always wished to be recognized first as an operatic composer. His chamber works and some of his symphonic works were played with more regularity and without major problems. In France, Janâcek found champions in men like Lionel de la Lau- rencie, president of the Société française de musicologie; Romain Rol- land; Henry Prunières of La revue musicale; François Marie William Ritter, who wrote for the Encyclopédie de la musique, and Daniel Muller, author of a biography of Janâcek, published in 1930, But Jenufa was not produced in France until in 1962, in Strassbourg. In the United States, it was the New York Times critic, Olin Downes, who made a special trip to Czechoslovakia in 1924, wrote a good review of the New York production of Jenufa, and devoted several articles to Janâcek. However, it was Mrs. Rosa Newmarch who did the most on his behalf in the English-speaking countries, during the twenties. Her first full-length article about Janâcek's Jenufa was called "A Slovak Music- Drama" 2 and appeared in 1919. It was followed by one in the Slavonic Revue 3 in 1922, and many others during the following years. She arranged to have Janâcek's music performed in London as early as 1922, and planned his official invitation and the London concert in 1926. She is the author of the Janâcek articles in Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, editions of 1927, 1932, and 1941, which for a long time remained almost the only major source on him in English. The Janâcek-Newmarch correspondence 4 reveals much about the way 2 In The Musical Times, Dec. 1, 1919. 3 Leos Jaruicek and Moravian Music Drama. 4 This article is based on the unpublished correspondence between Leos JanâCek (1854-1928) and Mrs. Rosa Newmarch (1857-1940). The letters, written from 1922 through 1928, were given in 1949 to Dr. Leos Firkusny, Czcch musicologist and expert on Janâcek, by Miss Elsie Newmarch, daughter of the late Rosa New- march. Dr. Firkusny died (1950) in Argentina, before he could do any work on this correspondence. His widow, the singer Rûzena Horâkovâ-Firkusny asked me in 1964 to take charge of the editing and publishing of these letters. At the mo- ment, the Janâcek-Newmarch Correspondence is ready for print. Janâcek's Lon- 1338 Zdenka E. Fischmann in which Mrs. Newmarch went about popularizing Janacek's work in England. Moreover, it is quite interesting from the human point of view, as the personalities of both writers come forward very clearly. And both were decidedly "characters". On one hand, we have Mrs. Newmarch, associated with the Queen's Hall concerts, intelligent, practical, tactful, and kind, highly educated, well-informed, understanding of how to treat artists, and very energetic in her effort to achieve the recognition of the then-modern music, unknown in Great Britain. On the other hand, there is Leos Janacek, three years her senior, a little provincial, a stubborn creative artist intent on his work, an un- inhibited writer of letters throughout his lifetime, a man of strong opin- ions expressed concisely, recognized internationally only in his old age, enjoying deeply and a little shyly his long-delayed but well-deserved fame. Mrs. Newmarch, of course, was the champion of Russian music in England until her last trip to Russia in 1915. Then she became inter- ested in the music of other Slavic nations. From 1918, when Czecho- slovakia became a free state, she dedicated herself to the music of that country. She went to Prague in 1919, by invitation of the composer and director of the National Theatre, Karel Kovafovic, and heard Jenufa, among other Czech operas. On that occasion, she travelled through parts of the country, but did not meet Janacek in Brno. In April 1922, she was again in Prague. Janacek, following the suggestion of a mutual acquaintance,5 invited her to Brno for a perform- ance of his Kat'a Kabanova. In her reply, Mrs. Newmarch wrote to Janacek of her wish to hear more of the modern Moravian music, and her desire to make his personal acquaintance, because, as she said:6 "I am already a great admirer of your works and consider Jeji pastor- kyna [Jenufa] one of the most remarkable of all modern music dramas." The meeting took place and Mrs. Newmarch returned to England, an ardent Janacek enthusiast. Later in July of the same year,7 she wrote again to tell Janacek about her plans for the London fall season: two conferences on Czechoslovak don Visit is one of the themes discussed thoroughly in a group of letters from 1926. The symbols used in the footnotes refer to the numbering of the letters in the Janacek (J) - Newmarch (N) correspondence. 5 Prof. F. Chudoba, then living in England. « N-l, April 13, 1922. 7 N-2, July 25, 1922. Janâcek's London Visit 1339 music, with examples of Kovarovic' and Foerster's works, and the English premiere of Janâcek's Diary of One Who Vanished. The tenor part of this work was to be sung by the Danish singer, Mischa Léon, who went to Czechoslovakia, not only to study the text in the original language, but also to seek some direct musical guidance from Janâcek - all this at Mrs. Newmarch's suggestion. The Diary was performed on October 21, 1922, and the next day, Mrs. Newmarch wrote her report to Janâcek:8 "I am not sure whether I can quite truthfully say that Zapisnik was a success in the common sense of the word. That is to say the Press. The public were very deeply impressed. I saw many people moved to tears by M. Mischa Léon's beautiful interpretation. He felt the songs so intensely that when he sang, he seemed transfigured into a young Slovak peasant. He looked 19, and torn by the crisp pangs of remorse. Wonderful! etc." The next important exchange of letters took place in August and October 1923. Janâcek happily and proudly wrote 9 about the Salzburg Festival of Contemporary Chamber Music where his Sonata for Violin and Piano was played; he complained of the lack of understanding in his own country, the sad state of the balance of his accounts with the Universal Edition, and difficulties getting permission from the dramatist Capek to compose a new opera based on Capek's The Makropulos Case. Mrs. Newmarch, very busy with the Queen's Hall concert series, had some good news:10 Janâcek's first symphonic poem, The Fiddler's Child, composed in 1912 and first presented in Prague in 1917, was included in a London symphonic program for May 1924. She suggested also "some Shakespearean comedy libretto" or "something quite modern? Nobody has ever yet thought of making a libretto from H. G. Wells!" This was a very interesting idea, but Janâcek's reaction is unknown, since he had made his arrangements for The Makropulos Case after all. For the year 1924, there is only one letter 11 in which Janâcek invites Mrs.

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