czech music

quarterly magazine

3 Miloš Štedroň Alois Hába 2005 Martin Smolka 13 . abonentní sezóna Českého národního symfonického orchestru 2005/2006 v Rudolfinu

I. koncert Pondělí 17. 10. 2005, 19.30 hodin SKRJABIN, RACHMANINOV, LISZT, ČAJKOVSKIJ ČNSO/Daniel Raiskin Enrico Pace & Yingdi Sun, klavír II. koncert Středa 9. 11. 2005, 19.30 hodin MITCHELL, BAKER, BRAHMS ČNSO/Paul Freeman Jiří Novotný, trombon III. koncert Sobota 17. 12. 2005, 19.30 hodin LA PARADA Jan Hasenöhrl & hosté Paul Freeman, Václav Hudeček a další IV. koncert Středa 11. 1. 2006, 19.30 hodin BEETHOVEN, ČAJKOVSKIJ, RACHMANINOV ČNSO/Paul Freeman Jaroslava Pěchočová, klavír V. koncert Středa 1. 2. 2006, 19.30 hodin VERDI, BRITTEN, ROSSINI, RESPIGHI ČNSO/Marcello Rota Jaroslav Březina, tenor Zdeněk Tylšar, lesní roh Vstupenky / Tickets VI. koncert Středa 1. 3. 2006, 19.30 hodin „MOZART GALA“ ČNSO/Jan Chalupecký Tel.: 222 897 333 VII. koncert Neděle 2. 4. 2006, 19.30 hodin Tel.: 224 215 031 RAVEL, RIMSKIJ-KORSAKOV, MUSORGSKIJ ČNSO/Marcello Rota Lubomír Legemza, klarinet Tel.: 296 329 999 VIII. koncert Středa 3. 5. 2006, 19.30 hodin MARTINŮ, BERNSTEIN, BEETHOVEN ČNSO/Paul Freeman John Walz, violoncello Chicagský dětský sbor/Josephine Lee

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editorial Contents 2005

Alois Hába certainly deserves the amount of space we have devoted to him Page 2 Every era has to give new substance in this issue. He was a highly distinctive to the ritual experimental composer and music theorist and a no less important teacher. An interview with Miloš Štědroň One of the few 20th-century Czech MIROSLAV BALAŠTÍK 3 composers to have entered „major“ musical history as a matter of course, Hába is a respected figure especially in the German-speaking world and was so even in the period before the Second Page 9 The Hába “School” World War. His name is traditionally linked primarily with VLASTA REITTEREROVÁ microtonal music. This was a field in which together with a number of other composers Hába was an undoubted pioneer, but his importance cannot be Page 17 Martin Smolka reduced to this activity alone. In this issue we have also included a A microsentimental composer portrait of the contemporary composer PETR BAKLA Martin Smolka, who is likewise intensely interested in microtones and uses them in his work. It would however, be rather too simple to present Smolka as some - albeit distant - successor to Page 21 Ostrava Days of New Music 2005 Hába. Smolka is a „child“ of the post-war avant garde, for which work PETR BAKLA with microtones was already quite an ordinary phenomenon and which came to them first and foremost through interest in the timbre element of music. Page 22 Reviews If there is any respect in which Smolka is a successor of Hába’s, it is probably simply that his work is gaining ever greater respect abroad. We are pleased that we can contribute Profiles Alois Hába to this with our magazine. LUBOMÍR SPURNÝ Wishing you a beautiful autumn

PETR BAKLA Czech Music Czech Music is issued by the Czech Music Information Centre with the support EDITOR Information Centre of the ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic and the Czech Music Fund Besední 3, 118 00 Praha 1, Editor: Petr Bakla, Translation: Anna Bryson Czech Republic, Graphic design: Ditta Jiřičková fax: ++420 2 57317424 Photos: Petr Francán (p. 2 - 9), Martin Voříšek (p. 18 - 20), Olga Štajnrtová (p. 20–21) phone: ++420 2 57312422 and archives e-mail: [email protected] DTP: HD EDIT, Print: Tiskárna Nové Město http://www.musica.cz/czechmusic ISSN 1211-0264 Price and subscription (shipping included): Czech Republic: one issue Kč 60, subscription (4 issues) Kč 200 Europe: one issue € 6.25, subscription (4 issues) € 25 Overseas countries: one issue $ 9, subscription (4 issues) $ 36 or respective equivalents MIROSLAV BALAŠTÍK

every era has to give new substance to the ritual an interview with miloš štědroň

municated by ear and to do so didn’t require Miloš Štědroň (*1942) is one of the most important Czech any great education or skill. This was why ini- musicologists and composers of today. His main interest as tially “Czech musicality” expressed itself in a rather mediocre way and only after 1600 a musicologist is Leoš Janáček (he has written numerous did the phenomenon acquire features that made it comparable with the major musical musicological studies, and for example contributed to the diasporas. I mean that after the Netherlan- reconstruction of Janáček’s unfinished Danube Sympho- ders and Italians Czechs become the biggest group of musical migrants. In this sense ny), but also the Renaissance and Mannerism (he is the Havlíček was right when he said that they author of the first Czech monograph on C. Monteverdi). As filled up every corner of the world. But Czechs do not create great concepts, or do a composer he is associated primarily with the circle of Brno so only in exceptional cases. For example J. V. Stamic, who revolutionised High Classi- composers influenced by the principles of New Music in the cism period by pushing through the sonata 1960s, and one particular point of interest in this context is form and modern orchestra. J.A. Benda was another Czech who made a contribution of Štědroň’s involvement in “team compositions”. He is also a this magnitude. But generally Czechs have sought after composer of stage music. been migrating musicians who adapt per- fectly to the local style, are in no way provocative but simply develop that style. A model 1.B Class, in fact, marvellous musi- cians, skilful composers and excellent ful- fillers of the norm. I shall start with what is perhaps How do you explain it? Which are the other periods when a rather tired old question: what about It is hard to say. Some nations are more sus- Czech music reaches a peak? the whole supposed musicality of ceptible to melody, while some are more If we are going to talk about national Czech Czechs? Are Czechs really particularly inclined to multiple lines. Of course this is music, then it is something that emerges musical in some way? Or is the old say- a dangerous generalisation, more just a sort from the second phase of the Czech national ing, “If you’re a Czech, you’re a musi- of theory. Among northerners what has revival, after 1848. All this is perfectly cian” just a myth we’ve constructed always predominated is a feeling for struc- described by Vladimír Macura in his about ourselves? ture. We can see this with the Low Countries, absolutely epochal book Znamení zrodu [The I’d say yes to both questions. Yes it’s a myth, the Burgundians, the Northern French, peo- Sign of Birth], which shows how the National but it’s based on what has been a great deal ple from Belgium and Flanders, who wherev- Revival had two phases. In the first phase it of musical activity. Mikuláš Bek’s book, The er they went managed to organise perfect was a kind of game developed by a few Conservatory of Europe? which is essentially polymelodic music involving many voices – dozen intellectuals, but after 1847 the mass- a sociological study of Czech musical cul- five, seven or even more. The Italians added es became involved, and this produces cru- ture, offers an enlightening answer. Bek the poly-choral element but in fact in Italy cial episodes such as the “discovery” of the describes how in the 1770s Charles Burney considerations of melody always prevailed Zelená hora and Králův Dvůr Manuscripts, travelled across Europe, from Holland and were always the clearly dominant factor. the supposed cycles of Old Czech poems through France and England to Vienna, and The Italian approach suited the Czechs bet- from the 9th and 13th centuries that were all round Bohemia before returning through ter and it is interesting that Italian influences unmasked as forgeries at the end of the 19th Germany. It was Burney who supposedly said have been more in evidence here than century. The wheels of nationalism start to that Bohemia was the conservatory of French influences, even back in the reign of turn because the tracks have already been Europe. In fact, of course, he could never Charles IV when you would have thought laid. At first the Austrian government smiles, have said that, because in his time the con- that the Luxembourg connections would because it believes on past form that the servatory didn’t exist as an institution, except have meant the import of the musical culture phenomenon is trivial. But the smile on its in Italy as an orphanage. Nonetheless, there of France. face disappears when it sees the funeral of was something about the idea. If we look at Let us go back to the Baroque. What Rubeš. A poet whom everybody knows from it historically, we see that the first defining happened then? his Mlynářova opička [The Miller’s Monkey] moment for Czechs in music came during Here what is important is the transition from or Čech a Němec [The Czech and the Ger- with the radical religious Hussite movement the Baroque to Classicism. Someone once man] or some little verse dies, and František in the Middle Ages. The Hussite movement said that Classicism is Baroque without Palacký gives the order, more or less a politi- spread music more broadly across society, ornament, that all the decorations were cal appeal, for his memory to be honoured. democratised it. In this sense Marxist inter- stripped off the facades so that only the Suddenly forty thousand people turn up, the pretations were partly correct, since before strict lines remain… This may mean on the rain is pouring down but Palacký speaks for that time there had never been laicisation one hand create something like a barracks, a whole hour and everyone listens. Suddenly and secularisation on the same scale, or but it may also be very light, airy architecture ideology, something completely new, enters such an advance in literacy among ordinary – and if I compare music to architecture, the game. And we might perhaps see that as people. Another moment “in the stars”, to put which is an old idea, architecture is music in the fateful moment for Czech music as well, it metaphorically, came with the Baroque, stone. In my view the model of the Late which becomes national in spirit. Czech with the breakthrough into Late Baroque, Baroque and Classicism particularly suited musicians cease to be migrants, and are now when it became clear that what most suited the Czechs. All over Europe the Baroque was people very much bound to a particular cul- Czechs was the model of a melody or melod- attractive in music because the basic line of tural instance. Smetana is a tragic but great ic line accompanied by something less com- the melody, two violins or two trumpets, example of this kind. Here we have a phe- plicated, more lucid. could be immediately reproduced and com- nomenal world talent, and if he had chosen

czech music 3 | 2005 | interview | 3 the path of the Romantic composer freely started my musical training. Vladimír, born in ing, do you know Mr. Chlubna?” And my travelling and spending five years in Paris, 1900, was a lawyer but he had concurrently father would always answer, “Of course, and maybe ten years in some German cen- studied at Josef Suk’s master school. In fact Maestro, I shall call him for you immediately”. tre, he would certainly be three times more he was had even been Suk’s favourite pupil. He always asked whether father knew him. famous than he is today. But he chose the He had great talent but somehow he dissi- Osvald Chlubna was Janáček’s right hand, path of Czech opera and gave himself up pated it. He constantly sat about in various and I myself got to know him well when I was wholly to the nation. He devoted himself coffee-houses debating what he would do, studying, when he used to come to the completely to the services of something that until in the end he didn’t do anything much. Janáček Academy and curse us for being he didn’t actually understand very well. This He wrote the most in the Fifties, when he moderns. In seminars we almost came to is crystal clear if we look at the ideas that was “put out of action” as a judge because blows with him. Then came 1968 and the inform his music, I mean his view on what he he wasn’t a party member, and so he fell Soviet tanks arrived. Chlubna ran into me at was actually setting to music. Significantly back on music: he ended up at the Prague the time and said, “Let bygones be bygones. these we noticed by Adolf Hitler with his dis- conservatory where he played for ballerinas, Now we must all unite and defend our torted vision, who praised Má vlast [My and he was satisfied. He was a great influ- national culture.” It was a very First-Republic Country] and considered it absolutely the ence on me. He was a bon vivant and con- sort of attitude, but it gave me the shivers most perfect chauvinistic glorification of firmed bachelor and I used to go and visit because it made me realise that things were landscape, history, nation, race and so forth. him in Prague, where he educated me in really going to get rough. He wanted to hear it played authentically; he artistic taste. My other uncle, Bohumír, was What were your student years at JAMU got his way, and the conductor Václav Talich a professor at the Philosophical Faculty, [The Janáček Academy of Performing was later nearly charged with collaboration. a pupil of Vladimír Helfert, an outstanding Arts in Brno] like? But what could he have done? pianist, an excellent lexicographer, a scholar, First I completed studies at the Philosophical How has Czech music developed since a pedant in the best sense of the term, very Faculty, then I went to Pardubice for a year the later 19th century? strict with himself but very friendly to other and did my national service as a signals man, Interestingly, in music there was no great people. Bohumír taught me from when I was but even before I went for a talent test at break in music at the end of the 19th century. six and it was a real drilling. When I was nine JAMU. By that time in 1961 and 1962 I was This was unlike the situation in literature, or ten my mother couldn’t bear to watch it already in touch with the composers Miloslav when the 1890s and the “omladina” move- any longer and took me to her old professor, Ištvan, Josef Berg and Alois Piňos, who kept ment brought a new view, with many young the seventy-year-old Mrs Holubová, who had encouraging me in the idea that I just had to writers no longer believing that we were one originally been appointed by Leoš Janáček go to JAMU. When I came back from military nation but seeing the internal differences, to the organ school. She venerated Janáček, service I already had a place in the Moravian parting company for good with the Young but in that very Czech sort of way. She used Museum as an assistant in the music depart- Czech political movement and, for example, to say, “Janáček is a complete genius, but he ment and I directed the Theatre of Music in many cases finding the iconic national spoils everything with that abruptness of his, [Divadlo hudby]. On the basis of the talent poet Vrchlický no longer acceptable. In music the way he cuts everything off. It’s terrible, it test I was admitted to the Janáček Academy the situation was not so polarised. There was always annoys me when I hear it in the and became a regular student of composi- a relatively smooth transition between Glagolitic Mass, the way he cuts a thing tion there up to 1969. But I have very happy Dvořák and his pupils. The latter were mod- short, when maestro Novák would have memories of the Theatre of Music too. It was ernists, of course, but Czech modernists, developed it, would have made it a great an institution that I made in my own image. a more traditional sort of modernist. On the passage. (Well, yes, but then again that is I got my friends involved with it, the Brno other hand, Suk had such a mimetic talent precisely what is distinctive about Janáček). Surrealists, Pavel Řezníček, and Jiří Veselský that he could be regarded by the Viennese She was a graduate of the Prague Conser- appeared in it as well, and Arnošt Goldflam, avant-garde as a composer sometimes close vatory, and she boasted that she had ridden Karel Fuksa, and of course that cult figure of to atonality and significantly only Josef Suk, in a tram with Dvořák. She always told me Bohemian Brno life Jan Novák. I invited Leoš Janáček and Ladislav Vycpálek were the story of how she had been sitting there Mirek Kovářík, too, who produced a sort of taken up by the Society for the Private Per- and Dvořák had got on and she had stood up mini-festival of poetry. formance of Music – the most avant-garde and said. “Maestro, please be seated”. He At JAMU you experienced a very potent outpost in Vienna. Suk was thought to have had said, “Sit down”. She had replied, “I can- set of teachers. The composition teach- affinities with the Viennese because some of not sit”. And he had thumped with his cane ers were Miloslav Ištvan, Josef Berg, his compositions were written in several and said, “ Sit down this minute!” She was and Alois Piňos. Ludvík Kundera was polyphonic layers, and in that sense were a fantastic woman, very nice, but at the same rector at the time… similar to Mahler, Mahler at his most modern. time very exacting. First she saw me as It was a truly starry period. But Berg wasn’t But then along came Janáček and changed a pianist but then she recognised that at JAMU. He taught for just a short time, everything. An outsider arrived, a solitaire, I might have gifts as a composer, and guided because teaching caused him such serious and became a great hit. After Jenůfa each of me in that direction. And then there was my physical problems – a kind of stigmata – that his operas was eagerly awaited and he over- other uncle Jan, an outstanding violinist who he had to stop. He always overdid the prepa- shadows all the other Czechs. had a great career ahead of him but didn’t rations for his classes and it took up too We shall come back to Janáček later. have the push to make it and so ended up in much of his time. Ištvan and Piňos were Now let’s turn to more personal mat- Vyškov, where he directed the Haná orches- complete revelations and it was very good ters. You come from a well-known fam- tral association. that Ludvík Kundera, Milan Kundera’s father, ily of musicians. Do you remember So that was the background I came from. All was rector. He was an unusually educated from your childhood any melody that my uncles would come and visit us, at Christ- and cultivated man. He had studied in Ger- had a great effect on you and perhaps mas and at Easter, and their influences min- many and admired Beethoven, but Janáček even influenced your later direction? gled and interacted in me. was a huge influence on him. Then he had I don’t remember any specific melody, but You haven’t yet mentioned your been in the Czechoslovak Legions in the I lived in a very musical environment. My father… First War and had gone through the whole father’s friends would come to our house My father wasn’t a professional musician. He legion experience in Russia. For me he was and play, mainly trio sonatas or at least two played the violin and viola very well but he always a classic example of the syndrome of violins and piano. Apart from that my mother worked as the secretary of the Cyril and the Czech nation, combining German culture taught at music school and at the conserva- Methodius Savings Bank. Janáček had been and Russophilia. He had a perfect mastery of tory, and so her pupils would meet at our a regular visitor to the bank. He always used both languages. He also wrote a book in house and play too. It was my uncles who to come to my father and say, “Good morn- Russian, The History of the Music of the

4 | interview | czech music 3 | 2005 Czechoslovak People, which came out in Yekaterinburg in 1919. Ištvan and Piňos were polar opposites, friendly and mutually respectful at the time but later their paths diverged sharply. Both were absolutely ideal teachers. It is very diffi- cult to teach art; it means imposing some kind of artistic doctrine and often turning it into a compulsory text and testing students to check they agree. But both Ištvan and Pinňos were hugely liberal at a time that wasn’t liberal at all. They taught for much longer than was required, sometimes six or seven hours at one go. We would sit in the pub but not drink at all, maybe a glass or so of wine at most, or would go to their flats. We were in close contact with them, we all used the familiar form of address (”ty” not “vy”, as in French “tu” not “vous”) and created things together. The atmosphere was completely different from in Prague, where there was a big distance between teachers and stu- dents and a rigidity that became even worse under Normalisation [the freeze after the 1968 invasion]. This meant that the leading Prague and Bratislava composers sent their offspring to Brno for their training, and Brno managed to keep up a decent standard even in the Seventies. Music is something that it is hard for ideology to infiltrate. They could ban concerts, or order up concerts to celebrate the revolution or whatever, but essentially it was the composers who created the content. And Ištvan and Piňos were completely uncompromising. So you mean that from the point of view of music the Sixties were more dynamic in Brno than in Prague? Yes, but it was marked by what you might call the “curse of Brno”, which is hard to explain. Usually I say it is a matter of the relationship between Czech and German identity in the area. In Prague the polarisation of Czechs and Germans was unambiguous. After the October Diploma there were Czechs and there were Germans, and anyone who want- Janáček wrote a wonderful sonata on the Husa na provázku], where you created ed to be both at the same time was theme. Blood was spilt and there was no the stage music for many productions. denounced by both sides. In Brno it was going back. Up to that time the Czechs and How can music influence a stage pro- more complicated. Up to 1890–1900 there Germans in Brno had always quarrelled, duction? Or what generally is the rela- were Czechs living here but the German brawled and then always come together tionship between the dramatic and town hall tried to stop more Czechs moving again in support of some idea. After 1905 it musical element? in from the suburbs. Brno had ninety thou- was no longer possible for Czechs to go to Music can of course have great psychologi- sand inhabitants at the time and wanted to the German theatre. The divorce was final. cal power, but in theatre the main problem is protect the German majority of around fifty What effects did this have for the that it is stigmatised by being used for the thousand. In Prague the turning point had atmosphere in Brno, what you call the transitions. When there’s a scene change, come in 1880 – the Germans and Jews sud- curse? then there’s music. There’s a constant dan- denly realised that they were surrounded by Generally a kind of embarrassment about ger of someone talking while it’s playing, the Czechs. The Josefine doctrine effectively the fact that actually there is a double or audience chatting, in short, a danger of the paid off and nobody then had any doubts triple culture here. It is most obvious in the music being just a backdrop. Or else it’s the that Prague was a Czech city. And another architecture, because in order for Brno to be accompanying element to movement, to factor was that in Brno the working class given a Czech face something absolutely dance, which then turns into ballet or mime. was forced into bilingualism by the German new had to be found. That was the reason But today musicians, and also directors and owners. There was only one Czech school in for Functionalism. It was clear that this was ultimately even actors want there to be the place. So clear national polarisation something new, Czech, beautiful. This is the a song or something more. So music is being came late, only after 1900. There is always principle on which I would explain the specif- liberated from the stage of spoken drama that last straw that breaks the camel’s back; ic character of Brno. The modern started and becoming something that is moving in that’s the law of quantity changing into quali- here practically from scratch, much more so the direction of opera or musical. At the ty. The last straw in Brno was the carpentry than anywhere else. Goose on a String Theatre [later Theatre on worker Pavlík, who was killed in 1905 when At the end of the Sixties you were part a String] each director had his own approach he was demonstrating for a Czech university. of the birth of another Brno legend – to music. Zdeněk Pospíšil cared a great deal A worker demonstrating for a university!!! the Goose on a String Theatre [Divadlo about music and wanted to do musical. Of

czech music 3 | 2005 | interview | 5 course he didn’t know quite how to do it, but merged myself in the period around 1600 and what you might call intellectual or text he created Balada pro banditu [Ballad for and studied it in great detail. The result was investments. But the mortal sin of Czech a Bandit], which was a work of genius in its that after fifteen years I wrote a book about musical is that it lacks irony about itself. I am time. Peter Scherhaufer on the other hand Monteverdi. Then I went back another hun- an admirer of Webber’s Joseph and his needed music as rhythmic emphasis, as dred years. This way I got addicted to music Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, for exam- atmosphere. But it was Scherhaufer who had of the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth ple, where at one point the action stops and the idea that the Theatre on a String might century. It was what you might call my other the protagonists entirely challenge the prin- do opera. Of course – a peculiar sort of face. Of course I felt the contradiction with ciples that they embody. Joseph is suppos- opera, but Chameleón at the Theatre on doing songs for the theatre, but I took the edly dead and his father weeps for him, he is a String meant more to me than an opera prospect of theatre songs as a new sort of comforted by a girl and together they dance I would do in a classic opera house. The reaction to the avant-garde, and thought in front of the curtain, and suddenly Joseph atmosphere there was marvellous, and it was I would try it, since I had never done it before. takes off his dark glasses and says, a joy to write for people like Mirek Donutil, I had never written Country, and suddenly “Let’s get on with the plot. I’m dead, but noth- Mojmír Maděrič, Jirka Pecha who couldn’t here it was with Ballad for a Bandit, and ing is happening.” It is a tremendous lighten- read music, Iva Bittová… there was a real Pospíšil shouting, “Do you know how to do ing up of the atmosphere, and if someone electricity between them all the time. On the a Western?” So first I listened to all the wes- did it in Dracula (successful Czech musical – one hand they worked together, but on the terns and then I produced my own idea of editor’s note), half the audience would defi- other there was a certain competitive tension a western. Naturally I know that as soon as nitely understand and the piece would between them, which led to great perfor- something is too popular or too easy on the acquire another dimension. But in this coun- mances. It was all a great joke for them, ear, it’s dangerous. And so in the case of try musical is treated like an opera around because they had no knowledge of opera Ballad I haven’t succumbed to some great 1800, except that opera around 1800 was and so they performed the way they imag- enthusiasm. In fact I tend to be suspicious done a little better. Perhaps it is the revenge ined opera might look. What emerged was and tell myself that it is very odd that it is so of history. In history it what usually happens actually a parody of opera. I also did Balet catchy and still remembered. But you must is that once grand styles come back in light- Makábr [Ballet Macabre]. I must say I would remember that Ballad for a Bandit aspired to ened up and boiled down forms. This can be like to go back to Chameleon, though, be a musical. If – but neither Pospíšil nor the case with musical as well, following the because I think it is perfectly written, proba- I myself realised it – if there had been more rule that what comes first as tragedy comes bly one of Ludvík Kundera’s best plays. The dancing. A musical needs to be very much back a second time as farce. story of Mr. Fouché, who was not wicked or dance drama, and that element is rather Let us take the situation from the cynical, but just didn’t have a character at all. lacking in Ballad. opposite side now – what is the situa- You mentioned Ballad for a Bandit, Now that we talk of musical – what is tion of classical music today? which is now a popular classic, and its your view of the boom in musicals in Naturally it is a minority genre, but what isn’t songs are regularly sung around camp the 1990s in Czech Republic? What is a minority genre? Only mainstream pop. fires. What does it mean for a compos- the basis of the appeal? Rock music and folk rock are already minori- er of modern classical music when his It’s a matter of visual appeal. It’s the visuali- ty affairs today. Jazz is very definitely in the songs become part of popular culture? sation of music. If you look back on the last position of a minority genre. Unless it goes Isn’t there a kind of contradiction 20 years, what you see is that music has for something of the kind that Jaromír Hnilič- about it? become terribly visualised. Every group must ka tried, for example, when he did a jazz Yes there is, undoubtedly, and I am aware of have clips, and if they don’t they might as mass at Petrov. Ordinary believers came too, it. In the 1970s we all retreated from the well not exist. They have to present them- and people who were interested in paralitur- avant-garde, as it were. The rapid movement selves in some way, and so they put on dif- gical music, but they were not jazzmen of of the 1960s came to an end. John Lennon ferent costumes and create an image, which course. In other words, I think we are seeing or someone else said that the seventies then determines fashion. But musical is a huge process of syncretism, which reminds were worth shit and in some ways that was above all a huge commercial commodity – as me of Late Antiquity and the Early Christian true. Naturally we turned away from the I’ve often written – it is instant opera for the period. Those were times when religion didn’t avant-garde. We didn’t for example have the poor. Nobody can get into the grand operas exist in pure form, many people believed in same kind of conscious view as the German these days. Just take a look at what hap- various different cults and combined them in composers who deliberately turned against pened in Britain when the Labour Party, after all kinds of ways. Today the media throw so the avant-garde, against the remorseless winning the elections, wanted to get their much information at us that we couldn’t expressiveness of the new music and looked new MPs their traditional seats at the opera. actually be non-syncretic if we tried. This is for a larger synthesis, a road to a new sim- It was impossible because the seats had why classical music no longer exists in pure plicity. We only learned about that later. But already been taken by the lords. Sometimes form. When I look at the young generation of many of us instinctively sensed it and you can get into a matinée there, but no one composers I can’t see even one who is inclined towards historicism. Not that we has a chance of getting into the premieres. a purely classical composer. Earlier, com- completely gave up avant-garde things, but The rise of the musical was an attempt to posers used to come out of the conservatory we worked on two or three levels in parallel. somehow exploit the financial capacity of the or studies with some master and if then Mr. We cultivated the New Music almost ritually, middle- and lower classes, to get money out XY wrote an operetta, they would want to because for us it retained the attraction of of them. Rock-n-Roll achieved the same banish him from the avant-garde. Today the 1960s and we didn’t want to betray that; thing starting in the sixties. The young had everyone says, yes, he has to make a living. whenever we did a chamber piece we would plenty of money, because after the war they Of course he studied at the Janáček Acade- go back to its principles, but even then new were in apprenticeships and had regular my of Performing Arts, but now he plays in things were getting into it. In my case this incomes, and so they could buy a record a band or makes clips or ten different things was theatre and of course in the theatre every week or at least every month. Every- at the same time. And occasionally he writes there was a yelling director who didn’t want thing is perfectly calculated. A lot of smart a symphony. His intentions are serious, but to hear a word about some New Music or people in this country grasped the opportuni- he thinks on five different tracks. And so we other. He yelled that he wanted songs, songs ty and started to do musicals. Amazingly this get synthesis. for people. The second line, but that was one merry-go-round is still turning and making Can one say what the classical music that I founded myself voluntarily, was histori- money, which is something I can’t under- public of today is like? cal music. I realised how superficial my stand. Yes, I can see a number of attempts at Probably not, because the public changes. It approach to music had been when I hadn’t innovation, one cannot write it all off as is a complete minority, but if some appealing had the historical dimension, and so I sub- mindless, and there are some major artistic external element is added, classical music

6 | interview | czech music 3 | 2005 can attract a lot of people. One example people who were there, probably business- because his Collected Writings are very might be the Ostrava Days, a festival of men because the tickets were very expen- impressive. Today, however, there is no avant-garde music that the well-known sive, expressed crazy enthusiasm corre- unequivocal answer. It is very likely that avantgardist Petr Kotík, born in 1942, decid- sponding to the price of the tickets. The opera is using literature for inspiration. There ed to hold. He deliberately held it in industrial enthusiasm was enormous. And so you see are plenty of cases. Recently for example an Ostrava, in an environment we might consid- that even para-stories like this influence the opera based on Beckett was staged in er completely acultural. But it worked per- perception of a work. Prague. Think how many times Švejk has fectly. He combined avant-garde music with You spoke about syncretism, but don’t been done as an opera. But of course the industrial conditions, which was a terrific you have the feeling that the opposite quality of the results is a different matter. idea and the response was very good. This trend exists as well, that artistic genres Today the composer needs to have a good shows that it is possible to get a broader are getting further and further away literary knowledge, to be widely read and public to listen to classical music, but the from each other, and that for example able to find his or her own way. Abroad you music must have some new, non-traditional contemporary music communicates far find an ideal combination in Steve Reich and packaging. less with art or contemporary litera- Beryl Korot. They are married, Reich com- You mean by providing the audience ture? poses and Korot writes terrific texts. with some key to interpretation, some Syncretism is to some extent a case of the A few years ago the philosopher Václav potential explanation that will make “wish being father to the thought”, of course; Bělohradský claimed that opera was the music more accessible? we want it to be like that. But I would say a genre as dead as poetry… Yes, or else a special performance. For that the position may actually have improved That’s nothing new. People have been saying example when a cellist like Jiří Bárta plays, in music, in relation to the visual arts for that since 1600. And I think opera has basi- or violinist like Pavel Šporcl. Šporcl attracts example, when you think of “graphic music”, cally come to live with the situation and reck- a certain public that admires him because he “visual scores” and so on. Earlier music was on with it. Opera always has to be hitting is an excellent violinist, looks unconventional, a purely acoustic matter but since 1950, a crisis to show once again that it is not in doesn’t play in black tie and so on, and so with the existence of graphic music, it has crisis. Since 1900 there has been enquiry basically he can play anything, and his public not been possible to ignore the visual side. after enquiry designed to discover whether will swallow it, to a certain extent. I say to Nonetheless it’s true that a very high level of opera is in crisis. Of course it is. Opera is a certain extent, because if he decided to specialisation is occurring inside the individ- a museum. People go to the Metropolitan play the Schönberg’s violin concerto he ual branches of the arts. This is perhaps Opera as they go to a museum. There they would have problems in the long term, comparable with specialisation in the sci- consider Puccini to be modern opera and because people would start complaining ences after the positivist era. But here too Janáček is considered some peculiar anom- everywhere that he was playing something there is a different level, because interdisci- aly. Some operas are deliberately museums, peculiar. Or he would have to play in some plines are developing that are far more museums that have fantastic subsidies and exclusive setting, package it in some special important. Physical chemistry is emerging attract vast numbers of visitors. Opera in way. between physics and chemistry, and is more general probably lives for the past, because I think the same thing can be observed important than the classical it shows how many great achievements were with “high-brow” literature, which disciplines…Interdisciplines are also emerg- accomplished then. When you compare what today seems to need a “para-story” if it ing inside music, bringing it closer to the was written in the eighteenth and nineteenth is to appeal to a broader readership. visual. centuries with what was written in the twen- But does classical music still retain an What is the situation in relation to lit- tieth century, then it is clear that the impulse odour of exclusivity, snobbery? erature? Does contemporary opera for of the past predominates. On the other hand, Of course, old people who behave as people example use contemporary prose as directors today in general try to innovate – to used to behave in the concert hall come to libretto? dress operas in new costumes, to put them our concerts too. It is more a kind of ritual I’ll answer on the general level. Opera is in different settings. Recently I saw a Twelfth than anything else. Ultimately we all came to actually something that began from literature Night that was updated to the period this ritual by what you might call a snobbish and then moved further away from literature. 1900–1915. It was extremely interesting. Of route. We were taken to the theatre, some- The first opera librettos were written by great course, it shifted the work to a different level times at six, or at ten, or at fifteen, and there poets, but then people took over who turned entirely. It doesn’t bother people who already we saw the audience and learned when to them out as if on a production line. From the know the text and it can potentially attract applaud and when not to, and it was the point of view of craftsmanship they were a larger public by appeal to the popularity of same at concerts. Many people have ritu- very good, but they devaluated the great a certain period, style of costumes and so on. alised it to the extent that concerts have words. The great word “love” was constantly You have mentioned Janáček, and of become a social imperative for them – we on the lips of singers, and so nobody any course his operas are a model example just have to be there. Naturally at JAMU it is longer much believed in it anymore. That was of the combination of literature and different. When there is a concert there, the the situation from 1690/1700 to 1750. music. Milan Kundera has written that students form another kind of audience. After a period like that, however, innovation Janáček discovered the world of prose Probably what is important is to mix environ- always comes along in one form or another. for opera, and even the world of realis- ments. To do concerts among pictures and Around 1800 we find types appearing who tic prose, and that he rejected stylisa- so on. Every era has to give new substance don’t trust the established art of libretto and tion and discovered the acoustic world to the ritual; there is no permanent recipe. rightly find it stale, and they look for a literary outside music. What do you see as Could one generalise and say that the opera. Which means that they read. Obvious- unique about Janáček? perception of art is an essentially ritu- ly it depends on what they read. They may It is one of the great ambitions of musicolo- alised matter? read banalities, or great literature. That was gists – to explain how Janáček wrote his To a certain extent yes, because when a per- the case with Beethoven. He always became operas. Actually we don’t know much about ception is collective, everyone is going to enraptured with something and wanted to do it and one might ask whether it will help us watch how his neighbour reacts. With individ- it as an opera and then looked around for a great deal when we do know. But his ual perception the situation is slightly differ- someone who would do it for him. This is the achievements, his contribution, are some- ent. There I don’t have to make any pretence, process of the literarisation of opera. And thing else. Milan Kundera has expressed it and I am not bound to any external response. the process continued in a very steep curve very well, but Janáček was not the first to One example: I went to a musical that I aver- that culminates in Wagner. Wagner is the discover prose, and he was following the agely enjoyed and I was averagely satisfied. ideal example of poet and musician com- French naturalists. Specifically he made The performances were quite good. And the bined. And I deliberately put “poet” first, a detailed study of Gustav Charpentier, who

czech music 3 | 2005 | interview | 7 wrote the opera Louise. This is a story from memories are far stronger than their current a rift — musica antica e moderna. And in Italy Bohemian life, from the street, where we state. They tell how they killed someone or a seconda prattica — other practice, devel- hear the jingles of milk-sellers and bakers what happened to them, what wrong has oped. The popularisation of art, which is most and so on. Evidently this attracted Janáček, been done them or how they have arrived evident at the beginning of the Baroque and because he did something similar. He knew here through injustice, and as they do they in the Middle Baroque, acted as a major fac- that opera could no longer speak in play different characters. And it becomes tor for conserving style. In the decorative arts a stylised idiom that had originated some clear that this monologue / dialogue is far or in literature and music, we are not sure in time at the beginning of the seventeenth more powerful than if there had been ten of the Renaissance what is schlock and rubbish century and drawn on the tradition of Petra- these characters present with each playing and what is high art. But in the Baroque we ch and Dante. That idiom had slid into the only himself. And one more thing: in Destiny can be completely certain. We can see the hands of mass producers who strikingly and Jenůfa veristic opera plays a major part. artisan making cherubs and shrine figures resemble today’s Musical librettists and the Jenůfa is essentially ancient tragedy, and its on a production line. The equivalent in music original power of the words had been lost. novelty and great modernity lies in the fact is the broadside ballad. This is the projection Prose libretto therefore definitely helped that Janáček has set it in a highly specific of high art onto the ordinary market where it opera to come closer to reality, to naturalism. time and place. In the spirit of verism he has is sold for money. The trend on the other Janáček, originally a great proponent of for- replaced the universalism at which Late hand means the fall of musica poetica. Bach malism, suddenly started to talk about the Romanticism had arrived – the world as is still a musicus poeticus, which means that need for truth to take precedence over myth, the world as the universe, as we see he knows exactly how to treat verses. After beauty. This means that ugliness too is justi- for example in Wagner. This can be played Bach, from the 18th century, the roles divide. fied. It also looks as if he started to look for anywhere, on a boat or in a military base and There are composers and there are poets. ugliness. Furthermore prose creates irregular suchlike. In the case of verism, however, the You can see it today in Czech pop and folk. shapes that made it possible to go beyond setting matters a great deal; it matters that it There are poets who are quite clearly a long the stereotypes of aria and recitative. is a mill that is so and so many kilometres way from being great musicians and fit some Janáček called this “formative splinters”, from Hrubá Vrbka. Verism work with the con- quite decent or adequate poetic figure to which is his term, and he put the opera crete, unique setting and ritual is important some empty music. together from these splinters. The melodies here. An ancient tragedy repeats itself: jeal- Last year we celebrated a major of speech, which he recorded on a systemat- ousy, murder, love, hate and so on, but these Janáček Anniversary. Do you think this ic, daily basis in the street, are another thing. are differently packaged, in this case in the will attract more attention to his work? Today we no longer believe that this was garb of folk costume, the garb of ritual, the I almost have the sense that Janáček is a scientific enterprise. I would say it was garb of the dance of recruits. more popular abroad than in this coun- a more literary project. Arne Novák, when he Another musical phenomenon that you try. wrote about his feuilletons – Milenec have been concerned with and that is Janáček really is performed abroad more a nevolník okamžiku [The Lover and the Serf linked with literature is that of singing than he is here. The Janáček “boom” abroad of the Moment] was sharply insightful on this poets. What form does this phenome- is quite marked. But when he is performed in point. Few Czech writers – and here Janáček non take today? a better than average way here he draws may be considered a writer – chose this form A musicus poeticus is someone who essen- great attention – for example of splinters. Perhaps the smallest form that tially works with both levels, with music and Wilson’s Prague production of Destiny. The Janáček used in his feuilletons is precisely with poetry or the word. This tradition devel- jubilee year 2004 – a hundred years from a kind of speech melody splinter. He then oped very strongly in humanism, i.e. from the the Brno, local premiere of Jenufa – was composes a sketch or feuilleton out of fifteenth to the sixteenth century. In this peri- a reminder that today Janáček is attracting melody splinters and this isolated melody is od the poet was able to write some musical the greatest directors, choreographers and actually a kind of entity. It was through these form and combine it with poetry. It was the stage designers, and is being sung by the phenomena that Janáček got to know the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that best singers and staged in the most famous world. And this is evident in his operas too. were crucial, however, because this was opera houses in the world. We are witness- One other aspect is also interesting from the when people who had a need to combine ing new interpretations of his operas. Jenufa literary point of view. In his third opera – music with text emerged as a clear group as the problem of unwanted children, social Jenůfa – Janáček for the first time altered especially in the universities and the intellec- and other inequalities. In the same way Wil- the libretto, improving on Preiss’s original in tual sphere. But even well before this, in the son’s breakthrough production of the opera terms of dramatic effect and in some instinc- fourteenth century, when the new mensural Destiny – as a probe into the tive way arrived at the Aeschylean principle. notation was developed, suddenly it was composer’s biography – broke through an It is something first noticed by the English. possible to write music down in a far more earlier indifference to the piece. And Výlety The Aeschylean principle involves one figure complex way, to structure it. Some people pana Broučka [The Excursions of Mr. playing many other figures and entering into composed in a way that shows they were not Brouček], that excellent burlesque on them. We find this in all of Janáček’s operas even very interested in the question of a Czech or indeed any other petit bourgeois, – one character replaying, quoting another: whether a piece could be sung at all, and just like Liška Bystrouška [The Cunning Lit- a monologue that works like a dialogue. The were just excited by the range of possibilities tle Vixen], one of the most “ecological Kostelnička in Jenůfa says, “It will be soon. of what could be invented on the page. With operas” of the 20th century. Its brilliant But in the mean time I have to go through the sixteenth and seventeenth came the dynamism and colourfulness predetermine it a whole eternity a whole salvation. What if development of a vast field of figurics, to become the opera-ballet of our era, and I took the child away somewhere… Then rhetorical figures in the sense of pre-com- a Paris production had just this concept of it. they would pounce on me, on Jenufa. You posed situations that it was useful to know From the House of the Dead is the opera of see her. You see her. You see her, Kostelnič- for particular kinds of verbs of motion, for the black 20th century – the century of ka..” And now she plays the future situation particular kinds of numerical and spatial rela- gulags and concentration camps and over to herself. This principle is used ran- tions and so on. There are several dozen escapes from them. This opera cries out for domly, appears once or twice, but it can such figures and they can either be used film or television adaptation. The main thing, entirely dominate as in the case of the last conventionally as they were intended or else however, is that we shall not be able to fol- opera Z mrtvého domu [From the House of individualists can try to bend or break them low just some “one obligatory” tradition. New the Dead], where it is the principle that gen- using anti-figures. This means they begin to and different traditions are already emerging. erates the action. The characters are already use them in other ways, which everyone And it is possible and likely that they will waiting only for death in a concentration notices. Around the year 1600 this led to the attract a larger number of admirers than the camp and they narrate their memories. The rise of what was known as the modern and previous one.

8 | interview | czech music 3 | 2005 the hába “school”

(Reprinted in abridged form with the kind permission of the magazine Host)

VLASTA REITTEREROVÁ

Alois Hába and Karel Reiner

We must exercise a certain cau- both possible, and impossible, to talk of Prof. PhDr. et MgA Milo‰ ·tûdroÀ, CSc tion when using the word “school” in the anything like a “Hába School”. (*9. 2. 1942) sense of a musical movement. Admittedly In his attempts fully to integrate micro- Musicologist and composer. He studied it is now conventional in music history to tones into European musical language musicology at the Philosophical Faculty employ terms like the “Low Countries”, and give them a place equal to that of tra- of Brno University and composition at “Neapolitan” and “Venetian” schools to ditional tonal and harmonic techniques, the Janáãek Academy of Performing characterise particular trends in music of Hába remained an isolated solitaire in the Arts. In the 1960s he led the Theatre the Renaissance and Baroque, the history of European music, but as we shall of Music in Brno and was one of the “Mannheim” and “Viennese” school for the show, he was not without his continuers. founders of the Theatre on a String Classical period, and the “Second Vien- His rejection of the classical romantic doc- [Divadlo na provázku], where he com- nese School” for the circle of Arnold trine of musical forms and his promotion posed music for many productions Schönberg and his followers (not to speak of “athematism”, was supposed to open (including Balada pro banditu [Ballad of the “national schools” that appear the way to absolute creative freedom and for a Bandit] (M. Uhde, 1975), Pohád- everywhere in the literature), but the most emancipate the composer from depen- ka máje [Fairytale of May] (M. Uhde, recent historical analysis has challenged dence on a given compositional canon. 1976), Cameleón aneb Josef Fouché this blanket use of the concept. The fact is Some considered this to mean the loss of [The Chameleon or Josef Fouché] (L. that the definition and application of the a firm footing, not a negligible aspect of Kundera, 1984) and so on). With term “school” is very changeable and rela- the creative process of composing (what- Parsch, RÛÏiãka and Medek he has tive, like historical knowledge itself. When ever the extreme avant-garde may have worked on “collective compositions” a new musical phenomenon appears, it is thought), and perhaps even less negligi- based on the Czech experimental music either rejected or accepted by those con- ble when it comes to the reception of the of the 1960s. temporaries who encounter it, but neither music by the audience. On the other hand Since 1972 he has taught at the Insti- rejection nor acceptance is the result of theory is one thing and its application tute of Musical Science at the Philo- truly objective aesthetic judgment; since another. Hába himself was not a purely sophical Faculty of Masaryk University. this is impossible when the phenomenon microtonal nor a purely athematic com- There he specialises in Renaissance and is so new. The initial experience is not, poser. His musical talent was sponta- Baroque Music, and 20th-Century Music therefore, the criterion of subsequent neous and his music was never contrived. with a focus on the works of Leo‰ evaluation. If the new phenomenon is to It was another feature of Janáãek. He is the author of many aca- any degree accepted, however, what fol- Hába’s personality that he managed to demic studies published in learned jour- lows is a phase in which efforts are made gather around him a very large circle of nals in this country and abroad. His to universalise and stabilise it, and at this kindred spirits. These included his pupils books include Claudio Monteverdi point the distinguish marks of the new in the strict sense of the word, i.e. those (1985), Josef Berg – skladatel mezi phenomenon become a measuring rod, who attended his courses in microtonal hudbou, divadlem a literaturou [Josef and the first “continuers” appear. Only music at the Prague Conservatoire, and Berg –A Composer Between Music, then, as the new movement starts to iden- his “pupils” in the broader sense, i.e. peo- Theatre and Literature] (1992), Leo‰ tify its own historical position, does ple who met him at his innumerable lec- Janáãek a hudba 20. století [Leo‰ a search for “forerunners” ensue, subse- tures (at home and abroad), who worked Janáãek and the Music of the 20th Cen- quently enabling us to talk of a “school”, with him in musical associations and soci- tury], Paraley, sondy, dokumenty [Par- a “personal style”, the “style of a genera- eties, and studied his articles in the music allels, Probes, Documents] (1998). As tion” or “epoch” and so forth. Bearing all journals and books. a composer he works with Iva Bittová. these caveats in mind we find that it is

czech music 3 | 2005 | history | 9 Entry into Musical Life composition, he had managed with the help Theatre” of Jiří Voskovec and Jan Werich, and Alois Hába was undoubtedly of performers to prove that music of this kind the author of countless enduring songs with one of the most influential people in was possible. jazz rhythms that he wrote for the latters’ Czech music in the period between the Hába’s graduation piece in Franz plays. Jaroslav Ježek had another side as two world wars. He was a composer, the- Schreker’s composition class in Berlin a composer, which found expression for orist, organiser, propagator of modern (Ouvertura op. 5) was well constructed, example in his Sonata for Violin, performed at music and a teacher. Active in music effective, melodically inspired, and harmoni- the International Society for Contemporary clubs and societies, he used them as cally and instrumentally rich, but it did not Music festival in Florence in 1934. Pieces by a platform for applying and promoting his venture beyond the post-romantic style. The Hába’s pupils (from at home and abroad) views. In the world of Prague associations gulf between this piece and the String Quar- appeared quite often on the programmes of he developed this activity first and fore- tet op. 7 that he wrote practically at the same ISCM festivals, but the circumstances of the most in Přítomnost [Presence], becoming time is a gulf between two different musical inclusion of the Ježek sonata were exception- its chairman at the beginning of the worlds. Yet Hába’s creative development had al. The international jury had originally chosen 1930s, and in the Czechoslovak section its own logic. It was the result of an Hába’s Toccata for Piano for the festival, but of the International Society for Contempo- encounter between a unique individual talent the success of Ježek’s sonata when pre- rary Music, ISCM. In both societies he and the unique creative conditions offered by miered in Prague shortly beforehand led had the deciding voice in the most critical the period immediately after the 1st World Hába to ask the jury to change the pro- years, when political and national conflict War. Creative enthusiasm was a reaction to gramme. In a gesture that must still be rare, was becoming ever more intense. Hába ordeal, and the young generation of artists to say the least, in the history of music festi- always remained a convinced member bore a genuine resemblance to a phoenix vals, he withdrew his own piece and recom- and representative of his nation (one risen from the ashes (the comparison was mended Ježek’s composition instead. could even say his ethnic group) and he frequently made). The Czechoslovak republic Over the quarter-century of also remained a convinced supporter of too had arisen from the ashes of the Habs- Hába’s career as a teacher first at the Con- international co-operation without regard burg Monarchy. Its musicians, artists and servatoire and after the 2nd World War for to linguistic, racial, religious or other barri- writers felt the need to show that they could a short period at the newly established Acad- ers. In the mid-1930s his tolerance did give it its own, unique, competitive and mod- emy of Performing Arts (created out of the not make life easy for him. As Hitler’s Ger- ern art. Hába’s internationalist sentiments former master school of the Conservatoire), many became ever more aggressive he combined perfectly with the inheritance of his more than a hundred musicians of whom we was often accused of tolerating “Jews and roots in the Moravian countryside, and with have some record passed through his class- Germans” around him – a double criticism the social sensitivity and breadth of culture es. If we were to add all of those who fired by the Czech nationalism and anti- through which he transcended these rural encountered Hába at lectures in the soci- semitism that grew in direct proportion to roots. eties where he presented new pieces, at his the nationalism and racism of the Nazis. appearances abroad and so on, the real num- Hába’s class at the Prague An Example of Courage ber of people influenced by Hába would be Conservatoire contained a lively mixture of Hába’s path to teaching the theory much higher. Not everyone who in some way nationalities; over the years it was attend- of composition was undoubtedly made easier experienced Hába’s training became com- ed by students from the Kingdome of Ser- by the teacher training that he received at the posers, and many chose other musical pro- bia, Croatia and Slovenia (from 1929 pedagogical institute in Kroměříž before he fessions. These included for example Karel Yugoslavia), Lithuanians, Turks, Poles, Bul- decided to set out on a composer’s career. Ančerl (1908–1973), later head of the garians and others. Hába taught for ten Music teaching was at that time an obligatory Czech Philharmonic (1950–68) and after his years at the Conservatoire on the basis of part of teacher training and he was also able emigration in 1968 of the Toronto Symphony an annually renewed permission to hold to test out his music teaching skills in prac- Orchestra. Ančerl was a highly versatile musi- “courses in microtonal music”. Microtonal tice during a period in Vienna. It has recently cian: he studied conducting with Pavel music was not a separate subject in the come to light that in 1918/19 he taught violin Dědeček and at the Conservatoire master curriculum, but was considered a depart- and musical theory at a private music school school with Václav Talich, and composing ment of the composition class and could (Schallinger-Schule) where pupils of Franz with Jaroslav Křiček and Hába. Under only be taken by students who had Schreker, including Felix Petyrek and Hein- Hába’s supervision he wrote a quarter-tone already taken the usual obligatory compo- rich Knöll also taught. Hába undoubtedly Music for String Orchestra and after graduat- sition subjects. Not until 1934 was Hába obtained the job – just like a post as an editor ing (1930) went on to an even tougher test in appointed a professor of composition at at the Universal Edition – through the good the field. the Conservatoire. offices of Franz Schreker, who was accus- When he started his courses at tomed to helping his pupils improve their The Opera “Mother” in the Hands of the Conservatoire he already had the first material situation in this way. a Pupil practical tests of his ideas behind him. He Hába gave his first lecture on the On the 7th of May 1931 Hába’s must have been immensely gratified when new possibilities of music in Prague in 1921 quarter-tone opera Matka [Mother] received his quarter-tone quartet (String Quartet at the Prague Conservatoire. Even at this ear- its world premiere in Munich under the baton no. 2 op. 7) was performed by the Have- ly stage he already found enthusiasts who of Hermann Scherchen. The production of mann Quartet in Berlin and especially were later to work with him among the young this opera, which has remained the only one when another quarter-tone quartet (String conservatoire students. He impressed them of its kind to this day, was a risky undertaking. Quartet no. 3 op. 12) was performed by as a man of courage unafraid to venture into In his vocal music up to that time Hába had the Amar-Hindemith Quartet at the ISCM uncharted territory. For Miroslav Ponc, for tried out quarter-tones only in his Suite on festival in Salzburg in 1923. At the example, a pupil in Bedřich Interjections of Folk Poetry [Suita na orchestral part of the ISCM festival in Wiedermann’s organ class, his meeting with citoslovce lidové poezie], which had been 1924, held in Prague, Hába had been Hába meant a radical change in his whole performed, also under the direction of Her- able to present a quarter-tone piano, new- attitude to the musical world. Hába’s own mann Scherchen, in Frankfurt am Main in ly made by the August Förster firm and brother Karel Hába became one of his stu- 1924. When Hába met with Scherchen at built according to Hába’s design, as part dents, as did the later leading figures of the ISCM Festival in Liege in 1930, he told of the subsidiary programme. During just 20th-century Czech music Miloslav Kabeláč, him (so Hába related later), that he had just five years, when Hába moved from theo- Klement Slavický, Václav Trojan, and completed a full-length quarter-tone opera. retical exploration of the possibilities of among others Jaroslav Ježek, famous pri- Scherchen enthusiastically replied “Really? microtones to their practical application in marily for his work with the “Liberated Then we’ll put it on next year in Munich at the

10 | history | czech music 3 | 2005 lich) and Žebravý student [The Beggar Stu- dent] (Bettelstudent, 1931, directed by Vic- tor Janson). “Dear Professor! Finally I’ve got more concrete instructions / arrangements from Scherchen. I flew about after him for a full 3 says before I could get a quiet moment with him to talk over our business. He has left everything to me, including the casting of the individual roles. He just gave me the names of singers, and introduced me to the director […] who will introduce me to all the Berlin people involved and will work for the thing, since you know that a pri- madonna wouldn’t even look at a little repeti- teur from Prague […] When I’ve filled some of the roles here and set up rehearsal guide- lines I shall go to Munich to Büchtger to look for the other singers and orchestral players. Karel Ančerl and his letter to Alois Hába […] Please send me the material for the singers to Berlin, since I can’t start the rehearsals until I have parts. Scherchen thinks it will be difficult to rehearse just from the parts […] Please write to Förster and ask take the risk and so it was Munich that won, him to arrange for me to have a quarter-tone especially thanks to financial assistance from harmonium at my disposal at any time, and if important patrons of the arts, the brothers necessary be able to have it moved wherev- Hans and Werner Reinhart of Winterthur. The er I need it. […] I hope I shall be able to do very busy Hermann Scherchen needed an everything the way I envisage it. I shall need assistant, however, and the post was filled by to work from morning to night, but you can Karel Ančerl. As is evident from the interim rely on me. “ (21st September 1930) reports that Ančerl was sending Hába from “Dear Professor! The situation is mid-September 1930 from Berlin where becoming rather clearer. […] We ought to opera rehearsal were taking place, the twen- have two instruments here, one in Munich, ty-two-year-old fresh graduate was forced to and Scherchen would have to get a quarter- look himself for singers able and willing to tone upright piano. Maybe the orchestra will take on the difficult work, have special prac- be from Munich too, and so an upright could tice sessions with them (at the beginning come to Munich. This will be sorted out very with a normal semitone piano) and often tack- soon, since I shall have to go to Munich le the almost impossible. probably as soon as the day after tomorrow. “Dear Professor! Scherchen left This is because the singers want to know music festival“, and immediately sent yesterday and told me I had to arrange something about the financial side of the a telegram to the intendant of the Munich everything by myself, or if necessary with whole thing, and so I need to speak with Mr. Theatre Fritzi Büchtger. The telegram he help from Büchtger. In fact I’m glad, because Büchtger, who is in charge of the whole received by return read “Hába’s opera impos- I shall be able to act with complete freedom. thing, as soon as possible. (I don’t want sible, big worries as it is”. But Büchtger It is better to carry the whole responsibility a revolution between Meistersingers). […] added “please send more detail”“ and so his than just a major part of it. He hasn’t yet sort- I rehearse for 6 hours and search for singers telegram was not an unambiguous refusal. ed out the finances of my position either. He for 8 hours. I hope it won’t go on like this for What Hába had not revealed to Scherchen, hasn’t had the time. He offered me too much longer […] For the moment I’m however, was that he was already negotiating a “Vorschuss” from his money, but I couldn’t rehearsing with semitone pianos, but for a production in Frankfurt am Main (in accept that. […] Yesterday Novotná and it’s lethally difficult work and then everyone November 1929 Hába had already commis- Gajewská cancelled. Novotná hadn’t complains that it’s straining their voices. sioned the Prague journalist Viktor Joss to obtained permission for a three-week stay in I can believe it, because they don’t hear the translate the libretto into German for this pur- Munich from the intendant, and she’s going real sound, but have to derive it all from the pose). The conductor Hans Wilhelm Stein- to shoot 2 films that have to be ready in 3 semi-tones, and so they strangle all the quar- berg was working in Frankfurt at the time, months, and so she doesn’t have time for ter-tones. I’ve turned into the complete and Hába knew him well from his time at the quarter-tones […] It doesn’t matter, since in singer, just imagine how often I have to sing Prague German Theatre. Together with the 2 days I’ll have other singers. There are plen- 2–3 bars in advance for the singers! Wher- intendant Josef Turnau, Steinberg had been ty in Berlin, and there must be some good ever I go I sing quarter-tones, but I already pushing through a progressive repertoire; in people among them. What is unpleasant, is know how.“ (28th September 1930) February 1930 Schönberg‘s opera Von that instead of rehearsing I shall have to do “I can’t find an contra-alto for the heute auf morgen was premiered here, with the rounds of Berlin for another 2 days.“ (13th love of God. Scherchen is coming to Berlin Hába attending. As it happened, when Hába November 1930) on the 4th of this month, and I hope he will talked to Scherchen about the opera the Ančerl’s letter is the one proof we help me find a chorus, or at least tell me how negotiations in Frankfurt were not going well, have that the later world star Jarmila Novotná, I ought to set about finding one here.” (2nd and so he left Scherchen a free hand. When who in 1929–33 was a soloist at the Berlin December 1930) the management of the Frankfurt Opera State Opera, was approached with a view to „Today I had my first opportunity to learned about this, they were not slow to engaging her for a role in the premiere of speak with Scherchen properly about every- show their displeasure to Hába. Finally it was Mother. The films he mentions were probably thing. Just imagine, he had a whole hour. Fritz Büchtger, urged on by the enthusiastic Požár v opeře [Fire in the Opera] (in the orig- I think everything will be different now. The Scherchen, who expressed a willingness to inal Barcarola, 1930, directed by Carl Fröh- thing is this: suddenly something prompted

czech music 3 | 2005 | history | 11 me to ask him if I could study conducting with him. I explained to him that I had time in the evenings and so on. I think that the idea appealed to him, and he seems to enjoy teaching very much. […] We really do need to start rehearsals with the orchestra. It’s already December. Especially when you consider that around Christmas we won’t be able to do anything, or with the choir for that matter, since as you know yourself Christ- mas is all celebrations here and no work at all. At any rate you can see that I’m not downcast. I’m sure, and I guarantee you that if the ensemble can just be put together, then by the end of April the opera will be rehearsed to tip top standard. […] It’s strange that all my singers understand me well except Debüser [Tiny Debüser, who Quarter-tone clarinets sang the title role]. Today I had to call her 3x German type (left), French type yet again. […] But I won’t bore you with that, (right) since tomorrow I shall really take a firm line Quarter-tone piano with her (she is being terribly sweet now, th just because Scherchen is here.“ (4 Decem- A postcard Hába used to explain ber 1930) his microtonal accidentals (to his “The string ensemble is almost brother Antonín) complete, only no one wants to do anything more before the end of the year.” (15th December 1930) “My hope that I would get a quarter-tone harmonium in my flat hasn’t expressed an interest now that I could form I hope that when I’ve got over the intonation been fulfilled […] Scherchen was supposed a 16-strong choir, but I think that 12 is problems with the men, plenty of other to conduct today, but he didn’t turn up. […] enough, since if there were more I am not things will come right as well. Debüser is What am I supposed to do with sure I would have them all ready in time. The giving me trouble again. […] I wonder Zelenka’s designs? […] I shall write to work is going really well now and progress whether it wouldn’t really be more sensible Zelenka and send him a plan of the Munich is being made. I hope and trust you will be to throw her out. Lately Scherchen wanted theatre as soon as I get it from Büchtger.” (5th satisfied when you hear it all. It is wonderful- to do it, but didn’t and that was my fault. January 1931) ly beautiful preparing such a new thing. What do you think? I can’t devote much The Czech stage designer Fran- I never thought I would be able to get right attention to her now, because I have plenty tišek Zelenka (1904–1943) designed the into the spirit of it so fast. Büchtger still has- of work with the others and without me she stage for the Munich premiere, but his sober n’t sent me a plan of the stage.” (12th January doesn’t do anything. […] What is the situa- stylisation, which was typical of many Czech 1931) tion with financial matters? I would like to stage designers of the interwar period, failed In finding and choosing the choir he know so that I can get Büchtger to write to to find favour with Fritzi Jessner of the New was helped by the Professor of the Berlin singers, and he doesn’t want to do that until Theatre (Neues Schauspielhaus) in Königs- Music High School (Hochschule für Musik) he knows where the funds are coming from.” berg, today Kalinigrad), who was directing Georg Schünemann, who knew Hába per- (18th January 1931) there. Hermann Scherchen was also working sonally. When Hába had been studying in “The whole situation looks less in Konigsberg at the time, and the idea was Berlin he had had Hába’s works performed at than wonderful because it doesn’t seem to to present Mother with his orchestra there. school concerts, provided him with school me as if Scherchen and Büchtger are taking Jessner‘s preference was for realistic village musical instruments and allowed him to study care of anything – at least I still haven’t decor, but this was not in line with phonographic recordings. heard anything. […] I don’t know if I can Scherchen’s concept of the production and “Today Büchtger wrote to me rehearse the strings in Munich, I don’t know so the direction was finally taken up by the telling me not to go to Munich, because 1) if I have performers at my disposal, and director of the Prague National Theatre Ferdi- Meilie [Max Meilie, the singer of the main I don’t know what the state of affairs is with nand Pujman. The result was that Ančerl had male role] doesn’t want to rehearse, because wind players. You yourself know very well to cope not only with the musical side of the Scherchen hasn’t yet written anything posi- that if everything is going to come together, production (including supervision of the tive to him, and 2) there isn’t an orchestra I just have to finally get a chance (it’s the transport of quarter-tone instruments), but yet. You don’t have to write to Scherchen end of January after all!) to work properly. with other aspects as well. about that, because today I wrote him a long […] I have already asked Büchtger to write “I had some words with Tini letter explaining everything in detail. I think to singers several times. So far he has done [Debüser] on the importance of her role, and that now he will really do something when nothing at all. The singers are absolutely in told her what I thought of her approach to he sees what is at stake. Here is Berlin the right, because they simply must be told rehearsals, and so now she is working things are now going very well. I rehearse at least the date and roughly the financial somewhat better, and keeping me waiting every day with 8 to 10 singers. Now the only conditions. […] Still, they are all working only for ¨ an hour. […] To be honest, I’m wor- element missing in the choir is tenors, and very hard and conscientiously. […] I don’t ried about her; she is too frivolous in her atti- I hope I shall get hold of some this week. know anything about Meilie. […] Debüser tude, and doesn’t take the whole thing as […] How do you see the 4th scene in the browbeats me, but I browbeat her as well. seriously as she should. I shall give it anoth- choir? I’ve already tried it in several different I am already doing the 7th Picture with her, er week, and if she doesn’t improve I shall ways, but it has never worked out well, and I think it would be a pity to start again stop working with her. […] I have put the because either the basses growl something from scratch with someone else. I can cope chorus together in almost final form. There indistinct or else they yell at the high end. with it, but Scherchen ought to take more will be 12 people. So many people have […] The choral parts ideally suit women. But interest in the thing. I’m still lacking tenors

12 | history | czech music 3 | 2005 Karel Reiner Alois Hába

for the choir. I’ ve exhausted all the sources write any. Most probably this exceptional technique than Schönberg, Smetana a differ- and don’t know where to get hold of them. experience was something that helped Karel ent technique than Suk or Janáček. In these […] As far as the singers are concerned Ančerl resolve his own personal dilemma: he circumstances it is clear that a similarly limit- I can guarantee that I’ll have them ready by entirely gave up composing and became ed technical-piano training is even less suffi- mid-April, but I can’t answer for the orches- a master conductor. With Hába he shared cient for play on the quarter-tone piano. […] tra, because I don’t have one yet.” (24th Jan- a tireless commitment to work and an undy- Play on the quarter-tone piano has ceased to uary 1931) ing faith that things would eventually turn out be the acrobatic privilege of individuals and “So far I don’t have tenors, but I’ll well. These attributes helped him to survive has become the basic starting point for find some […] Debüser has improved. the horrors of imprisonment in the Terezín understanding the common foundation of all I wonder for how long. On Wednesday there concentration camp, where he founded and piano technique. […] The complete piano was an interesting concert here. They played led an orchestra. After the war he joined oeuvre of Alois Hába [on semitone and quar- Schönberg’s Suite op. 29 for violin, viola, Hába in the Great Opera of the 5th of May, ter-tone piano] provides us with some of the ‘cello, 3 clarinets and piano, and then Hin- which occupied the building of the former greatest milestones in the development of demith’s String Quartet op. 32 and Stravin- New German Theatre (today the Prague contemporary pianistic art.” (Rytmus sky’s Octet. After Schönberg all the rest State Opera) and Hába became its director. [Rhythm] 4, 1938–39, pp. 51–53). seemed to pale. Never before had I felt that Karel Ančerl also took part in the production Reiner’s help was invaluable in sav- kind of difference, but the Hindemith and of the Czech premiere of Mother on the 23rd ing the threatened 13th ISCM festival in Stravinsky went down better.” (30th January of May 1947, this time directing it himself. 1935. The festival had been supposed to 1931) take place in Karlovy Vary, but a number of “Yesterday Scherchen was here Karlík unfavourable circumstances exploited by the and Büchtger came as well. Scherchen final- The job of repetiteur during nationalist campaigns of the Sudeten Ger- ly sorted everything else, asked for the rehearsals for the Czech production of man party unnerved the town councillors and addresses of the singers and wants to write Mother in 1947 was taken on by another of preparations for the festival collapsed. But to them all himself… He set a date for Hába’s pupils, Karel Reiner (1910–1979), within less than six weeks of feverish activity rehearsals in Munich. Rehearsals will begin familiarly known to everyone as “Karlík” the festival was saved. One of the people on the 22nd of April and by that time he [“Charlie”]. He too was someone who divid- who devoted themselves twenty-four hours wants everything to be ready. Confound it, ed his interest between various different a day to correspondence and telephone I’ll be sweating. He wants you to come to branches of music. For many years he not calls, used their diplomatic talents to the him in Wintherthur for about ten days so that only composed but also was an active pianist utmost and refused to give into depression, he can work with you at least 6 hours a day and one of the first players on the quarter- was Karel Reiner, and not simply because he on your opera. […] He immediately made tone piano. The first performers of was supposed to perform at the festival, play- a firm contract with Meilie. […] Büchtger has Hába’s quarter-tone pieces included above ing a Piano Concerto by another of himself talked to some of the singers, espe- all his own pupils at the conservatory, not Hába’s pupils, the Slovenian composer cially those who were giving me trouble. It only Reiner but also Jiří Svoboda, Arnošt Slavko Osterc. (At this festival Karel Ančerl looks as if finally everything will now come Střížek, Táňa Baxantová, and the later con- conducted Hába’s symphonic fantasia Cesta together. Next month the Munich dance ductor of the Scottish Orchestra and Victoria života [The Journey of Life].) ensemble will start to rehearse the ballet. Symphony Orchestra in Melbourne and musi- For two years Reiner (a qualified I have to be repetiteur with them. Otherwise cal director of the Toronto Symphony lawyer) acted as repetiteur and composer in I have to assist with Stravinsky’s Oedipus Orchestra Hans Walter Süsskind. Outside the avant-garde theatre of Emil František Rex, Honneger’s Antigone and probably with the circle of Hába’s students his interpreters Burian, for whom he created or arranged Milhaud too. This really speeds up my work included Jan Heřman and most notably Erwin a number of stage music compositions, for tempo, but it doesn’t matter, since I’m learn- Schulhoff. Reiner – like Schulhoff – also example for a production based on Karel ing a lot. I shall certainly cope.“ (23rd Febru- wrote on the theme of play on the quarter- Hynek Mácha’s great romantic poem Máj ary 1931) tone piano: “Not even in the performance of [May], or in collaboration with E. F. Burian for We do not have any more reports semi-tone music is one particular technique the production Haškovy noviny [Hašek’s from Ančerl to Hába on the course of sufficient. […] Chopin demands a different Newspaper], for the play Mistr Pleticha on an rehearsals for Mother; perhaps his work tem- technique than Beethoven, Mozart a differ- anonymous text from the 15th century (all in po became so tough that he had no time to ent technique than Liszt, Bach a different 1935), for a production of Procitnutí jara

czech music 3 | 2005 | history | 13 [Spring Awakening] by Frank Wedekind, the dramatisation of Karel Hynek Mácha’s Kat [The Hangman], Pierre Auguste Caron Beau- marchais’s The Barber of Seville, Burian’s adaptation of Václav Kliment Klicpera’s Každý něco pro vlast [Everyone does Some- thing for His Homeland] , Burian’s dramatisa- tion of Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin and for Leonce and Lena by Georg Büchner (1936). He also published articles in music magazi- nes, undertook organisational work and looked for his own musical idiom. Like Ančerl, Karel Reiner was Jewish, and Nazism had a devastating effect on his life. Reiner went through a number of concentration camps and by a miracle man- aged to survive not only the “final solution” but also typhus and a death march. He came from a German-speaking family. His father had been the cantor in the Jewish community in Žatec in North-west Bohemia in what was Viktor Ulmann known as the Sudetenland. From the end of the 1920s this originally merely topographic name had acquired political significance, An Education in Freedom still had music. A new distinctive phase in Ull- especially after Hitler’s rise to power in Ger- Hába’s influence on his pupils relat- mann’s composing career began in the many. From the mid-1930s Hitler’s support- ed not just to music, but also to overall out- mid-1930s. ers strove to “ethnically cleanse” the area of look in life. In the 1920s – and perhaps even Hába and Ullmann remained close Czechs and to become part of Germany. earlier, during his studies in Vienna – Hába friends. Ullmann’s search for all kinds of cre- Reiner, who deliberately declared himself had been introduced to the anthroposophical ative possibilities also (already at a relatively Czech-speaking, settled in Prague. While he teachings of Rudolf Steiner. In the light of mature age) brought him to Hába’s microton- considered himself a Czech, at job interviews Steiner’s theories he saw the role of the artist al class at the Prague Conservatoire he was often asked why he didn’t join “the in society and musical compositions as (1935–37). His graduation piece was other side”: for Germans he was already a duel between contradictory elements and a Sonata for Quarter-tone Clarinet and a Czech and for Czechs he was still a Ger- an attempt to achieve equilibrium. In this Quarter-tone Piano, of which only the clarinet man. For the Nazis he was a Jew with no respect he influenced Karel Reiner, who also part has survived. Subsequently he never longer any rights at all. espoused anthroposophical doctrines, and used quarter-tones in his music. It can be Even after the war Reiner had a dif- affected the spiritual orientation of another of said that in this piece he reached the bound- ficult time. It was impossible to revive sev- his pupils, Viktor Ullmann (1898–1944). aries of an experiment that helped him to find ered bonds and restore the institutions and Viktor Ullmann was the son of an Austrian a musical idiom in which elements of histori- organisations of the pre-war period. Political- officer, a Jew who had converted to Chris- cal forms are balanced by great freedom of ly speaking, the first three post-war years tianity. His native language was German, and tonality and effective use of timbre. There are saw Czechoslovakia becoming increasingly he grew up in Vienna, fought in the First also grounds for supposing that it was Hába dependent on decisions made in the Soviet World War (from which his father returned an who introduced Ullmann to the folk song that Union. While the inter-war avant-garde in invalid) and started to study law before has left its traces in his Piano Sonata no. 2 Czechoslovakia had been broadly left-wing deciding on music and attending Arnold and Slav Rhapsody. and had seen in the Soviet Union the only Schönberg’s composition class. In 1919 he Viktor Ullmann the composer has power capable of defeating Nazi Germany, moved to Prague and thereafter his life (apart been rediscovered since 1975, when his after the war left-wing orientation meant the from the years 1930–33) was bound up with one-act opera written in Terezín Císař loss of freedom and artistic liberty and sub- the cultural milieu of the Czech capital. We z Atlantidy (Der Kaiser von Atlantis –The jection to ideological diktat. It took Karel do not know precisely when and where he Emperor of Atlantis) was first performed in Reiner several years to realise that by adapt- first met Hába, and it is possible that they Amsterdam, but in a new orchestration (the ing to the demands for “communicability, sim- became acquainted in Vienna just after the original form has been in performance since plicity and melodic character” promulgated war. Ullmann first took a sceptical attitude to the 1990s). Many of his pieces have, alas, by Socialist Realism, he was losing his own Steiner’s ideas, but in the end studied them been lost. The works that remain have identity. When he refused to abandon “for- in detail and was so enthralled that for a time become without exception part of the con- malist” composition, he started to be undesir- he gave up composition. Hába acted as Ull- cert and opera repertoire. In 2006 there are able for the future development of socialist mann’s sponsor when the latter joined the plans finally to present the long delayed first culture. There followed years in which his Anthroposophical Society and Ullmann him- performance of Ullmann’s opera Pád music was scarcely ever performed. Once self called his new step in life, for which he Antikristův (Der Sturz des Antichrist – The again, he was afflicted with the feeling that credited Hába, the “conversion of Saul into Fall of Antichrist) on a Czech stage (the he “belonged nowhere”, for the last time Paul”. In Stuttgart he purchased a debit-rid- world premiere, as yet without successors, when after 1968 he condemned the Soviet den anthroposophical bookshop, but this was produced in 1995 in Bielefeld). occupation and resigned from the Commu- soon went bankrupt and in 1933 Ullmann Ullmann’s The Fall of Antichrist nist Party, which he had joined soon after the fled from his creditors to Prague (not from was written in 1935. It has its counterpart in war. In all the trials that he encountered in his Hitler, since at that time he was protected the output of Alois Hába, in the form of his life and in his efforts to defend his moral from German discriminatory laws by his sta- never performed opera Přijď království Tvé credit Reiner drew strength from the princi- tus as Austrian citizen and Christian). Radical [Thy Kingdom Come] of 1942. ples that he had come to embrace through decisions had not brought Ullmann good for- Ullmann’s opera was based on a play by the his association with Alois Hába. tune, but as he himself said, fortunately he anthroposophist poet Albert Steffen about

14 | history | czech music 3 | 2005 Jeronimas Kacinskas

Slavko Osterc’s letter to Alois Hába Excerpt from Hába’s Harmonielehre Twelfth-tone system accidentals and scales the struggle of technocracy (the Technician), demagogy (The Priest) and free creative life (the Artist) with despotic desire for power (the Regent). The Artist prevails over the Regent and by his conviction and faith liber- criticism of a production that is to this mem- a matinee of quarter- and sixth-tone music ates his “brothers” – the Technician and the ory what a second stage rehearsal is to outside the main festival concerts and won Priest – and the whole of mankind. Hába in a dress rehearsal? A production that the votes for most of the pieces proposed by the his opera on his own libretto written with the conductor is not even allowed to conduct – Czech section. After negotiations in the jury help of Ferdinand Pujman, places social and why not? – and that has to be accompa- he informed Hába that: classes in opposition, allegorised into a duel nied by a more than problematic piano? […] “[…] now to details, mainly about between the anthroposophical symbols While Gustav Mahler was in the provinces, the Ľ ad 1/6 matinee. The jury allowed it, but Lucifer and Ahriman. Ullmann’s music for the he kept his promise: not to present Mozart doesn’t want to be responsible for the pro- Antichrist is tonal, with long declamatory pas- and Wagner there!” gramme, because the pieces have not been sages but also melodic sections with the submitted to them. In my view that is perfect- great orchestral apparatus of the post- Modern Music between Nations ly all right. You can therefore start to negoti- Romantic inheritance. Hába’s opera is writ- Among his pupils from the former ate with the French section. But [the leader ten in a sixth-tone system, i.e. in an even Yugoslavia, the one with whom Hába kept up of the French section Jacques Ibert] has more finally nuanced idiom than his opera probably his liveliest correspondence was already been lamenting that there isn’t Mother. To have produced a work of this kind, the Slovenian Osterc, who was in any case enough money. And so at the moment that with no chance that it would be performed, in only two years his junior. Slavko Osterc would be the one vulnerable point. But the midst of the war, under the rule of a sys- (1895–1941) had arrived in Prague in 1925. I know you and I am sure you’ll find a way tem that branded his music as “degenerate” In some ways he shared a starting-point in over this. (entartete) and banned anthroposophy, was life with Hába. Apart from the fact that both Naturally our internal work: putting the rebellion of a spirit that refused to be had originally been supposed to become together and presenting a programme – will overcome. This rebellion of the spirit was also teachers and had to struggle to beat a path be difficult. […] Kačinskas’s Nonet looks like evident in the work of Viktor Ullmann in to art, they had both had the same teacher, the only piece for the moment, but of course Terezín, where he composed, took part in Vítězslav Novák, at the beginning of their you are better informed about everything! It concerts and write music reviews. In the lat- careers as composers. In addition, Osterc hasn’t been possible to push through Bar- ter he never conceded that standards of per- had also been trained by Karel Boleslav Jirák toš, Polívka and Koffler, because Bořkovec formance might be judged more tolerantly in and gone through Hába’s microtonal depart- also sent a piece and Martinů too, outside the improvised conditions: “We have listened ment. Later he was himself to pass on his the section, and so I was already rather anx- to and loved the Magical Flute from child- experience when teaching composition at the ious about Reiner. The situation was that hood. Many still have Mahler in their ears, conservatory and Academy of Music in apart from me no one was enthusiastic others Richard Strauss, Schalk, Walter, Lublyana. Hába’s contacts with Osterc relat- about Reiner (it’s a modern jury!!!, that was Zemlinski; we have heard the leading inter- ed not just to exchanging news about their why Koffler was dropped – just because he national singers of Mozart, seen the stage compositions but above all to the activities of writes in modern style) and I invested all my design of great artists and preserved the the ISCM. Osterc was a member of the energies in pushing for Reiner and even got memory of the soft, incomparable sound of ISCM international jury in Paris in 1937 and unanimous agreement for him, which makes the tenderly accompanying orchestra. Is it played an important role in promoting Czech me truly happy for Charlie’s sake. As far as possible that we may be allowed to express composers there. He managed to arrange orchestral pieces are concerned, then it is

czech music 3 | 2005 | history | 15 you, Žebre and Rosenberg, that was years 1929–31 and became his zealous sup- and present creative orientation.” (8th July unisono […]“ (25th December 1936 from porter. For many years he tried vainly to get 1951) Paris) the teaching of microtonal music introduced Hába had never been embarrassed And Hába’s reply: „You have put up in Klaipeda. He wrote his Nonet for the to approach people in the highest places a brave fight and I’m just as curious about Czech Nonet, which premiered it. It was not, with his requests, and did so this time as the whole programme as I am about the hue however, performed in Paris, and Hába was well. He wrote in his own cause to the Minis- and cry that I expect for Ľ and 1/6 matinee finally to help get it played at the next festival ter of Education Zdeněk Nejedlý: “I have […] For me and Reiner it will be a little hard in 1938 in London (just like the piece by Kof- been teaching in this field for 28 years. In to live with the jury decision, even though fler), when he was once again a member of 1933 – after my illegal visit to a theatre and we are both delighted by it! Because at the international jury. Kačinskas later found music conference in Moscow – the then home the “financial reward” for pieces keeps temporary exile in Czechoslovakia after Ministry of Education wanted to suspend my going – to the others! Reiner and I at least escaping from Lithuania after the occupation teaching activities at the State Conservatory have recognition abroad! If at least of the Baltic states. He spent some time in of Music. […] During the Second World War Bartoš’s piece had been accepted, as a refugee camp in Lednice in Moravia. the teaching of composition in the Ľ and I strongly hoped, it would all be allright. But 1/6-tone system was threatened by the this way – just Hába and his most faithful “Degenerate Formalist” Nazis for both artistic and political reasons. pupil – Dr Reiner, there will be bad blood.” The Nazi regime classified Hába as This did not surprise me. I used even my Ľ (26th December 1936) a “degenerate” composer, and for the com- and 1/6-tone compositions to fight for a bet- Just by way of explanation: Fran- munist regime he was a “formalist”. After ter future for working people. You yourself tišek Bartoš, Pavel Bořkovec and Vladimír 1948 he was deprived of his place as direc- wrote about my cycle of Ľ-tone male choral Polívka were not Hába’s pupils, but Vladimír tor at the Great Opera of the 5th of May and pieces Pracující den [The Working Day] (on Polívka had taken part in presenting some of of the chance to go on teaching. With only a poem by J. Hora), dedicated to all working Hába’s piano pieces. The Polish composer two years to go before he reached pension- people for the 15th anniversary of the estab- Józef Koffler was a pupil of Schönberg and is able age, Hába naturally defended himself, lishment of the USSR […] The Ľ and considered to be the first Polish composer to albeit in a fashion that today we might con- 1/6-tone system may also be employed for use twelve-tone music. He fell victim to the sider undignified, if not hypocritical. He wrote artistic expression of the kind that you spoke Nazis, who murdered his entire family. The the following to the Dean of the Academy of about at the last congress of Czechoslovak Slovenian composer Demetrij Žebré studied Performing Arts Antonín Sychra: composers […] Apart from this, on the 1st of with Hába in the mid-1930s. The Swedish “I have composed, and still composing and February 1950 I signed a socialist contract composer Hilding Rosenberg, regarded as intend to go on composing. Among my latest with the Rectorate of the Academy of Per- a “romantic modernist”, was a member of the compositions a number were highly rated at forming Arts in which I undertook that in jury along with Alfred Casella, Wladimir the [communist] Composers‘ Union plenary addition to my existing teaching duties Vogel, Nadia Boulanger and Ernst Křenek in meeting, and not in any formalist sense. I would act as permanent advisor to compo- the year that Hába gave up his place at the Likewise my 7th String Quartet op. 73 and sition students for the writing of mass songs, festival to Jaroslav Ježek. The programme of youth song Jarní země [Spring Earth] won choral works, cantatas, operas and other the microtonal matinee consisted of works by prizes in the last year. I am now working on socialistically orientated music.” (July 1951) Hába and his pupils Karel Reiner, the Slovak a Wallachian Suite for orchestra and plan The document is one that speaks Julius Kowalský and the Englishman Frank a series of other works inspired by the life of for itself as a witness to the times. Wiesmeye. Inventions by Bohuslav Martinů, the people and the present. […] Considering Hába’s attendance at the International who was living in Paris at the time, was not these circumstances it is my view that if my Olympiad of Revolutionary Theatres in performed at the festival. work as a teacher is currently considered Moscow in 1933 definitely cannot be called Jeronimas Kačinskas (born 1907) undesirable, a certain account should at illegal; incidentally, one result of this visit had from Lithuania, studied with Hába in the least be taken of my work as a composer been to re-establish, or perhaps initiate

16 | history | czech music 3 | 2005 Hába’s String Quartet no. 11, op. 87 in sixth-tone In his Česká moderní hudba well. The Austrian composer Georg Friedrich system (left) [Czech Modern Music] (1936) Vladimír Haas, for example, admits his influence, String Quartet no. 16, op. 98 in fifth-tone system Helfert defined Alois Hába as “the most although (as Haas himself says) ‘my way of (excertpt from 2 nd mouvement; right) extreme wing in the development of Czech seeing Alois Hába is – to put it cautiously – modern music, […] a phenomenon that has very individual. ’ ” advanced the furthest in terms of evolution Insofar as the authentic responses a closer link with Hanns Eisler, whom we but at the same time represents the Euro- of Hába’s pupils have come down to us, have mentioned above. The paradox of pean standard of our music”. The way in summarising how they saw the value of his Hába’s argumentation and the folly of the which the generation that did not come into teaching, they echo the opinion of Mykola Fifties is the fact that in the String Quartet direct contact with him on “the school bench- Kolessa, who wrote to Hába on the occasion op. 73, which he speaks of in the letter to es” still responds to Hába as teacher was of his seventieth birthday: “Your works and Sychra, Hába managed to smuggle in the been summed up by the composer Alois the creative methods to which you intro- Czech Christmas carol Narodil se Kristus Piňos in 1993 (Opus musicum 1993, pp. duced us […] in your very interesting lec- Pán [Christ the Lord is Born]. Four years lat- 277–284): „Nobody composes thoroughly in tures and creative discussions, have left er, in the same way, his Concerto for Viola a microtonal system like Hába, but the deep traces in me, even though I haven’t in contained a version of the song of St. impulses he gave have lived on, for example fact used the quarter-tone system in my own Michael, who as the angel who weighs the in the now dead leading representative of work as a composer. Even today, after such souls of the dead is one of the central sym- the ‘Brno School’, Josef Berg, and also Josef a long time, I like to recall your teaching bols of anthroposophy. Adamík, František Emmert, Peter Graham, methods, which are a great help to me in my In 1956 Hába attended the Sum- Marek Kopelent, Václav Kučera, Arnošt activities as a composer and teacher.” (26th mer Courses of Contemporary Music in Parsch, Alois Piňos, Rudolf Růžička, Martin July 1963) Darmstadt, but faced with the Darmstadt Smolka, Miloš Štědroň and others. Hába has experimentalists the former enfant terrible of his heirs (but not mere copiers) abroad as the interwar period emerged as a defender of the “good old times”. Nonetheless, when he was asked to give a lecture to musicology students at the Ernst-Moritz-Arndt University in Greifswald in 1963, it was he who provid- ed the East German students with some con- tact with events in Western music. He made martin smolka an impact in the GDR particularly by demanding that music teaching concentrate just on music itself, its structure and specific meaning independent of philosophical sys- a microsentimental tems that ultimately always manifest them- selves as ideology. According to one of those “Wherever I mention that I use present at the lecture Hába defended free- quarter-tones, sooner or later composer dom of choice of musical material, without “expressing an opinion on questions of someone brings up the name socialist realism and dogmatic definition, as of Hába. But I came to micro- if these questions did no exist for him”. (Gedanken zu Alois Hába, 1996, pp. intervals as part of the com- 95–97). mon equipment of post-war To be a successful teacher a per- New Music and didn’t concern son needs to remain a pupil throughout his or her life. This was the case with Hába. He myself much with Hába“. We PETR BAKLA kept up with events of all kinds (not just in would be hard put to it to find music), studied historical systems of harmony and the music of non-European cultures and any other composer in contem- towards the end of his life even wrote a fifth- porary Czech music who has Martin Smolka appeared on the Czech music tone string quartet with a very concise struc- focused as systematically, scene in the Eighties, when together with the ture, something quite new in his output. composer Miroslav Pudlák he founded the conspicuously and successful- Agon ensemble. Later the composer and Many Languages, One Music ly on the use of microtones as conductor Petr Kofroň joined the group and Apart from those already men- Agon soon became the most important tioned, important pupils of Hába included Martin Smolka (*1959). The ensemble for contemporary music in Czecho- Dragutin Colić, Dragutin Cvetko, Radoslav basic idea behind his approach slovakia. Not only did long-term co-operation Hrovatin, Marjan Lipovšek, Ljubica Marić, to microtones is in fact rela- in Agon provide the composers with a plat- Pregrad Milošević, Maks Pirnik, Milan Ristić, form for performance of their work and for Pavel Šivic, Franc Šturm and Vojislav tively simple and in itself not experimentation, but Agon also functioned as Vučković from the former Yugoslavia, from so uncommon. Smolka does (almost the only in Czechoslovakia) mediator Bulgaria Vasil Božinov, Atanas Grdev and of the repertoire of world avant-garde music. Konstantin Iljev, Jan Wieczorek from Poland, not introduce “new tones“ into Somewhere at the beginning of Kazim Necil Akses and Halil Bedi Yénetken the tempered system, but just Smolka’s career as a composer we can find, from Turkey, Mykola Kolessa from the Ukraine “detunes” intervals as a means to a greater or lesser extent, the influence of and many others. The English violinist and essentially all the important movements and composer Frank Wiesmeyer (already men- of emotional expression. aesthetics of post-war music. In general, the tioned above) later took the professional 1980s were a time when the earlier fierce name Georg Whitman and did a great deal to “irreconcilability” of “opposite” movements propagate Czech music in England. was a thing of the past, and this was doubly

czech music 3 | 2005 | portrait | 17 ment, musical box tunes and the sounds of the junk shop, typical noises of civilisation, folk or brass band, if possible playing off key, and 2) wistful memories, painful longing, the echo of the sounds of mode 1, nostalgia. In this context perhaps we could say that Smolka the composer is not very interested in undirected “pure research”; what Smolka is looking for is for yet more ways of getting himself and the listener into the desired mood, to brighten up or to move. This also applies to pieces that involve stylisation of sounds heard in the real world. Especially at the beginning of the 1990s Smolka focused on the timbre aspects of music, and he talks about some pieces as “sound photographs” (for example L’Orch pour l’Orch of 1992 is partly a “portrait” of a shunting yard); despite Smolka’s fascination with some real sounds (locomotive brakes, ship sirens and so on), however, they are selected through the prism of expressive charge, and stylised in a partic- ular emotional direction. In his use of microtones, we see the same basic pragmatism and subordination of tech- nique to goal that we noted in relation to his preferred mode of structuring pieces and true in communist Czechoslovakia. In the suf- deringly – softly and so on. Smolka’s pieces choice of musical elements (and the direction focating atmosphere of the hegemony of the are almost regularly built out of internally of his “research” as a composer) on the basis officially privileged pseudo-modern music, homogenous form segments, of which there of emotional potential. The main feature of which fumbled about somewhere between may for example be only two in the whole Smolka’s approach to micro-intervals is its Vítězslav Novák and Shostakovich, practically composition or in which on the contrary many economy – deviations from standard tuning any kind of music outside this circle was the contrasting segments may follow in very (and so deviations from established perfor- object of attention and authentic interest, and quick succession, in extreme cases even in mance practice) are justified only when they all the more so because it was not an easy bar after bar. Development techniques are are prominent and immediately recognisable matter to get recordings or printed scores usually suppressed, seams between the form to the ear, and this happens if they carry and there was no danger of “saturation”. segments acknowledged, and the basic prin- some expressive, emotional charge. On his In Smolka’s music (as in the music of many of ciple is repetition. These attributes make sources of inspiration, Smolka explains that: his contemporaries), we have generally little Smolka’s music accessible for audiences, “My most important starting point was con- difficulty in identifying the influences of Post- since the structure and direction of his com- crete sound experience, and I started with Webernism, Minimalism, American experi- positions is apparent on a first listen and experiments aiming to mimic the sounds of mental music (above all M. Feldman) and the thanks to the high level of redundancy (every- nature and civilisation. And then I found out Polish School. The latter was itself essentially thing usually comes back several times), the that many of my early musical fascinations a synthesising and borrowing phenomenon listener can take in the music sufficiently were caused by microtonal mis-tunings, and especially in its later period eclectic. without needing to hear a piece again. Of often unwanted and unregistered. For exam- Added to this we find an interest in “across course, with music of this kind there is always ple I was charmed by the interference of the board” tendencies to experiment with a risk that the music will not bear further lis- some piano chord and didn’t know that it natural tuning and a “flexible” concept of the tening at all and the composer will be shown was caused by the poor tuning of a neglect- pitch, especially in the music of Harry Partch up as a mere purveyor of routine, but Smolka ed instrument, or I was spellbound by the and Giacinto Scelsi; for Smolka’s develop- generally manages to come up with fresh emotional power of a blues singer and didn’t ment, however, this tuning systems were less ideas that balance the rather schematic treat- realise that he was actually tugging at my fundamental than certain expressive tech- ment. ears (and soul) with notes just under pitch. niques and idioms that are peculiar to the Martin Smolka is a composer of innovation In jazz orchestra recordings of the music of this circle. (As he himself says, his and experiment, whose “discoveries” are 1920s pretty well all the wind instruments use of microtones is not based on any theo- mostly related to the exploitation of bizarre have a sliding wail – the longer notes start retical system). sources of sound (very undertuned strings, under pitch and are then gradually tuned up All these influences never entirely disap- old gramophones, non-standard percussion to it. Or the singers of blues, spirituals and peared from the work of Martin Smolka and instruments and so forth) and (to return to gospels – they sing mainly the notes of the at different periods they have been more or our central theme) the possibilities offered by accompanying harmony with its thirds, fifths less evident, but much more often as microtones. It is nonetheless true that all his and sevenths pitched just under the tone abstracted principles rather than adopted innovations and experimentation virtually and then tuned up, or sometimes not tuned mannerisms. Smolka’s music is original and always take place in the framework of the right up as the note is held. Chords that are in no sense plagiaristic or derivative (at the method described above for the “securely” rendered slightly out of tine in a similar way, very least from the end of the 1980s). What structured form and are essentially systemati- whether exposed harmonically or in melody, then makes “Smolka Smolka”? cally subordinated to the goal of finding new can be found in recordings of Central Euro- For Smolka what is characteristic is the typi- ways of projecting expressive contrast. Smol- pean folk music where this music has been cally European strategy of basing musical ka’s music is practically never emotionally handed down from generation to generation structure on contrast, i.e. de facto thinking in neutral, and two basic modes are typical here uncontaminated by music from the media the „sonata“ categories of first subject – sec- (the reader will I hope forgive me the cheap (does this perhaps count as at least one atti- ond subject: slow – fast, merry – sad, thun- metaphors): 1) crackling exuberant merri- tude in common with Alois Hába’s folklore

18 | portrait | czech music 3 | 2005 inspirations? Author’s note). This kind of = 120MM Appassionato gural music could sometimes accompany a whole song with a tonic in which the major third was hopelessly flat and was flat for the whole piece! I believe that there is a wonderful expressive power in these natural microtonal situations. In these out-of-key thirds I feel pain, bitter- ness, weeping and unfulfilled longing.“ The key principle behind Smolka’s treat- ment of microtones is therefore the out of tune and “detuning” of this kind always retains its link to the “in tune”. It is only possible if the reference point of the prop- erly tuned is immediately present. For Smolka, therefore, it is not “new notes” that are important (i.e. tones as indepen- dent steps expanding the number of tones in standard tuning), but out-of-tune inter- vals, and this is the direction that Smolka takes in his actual strategies as a compos- er. (Here we might point out a distant anal- ogy with J.M. Hauer’s approach to twelve- tone music: for Hauer the starting point was not the 12 chromatic tones, but the 12 intervals.) Detuned thirds (or sixths) and octaves (or unison) appear to be by far the most effec- tive elements in terms of expressive possi- bilities and immediate recognition by the ear. The great majority of Smolka’s micro- tones fall precisely into this category. When he alters other intervals (for example fifths) microtonally, he usually does so in the framework of common chords and a reference tone creating a third (sixth) with the altered tone or a prime (octave) is usually close by. Especially Smolka’s more recent pieces (ca from 1998) strikingly draw on the expressive possibilities of tra- ditional melodic phrases and harmonic progressions, but microtonally deformed: “In the choral piece Walden, the Distiller of Celestial Dews, in the 3rd part called Indi- ans I exposed a B Minor triad in several quarter-tone alterations. It was like illumi- nating one object with various different spotlights. Here detuning the common chord served as an expression of pain in line with the text, the passage in Thoreau where he describes how the Jesuits tor- tured the Indians who didn’t want to give up their faith, but the Indians still above: string unisono from Remix, Redream, Reflight (2000) expressed unparalleled love for their ene- below: Interludium for string quartet from Missa (2002) my and forgiveness. The melody that with permission of Breitkopf & Härtel appears between the detuned common chords and interacts with them towards comes at the end with a two-note motif from ter-tone massively gravitates towards the the end as they tend to rise, finally opens the soprano, which turns into E through the neighbouring step of the given mode.“ (see out into tempered B Major, which has ordinary cadence progression V–VIII.” example) a radiance that represents the Indian for- “Our ears are so accustomed to tempered tun- (Another typical Smolka’s technique is the giveness. ing that they react to detuned intervals with stepped filling of a narrow interval such as From the point of view of classical harmo- a desire to put them right, to get to proper tun- a second with microtones ascending or ny we have a remarkable paradox here. ing – the detuned tones then function like the descending, which creates the impression of Throughout the piece there is a triad, but leading notes in classical-romantic harmony. a hesitant glissando trying to hold itself back.) we are liberated from its quarter-tone ten- In the orchestral composition Remix, Redream, While his alterations are usually quarter-tonal, sion by chords of four or more notes – the Reflight a pathetic string unisono dominates. Smolka also quite often uses sixth-tone alter- special radiance of the quiet B Major is Here quarter-tones play the role of the leading ations (for example in the Three Pieces for enhanced by an added second, sixth, sev- notes, and in an exemplary, direct way. The Retuned Orchestra the instrumental sections enth and even a fourth. (Just for the sake ascending modal melody has a simple, pre- of the orchestra are divided into sub groups of completeness – as even higher purging dictable structure and so every inserted quar- that are detuned by a sixth in relation to each

czech music 3 | 2005 | portrait | 19 other), but much less often eighth-tones or Selection of works: even tenth-tones (on ordinary instruments these can only be played very approximately). Music Sweet Music (1985/88) for ensemble Obviously the intonation of quarter- and sixth- and soprano tones is not usually entirely precise, which Music for Retuned Instruments (1988) for normally adds to the interest of the sound ensemble result (one of the reasons why Alois Hába Ringing (1989) for percussion solo was not entirely successful in his microtonal The Flying Dog (1990/92) for ensemble efforts was evidently the unnaturalness of L’Orch pour l’orch (1990) for orchestra “tempered” quarter-tones and so on.). For Rain, a Window, Roofs, Chimneys, Pigeons example, in places where a unison is pre- and so … and Railway-Bridges, too (1992) scribed, the imprecision can lead to slight for large ensemble deviations from pitch and so a characteristic Rent a Ricercar (1993/95) for ensemble roughening of the timbre; quarter- and sixth- Trzy motywy pastoralne (Three pastoral tone fingerings in woodwinds have the same motifs) (1993) for tape timbre effect. Euforium (1996) for 4 instruments or ensem- ble See also Three pieces for retuned orchestra (1996) http://www.bostonmicrotonalsociety.org/ Lullaby (1996–7) for trombone, guitar and ensemble 8 pieces for guitar quartet (1998) Autumn Thoughts (1998) for ensemble Lieder ohne Worte und Passacaglia (1999) for ensemble Blue Note (2000) for percussion duo Walden, the Distiller of Celestial Dews (2000), text H. D. Thoreau, for mixed choir and percussion Remix, Redream, Reflight (2000) for orches- tra Houby a nebe (Mushrooms and Heaven) (2000), Czech text P. P. Fiala, for non-opera alto and one or two string quartets Geigenlieder (2001), German texts Chr. Mor- genstern, B. Brecht for violinist-narrator and MARTIN SMOLKA ensemble Born 1959 in Prague, Czech Republic. Stud- Nagano (2001–3), opera in 3 acts, libretto ied composition at the Prague Academy of J. Dušek, M. Smolka Performing Arts (with J. Pauer, C. Kohoutek), Observing the Clouds (2001/3) for (youth) but found private studies with Marek Kope- orchestra and 3 conductors lent more important. Missa (2002) for vocal quartet and string quar- tet His work ahs won him recognition both at Tesknice (Nostalgia) (2003/4) for chamber home and abroad. He has written commis- orchestra sioned pieceżmble, ensemble 2e2m, Arditti Quartet, Neue Vokalsolisten Stuttgart and Discography: others) and his works have been chosen for Music Sweet Music – CD AGON, Arta performance at other important festivals Records, Prague 1991 (ISCM World Music Days, Hoergaenge, Tage Music for Retuned Instruments, 2 CD Witten- Neue Musik Stuttgart, Klang-Aktionen er Tage für neue Kammermusik 1991, WDR Munich etc.). Very successful was his opera Köln, 1991 Nagano, staged in the National Theatre in Rain, a Window, Roofs, Chimneys, Pigeons Prague in 2004. and so… and Railway-Bridges, too – 3 CD In 1983 he co-founded Agon, a group spe- Donaueschinger Musiktage 1992, col cializing in contemporary unconventional legno/SWF Baden-Baden, Munich, 1993 music in which he worked as artistic director A v sadech korálů, jež slabě zrůžověly for and pianist until 1998. In the course of Agon solo voice, 1987 – CD Na prahu světla, Happy projects he has also carried out research Music, Prague 1996 (quarter-tone music by the pupils of Alois Rent a Ricercar, Flying Dog, For Woody Hába, the 1960s music in Prague etc.), and Allen, Nocturne – 2 CD AGON the realization of graphic scores and concep- ORCHESTRA – The Red and Black, audio tual music (the works by John Cage, Cor- ego/ Society for New Music, Prague, 1998 nelius Cardew, Daniel Goode and Milan Gry- Euforium, Music for Retuned Instruments, gar). Ringing, Rain, a Window, Roofs, Chimneys, He co-authored the book Graphic Scores Pigeons and so … and Railway-Bridges,too and Concepts. audio ego/ Society for New Music, Recently he has been teaching composition Prague,1999 at Janáček Academy of Performing Arts in Walden, the Distiller of Celestial Dews – Brno. Since 2000 his new works have been 4 CD Donaueschinger Musiktage 2000, col published by Breitkopf & Härtel. legno/SWF Baden-Baden, Munich, 2001

20 | portrait | czech music 3 | 2005 ostrava days of new music 2005

PETR BAKLA

Although he has lived mainly in the United long-term collaborators with OD. They States since the end of the Sixties, Petr include the composer Phill Niblock, the com- Kotík, the composer, flautist and leader of the poser Zsolt Nagy, the members of Kotík’s New York S.E.M. Ensemble, is a very impor- S.E.M. Ensemble pianist Joseph Kubera and tant figure in contemporary Czech music. percussionist Chris Nappi, the baritone When in 2001 he came up with the project of Thomas Buckner and others – and the list is a biennial Ostrava Days event and the idea of far from complete. In 2001 and 2003, partici- founding a Centre for New Music in Ostrava, pants in the Ostrava days included such many people (including myself) rather doubt- prominent composers as Jean-Yves Bosseur, ed that any enterprise of this kind had any Tristan Murail, Frederic Rzewski, Somei prospects of success here. Kotík conceived Satoh, Martin Smolka and Rebeca Saunders. the Ostrava Days as a “Second Darmstadt”, This year the role of “chief star” was taken by Ostrava Conservatory in all seriousness and with all the implied Louis Andriessen, and the musicologists ambition. Makis Solomos and Volker Straebel were invited. It is no exaggeration to say that OD is electronic music. The Canadian string quar- Events have proved Kotík right, and an event of international stature. tet Quatuor Bozzini – add a pioneering reper- he has literally done wonders together with The Ostrava Days Festival is more toire to the usual superlatives (perfect his small production team headed by Renáta ever more attractive. In addition to the ensemble play, absolute identification with Spisarová. The Ostrava Days Institute – Janáček Philharmonic (which actually in the the text and so forth). The leader of the quar- three-week (!) composition courses focused end turned out to be the weakest link), a now tet, Clemens Merkel, later brilliantly performs on work with orchestra (!) has come into exis- traditionally large number of distinguished one of Luigi Nono’s last pieces, La lontanan- tence, and composers and performers with and lesser known ensembles and soloists za nostalgica utopica futura. The almost fami- international reputations have been coming performed at the festival, and above all a sig- ly atmosphere at the night performance of an to Ostrava as lecturers. Kotík persuaded the nificant number of usually young musicians extract (cca two hours) of Erik Satie’s Vexa- Janáček Philharmonic to participate, an (some from the ranks of students at the OD tions. Andriessen’s La Passione, Xenakis’s orchestra with which he has several times Institute) specialising in contemporary music. Ata for large orchestra, Ives’s Piano Sonata successfully performed difficult works of the The international group (The Ostrava Band) no. 2 („Concord, Mass. 1840–1860“) per- post-war avant-garde as well as entirely con- of these musicians formed for the purposes formed by Heather O’Donnell, the violinist temporary pieces (before and after the of OD, flexibly metamorphosing from the vari- Hana Kotková with Berio’s Sequenza VIII launch of the Ostrava Days). His invitation ous necessary chamber ensembles to an (see photo), Petr Kotík’s Variations for 3 was accepted by the Arditti Quartet, an ensemble of more than twenty members, this Orchestras and so on. I could go on in the ensemble specialising in contemporary year ensured that the standard of perfor- same fashion for much longer, because prac- music and considered among the best quar- mance at the OD was very good, which was tically every concert was a real event. tets in the world. The Days culminate in a no always the rule in previous years. Although the festival is the most weeklong festival involving more than ten I shall choose from the best conspicuous and for the general public the concerts. Even in its very first year the festival moments of the festival: the opening concert only accessible part of OD, the meaning of immediately became practically the most presenting the Atlas Eclipticalis (together the enterprise should not be “reduced” to the important festival of contemporary music in with Winter Music) by John Cage – the festival. The three-week meeting of all the this country in terms of choice of music and Janáček Philharmonic with many additional participants in the “Days”, both “maestros” scale. The Ostrava Days 2001 was an musicians is divided up spatially into three and “pupils”, composers and performers, and unequivocal success. orchestras, into the cool beauty of the enthusiasts, generates a very special atmos- This year saw the third Ostrava sounds generated inc accordance with astro- phere in Ostrava. If the words had not Days festival; the project has abandoned nomical maps the Ondruš miners‘ brass band become too much of a cliche, it is an atmos- none of its ambitions and has in fact tended suddenly breaks in with its two “numbers”. A phere we would call creative and companion- to grow. The industrial city of Ostrava, strug- greeting from Charles Ives? The outstanding able. All the events take place close to each gling with high unemployment and other Soozvuk Ensemble led by Marián Lejava, other. The Institute uses the premises of the problems, is perhaps one of the last venues Lejav’a beautiful piece The Gloaming Ses- recently renovated conservatory, the evening we would expect for such an event, but it sions. The dark organ recital by Christoph concerts are held in the nearby City of Ostra- clearly appreciates and supports “its” festi- Maria Moosmann with music by M. Feldman, va House of Culture, and everyone is accom- val. The Institute is regularly attended by H. Holliger, O. Messiaen and E. H. Flammer. modated in a few adjoining hotels. Unlikely more than 30 young composers, largely from Alvin Lucier’s new piece, Explorations of the people gathering in an unlikely place; as if the abroad (the registration fee is a hefty 2000 House – Lucier has dusted off an old trick of city had been taken over by a conspiratorial USD, but scholarships are provided). Apart his: the orchestra plays a few bars of spirit. Two years from now when you from P. Kotík the OD Institute permanent lec- Beethoven, the recorded sound is repro- encounter a legend of the New York experi- turers are the legendary composers Alvin duced into the hall and once again recorded, mental school in Ostrava in the afternoon Lucier and Christian Wolff, while many other and after several repeats the resonance of with a hot dog in his hand, making for the leading figures can already be considered the hall changes Beethoven into abstract tram, you will appreciate what I mean.

czech music 3 | 2005 | event | 21 in cooperation with the magazine

Ančerl recordings of Stravinsky in the Sixties are among the best that he himself and the Czech Philharmonic with reviews him ever recorded. In my view they will in a sense represent the centre even in the several dozen recordings of the “Gold Edition”. Ančerl’s interpretation is characterised by something that I would call “disciplined elemental force”. While discipline and elemental force are opposites, they can complement each other and Ančerl knew how to achieve this whenever he had to transform a score into sound. In Les Noces the vocal soloists of the Prague Phil- Karel Ančerl – Gold Edition (Vol. 32) harmonic Choir (PPC), four pianists and the percussion section of the Czech Philharmonic create a realistic musi- cal scene of the marriage ritual, but today we would probably demand more attention to Russian pronunciation. The Stravinsky: Les Noces, Cantata, Mass performance of the Cantata is particularly effective. It was written very close to The Rake’s Progress and its Neo- Libuše Domanínská, Barbara Robotham – soprano, classicist idiom in combination with the English text is strongly reminiscent of the music for the opera. Both soloists Marie Mrázová – mezzo soprano, Ivo Žídek, Gerald Eng- are brilliant, Barbara Robotham with a dark-toned soprano and Gerald English with a light, easy tenor. In the mass lish – tenor, Dalibor Jedlička – bass, Zdeněk Kožina, the PPC presents itself in the best light, the individual voice groups are well balanced and the choir is acoustically in Ján Marcol, Peter Toperczer, Arnošt Wilde – piano, equilibrium as a whole. The recording is accompanied by a four-language (English, German, French, Czech) transla- Prague Philharmonic Choir, choirmaster Josef Veselka, tion of the text for Les Noces (unfortunately the Russian in which it is sung is missing) and a Latin text of the mass. Czech Philharmonic, Karel Ančerl. Production: Vít Roubíček. Text: Eng., Ger., French, Czech. VLASTA REITTEREROVÁ Recorded: 1964–1967. Published: 2004. TT: 65:44. ADD. 1 CD Supraphon SU 3692–2 211.

All the nine Dvořák symphonies in this recording by the Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra with Vladimír Válek can be rated highly for several reasons. One is the project itself. Supraphon could easily have chosen from the existing recordings of Dvořák symphonies and perhaps added one or two new individual recordings if the quality or interpretation on an old one failed to suit. Instead it decided on one orchestra and one conductor. Apart from the live recordings of the 5th and 7th Symphonies from the Rudolfinum, all were made in the recording studio over a rela-

reviews tively short time from October 2000 to October 2003. As far as power of performance is concerned, they testify to a unified interpretative concept and the very high standard of the radio orchestra at the time. A great deal of credit must also go to the musical directors Milan Puklický, Jan Málek, Igor Tausinger and Jiří Gemrot, the sound directors Jan Lžičař, Jaroslav Vašíček, Miroslav Mareš and the assistants to the sound master Jan Šrajer and Václav Maršík. In terms of interpretation the first three symphonies are a particular challenge; they are full of the musical ideas with which Dvořák was always brimming, but at this stage in his career he was still too prodigal in the way he presented them. Symphonic movements of this kind are difficult to hold together. But Vladimír Válek manages it admirably. With Antonín Dvořák the “well worn” symphonies, on the other hand, the danger is that of routine, and Válek triumphantly avoids it. The Complete Symphonies Although I have no idea what precisely he intended and whether such “transcendence” is at all possible, it seems as if he is interpreting the early symphonies as the works of a mature composer, and approaching the mature works as The Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra, Vladimír Válek. if for the first time. This allows him to bring the sense of inevitability and lucidity that we discern in the last three sym- Production: Czech Radio, Daniela Růžková. Text: Eng., phonies to those chronologically earlier works and to give a surprising freshness to those last symphonies. The set Ger., French, Czech. Recorded: 2000–2003. is well equipped with a booklet and accompanying text by Jaroslav Holeček, which contains all the essential infor- Published: 2004. TT: 50:49, 51:41, 74:42, 76:58, mation in four languages (unfortunately in the German version the Prozatímní divadlo – Provisional Theatre appears 72:27, 38:21. DDD. 6 CD Supraphon SU 3802–2. as Vorläufiges Theater, a mistake that has occurred in previous Supraphon texts. For clarification: in bilingual Prague the usual name was Interimstheater and there is no reason to change it) and profiles of the orchestra and conductor (booklet edited by Daniela Růžková). As is clear from the attached logo, the recording has been partially funded by the Prague Radio partner Hotel. There ought to be more such businessmen.

VLASTA REITTEREROVÁ

The recording of a hitherto never recorded piece by a a well-known composer is not such a rare event and so it is not unusual to find the catchy slogan “world premiere recording” on the back of a CD. But this CD is something different. It is not just a newly discovered piece of music that has its world premiere here, but a newly discovered composer and his whole oeuvre. This musical portrait of the Moravian composer Gottfried Finger is no small event for admirers of early music and above all for lovers of the viola da gamba.Finger, a native of Olomouc, first served for a short time in the Archbishop’s Capella of Archbishop Lichtenstein-Castelcorn, but he soon found reviews Central Europe too small for ambitions that he pursued, immediately finding favour and a place in the London Chapel Royal. In England he composed a great deal of stage music including what was evidently the largest and most costly opera performance of its time, the Virgin Prophetess. Finger later left England and went to Vienna, although he did not stay there for long. His production of Eccles‘ opera The Last Judgment in Vienna went down in musical history as the first performance of an English opera in continental Europe. Apart from holding posts in the service of the Prussian Queen Sophie in Berlin and as Kammermusiker and later Konzertmeister to Duke Charles Phillip of Neuberg, he travelled all around Europe. In his last years he settled in Mannheim, where he was Gottfried Finger one of several who laid the foundations of the “Mannheim School”. Compositions for Viola da Gamba It would be unrealistic to expect a breakthrough in music history nd nobody could claim that Finger was a major peak in European culture. His output ranges from very original musical ideas to the borders of triviality. Yet it can- Petr Wagner – viola da gamba, Ensemble Tourbil- not be denied that he was an important phenomenon of his time. lon. Production: Vítězslav Janda. Text: Czech, Eng. Recorded: 1/2005, Waldorf School, Příbram. Pub- The initiators of the project Petr Wagner and musicologist Robert Rawson, who actively shares in the recording lished: 2005. TT: 54:04. DDD. 1 CD Arta F10137 as the second gamba player, together with other members of the Ensemble Tourbillon, have taken great pains (distribution 2HP Production). with the recording. The CD has been very creatively conceived as far as the sound colour of the instrumentation

22 | reviews | czech music 3 | 2005 is concerned, and works with the specific features of the sonata da chiesa and sonata da camera, variations, suite and with contrast between ensemble and solo passages. In the first sonata we already appreciate the imag- inative approach to sound colour: the gamba is accompanied by an organ positive, a second gamba, archlute and theorba, which gives place in the course of play to the Baroque guitar. The entire set develops in similar per- mutations of the continuo. Each piece is differently instrumented, and this gives the recording its own highly indi- vidual character. The vibrant performance reflects not just the evident pleasure that the players take in the music but their clear musical concept of the work and feeling for lightness and wit. The listener may congratulate himself that he is filling up a gap in musical history with this CD, but first and foremost he won’t be bored listening to it.

JAKUB MICHL reviews

The attempt to rehabilitate the third of Gluck’s reform operas on Calzabigi’s libretto has undoubted value just in itself. Paris and Helena has lagged chronically behind Orpheus and Alceste since its first production in the Vienna Burgteater on the 3rd of November 1770. Yet Gluck had been at great pains (and emphasised in the prologue) to base the opera on the musical contrast between the rough and sharp Spartans with their brusque rhythms and the subtle Trojans with the soft lyricism of melodic arches. He had tried to give the part of Paris the urgency of amatory passion in his conquest of an honourable woman, firmly resolved to do her duty as a wife before her antagonistic suspicions are overcome not just by the insistence of Paris but by Amor, who as a confidante of beautiful Helena has been charged with seeing that the promise of the God Aphrodite is fulfilled. What are the problems in this opera, which seem to have continued to dog it despite all the subsequent changes in opera styles both from the point of view of composition and staging? Stretched out over five acts the action is rather thin, and the wrathful appearance of the goddess Pallas Athena in the first scene of the last act, warning that the affair between Paris and Helena will cause many years of war, does not go far enough to enliven a simple schema in which only three charac- ters are involved. What is worse, of these three characters only Helena undergoes any development, from stubborn Christoph Willibald Gluck rejection to enamoured harmony. The opera is also weighed down by many celebratory, anthemic dances and choral Paride et Elena passages that only increase the overall impression of disengaged, almost officious distance. Despite a series of arias, ensembles, choral passages and instrumental numbers, long sections are taken up by melodically very flat Magdalena Kožená, Susan Gritton, Carolyn Samp- son, Gillian Webster, Gabrieli Consort & Players, recitatives that soon begin to seem tiresome. And the use of woman’s voices in soprano registers for all the roles Paul McCreesh. Production: Christopher Alder. Text: (Gluck wrote the role of Paris for soprano castrato) is too monotonous, as well as doing little to lend credibility to Eng. Ger. French. Recorded: 10/2003, All Saints male passion for the most beautiful woman in the world. Church, London. Published: 2005. TT: 79:42 + 66:41. In this recording we find Magdalena Kožena as Paris and conductor Paul McCreesh with the Gabrieli Consort DDD. 2 CD Archiv Produktion 00289 477 5415 (Universal Music). and Players doing their best to overcome these handicaps. Magdalena Kožená has many years of experience per- forming parts in Gluck’s operas. Indeed it was precisely this role that she took in 1998 in a production of the opera at a festival in Drottningholm, and Paris’s aria from the second act even provided the title for her CD recital of Gluck, Mozart and Mysliveček arias conducted by Sir John Eliot Gardiner (and directed by Robert Wilson). She has sung Orpheus at the Théātre de Chātelet in Paris and taken part in Minkowsky’s Armida for Deutsche Grammophon. Kožená does not dazzle by brilliance of technique for its own sake, a temptation to which Cecilia Bartoli, whose repertoire is similar, sometimes succumbs. The strength of Kožená’s interpretation (always based on a technically entirely reliable mastery of the part) lies in the intensity of the marriage of text and music, in fine modelling, nuanced to the smallest detail, of the scale of expression from a whisper full of anxiety to fiery explosions of erotic feeling not only in the musical numbers, but also in recitatives. At the same time Kožená retains a sense of balance and never slides into mannerism or over-the-top exaltation. We have a sense of a kind of confidential urgency, an intimacy, with which she as it were “speaks” directly into our souls. In this she has the full support of the orchestra, which also tries to extract the maximum contrast from Gluck’s music, and of the choir with its well-balanced and integrated sound. While in the role of the persuasive Amor the English soprano Carolyn Sampson enhances the colour of the music and the overall liveliness of the recording with her clear, light soprano, the choice of Susan Gritton as Helena, despite all her great experience with roles in Händel, Purcell and Mozart, overloads the opera with high notes that are sometimes excessively shrill (the closing aria of Act 4 Lo potrň) and a relative lack of compatibility with the other voices, evident particularly in the trio Ah lo veggo in Act 4. Although the recording tries to get the most out of the score, it seems that Paris and Helena is destined to remain a work that helps to complete the picture of Gluck as an opera composer but does not embody the full richness of his imagination or the principles with which he advanced the development of opera.

HELENA HAVLÍKOVÁ reviews

A representative of the young generation of Czech harpsichordists, Monika Knoblochová has a great deal to be proud of despite her youth. She has a very broad repertoire ranging from early music to the most recent works and she has already won a number of prizes for performance, among them 3rd Place in the Prague Spring Competition in 1999, together with a special prize for the best performance of Bohuslav Martinů Harpsichord Concerto.

And it is Martinů that dominates this CD, released this year by Supraphon. Apart from the already mentioned Concerto for Harpsichord and Small Orchestra, Two Pieces for Harpsichord, Sonatas for Harpsichord and Two Impromptus for Harpsichord, the album also contains Martinů’s chamber Promenades for Flute, Violin and Harp- sichord. All this is complemented by Manuela de Falla’s Concerto for Harpsichord, Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, Violin and Cello.

Reviewing a performance from a promising young talent is always an extremely sensitive matter. As we all know, prizes at international competitions are not in themselves automatic guarantees that musicians will make the top

czech music 3 | 2005 | reviews | 23 Bohuslav Martinů ranks of world performance and find a place in wider public consciousness. That is something only time will tell. Music for Harpsichord The fact is that Monika Knoblochová has brought us a fresh, carefully constructed and extremely agreeable recording. Thought and precision are also evident in her play. Yet however hard and long I listened to it, I couldn’t Manuel de Falla help feeling something was missing, and what was lacking was that essential surge of musical energy, immediacy Concerto for Harpsichord, Flute, Oboe, Clar- and real persuasiveness of expression. Furthermore, as far as the other instruments are concerned, especially in inet, Violin and Cello the Promenades the impression was spoilt by uncertain intonation in places and a not entirely acoustically satis- reviews Monika Knoblochová – harpsichord, Lenka factory violin (in this context I was reminded of Martinů’s Three Madrigals for Violin and Viola, played with pre- Kozderková-Šimková – flute, Vladislav Borovka – cisely that disarming energy I was looking for by the violist Jitka Hosprová and violinist Veronika Jarůšková on the oboe, Karel Dohnal – clarinet, Václav Fürbach – bassoon, Adéla Štajnochrová, Daniela Oerterová, Rhapsody album of 2002). Eleonora Machová – violins, Vojtěch Semerád – vio- In any case, lovers of harpsichord music (and not only specialists) should not overlook Monika la, Tomáš Strašil – cello, Jan Buble – double bass, Jana Vychodilová – piano, Michal Macourek – con- Knoblochová’s album. It comes with a booklet containing a commentary by Aleš Březina, who offers expert infor- ductor. Production: Monika Knoblochová. Text: Eng., mation on the background to the writing of the various pieces. Ger., French, Czech. Recorded: 7/2004, Church of St. Kunhutay, Bamberk. Published: 2005. TT: 59:06. DDD. 1 CD Supraphon SU 3805–2. SVATAVA ŠENKOVÁ

The Stamic Quartet is indisputably one of the best Czech quartets and has a major reputation abroad as well as at home. It celebrated its 20th anniversary in the autumn with a surprisingly ambitious project. No Best of…, no Dvořák, Beethoven or other composer with assured marketing potential, but three very little known and little played works by the “Terezín” composers (as the composers imprisoned in the Terezín Ghetto during the War are now called). These are complemented by Janáček’s 1st String Quartet “Inspired by Tolstoy’s Kreutzer Sonata”, reviews and it is interesting (and one of the useful insights provided by the album) to find that in many respects the other music on the CD involves a response to Janáček. The Stamic Quartet plays brilliantly, especially Schulhoff’s rusti- cal 1st String Quartet. It has unbelievable elan and marvellous moments of articulation. The brilliantly profiled String Quartet by Hans Krása in no way lags behind. Pavel Haas’s 3rd String Quartet by Pavel Haas is distinctive for moments of genius and some lapses. The Stamic Quartet have managed to get almost the maximum out of these works. In the Janáček we can appreciate the way in which the piece has been fully assimilated by the play- ers, a clarity of conception that in no way means a loss of drama and raw expressiveness, but deliberately moulds the passionate cantabile of the work. I could, however, with for a more engaged and luminous tone in the first vio- Stamic Quartet lin. Given the nature of the CD I shall break with my usual practice and explicitly praise the sponsor, which was Czech String Quartet Discoveries a co-initiator of the project. The firm I.Q.A. is a pike in the pharmaceutical generics market, but would deserve Stamic Quartet. Text: Czech, Eng. Recorded: praise just for the comment that “Hans Krása is … as important as the discovery of a new drug”. 11/2004, 1/2005, Protestant Church “U Jákobova Musically and visually the CD is a pleasure, although it is slightly annoying to find some unnecessary faults – žebříku”, Prague. Published: 2005. DDD. 1 CD Stamic Quartet – www.stamicquartet.cz there is no legend for the track numbers, the overall length of the CD is not given, and the simplistic emphasis on Janáček on the cover.

LUBOŠ STEHLÍK

The problem of modern renovation of old and older recordings is one that has been confronted in various ways since the very beginnings of digitalisation. It is an exceedingly difficult task and involves far more than just repairing damaged sec- tions or removing hum and crackle from the original records or tapes. It is enough just to emphasis the high or low fre- quencies too much, ad hall to the original mono-picture too thickly, or even to enlarge it in an attempt to achieve a kind of pseudo-stereo, and we find ourselves in a completely new, artificially created environment which in no way corresponds to the unique atmosphere of the original recordings. Today‘s experienced restorers abroad and in this country (for all of reviews them let us mention the sound masters Stanislav Sýkora, whose studio digitalizes records specially for Supraphon, and Miroslav Mareš of Czech Radio, who is rescuing the rich archives there), have gone through all of this and learned to create a result in which authenticity and a modern sound are both essential conditions. This year Supraphon crowned their admirable Supraphon Ančerl Gold Edition and now they have launched a major Talich project. It has been opened with a unique recording – Dvořák’s Slavonic Dances made in the summer of 1950 in the Domovina Studio in Holešovi- ce. This was the second recording of the cycle under the baton of Václav Talich. The first had been made for His Master’s Voice in London in 1936 and thanks to RCD it is now also available in digital form on CD. There is an absolute- Václav Talich – Special Edition 1 ly basic difference between the two recordings. The pre-war version is much more sparkling, sharper in tempo, and fo- cuses more on the dance quality of the individual scores. The now newly released and in recent decades generally Antonín Dvořák: Slavonic Dances known recording of 1950 radiates a much deeper, more lyrical power, in which of course the original dance energy has The Czech Philharmonic, Václav Talich. Production: not been lost, but there is an equal stress on the emotional aspect and the individual inventions are more elaborately Jana Gonda, Petr Kadlec, Petr Vít. Text: Eng., Ger., worked. Each of the sixteen scores thus acquires its own unique character as well as the distinctive Tallich touch. The French, Czech. Recorded: 1950. Released: 2005 Dvořák specialist Otakar Šourek was reportedly present at the recordings and annoyed his close friend Václav Talich by (remastering Stanislav Sýkora and Jaroslav Rybář). pointing out the increased length of the recording compared to the first. It is actually precisely because of these distinc- TT: 78:19. ADD Mono. 1 CD Supraphon SU 3821–2. tive features that even years later this musically brilliant recording has retained its exceptional stature. Some passages are so ravishingly effective that we would vainly look for something as memorable in other more recent recordings (for example the return of the main theme in the fourth dance, and the slowed tempo of the middle section of the ninth!). Supraphon is releasing this recording for the third time on CD, i.e. it is the third digital reworking. In the first in 1988 (Crystalcollection) the original hum of the tape was left and some hall was added. This means that while the orchestra is very colourful and readable in the individual instrumental sections, it is rather misleading in the sense of great “spacious- ness”. The present version is nearer to the original. The hum of the tape has gone entirely, the overall sound picture is more homogeneous and with no disturbance of any kind, although a price is paid for this in terms of less luminous high notes and more prominent details (until the end of the Fifteenth the percussion is almost inaudible except for the kettle drums). Every reconstruction requires a degree of painful compromise – this is one of them. The design of the CD and above all the informative text by Petr Kadlec in the booklet are models of their kind! Let us hope the other CDs in this ex- tremely welcome edition will be just as good.

BOHUSLAV VÍTEK

24 | reviews | czech music 3 | 2005 …want to learn more about Czech music?

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3 | 2005 profiles

alois hába (21st june 1893 – 18th november 1973)

between tradition and innovation

In the general perspective of music history, today will certainly be able to judge his out- Alois Hába is usually characterised as one put (103 opuses) more objectively. Today of the leading protagonists of the Central we can see Hába’s creative impulses European inter-war avant-garde that against the background of a broader pat- moved between Vienna, Berlin and Prague. tern of cultural history, in which shorter In the specific context of Czech music he periods of destruction of existing artistic likewise has the reputation of an exem- norms always give way to periods of cre- plary innovator but is considered to have ative synthesis. been strongly rooted in tradition as well. Hába is known primarily as a tireless prop- wider public. In fact, Nejedlý was much more agator of microtonal and athematic music, Alois Hába (21st June 1893 Vizovice – 18th generous in his criticism of Novák’s music, for which his own term was “liberated November 1973 Prague) entered Czech musi- seeing it as at least a higher stage of response music”. In this music he added more subtle cal culture at a time when the “lived inheri- to folk material. Nejedlý’s critical opinions on quarter-, fifth- and sixth-tone intervals to tance of folklore” had come to be recognised the treatment of folk music have a very clear the semitone system and abandoned up as something of genuine potential value for rationale, in line with the changing ideas of the traditional treatment of motifs. Hába’s high culture. Attempts at the authentic expres- time on the function of folk culture within dream of the unlimited possibilities of new sion of musical roots no longer meant a national programme. At this point, at the music lasted roughly twenty years a degrading provincialism, as had still to some beginning of the 1920s, Nejedlý distinguished (1919–1939) and found expression in extent been the case when the Czech musi- between folk culture and the taste of the a series of pieces that oscillate between cologist Zdeněk Nejedlý (1878–1962) broader public. In his view the audience, the the diatonic and bichromatic system. He expressed highly critical views of the work of wider public culture, was essentially conser- wanted to introduce the public to the new Leoš Janáček and Vítězslav Novák. Nejedlý the vative, and a progressive composer ought not tonal systems by using newly constructed aesthete condemned Novák for “falsified quo- to pander to its tastes. Despite the trials that instruments, and we might see his tation“ of folk song, in the sense of its use in this might involve, he should resist the pres- progress in this respect as a step towards the structure of his works as a musical symbol sure of the public and develop his own indi- the institutionalisation of his own innova- at a different level. Janáček he saw as a typical vidual artistic identity. Art for the people should tions as a composer. Finally, Hába was regressive composer, and claimed to see in not be an art of lower quality that made few a tireless organiser who helped to ensure the opera Jenůfa a striking similarity with the demands on its listeners. that works of new music were regularly earlier romantic aesthetic of the 1860s, when When another Czech musicologist, Vladimír presented in Prague concert halls. Many of the character of the work was deliberately Helfert (1886–1945) in his book Česká mo- Hába’s pieces provoked a great deal of determined by quotation from folk songs and derní hudba [Czech Modern Music] (1936) controversy in their time, and the listener the desire to get closer to the taste of the tried to define Hába’s place in the evolution of Czech music, he praised the positive signifi- only composed dances but also dance songs from usus, but about a typical phenomenon cance of the composer’s folklore inspirations. that the dancers would sing for us to copy associated with a particular type of musical Helfert believed that in Hába, after Janáček, and follow immediately. Some of the folk idiom. The ability to perceive such tones with- the Czech musical scene had acquired a com- musicians still knew how to perform in the old in the limits of normal performance made Hába poser whose starting-point was not romanti- fashioned way, i.e. to sing with ornaments highly adept at seeing all kinds of phenomena cism and whose sensibility was partly defined deviating from the usual semitone system. as the expression of the specific musical by his origin. Some passages in Hába’s music These people would want us to play them just thought of a given cultural region. have an undeniable similarity with Eastern as they sang them, which meant we had to If we want to explain the principle of the quali- Moravian melodic types, but Hába does not “catch” unusual intervals, mainly on the violin. tative transformation of folklore roots in falsify folklore or demean himself by trying for My perfect pitch made it easier for me, but it Hába’s life, however, we need to find the point the required “folky” effect, i.e. the admixture of didn’t always work to the full satisfaction of at which he started to cultivate and develop the “folk” remains something more essential the singers-dancers. Once – in Vsacko I think this inherited element. In looking at Hába’s than contrived. Although regional roots play it was, the singer, a lad built like a mountain, work we may also ask how far his choice of an important role in Hába’s music, the com- wanted to smash our bass with a two-litre techniques, material and mode of treating that poser never imitates or parodies folk music. glass because I didn’t manage to play his material was influenced by his later studies, or As one of the most radical representatives of song on the violin the way he sang it. He real- else whether his use even of the methods that the Central European aesthetic avant-garde ly scared us. Afterwards at home we learned he subsequently adopted through studies was between the wars, Hába expressed his indi- the different intonation deviations of the folk subject to the kind of rules that predestine the vidual style by drawing on the well-springs in singers.” 1 In a text of a different kind, Hába’s direction taken by artists, rules that we acquire the sense of his own lived experience of folk- Neue Harmonielehre (1927), we encounter outside the field of art as it were unconscious- lore, but then reformulating this inspiration at a similar description: “The question of whether ly even before we start to create. In this con- the most universal levels – microtonality, athe- and why quarter-tone music is justified is one text it will suffice to consider the tradition of matism, modality. Furthermore, at the very that belongs in the field of psychology. In my the “culture of the centre” which Hába both moments when we are aware of the compos- case its was to do with my father and brothers accepts and rebels against. His journey from er’s “inclination to folklorism” we can also hear, playing with my perfect pitch in childhood. the periphery of the Eastern Moravian region, like a base note, his critical reaction to the Late They would sing, whistle and play me notes which led through teacher training college in Romantic idiom of Hába’s great teachers. In that didn’t belong in the semitone system to Kroměříž (1908–1912) and a short period of a number of other commentaries Helfert was try and trip me up and show that I couldn’t work as a teacher in Bílovice in Slovácko to continue to insist of the importance of identify every note. First I would sing, whistle (1912–1914), took Hába first to Prague Hába’s work for Czech music, seeing his work or play on the violin the nearest correct note (1914–1915), then to Vienna (1917–1920) and that of Bohuslav Martinů as the two in the semitone system and then I would pro- and to Berlin (1920–1923). In his case the opposed, defining poles of its future develop- duce the note offered me for identification, progress through important centres of Euro- ment. and I would find that the given note was low- pean culture genuinely corresponded to the er or higher than the nearest note in the semi- artistic “progress” of the young composer on * * * tone system. That was what later led me to his “journeyman travels”. Studies with Novák stylise the intervening notes into a quarter- and Schreker in Prague and his Berlin meet- Alois Hába was born in Vizovice in Moravia tone system.” 2 ing with Ferruccio Busoni were undoubtedly into the family of a folk musician. In this region The point of this kind of account is clear: Hába important moments in Hába’s artistic growth. he was able to experience folksong and music slipped his memories into texts of various dif- Apart from new experience and knowledge, in its authentic forms, and his theoretical and ferent kinds in order to stress the unique however, what he acquired above all was the biographical writings often allude to folk inspi- nature of his own style. When at various points hallmark and reputation of a noteworthy inno- rations as a unique and major source of his he reminds us that “there was music all vator and propagator of the new avant-garde original work as a composer. In the autobio- around him throughout my childhood“, this is trends. In the spirit of the collective creed of graphical sketch Můj lidský a umělecký vývoj an indirect allusion to a unique experience with the avant-garde young generation Hába both [My Human and Artistic Development], which music, the essence of which has determined joined the current of the most contemporary by his own dating was written at Christmas in the composer’s later musical expression. modern movement and at the same time 1942 (printed in 1993), and later in the text Hába also talks about this childhood music as increasingly developed his specific creative Mein Weg zur Viertel- und Sechsteltonmusik pure unpretentious play and at the same time identity. of 1971, he stresses the importance of inher- a livelihood, with the implication that the devel- Hába’s first real teacher of composition was ited musicality, gradual acquaintance with the opment of his aesthetic attitude to form in Vítězslav Novák (1870–1949). Hába joined traditions of artificial classical music and then music was not a matter of some whimsical rar- Novák’s master course in 1914 without hav- the further development of his own original ified detachment but derived from the active, ing graduated from the conservatory. With his musical language, that of “liberated music”. ordinary and real. Regardless of some sheer perseverance and hard work, and with With the caveat that this is a necessarily abstract criterion of beauty, the value of such the essential encouragement of the humane stylised picture of his own search for artistic music is determined by its setting in the con- and tactful Novák, the enthusiastic autodidact identity we have no reason not to believe him. crete situation in which it is created or repro- filled in the serious gaps in his training as We can also take his account of his life as duced. It is also very significant that Hába a composer. Novák insisted that his pupils a more general contextual commentary on the draws our attention to his perfect pitch, his acquire a perfect mastery of traditional musi- advantages and shortcomings of “peripheral“ sharpened perception of sound, since this is cal forms and classic treatment of themes. He culture in relation to the culture of “the centre”. one of the sources of what he often declared also encouraged interest in folk songs and Wallachia and Slovácko, which by his time to be the realism of “liberated music”. An ear their compositional principles. At this period were permeated by various different levels of for fine deviations of intonation became some- none of Novák’s pupils had so close a rela- musical culture, provided the necessary dose thing that allowed him to identify scarcely audi- tionship to folk culture as Hába, but he need- of authenticity but at the same time the neces- ble phenomena, the most subtle expressive ed to enrich his experience of folk music by sary degree of knowledge of “serious” artifi- nuances of played and sung music. Hába was the kind of critical examination that would cial music. As Hába himself insisted at many exceptional for his absolutely sure recognition allow him to explore its musical organism more points, practical “music-making” in his father’s of these signs, these flexions or modal and deeply and consciously. Hába studied with ensemble and his first-hand lived contact with microtonal deviations. And the specific “alien Novák for just under a year. In this short time folk music was of essential value for him. For tones” that he perceived were deeply rooted he mastered the rules of compositional tech- example he recalls that “At dance entertain- in his cultural background, which means that nique and crowned his studies with the com- ments and folk festivals we used to play not he was not talking about errors or deviation position Sonata for Violin and Piano op. 1.

2 | profiles | czech music 3 | 2005 Successful completion of his studies paved School. With the establishment composer movements. In his biography Hába puts the the way for the young Hába to enter Prague Schreker – and what is more in Vienna, where emphasis on his search for creative methods cultural life, but on the day of his twenty-sec- classical values for a long time represented an of his own. He comments: “I sensed that ond birthday he had to give up this promising aesthetic boundary that could not be I would not be able to go on composing as prospect and join the Austro-Hungarian army. breached – it was almost impossible to com- I had hitherto, i.e. using the principle of repeat- He spent the first years of the war on the Russ- pose using unusual techniques and in systems ing and varying motifs and varying or combin- ian front, from where he was recalled to Vien- that had, at best, uncertain futures. Nonethe- ing principles of form that were already well- na to organise a collection of military songs for less, in the spring of 1920 Hába presented his known and used. […] But no ideas came. army purposes together with Felix Petyrek teacher with his first quarter-tone String Quar- I had serious fears for my further creative (1892–1951) and Béla Bartók (1881–1945). tet op. 7. Schreker greeted the work with development. […] Now thrown back just on His first contact with radically innovative ideas amazement (Was? Vierteltonstreichquartett? my own resources, voluntarily renouncing the in new music can clearly be dated to January Mensch, sind Sie verrückt geworden?), but help of grand musical tradition, I experiment- 1917, and in this case precise dating has con- recommended the piece for publication by the ed by improvising on the violin just for myself, siderable explanatory value. Towards the end renowned Vienna publishing house Universal as I used to play to myself on the violin as of January Hába, as a student of the Vienna Edition. The new work was then rehearsed a boy at home in the dark hour before the Officers’ School, attended a performance of under Hába’s direction by the Havemann lamps were lit in the evening. I gave myself up the opera Die Schneider von Schönau (1916) Quartet and presented in Berlin in the autumn to the melodic flow, surge, climax and by the Dutch composer Jan Brandts-Buys of 1921. To this mosaic we may also add precipices. I created lively and slow sections (1868–1933) and at the same time read in a piece from the biographical memoirs of Ernst and structured them by immediate feeling. In the Viennese press about a showcase evening Křenek (Im Atem der Zeit. Erinnerung an die improvisations on the violin there was no time of quarter-tone music by the German com- Moderne): “Later Alois Hába appeared, to think of repetition or variation on melodic poser Willy von Möllendorf (1872–1934), undoubtedly the most original composer ideas or of repeating or varying longer sec- held in the Tonkünstlerverein in Vienna. Imme- among us young men. He was a Czech chau- tions. Now it was a matter of capturing spon- diately after the opera visit, Hába, keen to com- vinist and probably took an active part in the taneous creativity not just with my hands on pose similar music, wrote to Brantds-Buys Czech resistance movement. He too wore the instrument, but in musical thought and in asking for lessons in composition. Brandts- a military uniform, even an officer’s uniform notation.” 5 These lines have, of course, under- Buys was too busy to agree, but on his rec- I think, but later he boasted that he had been gone the inevitable authorial self-censorship ommendation Hába was taken on for a while under police observation because of his rev- and are highly stylised. The state depicted is as a pupil of the important Viennese musical olutionary activities. But that was not consis- supposed to correspond to the character of theorist Richard Stöhr (1874–1967), who tent with his position in the army. He com- the avant-garde artist who wants to go his own trained him in harmony and strict counterpoint. posed a piano sonata or a string quartet and way and lives through an indescribable cre- The encounter with quarter-tone music was was the only one of us who at that early stage ative rebirth. Nevertheless, by something like fateful for Hába’s future orientation as a com- expressed a certain antagonism to Schrek- the path he describes Hába certainly found poser, despite the fact that he only learned of er’s teaching and his compositional style.” 4 another element that was to be one factor the Möllendorf evening at second hand, Leaving aside the derogatory and perhaps determining his “liberated music” in the future: through a newspaper article: “In 1917 I read unjust depiction of Hába as a Czech chauvin- this factor is athematism. The first of his works in the German music magazines that W. Möl- ist and fanatical nationalist, Křenek’s account using this technique are the quarter-tone Fan- lendorf was campaigning for the introduction of the composer presents him as one of the tasia for Solo Violin, op. 9a and Music for Solo of the quarter-tone system. It was the most most original students in Schrker’s class and Violin op. 9b, the quarter-tone String Quartet progressive idea for the further development also one of the toughest critics of the compo- op. 12, The Choral Suite op.13, the quarter- of European music. I realised that with my sitional style and teaching methods of his Vien- tone String Quartet op. 14 and the sixth-tone experiences of Eastern Moravian folk singers nese teacher. Despite many sharp comments String Quartet op. 15. Their experimental qual- I had a firm melodic foundation for the cre- and repeatedly expressed reservations, how- ity apart, even after many years these works ation of quarter-tone music.” 3 ever, Hába’s relationship with Schreker was remain a clear confirmation of the compos- What then did innovation of tone material probably less one of struggle than of mutual er’s exceptional creative powers. A striking mean for Hába? It meant that he could turn to respect. As a prominent and experienced feature of this period is his attempt to exploit his own inherited values in the role of the her- teacher and composer, Schreker offered his to the full the possibilities of the new tone sys- ald of new ideas. In Hába’s case the desire for students the opportunity to acquire the nec- tems. Hába embarked on new music with originality combined with the attempt to pre- essary technical skills for mastering musical panache and enthusiasm and if some attribut- serve the riches of the culture from which he material, did so in the spirit of up-to-date devel- es of his style were later to be singled out as came. Hába first tried out his idea of “unusual opments in music and at the same time typical of his work, they originated in this peri- music” in February and March of 1917 in his allowed his students a reasonable level of cre- od. In the years 1923–1927 he wrote the unfinished Suite in the Quarter-tone System ative freedom. majority of his pieces for quarter-tone piano, in Three Parts. The piece remained incom- In the autumn of 1920 Franz Schreker left for among them five suites and ten fantasias. The plete in a piano part. In the same year he also Berlin to take up the position of director of the character of this period as one of maximum composed an orchestral Ukrainian Suite. He Berlin Staatliche Hochschule für Musik. His technical innovation is underlined by the fact included neither in the numbered list of his most faithful students followed him, including that between the piano Suite op. 10 (1923) works. In 1918 Hába entered the Vienna not only Alois Hába but also, for example, and his Fantasia for Cello and Quarter-tone Akademie für Musik und darstellende Kunst Ernst Křenek, Max Brand, Karol Rathaus and Piano op. 33 with one exception Hába wrote as a private student in the class of Franz Jascha Horenstein. Berlin, where Hába lived no pieces in semitones. Hába also contributed Schreker (1878–1934). Under Schreker’s from mid-1920 to Easter 1922 and with inter- to the invention of new instruments. For exam- expert supervision he composed his first num- vals until the summer of 1923, was another ple he designed a three-manual keyboard for bered works, Sonata for Piano op. 3, String decisive stage in Hába’s life. He arrived in Ber- quarter-tone harmonium and piano, and in Quartet no. 1 op. 4 and Overture for Large lin as a self-confident composer already start- 1925 the firm August Förster built a quarter- Orchestra op. 5, and Six Piano Pieces op. 6. ing on his career but nonetheless still in the tone piano on his initiative. The last two pieces in particular are excellent process of finding his own expressive lan- demonstrations of how perfectly Hába mas- guage. Althought he faced financial problems tered the traditional craft of composition. The in Berlin, a major centre overflowing with piano pieces also reveal an attempt to use the important protagonists of the avant-garde in Athematism up-to-date compositional techniques all branches of culture offered him a golden An expression often used in connection with expounded above all by the Schönberg opportunity for contact with the latest artistic Hába’s music is Musik der Freiheit, or more

czech music 3 | 2005 | profiles | 3 precisely Musikstil der Freiheit. (This expres- generation and next generations is to carry Among the composers who inspired him one sion appeared for the first time in Hába’s arti- out this developmental rebirth fully and to frequently mentioned in the literature is Feruc- cle Casellas Scarlattiana – Vierteltonmusik construct a completely new musical style on cio Busoni (1866–1924). In Berlin Hába und Musikstil der Freiheit, 1929.) The phe- the principle of “not repeating and thinking encountered Bussoni’s ideas in the second, nomenon Musik der Freiheit is one that invites ahead, always forward.” 6 reworked edition of his book Sketch of a New connection and comparison with a number of What exactly is Hába’s athematism then? If Aesthetic of Music (Entwurf einer neuen theoretical concepts of the Central European we want to understand it better, the preceding Ästhetik der Tonkunst, 1907, 1916). Later he avant-garde that explicitly appeal to forms of quotation is not a sufficiently clear answer. occasionally attended the celebrated discus- aesthetic liberation. If Hába’s liberated music First of all we need to say that the expression sion circles that Bussoni ran in his Berlin apart- is often taken to mean the possibility of free “athematism” is itself somewhat unfortunate. ment, where the young composer was famil- treatment of sound material, its technical side It would be a mistake to think of Hába’s “athe- iarly nicknamed Ali-Baba by his host. In wider is often associated with the expressions matism” as music without themes. The com- musical circles Busoni had the justified repu- microtonality and athematism. The second, in poser merely abandons traditional ways of tation as a leading supporter of microtonal particular, deserves a short commentary. treating motifs and themes. The definition of music (and new music in general), but in fact In athematism Hába found a potential for free a musical structure as “non-thematic” there- he was extremely hostile to quarter-tone creative expression that bears some resem- fore means excluding imitation in the general music, seeing the third-tone and sixth-tone blance to Schönberg’s technique of musical sense – the repetition of the preceding pre- system as far more natural and promising for prose – a melodic idea released from the rules sentation; i.e. the modification and develop- future use. Busoni’s views eventually inspired of the periodical structure. When Hába talks ment of musical ideas. Here some of Hába to compose his sixth-tone String Quar- about athematism, he very often also mentions Hába’s instructions for performance are rele- tet op.15. Schönberg. In 1934, on the latter’s sixtieth vant. According to these the performer must Yet another influence was at work here in Ber- birthday, Hába alludes to Schönberg’s tech- distinguish between “more prominent and lin, and that was the boom in ethnomusicolo- nique of “the strictest thematic treatment” less prominent melodies“. The idea is that the gy. The introduction of the sound recording, (twelve-tone music) but in the same breath “more prominent melody” should be brought and invention of the phonograph, pitchmeter recalls the importance of Schönberg’s “free out in performance, and so the composer no and gramophone records, had been vastly athematic style” (Schönberg und die weiteren longer needs to repeat such passages in the increasing the potential of the new musicolog- Möglichkeiten der Musikentwicklung, 1934). original form or in variations. ical discipline. The deputy director of the Ber- In his article Harmonické základy dvanác- To grasp Hába’s concept of athematic style is lin Hochschule für Musik Georg Schünemann titónového systemu [The Harmonic Founda- is also important to remember that athema- (1884–1945) arranged for Hába to visit the tions of the Twelve-Tone System] (1938) tism, which many other authors in a range of Phonogramm-Archiv, part of the Psychologi- Hába repeats this idea when he talks about commentaries often describe in terms of the cal Institute of Berlin University, where the Schönberg’s opera Erwartung, which is com- microstructure of the work, primarily influ- composer could find other fundamental ratio- posed – with the exception of a very few the- ences the work in its overall form. Hába want- nales for his own music. The Berlin archive matic passages – in a free non-thematic style, ed to produce forms with a new distinctive contained a very large quantity of recordings without the support of the “basic form”. content that would not be simply transferable of non-European music; the infinitely repro- Many of the texts in which Hába mentions ath- into a pre-established schema. The themes ducible songs, instrumental pieces and spo- ematism are supposed to serve as explana- used in the framework of the overall form are ken word could scarcely have left a composer tions of his own goals as a composer. Hence not supposed to connect up the separate of Hába’s kind unmoved. Comparison of they involve elaborate metaphors and surpris- parts of the work and create the feeling of a tra- recordings of the music of distant cultures ing verbal combinations in them. Seeking to ditional form. Minor reminders and returns are opens up the possibility of identifying funda- formulate the basis of the “non-thematic style”, not relevant for the construction of the form mental common factors despite diversity. Of Hába often gropes for similiarities between from this point of view. It is no accident that course, one of the most useful recommenda- social development, spiritual movement and the pieces of this period are often named fan- tions when listening to “unusual” non-Euro- the form of the work of music, and refers to tasia, suite, toccata. While in the 1920s Hába pean music, is that the listener should try as values and signs that say something about the appears as a radical opponent of traditional hard as possible to avoid established stereo- overall character of the time and its intellectu- forms and the traditional mode of treatment of types of perception and conventional meth- al climate. In his book O psychologii tvoření motifs and themes, from the 1930s we can ods of study, but in Hába’s case the new expe- [On the Psychology of Creation] we read that, observe a certain tendency towards “closed rience seems to have led him less to an under- “[…] a need for change and movement quite forms”. This return was never radical enough standing of “objective differences” than to an evidently penetrates our consciousness from to allow us to speak of clear schemas, but the attempt to derive general conclusions and the musical expression of the present time. composer nonetheless tries at least in a gen- look for common constants. Perhaps it was Today man is intellectually more mobile, and eral way to revive the principle of some older here that an opinion to be found repeatedly in this mobility is also expressed in a faster mod- approaches to form. In addition to the more Hába’s later writings first took shape. ulation of sound. The more conscious the law frequent juxtaposition of contrasting sections The different kinds of music of distant cultures of motion and change governing the human we can see more frequent returns to harmon- were in his view just different variants and dif- mind becomes, the more distinctly it mani- ic centres or the repetition or variation of minor ferent evolutionary stages of one and the same fests itself in artistic expression and especial- motif sections. The first notable piece to betray thing. The different types of musical produc- ly in music. Harmonic drones have disap- this change is the Fantasia op. 19, which with tion share audible features that are hard to peared from music, because the sense of sta- certain reservations corresponds to the explain in terms of pure cultural convergence bility has progressively vanished from spiritu- scheme of the sonata form, and later the Toc- or the evolutionary kinship of different cultures. al life. The sense of reminiscence, return to cata quasi una fantasia, op. 38. On the other hand, comparison led Hába to the impressions and scenes of the past has the belief that the a priori categories of Euro- also gone. The human spirit today is concen- pean music relating to methods and tech- trated on the concept of “forward”, the con- niques of musical structurings were not nec- quest of new knowledge and the creation of In Hába’s case we can clearly identify the essarily eternally valid. Theoretical and histori- new forms of living. In music this reorienta- motives that led the young composer to con- cal relativisation of this kind undermines the tion is manifest in a turning away from the sider athematism or microtonality to be impor- claims of the “grand musical tradition”. concept of reprise (not repeating longer parts tant compositional techniques. Berlin offered There was no reason why different types of of musical form). Musical expression has not Hába a wide range of opportunities to pick up music, hitherto regarded as incommensu- yet, however, emancipated itself from the rep- new ideas that would then form part of the the- rable, should not be subjected to the same etition of details. The task of the youngest oretical background of his Musik der Freiheit. kind of judgement. Hába declared that “After

4 | profiles | czech music 3 | 2005 an exhaustive and feverish process of search- implicitly to the compositional techniques of Harmonic Principles of the Quarter-tone Sys- ing I gradually came to realise the abstract the Schönberg School. Many of the polemics tem] (1923), O psychologii tvoření, pohybové kinship between my own work and folk music exploited a tried and tested smear technique, zákonitosti tónové a základech nového and old chorale; I recognised that my spiritu- consigning the condemned to the categories hudebního slohu [On the Psychology of al expression was united by close affinity with of alien, speculative, inappropriate or emptily Creation, the Laws of Tonal movement and the distinguishing sign of the human spirit that artistic as against idealist art, against music on the Principles of the New Musical Style] manifests itself in all nations.” 7 that respected the native and authentic (1925) and Neue Harmonielehre des dia- (unutilised) tradition. tonischen, chromatischen, Viertel-, Drittel-, Hába’s apprenticeship years, which culmina- The prospects for the performance of the com- Sechstel- und Zwölfteltonsystems (1927). ted in Berlin, were something he could capi- positions of Hába’s and his pupils were trans- These works were largely directed to offering talise on at home, where many of his expe- formed in 1927. In this period Hába, together explanations and justifications. They have riences acquired the attractive hallmark of with the music critic Mirko Očadlík been treated as a supposed interpretative key complete novelty. In 1923, therefore, Hába (1904–1964), took up leading positions in to Hába’s music, as texts that could help to returned to Prague for good. He started to the Spolek pro moderní hudbu [Modern settle disputes on its direction. In many cases, teach at the Prague Conservatory in the same Music Club]. One crucial factor here was the however, interpretation of these texts has not year and in 1925 managed to persuade the affiliation of the Club to the ISCM, in which proved helpful in this respect. Most of the school authorities to allow him to open a class Hába could now exercise a major influence. opponents of Hába’s microtonal music have in quarter-tone and sixth-tone composition. In The Club’s publicity organ was the magazine focused their critics on the mechanical divi- 1934 he was made a regular professor there. Klíč [Key], in which it he published critical arti- sion of the tempered system into smaller inter- Hába’s class attracted the pupils of other cles on modern music. In 1935 he transferred vals. Hába himself actually conceded the pos- composers as well, who wanted to get to his activities to the Association for Contem- sibility that division into third-tones or sixth- know the latest methods of composition. In his porary Music Přítomnost [Present], and was tones was more suitable from the point of view seminars Hába introduced his pupils to the elected its chairman. He also published in the of natural voice capacity, and admitted that methods of his own compositional work. The magazine Rytmus and helped to create its pro- microtone intervals were not natural distances principles by which such music could be file. He took an important part in the organisa- but a mere stylisation of the natural system. brought to real life were to be demonstrated tion of the ISCM international festival in On the oher hand he forcefully defended the with the help of materials gathered in a newly Prague in 1935, when he sat on the interna- right of the composer to choose his own lan- established phonograph archive. Hába’s class tional jury, as he was later to do in 1932, 1938, guage of expression. At a time when discus- soon developed an international reputation. 1958 and 1961. (In 1957 Hába was made an sion of Hába’s work was conducted in the cat- Apart from Czechs and Slovaks it was atten- honorary member of the ISCM for his services, egories natural – artificial (system), Vladimír ded by Germans, Southern Slavs, Ukrainians, an honour previously granted to his teacher V. Helfert defended the view that it would be bet- Bulgarians and Lithuanians. Hába trained Novák.) Hába’s name appeared on the inter- ter to debate Hába’s music in terms of the con- a number of pupils who also tried to compose national scene in other connections as well. cept of artistic reaction versus progressive in microtonal systems: his brother Karel Hába, Together with his assistant, the composer and music. In the latter context “liberated music” Rudolf Kubín, Václav Dobiáš, Miroslav Ponc, pianist Karel Reiner (1910–1979) in 1932 he emerges an expression of a specific kind of Karel Reiner and Southern Slavs Osterc, Ris- accepted an invitation to the International musical thought: “I confess that as yet I have tič, Iliev, and others. Congress of Arab Music in Cairo to give lec- not been convinced that quarter-tone music The first years following Hába’s return to Cze- tures and demonstrations of quarter-tone has a future. But one of Hába’s arguments is choslovakia were by no means easy. Probably music. (Others who attended this conference of fundamental weight, and that is his creative the most serious difficulties were associated included Béla Bartók, Paul Hindemith and the act – his music. We do not have the right, and with the reception of his microtonal work. ethnomusicologist Erich von Hornbostel). in fact we have no way of doing so, to doubt While in the Prague German Association for Hába also took an active role in musical edu- the authenticity of his quarter-tone musical the Private Performance of Music he found cation. He realised that it was not enough just imagination. The courage with which Hába important support and facilities, thanks to to train a new generation of composers when and his pupils fight for this new form of imag- which several of his quarter-tone pieces an adequately educated public is just as ination deserves respect. They are fighting for reached the Prague festivals of the Interna- essential to musical life. In any case Hába something that today is extremely unpopular tional Society for Contemporary Music believed that music cultivates the human as well as technically difficult. They place (ISCM; 1924, 1925), the Czech section of being and that – in line with Steiner’s anthro- themselves in an exposed position for some- this organisation showed no interest in his posophy – it helps man achieve the true spiri- thing from which they can expect no material work. (the same syndrome was behind the fact tual experience of humanity. He was also con- success. Hába’s musical gifts are such that that at the Prague ISCM festival in 1925 vinced that music’s educational effect will pro- he would have not the slightest trouble pro- Bohuslav Martinů was classified as a member tect music itself from degradation into “mere ducing music in some more popular, ingratiat- of the “foreign” French school). Quarter-tone entertainment” or “technical game”. Education ing style. But he doesn’t do it. Hába pursues and athematic music was felt to be a symptom for music and by music was the theme of his own creative vision with a courage and of the stalemate in avant-garde art. Not even a number of Hába’s lectures. Together with pugnacity that recalls the creative discoverer. Hába’s introductory lecture before each con- Leo Kestenberg (1882–1962) Hába helped And it is in this that the power of his argument cert could change this opinion. The untrained to found the Society for Music Education consists, at least for anyone who looks at the listener heard such music primarily as chaos (Prague 1934) and later to plan the 1st Inter- thing calmly and without prejudices.” 8 and “rough, naturalised expression”. In the national Music Education Congress (Prague The most famous of Hába’s theoretical works eyes of critics Hába’s “liberated music” was 1936). (The Society for Music Education was is probably the Neue Harmonielehre des dia- part of the destruction of the organic unity of the precursor of the International Society for tonischen, chromatischen, Viertel-, Drittel-, the work, and the author’s theoretical ideas Music Education, which was formed in 1953.) Sechstel- und Zwölfteltonsystems. (Arnold were often considered symptomatic of a crisis Schönberg praised it when in a letter to Hugo of values and essential negation of traditional Leichtentritt of 1938 he recommended it as culture. Furthermore, for an important group an important German language treatment of of Czech critics Hába’s music failed to fit well Neue Harmonielehre new music). The book was written as early as into their concept of the evolution of Czech Hába’s own theoretical texts have very much 1925. The author himself translated the origi- music, because it sounded calculated and conditioned the way in which his music has nally Czech text into German and after revi- “un-Czech”. The feeling that Hába did not suit been understood. The most important of these sions by Erich Steinhardt, the book was pub- the native scene was aggravated by his sup- texts came out as early as the 1920s: Har- lished in 1927 by the Leipzig publishing house posed and real ties to German music, and monické základy čtvrttónové soustavy [The Kistner & Siegel. In the 1960s, still under the

czech music 3 | 2005 | profiles | 5 composer’s own supervision, the book was that the abolition of these “controlling func- structure of the musical phrase. (In Hába’s lat- translated back into Czech by Eduard Herzog, tions” will grant the necessary freedom to the er expositions harmonic doubling acquires the but the Czech version was not to be published whole system. A single chord built of six thirds metaphorical meaning of “halting” or “fini- until 2000 under the title Nová nauka o har- is presented as the image of freed relations in tude”.) monii diatonické, chromatické, třetinotónové, the order. This radical option is exploited to Lengthy passages of the Neue Harmonielehre šestinotónové a dvanáctinotónové soustavy the full: when Hába sets out the possibilities deal with the importance of newly constructed [A New Theory of the Harmony of the Diaton- for the maximum construct exploitation of the tone rows. When Hába talks about them ic, Chromatic, Third-tone, Sixth-tone and different tone systems, he speaks of seven- (series of five, six or eleven tones), he in the Twelfth-Tone System]. On the 251 pages of tone chord in diatonics, twelve-tone chord in same breath explains his own concept of the original edition the author gives an account chromatics, twenty-four tone chord in the tonality and his rejection of potential “atonali- of the melodic and harmonic foundations quarter-tone system and so on. Hába does not ty”: every piece is tonal, because its sound of the diatonic and chromatic system go on in his Harmonielehre to describe chord material is part of a series under all circum- (pp. 1–134), the quarter-tone system progressions or rules of treating the voices, stances. Perhaps just on account of this (pp. 135–198) and finally the remaining mi- because in this respect almost everything is inescapable aspect scales and rows become crotonal systems (pp. 199–251). In several permitted – instead he explores the possibili- a major theme of Hába’s textbook. In the places Hába refers to the Ancient Greek musi- ties for building chords. framework of twelve-tone chromatics (and cal tradition, to Zarlino and Rameau, and final- The rules given for the “free construction” of with an eye to the principle of symmetry), Hába ly describes himself as the heir to the world chords, however much they might seem to be creates 581 different scales, differing in the Czech musical tradition (Skuherský, Stecker, the result of creative individuality, are not number of tones and interval structure (the Novák, Janáček). determined just by free decision and are not number of these series is not supposed to be The value of the textbook increases when con- an independent act of the human psyche, but finite). Instead of describing different harmon- sidered in historical context, and above all by respond to the historical state of technical and ic situations the author draws attention to suggesting a relationship to the work of Arnold aesthetic norms in. The idea of the inter- unusual possibilities for creating scales, to Schönberg. Much of what Schönberg had changeability of the horizontal and the vertical their new features and the uncommon charm already formulated (mainly in the Har- makes it possible to bring interval progres- of the melodies that result. (If we are curious monielehre, 1911), appears in Hába in modi- sions usual for melody into the chord. Thus about the inspirations behind Hába’s fied form. Hába contests many of Schön- chords are convertible into a row and vice ver- approach here, we shall find an answer in berg’s ideas but at the same time appeals to sa: the notes of the row can be sounded simul- a number of tucked away places. For example them. As early as 1927 (resp. 1925) Hába was taneously. And just as there are no rules for the author refers to the modal peculiarities of also reacting to Schönberg’s twelve-tone the creation of melody, there is no need to for- folk music, which are recognised and exploit- music. Despite his sympathy for the new theo- mulate any recipe for the construction of ed by several domestic composers. The theo- ries, and despite his constant stress on the chords. According to Hába the sound quali- retical work of Ferrucio Busoni may also be value of Schönberg’s music, Hába tries to ties of the new music are unequivocally based another source of Hába’s interest.) achieve a distinctive individual concept of his on the introduction of sharp dissonances. The Hába also points out the possibility of replac- own and his own interpretation of Schön- author’s specific recommendation then ing the traditional hierarchic relationship by berg’s musical thought. One notable piece of relates to “unusual sounding triads” contain- other rules in chromatic (microtonal) music. In evidence of this relationship is a copy of ing a minor second. Despite this freedom of Hába’s case the notion of Tonzentralität is the Hába’s Neue Harmonielehre, annotated by thought many of the examples given in the text- way he solves the question of the notional rela- Schönberg, to be found in the Arnold Schön- book remain mere construct possibilities, tional centre. Its use may be considered the berg Center in Vienna. We might ask whether which are not of course excluded, but for key principle in Hába’s work as a composer, Hába‘s textbook might usefully be defined as which the composer found no broader practi- because it is this that gives his music its spe- an attempt at a theory of Schönberg’s music. cal application. The chords built of seconds cific order. Here Hába has come up with his The answer must be a definite no, but his book might be regarded as a proposal for their actu- own approach to the organisation of twelve- is a valuable map of Hába’s view of the great al use and nowhere in the textbook is there tone material, one conceived on the principle composer and the annotated copy a fascinat- any prohibition on employing them, but they of the relatedness of tones and chords to one ing document of Schönberg’s corrective can also be considered an abstract model that tone centre. What we are speaking of here is responses to Hába’s view. Schönberg is the demonstrates the material possibilities of the a kind of texture in which the centre is con- composer most frequently referred to in the system (diatonic, chromatic and microtonal). veyed by other than harmonic means. In this book, and Schönberg’s annotations relate While Hába concedes the possibility of maxi- case the tone has the functional significance exclusively to comments on himself. Hába’s mum density of the chord, he at the same time of central chord (tonic) and this role is efforts to define his own different identity and appeals for sobriety. expressed by relationship to surrounding at the same time find a common language with The possibility of free octave transpositions chords and tones. Translated into the lan- Schönberg are very evident in his evaluation allows the inclusion of a number of seconds guage of Hába’s theory this means that any of dissonances (and likewise harmonic disso- into a chord and the construction of new chord chord can be based on any tone of the chro- nances), and in his emphasis on the excep- dissonances. It might seem that Hába was try- matic scale and this tone becomes the centre tional importance of the scale or row. The sec- ing to take to extremes Rameau’s idea of chord for the relevant chords; or also, that all the ond part of the book, which is devoted to inversions, which entailed the notion that all remaining tones of the row may be related to microtonal systems, Schönberg left without subsequent forms of the triad are merely vari- every tone considered a centre. In later texts a commentary. (In any case he had already ants of the one same chord and have the same Hába enlarges this possibility. It is not just indi- expressed his attitude to quarter-tones in his root (centre harmonique). This is not the case, vidual tones that can be tone centres, but also own Harmonielehre.) however, and here we find the apparent con- tone clusters, which “harness” the main tone Hába first of all develops the basic premise of tradiction of the Neue Harmonielehre. Hába to a minor second. Tonzentralität as a way of the traditional Stufentheorie, in which chords sees each of the chords as an independent looking at musical structure is in a certain constitute key and are based on the respec- and unique form. Adding any other tone to the sense an auxiliary approach supposed to tive scale. Examining these principles he chord means its transformation in terms of show the internal connections between dis- restates some of the conclusions of Rie- structure and significance: the transposition tant harmonies. The introduction of this princi- mann’s Funktionstheorie – according to which of one tone changes the character of the ple is designed to allow more complex har- the notes of the scale become the material for chord. Hába likewise avoids octave doublings monic phenomena to be analysed in a lucid the construction of the chords that represent because every such “strengthening” gives the way. Tonzentralität simplifies a rather compli- the three main functions (T, S, D). The premise relevant tone or chord an importance that cated argument concerning alterations or is then stretched to extremes with the claim does not correspond to its real position in the some passing-note harmonies.

6 | profiles | czech music 3 | 2005 We can regard Hába’s Neue Harmonielehre sent his spiritual and sensual ideal of the rural of Busoni’s operas in contrast to Hába’s opera as an attempt to explore and encapsulate the woman and mother. While the practical and aesthetics is modified, stylised to the point of developmental trends of music in the first energetic farmer brings up all his children to unlikelihood, which is why it retains harmony, quarter of the 20th century together with an work in the fields and the household, the moth- order, balance, organic coherence. Hába on attempt to express his individual style, his own er takes care of their emotional and spiritual the other hand abandons the ground of “oper- concept of Musik der Freiheit, which can only development. She wins for the most talented atic fiction” and lets himself be carried away with great difficulty be translated into a gener- a right to higher education, while her youngest by the idea of return to authentic representa- al rule governing the chord construction and son, the future farmer, stays at home to sup- tion of lived reality. Ideas that in their time must chord progressions. Musik der Freiheit is not port her. The twenty-three years that the opera have sounded provocative (and are still just as however something accidental, and certainly covers are divided into ten scenes – scenes of provocative today), express a faith in reality, in not something negative. This kind of music ordinary everyday life. They are stripped of all revolutionary social change, which necessari- too, as the author tries to demonstrate in his the contrasts, stylisations and paradoxes usu- ly leaves its mark on art. While this is an over- writings, should be a matter of form and order. ally employed to create dramatic tension and simplification, we are clearly dealing here with In its basic principles Hába’s Neue Har- movement towards a denouement. Hába’s notions taken from interwar proletarian art, monielehre faithfully reflects trends in music in style of opera might be compared to heavily spiced with the anthroposophy of the Twenties, a period of important transfor- reportage. Instead of stylised focus, Hába Rudolf Steiner. Hába formulated his own phi- mations of style, and so it is no accident that in enlarges the sphere of his work to cover the losophy of opera in the article Zvukový film his textbook Hába redefines or abandons entire field of life, thus cancelling the differ- a opera [Sound Film and Opera]: “What sort established terms in harmony theory, as well ence between “ceremonial/festival art” and of life content should modern opera express? as he tries to find new possibilities for creating the “art of the everyday”. The lack of theatrical- The different elements of the internal and pub- chords that correspond better to the needs of ity is sometimes interpreted as deliberate and lic struggle of mankind today for a new style the new music. Why are individual chords and innovative, but in many respects the work per- of life on earth. Fairytale and historical sub- more extensive harmonic passages not haps aims wide of experiment. Moreover while jects must give place to new themes. There is formed as freely as melody – according to the use of the quarter-tone system on the one a need to see and depict the moving forces of Hába through free development of fantasy – hand secures the opera Matka a special place social struggle, which is the greatest drama or why does the theory of harmony bound by in world opera repertoire, on the other its spe- involving many personal tragedies and come- quantities of fixed rules fail to meet the trends cific requirements make it a piece for which dies. There is a need dauntlessly to announce of contemporary music? Hába asks these few companies would have the resources. with artistic deeds as well as others that questions at a time when the search for “new” Two further stage works show that Hába was Christ has risen from the dead in the will of principles of melody and harmony was becom- thorough and consistent in his aims here. In the world proletariat. There is a need to read ing more intense. In this case, however, the neither is the epic pathos of building a new “the signs of the times” and draw the right path that he takes and the way that he argues world stylised, but in both it is to be discov- social and artistic conclusions.” 9 as he pursues his goals is perhaps more ered in daily reality. Hába devotes himself to important than the finished results. progressive social issues in his (semitone) opera Nová země [New Land] (1935–1936; libretto written by Ferdinand Pujman based on In the course of the 1920s and 30s Hába the book by Soviet author Feodor Gladkov). earned a reputation for himself in broader cul- The Opera Matka (Mother) After the premiere of the opera overture, in tural consciousness as an original composer, Hába sought to embody his notion of a new which there was a quotation from the Interna- teacher and tireless organiser. This creative “liberated music” in a genre with a sufficiently tionale, preparations for the staging of the growth was interrupted by the fascist occupa- high profile to publicise an emergent style; opera in the Prague National Opera were halt- tion, when together with many other avant- opera would be a demonstration of the viabili- ed. The official reason given was the threat of gardists he was classified and banned as an ty of quarter-tone and athematic music. In the workers‘ demonstrations. The struggle for exponent of “entartete Kunst” [“Degenerate period 1927–29 he composed the quarter- a better future, linked with the coming of Christ Art”]. After the 2nd World War he was appoint- tone opera Mother on his own libretto. The in the framework of the anthroposophical ed head of the Great Opera of the 5th of May work was first performed in German on the ideas of Rudolf Steiner, is an idea presented (1945–1948) and also became professor of 17th of May 1931 in Munich with Hermann and developed in the author’s last opera, composition at the Academy of Performing Scherchen conducting. (The opera was not composed in sixth-tone system, Přijď Arts in Prague (1946–1949). Towards the presented in Czech until 1947 and then 1964 království Tvé. Nezaměstnaní [Thy Kingdom end of the 1940s, however, a spontaneous in Prague). Come. The Unemployed] (1937–1942). This reaction against the First Republic and to the Hába composed this opera after several earli- work was likewise never staged. recent war created a new social situation. Fol- er opera sketches. Mother is a realistic work, The lack of positive response to Hába’s stage lowing the communist coup of 1948 Hába with “realist” understood in the widest sense. works was not accidental. What it was about was exposed to the attacks of the ideological The story is set in the composer’s native Wal- the composer’s approach that was behind spokesmen of Socialist Realism and in 1951 lachia. The text of the libretto is written in Mora- these failures? First of all Hába’s stage works his composition class was dissolved. The vian dialect. The local colour is then enhanced do not observe the conventions usual for the post-war social elite, which decided on the by a number of folk scenes (funeral weeping, genre. Although Hába’s Musik der Freiheit character of production, no longer had any a lullaby, wedding song). Despite this, as is would be hard to imagine without the strong interest in work that was full of elemental rev- the case with other important operas in the inspirational influence of the theoretical work olutionary unrest, apparently incomprehensi- same vein (for example Janáček’s Jenůfe or in of Ferruccio Busoni, Hába seems to have tak- ble, resistant to rules and guidelines. Hába’s Burian’s Maryša) Hába is not composing en no notice at all of his views on opera. refusal of an offer to join the Communist party a “folklore opera”. Although the work has clear Busoni saw opera as a stage genre in which contributed to his exclusion from social and references to folk setting, this is supposed to play was the central issue. It was an idea later cultural life. His own concept of socialism enhance the raw reality of the work. The plot of to be brought to life by Igor Stravinsky in His- derived from Steiner’s anthroposophy had the opera is simple. After the death of his first toire du soldat and by Bohuslav Martinů in sev- nothing in common with the Soviet vision of wife the peasant Křen finds a new bride. This eral of his works. It seems to have bypassed (real) socialism. Anthroposophy, a doctrine is Maruša, a girl from the neighbouring village, Alois Hába. Although the expression Musik that found many supporters and passionate who just like the peasant’s first wife has to take der Freiheit might suggest a notion of the for- opponents throughout the century, was of on a great deal of work in the cottage and care tuitous and the playful, this is not entirely the enormous importance for Hába, providing him for her step-children and own children. For the reality. Hába’s understanding of opera was with spiritual and moral support in times of cri- composer, Maruša Křenová seems to repre- clearly quite different from Busoni’s. The world sis. He followed its principles in his readiness

czech music 3 | 2005 | profiles | 7 to interact with people of all religions and con- was now to have an exceptional status. Sud- tions was then interpreted as inability to victions, and anthroposophy also provided denly the attribute of otherness became an express that “spirit of the time” in an appropri- inspirations for his musical theory and prac- undeniable advantage. In a sense the change ate way. Hába therefore came to occupy only tice. (Hába had been introduced to anthro- reflected the new democratic era, since it was a marginal position among the “classics” of posophy by Felix Petyrek, who in 1926 took a status that could be claimed by anyone, modern music who made major contributions him to the Goethena, the headquarters of the regardless of social background. Novelty and to the “artistic values” of European music and Anthroposophical Society in Dornach in difference were transformed into attributes helped to create the main stylistic trends. The Switzerland. From 1927 Hába was an active that could bring participants in the common rationale of assertions of this kind is based on member. He lectured regularly at the Dornach “project of the new“ closer together while at the historical conception of the rise of the Free University for Spiritual Science, and se- the same time representing another scale by modern. If we focus our attention on important veral of his works were premiered in the which they could define their distinct identities moments of development (athematism, micro- Goethenau.) and differentiate themselves. Hába was sensi- tonality), we necessarily push everything else tive to the various individual developmental about this music into the background. Such In the years 1949 - 1953 Hába’s works were trends but did not identify himself wholly with music becomes a mere signpost to future not played or published, but he himself contin- any one of them. Despite his sympathy and development. Thus just like technical discov- ued to compose, writing both semitone and affinity for the new theories, and his repeated eries Hába’s music necessarily becomes quarter-tone music. He was rehabilitated in stress on the value of the influence of Novák, obsolete for future generations. Not even the 1953, and thereafter worked only as a com- Busoni and Schönberg, Hába sought to cre- ideas of “liberated music” could escape this poser. The last twenty years of Hába’s life were ate a style all his own. For Hába art is undoubt- process of ageing and Hába’s name was an extraordinarily fruitful peiod. Many musi- edly a field of creative freedom, where a work reduced to a mere encyclopaedia heading, cians were ready to perform his earlier and is born as the result of the active activity of becoming a synonym for microtonal and athe- new works, above all the Hába Quartet under a unique, irreducible individual. Nonetheless, matic music. its leader Dušan Pandula. Hába’s pieces were Hába shared with the rest of the Central Euro- abundantly published and the composer invit- pean avant-garde the striving for explicit defin- ed to lecture and to attend the performance of ition of the principle of redundancy. It is clear- LUBOMÍR SPURNÝ his works abroad. His name appeared again ly a striving to render musical language more at the ISCM international festival in Prague in precise, to rid it of the last trace of the decora- 1967. He used his influence and contacts to tive and the rhetorical. Hába’s project was also help young composers who often identified characterised by a distinctively sharp struggle with his legacy, although they took a cautious against traditional ways of treating material attitude to some of his aesthetic conclusions. that forced the composer to surrender his own In the final phase of his career Hába com- individuality. Another feature of Hába’s type as posed as many as 40 new works. These were a composer was that fact that he shared only mainly chamber pieces, and when he wrote marginally in the future development of Euro- larger-scale works, concertos. Hába contin- pean new music; from the point of view of the ued to write in various different tone systems, “culture of the centre” as a historical rather whether traditional (e.g. the String Quartet no. than just geographical concept he ultimately 7 “Christmas”, op. 73; 1951), quarter-tone remained at the periphery. The character of his (String Quartet no. 14, op. 94; 1963), fifth- work excludes him from the community of tone (String Quartet no. 16, op. 98; 1967) or “established composers” and makes him once sixth-tone (String Quartet no. 11, op. 87; again an “outsider”. 1957). Even at this late stage Hába never gave There are a number of different reasons why up an experimental and open-minded this should be so. Hába’s “liberated music“ is approach, and he repeatedly tried to get to known only through a few theoretical works 1 Alois Hába, Můj lidský a umělecký vývoj, in: respond to revived impulses of twelve-tone that came out mainly in German, a few record- Sborník k životu a dílu skladatele (ed. J. Vyslou- music and Webernian serialism. ings and relatively inaccessible scores. This žil). Vizovice 1993, p. 50. has naturally limited an understanding of the whole Hába phenomenon. Usually Hába is 2 Alois Hába, Neue Harmonielehre des diatonis- characterised as a tireless propagator of chen, chromatischen, Viertel-, Drittel-, Sechstel- microtonal and athematic music. These mere und Zwölfteltonsystems. Leipzig 1927 p.135. After surveying his career, we may tentatively assertions, however, do not of themselves suggest some conclusions about Hába’s have any precise content and in fact prob- 3 Alois Hába, Můj lidský a umělecký vývoj, p. 51. place in the context of Czech and Central- lematise any proper conception of Hába’s European music. First and foremost it is clear music; for example, pieces composed with 4 Ernst Krenek, Im Atem der Zeit. Erinnerungen that he was a composer who became involved microtones in fact represent less than a third an die Moderne, München 1999, p. 157. in the Central European musical avant-garde of Hába’s output as a composer. Of course, it very much “from the outside”, from a Moravian remains an open question whether the change 5 Alois Hába, Můj lidský a umělecký vývoj, pp. region with a predominantly folk tradition. The in the conditions for the reception of Hába’s 52–53. strong individuality and originality that he music will make for major change in the way 6 Alois Hába, O psychologii tvoření, pohybové began to show during his stay in Vienna he is viewed. While in the 1920s Hába in his zákonitosti tónové a základech nového hudeb- became a respected reality in Berlin. In terms works took significant steps beyond the canon ního slohu, Praha 1925, p. 36. of the expressive canon of 19th-century music of traditional music by using unconventional the position of “other, outsider” had been neg- sound material, in the period after the Second 7 Hába, O psychologii tvoření, pohybové ative, a pure liability, a status overlapping with World War the leaders of the modern move- zákonitosti tónové a základech nového hudeb- that of “dilettante“ in the sense of exclusion ment of the time rejected him for alleged tradi- ního slohu. Praha 1925, p. 38. from professional advancement. Now the situ- tionalism (and in some cases for technical ation had turned around – at least in Berlin if inadequacy). Here the criterion of musical val- 8 Vladimír Helfert, Hábova Nová nauka o har- less in Vienna – and the position could be one ue was above all the developmental novelty monii (Na okraj Hábovy nauky o harmonii), in: of special privilege. (Vienna is generally (innovativeness) of Hába’s music between the Hudební rozhledy, III–1927, p. 148. regarded as a place with great respect for tra- wars, perfectly corresponding to the “spirit of 9 Alois Hába, Zvukový film a opera, in: Klíč, dition and conservative views). To be different the time”. His retreat from his well-known posi- II–1931/32, p. 60.

8 | profiles | czech music 3 | 2005