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Miroslav Srnka 2 Germans in Czech Music

2006 Czech of Music What Did Mean for Mozart? …want to learn more about Czech music?

…search for information about Czech musical life? www.musica.cz czech music contents 2/2006

What You Do Is Only Partly the Result of Your Will Interview with the composer Miroslav Srnka editorial PETR BAKLA Page 2

Czech Museum of Music GABRIELA NĚMCOVÁ the theme of this issue of Czech Music is Page 8 the relationship between Czech and German musical . In the history of Prague as a European Cultural Metropolis Bohemia Germans constituted a very substantial minority, and since they of the Inter-War Period represented one of the most important of VLASTA REITTEREROVÁ the world’s musical , they had Page 12 a manifest influence on Czech music. The coexistence of the two ethnic groups was, however, historically complicated and never Causa Wozzeck 1926 idyllic, and it was finally ended with the JITKA LUDVOVÁ events of the 2nd World War. We shall leave Page 17 it to others to offer historical judgements on the whole epoch of Czech-German cohabitation in the Bohemian Lands, but my German Brno feeling is that at least as far as music is TEREZA PÁVOVÁ concerned, with the breaking off of close Page 21 relations with German musical culture something fundamental for Czech music was lost. I would like to thank the EuroArt International Festival Goethe-Institut in Prague for financially Page 24 supporting all three of the articles concerned with this subject. Tomislav Volek’s article, “What Did Prague Mean for Mozart?” gets away from the DENISA DOHNALOVÁ usual rather tiresome and cliché-ridden Page 26 circus around the Mozart 250th anniversary celebrations in at least two basic ways: first because of the author’s great erudition, the Jakub Hrůša fruit of a lifelong scholarly interest in The Secret Weapon of Czech Music W.A. Mozart (which, as he notes, is far from LUBOŠ STEHLIK the rule with the “instant experts” on the Mozart anniversary), and second because of Page 30 its polemic tone, which gives the traditional Mozart theme a new dimension and says What Did Prague Mean for Mozart? a great deal more than any pure TOMISLAV VOLEK enumeration of facts. I would also like to attract your attention to Page 33 two young hopes of Czech music, the composer Miroslav Srnka and the conductor Reviews Jakub Hrůša. I believe we shall be hearing a great deal more about them in the future. Page 41

I wish you a pleasant summer Czech Music Czech Music is issued by the Czech Music Information Centre with the support Information Centre, of the ministry of Culture of the and the Czech Music Fund Besední 3, 118 00 Praha 1, Editor: Petr Bakla, Producer: Pavel Trojan Czech Republic, Translation: Anna Bryson, Graphic design: Ditta Jiřičková fax: ++420 2 57317424 Photos: Karel Šuster (cover, pp. 2-11), Petr Škvrně (pp. 29-27), Zdeněk Chrapek (p. 30), phone: ++420 2 57312422 David Port (p. 31), Hana Sládková (pp. 24-25) and archives e-mail: [email protected] PETR BAKLA http://www.czech-music.net DTP: HD EDIT, Print: Tiskárna Nové Město ISSN 1211-0264 MK ČR E 7099 EDITOR Price and subscription (shipping included): Czech Republic : one issue Kč 60, subscription (4 issues) Kč 200 : one issue € 6.25, subscription (4 issues) € 25 Overseas countries: one issue $ 9, subscription (4 issues) $ 36 or respective equivalents. „May 1, 2004 was the 100st anniversary of the death of Antonín Dvořák. Although Dvořák is considered a bright and cheerful composer, the beginning of his career was overshadowed by death. His first three children died in rapid succession in the years 1875-1877 and it was under these tragic circumstances that Dvořák, now in his mid-thirties and once again childless, wrote the first of his phenomenal works. My piece is dedicated to Dvořák in those years. The name of the piece is borrowed from the famous Beethoven piano sonata. The well-known introductory cadence from this sonata also appears in my piece three times - once for each of Dvořák’s lost children.“ This commentary to the piece Les Adieux evokes the human and musical world of the composer MIROSLAV SRNKA (*1975) better than I could myself. It beautifully reflects Srnka’s conscious and on many levels considered way of relating himself to the (Czech) musical tradition (incidentally, as a musicologist-editor Srnka is con- cerned precisely with Dvořák) and his as it were straightforward but unsentimental emotional approach to composing. All this combined with the sophistication and complete modernism of his musical language and with awareness of the world con- text – the piece was written for the Ensemble Intercontemporain.

2 | interview | czech music 2 | 2006 what you do is only partly the result of your will

PETR BAKLA

In your music you evidently use the idioms of spectral music, and a great many composers are writing in this way at the moment. What do you think gives your pieces added value and raises them above the interchangeable products of dozens of IRCAM visiting students? Good question. First and foremost we’re all special and no two people write the same notes. I would object slightly to the word “raise” – country I’ve already been accused more I don’t know why but it always matters I don’t believe you can say whose personal than once of Boulezism.... a great deal to me that both the harmonies expressive testimony stands “higher”. and the individual voices should make It’s not my place to judge and sometimes it Well, let me put it another way then...What sense. It may sound old-fashioned, but at isn’t even clear to me why it’s my notes that is original about the music of Mirek Srn- the same time I really enjoy “cracking” it, appeal to someone and not notes by some- ka? it’s often like a puzzle. I often try to interlard body else I happen to think is fantastic. In Maybe there’s nothing original about it, or harmonic and gestural ideas derived from general I think that what you call “added val- I don’t know how to express it in words. spectralism with a rhythmic-lineal structure ue” consists only in the depth and honesty Because that’s the last question I would ask in which you could see a glint of that of what a person is trying to express myself. I even believe asking it is a bad thing “Boulezism”. Maybe there’s something through the notes, and that it doesn’t have in itself. For me what is basic is whether the rough in an eastern way about this kind of anything to do with style. music of Mirek Srnka is recognisable, and combination, because in my view it’s not You classify me with IRCAM visiting stu- I’m told that sometimes it is now. I write much in fashion in : to take one side dents, and that’s quite amusing, because “sometimes” deliberately, since my way of or the other is also a bit of a “political” atti- compared to some of the others I had a very composing definitely hasn’t yet fully crys- tude. Maybe I’m wrong, since it’s not some- “fleeting” relationship to the place. Perhaps tallised. I consider myself a beginner, thing “talked about” but just something you the difference is that I came to France to because for example while my first student can sniff in the air. find out how people I already knew were work actually to be performed was eight Anyway, in the third place, I work almost thinking in a similar way were actually doing years ago, with few exceptions none of the exclusively with semitones. I’m quite seri- things. Anyway, IRCAM is something like works that I acknowledge and “allow” to be ously investigating the possibilities of sound a programming environment, not a nest of performed again is more than three and simulation of microtonal terrain using semi- a particular style. Today a huge number of a half years old... Oh yes, and I’m definitely tone notation. And so I take it as a great people who compose in very different ways original among my contemporaries for hav- honour if after listening to my work someone are all lumped together as spectralists, ing a wife and two children and writing asks, “Were there quarter tones there?” IRCAM types and so on, but it’s only by set- about them. Almost exclusively. ting them in the context of all the other pos- You can hardly be surprised by accusa- sibilities open to people today that you Nonetheless I still assume that you’re tions of “Boulezism”. On the one hand could call them a group at all. The internal using the technical tricks of spectralism. it’s understandable – you’re hardly going stylistic differences between then are as If I had to analyse myself in some way, then to deny that your music belongs to that huge as between all the composers of the I’d say that there were big differences kind of circle in general stylistic frame- 19th century put together. And so from the between my notes and spectralist ones. work. But above all: style point of view it’s rather as if you were First of all I never use directly computer- “Czech music has always had a very asking what added value Brahms has over generated structures. I just take ideas from strong capacity to assimilate – to accept Berlioz – not that I’d have the nerve to com- what the software can do to manually create and transform impulses from many dif- pare myself to Brahms, of course! By the a kind of harmonic-kinetic background for ferent parts of musical Europe. For the way, according to more than one comment concrete composition. And the composing domestic restorationary tendencies, how- that got back to me, for the French them- is then completely independent of any kind ever, what has been characteristic has selves my notes have something like the of computer techniques. been a fear of “foreign influences” which status of the “earthy primitivism” of Mus- In the second place my notes have a very again and again have been regarded as sorgsky. So it’s a paradox that back in my dense polyphonic structure for spectralism. destructive, subversive forces. It would

czech music 2 | 2006 | interview | 3 be interesting to catalogue the arsenal of ences because it doesn’t actually know mentary elements, in fact from those Czech fears and warnings against these what it is itself. When you are capable of individual neutral “notes”) is today in “foreign influences”. The terminology proudly defining yourself, then foreign influ- retreat, in my view. The fashion is for used in successive periods says a great ences don’t have the power to bother you. dealing with already existing: integra- deal in itself: German music, Teutonic I’m often asked to describe Czech contem- tions of idioms, the juxtaposition of the music, French goods, Jewish-Bolshevik porary music in some way, to characterise it, disparate (“recontextualisation“), plun- music, degenerate western music and so but I’ve found that I can’t do it. And yet there drophonics, remix... all of this is affect- on.” (Vladimír Lébl, see CM 2/2005) are plenty of talented individuals. Maybe we ing so-called contemporary classical The word “Boulezism” fits into the list could push Lébl’s idea to the point of absur- music as well. And so while some peo- very well. Your music frankly identifies dity and say that Czech music is defined by ple are looking for new ways forward by with those foreign influences so alien to its inability to define itself. appropriating rock idioms, stitching our healthy Czech musicality and refined together Ars Nova with the Backstreet feeling for moderation – and you’re Otherwise you seem to be pretty suc- Boys and rewriting or copying Bach, it a spectralist, a Boulezist, a lover of Frog- cessful. seems to be precisely that “Boulezism” eaters and an opportunist and you know What does that mean? That you have the and spectralism that is as it were stub- where you can shove your structural dif- chance to work with a few famous musi- bornly defending and persisting in mod- ferences... Do you feel these kinds of cians? Hardly... Success is probably just if ernist positions. Do you believe in the pressure? someone – maybe just one person – experi- possibility of finding new ways forward Now you’ve made my day by applying ences something listening to your music through new compositional technolo- a quote from Vladimír Lébl to me, because that they have never experienced before. gies, pitch-class systems and so on? he was always my favourite Czech musicol- You can’t measure that by numbers of per- Even though today it is a very unfashion- ogist. He could write fantastically, perceived formances. It’s much more gratifying when able view – and I very much believe this sit- connections and what’s more he wasn’t a performer decides to include your piece in uation is only temporary – of course afraid of daring hypotheses, and that’s rare his or her repertoire or when there are peo- I believe in it, because to proclaim that the in Czech musicology.... ple prepared to sacrifice the quiet of their development of compositional technolo- Yes, I’ve heard it many times: We’re not evening to listen to a recording of one of gies and systems is now passé would be going to play Srnka because it’s too diffi- your pieces. as naive as to say that Czech grammar and cult, it’s too Boulezian, it’s not Czech. So vocabulary are now fixed once and for all. that’s the first, hidden pressure, the fact that I’ve noticed that you always talk about Post-Modernism announced that innova- very few people want to play my music in your music as “notes”. tions in composition technology were no the Czech Republic. Earlier it bothered me For me “notes” is a kind of last resort longer possible, but then quite unexpect- a lot but now I don’t care at all, because expression, because calling my stuff edly along came Gérard Grisey and spec- I only want to have my music played by peo- “music”, “works” or even “compositions” tralism and offered a composition technol- ple who enjoy it and choose to play it volun- strikes me as slightly pompous. I’m probably ogy that could be internally developed, tarily. You can’t compromise with yourself not being precise, because I’m not very con- entirely contrary to the Post-Cage prophe- just for one opportunity. And so no perfor- cerned about the written record, in the cies. In any case, if you take everything mance is better than a resentful perfor- sense that my conception of a piece is to do coming after the Modern, then in a spirit of mance. Paradoxically, I didn’t feel much with sound, what can be heard, the pluralism you have to allow everything that pressure at the academy. At seminars you acoustic. The record and notes are just wishes to go on “developing” the same have to know how to defend yourself even a medium and are the last things to happen right to existence as everything else. The against completely opposite opinions, and in the process, and as it were “secondary”. concept of development is as valid as the sometimes discussions end in complete And I actually strive for the most classic kind concept that dumps it. The issue is just deadlock, but looking back I value the expe- of notation, because the fetishism of innova- about the breadth of the term and toler- rience. It taught me to answer questions tions in notation strikes me as pretty self- ance for the development of any composi- I wouldn’t have asked myself. In the end that indulgent. Maybe I ought to describe my tional language, even one you find repug- always does you good.... stuff as my “sounds” instead of my “notes”. nant. And even today compositional lan- But what annoys me more is the fact that guage is continuing to develop, but there contemporary Czech music doesn’t know The abstract conception of music (as cre- are lots of compositional languages, and how to define itself. It fights against influ- ation “ex nihilo”, or from the most ele- no single observable current.

4 | interview | czech music 2 | 2006 Michel Swierczewski and members of performing Srnka’s Moldau Remixed Don’t you ever have an urge to undercut the polished stylistic purity of your pieces by using references or allusions? The truth is that for the moment the only kind I write is the classical, self-contained, and as you nicely put it, “polished” pieces – both in stylistic terms and in form. However, various other more open paths that other people take appeal to me as well, but so far I haven’t got to them, and of course I don’t rule out that I may some time in the future. You can’t get to them just by your own deci- sion. What you do is only partly the result of your will. To some extent you are only an observer of events inside you. Perhaps I’m too “polished”, I myself as a person.... Although it may not seem that way, style overlaps attract me a great deal and I even use references quite often. But for the moment they are probably too encoded, lodged too deep inside the structure to creep through that stylistic polish. It’s com- mon for me to use quotations from my favourite Czech classical music, and I’ve didn’t quite make it, but it almost did, and music could probably best be described as written a piece in which there are hidden left behind several works of permanent and an umbilical cord. I get nutrients from it. variations on the Star Trek music, and don’t international value. I would very much like to Only much more Dvořákian and Janáčekian even ask me about the “pop” hits I used as see them revitalised in international reper- nutrients than any “fragilely Modernist” a model for the musical plan that runs slow- toire. Music like Jan Klusák’s Variations on ones. downed by a factor of five behind my cham- a Theme by Gustav Mahler (see CM ber Wall. 4/2004) or Luboš Fišer’s Fifteen Prints after And to go back to those technologies – isn’t Dürer’s Apocalypse, Jan Rychlík’s African MIROSLAV SRNKA (*1975 in Prague). a good Backstreet Boys remix also part of Cycle, Miloslav Kabeláč’s percussion things He has studied composition and musicolo- a compositional technology? Of course it is, (see CM 1/2005), Marek Kopelent’s cham- gy in Prague, Berlin and Paris. The more just like Bach’s appropriation of ber stuff, are simply “Jahrzehntwerke”. Only than twenty already performed pieces by Vivialdi’s concertos and his rewriting them the Czech contribution to internationally sta- Srnka are distinctive for his striving for in his own way (and under his name). ble repertoire still so far ends in 1959, with a virtuoso grasp of solo instruments and Nonetheless we can detect Bach’s personal the death of Bohuslav Martinů. the use of various post-war compositional compositional technology in these transcrip- techniques, as well as a harmony and tim- tions. Why? Because it’s behind that remix But what on earth is a “closed” epoch? bre quality inspired by spectral music and of Vivaldi. Bach just chose the Vivaldi as Everything that has come to be included in structures created using computer aided material because he felt that it was the right active repertoire since Gregorian Chant is music composition. material for his “technology”. For the a matter of “closed” epochs, and it still has Srnka have collaborated with renowned moment I don’t have the kind of personal plenty that is new to say to us. So why contemporary music performers, such as composition technology that would enable should something incomparably more Arditti String Quartet, Ensemble Intercon- me to remix something convincingly. I tried it recent have nothing new to say to us? temporain, Ensemble Itinéraire, Leipzig Sin- quite overtly in Moldau Remixed, where What’s more, relationships of influence and fonietta, Firebird Ensemble, Camilla I poke a little fun at Smetana. Teasing is inspiration are much more subtle than it Hoitenga, Sylvio Gualda etc.). Deutsche a sign of affection… seems at first hand. All the contemporary Staatsoper Berlin Unter den Linden com- music of today is for the most part living off missioned the short opera Wall as a part of What is actually your relationship to what was discovered in the 1950s and the project Seven Attempted Escapes From Czech music? I mean, to what extend do 1960s. Even the music that deliberately The Silence. His works are published by you see yourself as continuing those denies it. Bärenreiter Verlag. rather fragile modernist currents in In addition to composing Srnka devotes Czech post-war (and perhaps even pre- You are right in saying that I wrote a musico- himself to editing and musical journalism. war) music, and in what way if at all these logical dissertation on Czech orchestral The centre of his musicological interest is are important to you? I happen to know music of the 1960s. But the strange thing is music after 1945. that one of your musicologist interests is that I didn’t in any way choose this theme Srnka’s String Quartet No. 3 performed by Czech music of the 1960s – what in your because of my composing interests, Arditti String Quartet has been included in view is the position and significance of because these have nothing in common the CD-anthology of young Czech com- this essentially now closed chapter in the with this music. Here the separation posers Young Blood. (Existing and new context of European classical music? Do between composer and musicologist was subscribers to Czech Music, please we have anything to take pride in? complete, but even so there are some “uni- request your free CD at info@czech- We cerrtainly do have something to take versal” things that even the composer can music.net. See page 29) pride in. The 1960s were clearly the take from this scholarly research: strongest period in Czech post-war music. Kabeláč’s uncompromising purity, www.srnka.cz They had their special charisma of their Fišer’s emotion in austerity, own, which has not yet come back. It was Klusák’s courage to follow visions. But there taking giant steps to make up for the dis- can be no talk of continuation – successor- tance that had been lost in the 1950s. It ship in composing. My relationship to Czech

6 | interview | czech music 2 | 2006 Sketch for Moldau Remixed

Ta větší - one variation on the final scene of Jenůfa for piano (2006)

czech music 2 | 2006 | interview | 7 the czech museum of music

GABRIELA NĚMCOVÁ

The Czech Museum of Music is in fact an umbrella organisation that looks after both a Department of Musical Instruments, about which we shall be saying more later, and a Music History Department, which administers what is in size, value and diver- sity the most important collection (more than 120 000 exemplars) of written sources, pic- tures and sound documents relating to the music and musical life of the past and the present. Its treasures include two auto- graphs of Beethoven compositions, as well as the autograph of the František Jan Škroup’s song “Kde domov můj”, which later became the Czech National Anthem. The Music History Department also owns a large collection of non-note written materials, which mainly consists of the correspon- When you are taking a stroll in Prague to admire its beauties, if dence of composers and other figures in you cross Charles Bridge but instead of making straight up the musical life, but also personal documents, manuscripts of journalistic and academic hill to Prague Castle turn left towards the Kampa Park, you will works on music, manuscript notes, diaries soon find yourself standing in front of the entrance portal of the and memoirs. Czech Museum of Music, which is currently housed in the former The largest sets of correspondence are those of Leoš Janáček, Bohuslav Martinů, Church of St. Mary Magdalene, a 17th-century building Emmy Destinn and above all Josef Bohuslav designed by Francesco Caratti. It has been changed and renovat- Foerster, but the museum also owns letters ed many times and has served many different purposes, for exam- from such great world composers and per- ple as a Dominican monastery, a post office, a police barracks and formers as Gustav Mahler, Anton Bruckner, Clara Schumann, Richard Wagner, Ferenc an archive. It is now, indeed, a truly impressive architectural hybrid Liszt, Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Max composed of elements of Early Baroque church architecture com- Reger and others. Another very valuable bined with Classicist utilitarian alterations and modern recon- source for music history research is the museum’s collection of more than 50,000 struction carried out at the end of the 20th century. concert and opera programmes, posters, press cuttings and small printed pieces from tributions to various kinds of academic tion of stringed, wind and keyboard instru- the last quarter of the 18th century to the research and the holding of lectures and ments obtained from Ondřej Horník, choir present. One of the rarest items is the oldest concerts. conductor at the Prague Karlín Music surviving poster for the Prague performance is particularly important, while the of Mozart’s on the 2nd of The Department of Musical Instruments set acquired from the Czech instrument September 1788. A specific feature of the The National Museum has been collect- maker based in Odessa, Josef Šediva, con- Prague department is the largest musical ing musical instruments from the very begin- sists of more than 170 exemplars, including iconographic collection in the Czech Repub- ning of its existence (it was founded in his own invention called the “Šedifon” lic, containing over 20,000 sculptures, 1818), although during the 19th century the (a brass instrument with two bells). paintings, prints, photographs including acquisitions were more or less matters of It was not until after the Second World, negatives, all kinds of gifts and pieces of fur- chance. Some exemplars, forming the basis in 1946, that the National Museum set up niture. The most recent section, which has of today’s much larger collection, have been a separate music department, which started been systematically built up since the in the museum’s collections for almost 150 to develop its activities more fully in the 1960s, is a sound library that after what is years, for example three valuable wind 1950s. The year 1953 then saw the found- a relatively short period already boasts more instruments once in the possession of the ing of what is known as the State Collection than 55,000 recordings – from phonograph- Jindřichův Hradec grammar school teacher of Musical Instruments, a special fund of ic cylinders to standard and long-playing Antonín Liška, but originally belonging to stringed instruments of top quality ear- gramophone records to compact discs. musicians of the Rožmberk Capella in the marked for occasional loan to major Czech The Czech Museum of Music also man- later 16th century and acquired by the muse- maestri (Václav Hudeček, Ivan Ženatý or ages the Bedřich Smetana Museum and the um in 1820, or the bone Renaissance flute Gabriela Demeterová) or exceptionally gift- Antonín Dvořák Museum. The main concern donated to the collection in 1869 by Václav ed young musicians at the start of their of both is to look after the archival František Červený, the world famous manu- careers. Alongside the creations of such collections – note autographs, correspon- facturer of brass instruments (see CM world famous instrument makers as Antonio dence and other documents, art works and 1/2006). Other remarkable stringed and Stradivari and Giuseppe Guarneri, it con- period photographs, programmes, posters plucked instruments followed (the bequest tains examples from the workshops of lead- and personal effects – and make them of Antonín Buchtel in the 1890s), and many ing Czech violin makers Přemysl Otakar Špi- accessible to the public in permanent exhi- wind instruments (the collection of the dlen (see CM 1/2006) and Tomáš Pilař. bitions, temporary special exhibitions, con- Zbiroh lawyer JUDr. Jan Pohl). The collec- Today there are around 2,500 musical

8 | museum | czech music 2 | 2006 Brass instruments exposition Glass Harmonica

Kettledrums

The Litomyšl Gradual (1561-63)

czech music 2 | 2006 | museum | 9 Woodwinds exposition, showcase of clarinets left: one-manual baroque regal

Showcase of Guitars

10 | museum | czech music 2 | 2006 instruments in the museum’s collections, including all the organological groups, i.e. woodwind and brass, stringed and plucked, percussion and a few mechanical instruments as well. Exemplars are mostly exhibited in the Czech Museum of Music as part of the perma- nent or temporary exhibitions. The museum also loans exhibits to institutions outside Prague, such as the Piano Museum in Žďár nad Sázavou, the Chateau at Hořovice (mechanical instruments), and the National Institute of Folk Music in Strážnice, and on a short-term basis for specific anniversary or cultural events. In November 2004 a new permanent exhi- bition of musical instruments entitled “Man – Instrument – Music”, was ceremonially opened at the Czech Museum of Music. It aims to pre- sent a comprehensive picture of musical development in the Czech Lands (and to a lim- ited extent in the world as a whole), and con- tains not just musical instruments but also written, note and iconographic materials doc- umenting the flowering of musical culture from the Renaissance to the 20th century. The exhi- bition has seventeen separate sections, in which visitors can see the instruments of the Stringed instruments showcase Rožmberk Capella mentioned above, rare vio- lins made by world masters and Czech instru- ment makers (Tomáš Ondřej Hulínský, Jan Violin by N. Amati Oldřich Eberle, Tomáš Edlinger, Jan Jiří Hellmer and Kašpar Strnad), Baroque lutes and guitars and a selection from an extensive collection of violas d@amore and violas da gamba. Considerable attention is also given to woodwind instruments and their develop- ment from the Baroque to the 20th century and to the brass, including Baroque trumpets and trombones from Nuremberg and Bohemia and products of the workshop of Václav Fran- tišek Červený and Josef Šediva. Historical clavichords, harpsichords and hammer pianos from the 18th to 20th century are all repre- sented here. One highlight is the unique quar- ter-tone piano constructed in 1924 to Alois Hába’s design, but there are also fascinating folk instruments and mechanical instruments. The exhibition presents almost 400 musi- cal instruments complemented by note mater- ial and audio extracts of leading Czech musi- cians playing the instruments displayed, which means that visitors have the chance to hear an authentic recording of the instruments in front of them.

View of harp exposition

The “giraffe” piano

www.nm.cz/ceske-muzeum-hudby

czech music 2 | 2006 | museum | 11 Prague’s geographical position as a city in the centre of Europe has formed many of its distinctive features. One is a long tradition of cultural heterogeneity. Prague was always the meeting place of all kinds of different influences, which competed with each other, inspired each other, and sometimes opposed each other -, whether we are speaking of Czech, Italian, German (predominantly Jewish) or many other influences. In the past the Italian influences were brought particularly by architects, painters and sculptors, while in the sphere of music (as was the case all over Europe), the principal Italian cultural import was opera. The hegemony of Italian opera was fading at the beginning of the 19th century, the period when modern national consciousness began to emerge. In the lands of the Kingdom of Bohemia there were two layers of population as defined by language that were striving to become nations in the modern sense: Czechs and Germans. Their attitude to each other has sometimes been characterised as a “love-hate relationship”. They could not ignore each other and to a certain extent they realised that they could not do without each other; they respected each other but also slandered and envied each other. The German population had the support of the Habsburg Monarchy, while prague as a european cultural metropolis of the inter-war period WITH SUPPORT OF GOETHE-INSTITUT PRAG

VLASTA REITTEREROVÁ

1918 saw the establishment of the Cze- ism was often a major advantage. Czech and opera lost the Estates Theatre building, choslovak Republic and the positions of the poets and writers (Otokar Březina, Antonín which was occupied by the Czechs. Music two language groups were reversed. Sova, Vilém Mrštík) had in fact already been could still claim the hall of the Municipal Czechs had gradually come to feel during translated by Prague German writers (Franz House, which had been opened in 1911, the 19th century that they were living in Werfel, Otto Pick, Max Brod, Paul Eisner, and the hall of the Lucerna Palace (1912), a state that had been “imposed” on them. Erich A. Saudek) and so entered European but neither had acoustics or facilities suit- Now the German population of the republic literary consciousness together with their able for symphonic concerts. increasingly felt the same way. Before they German colleagues, Richard Dehmel, Rain- had been Austrians, but now they were er M. Rilke, the French poetes maudits or Modern or National? Czech Germans. As early as 1926 the Ger- the Russian Symbolists. Modern Czech man politician Rudolf Lodgman von Auen architecture exploited its contacts with the This was a question to which an answer would speak in the Czechoslovak parlia- Viennese modernists Otto Wagner and Karl was constantly sought throughout the inter- ment of the “oppressed nation” of the Ger- Loos (Josef Gočár, Vlastislav Hofman and war period. The development of Czech mans in Czechoslovakia, using just the others) and we could present a whole range music was conditioned by the proclaimed same terms as the Czechs had once of similar examples. programme of “De-Germanification”, which employed when complaining about their The life of music and the fate of public meant not just the “Czechification” of insti- position in the Habsburg Monarchy. Art and cultural buildings in Prague were interlinked. tutions and organisations (so that those that culture represented an important element in Soon after the establishment of the repub- had remained bilingual now became Czech this polarity, because art reacts to the situa- lic, music lost an important home when the or German), but also a definitive parting of tion of the day and also helps to create the Rudolfinum concert hall was turned into the the ways with . In no field was Prague social climate. Czechoslovak Parliament. The Czech Phil- to remain a mere provincial town overshad- It is not easy to say which areas of art harmonic, the German Kammermusikverein owed by Vienna. The aim was distinctive, were the most important for the cultural ori- and the German Singverein also lost the self-sufficient Czech music, which should entation of the new republic. In art, bilingual- roofs over their heads. The German theatre honour the tradition built up in the 19th cen-

12 | theme | czech music 2 | 2006 among Czechs the develop- ment of cultural self-confi- dence was increasingly accom- panied by a new goal – a nation-state of their own. The relationship between Czechs and Germans was ever more expressed in terms of politics and enacted on the political stage. In the cultural field their relationships was charac- terised by much that we are today trying to identify and explore anew. There is no unambiguous answer, howev- er, to the question of whether Czech, German and Jewish cul- ture existed in parallel to each other, whether they formed iso- Left to right: Václav Štěpán, Otakar Ostrčil, Max Brod and Erwin Schulhoff lated islands or co-operated. (by Hugo Boettinger, 1926) tury but at the same time strive to develop in many more small booklets were published words, which was explained by its first edi- ways that stood the test of international independently (it cannot be said that they tor Felix Adler: “It truly is just an upbeat, comparison. The now Czech Germans, who have been fully replaced today by the possi- a gathering of spiritual and physical lived mainly in the peripheral territories of bilities of the internet, especially not for strength.” Adler went on to formulate the Bohemia and Moravia, the Sudetenland, future historians). In 1920 the magazine magazine’s purpose: “Der Auftakt aspires to also endeavoured to create an autonomous Listy Hudební matice (Music Foundation be modern. This does not mean that it sub- music that would represent not just a lin- News) (from its 9th year renamed Tempo) scribes to some particular movement and guistically defined group but a distinctive replaced the printed organ of the Umělecká will blindly serve partisan interests. To be nation. It should be remembered, however, beseda (Arts Association), Hudební revue modern means to be prepared, and we are that in the 1920s the term “Sudeten Ger- (Music Review). The magazine aimed to be prepared.” From the 9/10 double issue in mans” meant the entire German population non-partisan, and capture the „ferment and the first year the editorship was in the hands of the country (including German-speaking strivings of contemporary composers of Erich Steinhard and under his direction Jews) – and so the term peripheral had [excluding] history and everything not con- Der Auftakt became a journal with a highly a double meaning, territorial and cultural, nected with contemporary movements in expert content. Over the next eighteen years and only with the rise of fascism did it music“. The very first issue carried an essay it critically monitored all the important phe- acquire a fateful political subtext. by Alois Hába (see CM 3/2005) on The nomena in modern music in the Czech and The young generation of Czech musi- Development of Music Composition and German cultural environments of the Cze- cians felt that they could not rely merely on Theory with Respect to Diatonic, Chromatic choslovak Republic, and abroad. It was the the work of the founding fathers, but in the and the Quarter-Tone System and an article official journal of the German music-educa- midst of euphoria provoked by the achieve- by Egon Wellesz on Music of Our Time. The tional association (Deutscher musik-päda- ment of independence and awareness of editor of the magazine Boleslav Vomáčka gogischer Verband) founded in 1919, which the new possibilities, there were voices that argued that there was a stagnation of devel- was an important institution of German warned against anarchy and chaos. On the opment caused not just by the war but by musical life in the republic. So important, in one hand we can find signs of over-confi- the period itself, which had brought a “new fact, that in the latter half of the 1930s it dence and on the other strongly critical orientation, but also disorientation“, affect- became an instrument of Sudeten German voices that found Czech music lacking in ing even the greatest composers. As exam- nationalism. In 1938 Erich Steinhard was any conspicuous new achievement. The ples he adduces Vítězslav Novák and Josef removed from his editorship (he perished in musical life of inter-war Prague was very Suk, from whom great things were expected the concentration camp in Chelm by Łodź in closely bound up with musical journalism, but from whom nothing great had yet been 1942), Der Auftakt was suspended and its which was much more significant in terms of forthcoming. Vomáčka saw that the crisis place taken by the nationalist Musikblätter quantity and diversity of views than it is was universal but “the irresolute programme der Sudetendeutschen. today. In the years 1920–1938 as many as of Vincent d’Indy, Arnold Schönberg and thirty Czech and ten German music journals Richard Strauss offers no way out”. He put Quantity and Quality were published (a ratio that corresponds to great hope in Czech composers who were the actual population ratio of the two lan- managing to hold out against Artism and he The articles of Prague music critics and guage groups). Naturally not all of them hoped that a composer would appear who journalists in the inter-war period often raise came out for the whole two decades, some would signpost a genuine new direction. the question of the contradiction between were very short-lived and so were de facto Vomáčka’s words were essentially a call for the great quantity of music being composed only bulletins for societies, but nonetheless a new leading personality, a kind of Bedřich and its quality. Thus for example in the first the possibilities of music journalism were Smetana for the 20th century. issue of Auftakt we read the following: “It much greater than before or since. In the The year 1920 also saw the founding of would be hard to find a city where there is daily press too (Czech and German), musi- the Czech Germans’ music magazine Der as much music as in Prague. There are two cal life was given a great deal of space and Auftakt (The Upbeat). The title was a play on here, the duel of the competing

czech music 2 | 2006 | theme | 13 orchestras ought to be ensuring that the lis- vak culture, while at the same time standing im Traum]. As a composer Erwin Schulhoff, tener is the winner, there is a large range of up to Nazi propaganda, since he deliberate- otherwise a versatile pianist and one of the , choirs, famous and less ly organised his Prague Musical May as first performers of pieces for the quarter- famous musicians beating at the doors of a kind of opposition to the German Musical tone piano, caused constant surprise with the concert halls..., and yet for anyone who Weeks (Deutsche Musikwoche). After the his wanderings between styles. is expecting spiritual inspiration and enrich- war, the heir and continuer of Talich’s Musi- Between the wars the Prague Conser- ment from public concert life, it is as if there cal Mays was to be the Prague Spring Festi- vatory attracted young musicians from all were nothing here at all. Above all what is val. the countries of the former Yugoslavia, as lacking is joy in experimentation, and a bor- Vítězslav Novák and Josef Suk were well as students from , Lithuania, ing conservatism prevails instead. We hear among the greatest authorities in musical the Ukraine, and also and elsewhere. the same thing again and again ad nause- life in the inter-war period, above all in their They were drawn not just by material con- am. [...] Modern Prague musical life strives capacities as professors of composition at siderations (inter-war Prague was relatively ever more for quantitative records, while the Prague Conservatory. In Novák’s case cheap), but above all by the international real artistic achievement cuts no ice – either we can speak of a whole school of composi- atmosphere of the city. Among in the opera or in the concert hall. And the tion (among his pupils was the greatest Hába’s Czech pupils, those who most value of the Czech crown has done its work, experimenter of his generation Alois Hába, notably matured under his musical and per- burying artistic morality.” As we can see, composer of the only full-length quarter- sonal influence included the composer and laments over the rise of commerce and tone opera, Matka [The Mother], premiered pianist Karel Reiner, and the later world- transformation of art into a commodity are in 1931 in Munich). Suk’s class also repre- famous conductor Karel Ančerl (for the so not just a phenomenon of today. sented a strong generation in the develop- called Hába school, see CM 3/2005). The The musical life of the first twenty years ment not only of Czech music, but music German Music Academy also won interna- of the republic was also characterised by all throughout Europe. The third Czech figure tional renown with its excellent teaching kinds of polemics and disputes, often quite of international importance in Prague at this body, which included at various points trivial in character and not infrequently pure- period was Josef Bohuslav Foerster, an Alexander Zemlinsky, the pianist Konrad ly a matter of personal antipathies. Immedi- admirer and friend of Gustav Mahler, who Ansorge, the violinist Henri Marteau, and ately after the proclamation of the republic after many years in Hamburg and Vienna the outstanding singing teacher Konrad the critic and Charles University Professor returned to Prague in 1919. Their pupils – Wallerstein. Zdeněk Nejedlý (who was to become notori- Ladislav Vycpálek, Emil František Burian ous after the 2nd existing on a voluntary, (see CM 4/2004), Jaroslav Ježek, Karel The International Dimension amateur basis were not spared acrimonious Boleslav Jirák, Iša Krejčí, Pavel Bořkovec disputes. Unfortunately these were not and many others – were very diverse in After 1918 Czech music had an abun- always purely musical disputes, for in the terms of temperament and stylistic direc- dant supply of repertoire (the musicologist context of the time they became ever more tion. Of course, a further two composers Vladimír Helfert counted as many as fifty bound up with political issues. On the other (although widely differing in age) are today viable original Czech operas), including hand, the quarrels always showed a level of generally considered to be among the most a vast amount of chamber and vocal pieces. genuine interest in musical questions that important figures in Czech music of the Suk was becoming an acclaimed composer sometimes seems sadly absent today. Inter-war period, and these are Leoš of symphonies, while Novák already had Janáček and Bohuslav Martinů. Their lives major symphonic poems and cantatas to his Leading Protagonists in Inter-War Musi- and music had little to do with Prague, how- name. The stagnation of which they were cal Prague ever, since Janáček was based in Brno and accused should be understood in the con- had to wait a long time for any kind of text of surrounding developments that put In the first year of Auftakt H. R. Fleis- recognition in the capital, while Martinů a high value on experiment. In this sense the chmann, in an article on Expressionist lived in Paris from 1923. Nonetheless, their work of the Czech Germans appeared more music, wrote that “in Prague Czech and works were included in Prague concert pro- audacious in the 1920s. The Czech Ger- German artists work side by side in the ser- grammes and formed a yardstick by which mans had no inhibitions when it came to vice of new music”. Here he still uses to measure the others. adopting the example of Arnold Schönberg, a small “n” for “new”, although in fact Der Among the Prague Germans a genera- whose Society for the Private Performance Auftakt was to be one of the first journals in tion was growing up with the potential to of Music (Verein für musikalische Privatauf- which the term New Music with a capital represent modern Czecholsovak art. In führungen) had its own branch in Prague, “N” (Neue Musik) was employed to denote 1919 Schönberg’s pupil Viktor Ullmann and when this ceased to exist its role in pro- a stylistic orientation. Fleischmann identified moved to Prague, immediately attracting moting German Modernism was taken by Alexander Zemlinsky as the leading person- attention as a choirmaster and conductor the Literary-Artistic Society (Literarisch-kün- ality among German musicians in Prague, (for example he rehearsed a Prague perfor- stlerischer Verein). Yet if the Czechs were and Josef Suk as his equivalent among mance of Schönberg’s giant work Gurre- rather treading water when it came to the Czechs. As the head of the opera of the Lieder in 1921). He introduced himself as orientation of their own work in accordance New German Theatre [Neues deutsches a composer in March 1923 with Seven with the rather vaguely formulated slogan of Theater] in the years 1911–1927, Alexander Songs [Sieben Lieder] (today lost), which – “being modern, but remaining themselves”, Zemlinsky had made a strong mark not only according to a review from Oskar Baum in the problem at least inspired them to all the on the profile of this particular company, but the Prager Presse – were the “special sen- more feverish efforts on the level of organi- on Prague musical life in general. With the sation of the evening”, and in 1929 he won sation and propagation. And here, of theatre’s orchestra he held concert cycles, international praise with his Variations on course, we mean those Czechs who did not the May Festivals (Májové hry – Mai-Fest- Schönberg [Schönberg-Variationen] in accept the slogan of “de-Germanification” spiele), in which he was taking up an idea Geneva. Hans Krása caught public interest as a dogma, but realised that if young Cze- proposed by his predecessor Angel Neu- in 1921 with his op. 1, Orchestral choslovak art was to achieve recognition mann – the same idea that Václav Talich Grotesques with Accompanying Sung Part beyond the frontiers of the state, it would was to pick up in 1939 when he organised [Orchestergrotesken mi begleitender have to give up nationalist squabbles and the Prague, and then in later years (up to Singstimme] on the texts of Christian Mor- stand up for the principle of tolerance, 1943) Czech Musical May. With this festival genstern’s Gallows Songs [Galgenlieder]. which was in any case a principle historical- Talich was identifying with all that was fine In 1934 he was awarded a Czechoslovak ly native to the Bohemian Lands. Cze- in the legacy that its German inhabitants State Prize for his opera based on Fyodor choslovak musicians responded immediate- had left to Prague, and indeed Czechoslo- Dostoyevsky’s Dream Betrothal [Verlobung ly to the founding of the International Soci-

14 | theme | czech music 2 | 2006 Alexander Zemlinsky

Hans Krása

Viktor Ullmann ety for Contemporary Music (ISCM) in try represented in the Imperial Council of 1922. The rapidly established Czechoslo- -, music was in fact the only vak Section of the ISCM had two subsec- means of expression that could not be regi- tions, one Czechoslovak (or in fact Czech, mented by any decrees or regulations. It because Slovak music appeared at the soci- expressed the spirit and thought of the peo- ety’s festival for the first time in 1935), and ple without obstacles. [...] Music has always one German – but externally it acted as been the daily bread of the Czech at home a unified state section and was perceived and his cultural passport abroad. Wedged as such. In 1923 Alois Hába returned to between East and West, platonically sympa- Prague from studies in Berlin and Vienna thising with the French, kin by blood and and stirred up the still waters of Prague race to the Russians, surrounded and satu- musical life like a real pike in a fishpond. In rated in the German spirit, Czech music has 1924 Prague became for the first time an managed to draw from the well-springs of its organiser city for the ISCM international fes- own folk spirit the distinctive elements of tival (its orchestral section) and in the fol- modern musical creation. So far music has F. Finke lowing year it hosted the festival again. In never failed. It has never wished to serve as 1924 the festival was held as part of the an underling, but has always helped the peo- celebrations for the 100th anniversary of the ple to attain their ideals.” And Erich Stein- birth of Bedřich Smetana, and in this way hard in his article on German music in Czechoslovak art succeeded in showing the Bohemia in the same brochure remarked that possibility of combining tradition with mod- “although it is flowering in the border areas of ern directions. It also showed national toler- the nation, in some talents it is still showing ance when the New German Theatre pre- marked distinctive features.“ Among these tal- sented Alexander Zemlinsky’s production of ents he names Fidelio Finke, Erwin Schulhoff, Smetana’s The Dove as well as the world Hans Krása, Viktor Ullmann, Erich Korngold premiere of Schönberg’s Erwatung, and and a number of others that are today nothing presented its own idea of what constituted more than names. Nazism and racial theory modern music: the festival included perfor- not only separated them from Czechs, but mance of Smetana’s 2nd String Quartet also created a fissure in their own linguistic and his unfinished Prague Carnival but also community. the first ever presentation of a quarter-tone Fidelio Friedrich Finke was a pupil of piano, built to Alois Hába’s design by the Vítězslav Novák’s. After the Prague Conser- August Förster company. vatory had been turned into a Czech institu- In the festival brochure Jan Löwenbach tion he became professor of composition wrote that, “While Bohemia was still a coun- and later rector of the German Academy of

czech music 2 | 2006 | theme | 15 Music and Theatre Art [Deutsche Akademie Gesellschaft für Musikerziehung] was tioned above, and the Urania educational für Musik und darstellende Kunst] founded founded in 1934. Its moving spirit was Leo society. Both the higher music schools (the in 1919. He remained in this post up to Kestenberg, a native of Ružomberok in Slo- State Conservatory and the German Acade- 1945, i.e. even after the academy was vakia and from 1929 a councillor of the my) organised series of concerts, and of changed into the Higher Institute of Music Prussian Ministry for , Art and course there was a whole range of active [Hochschulinstitut für Musik] attached to Public Education [Ministerium für Wis- music associations, choirs and ensembles the German University [Deutsche Univer- senschaft, Kunst und Volksbildung], who organising concert life. sität] and subordinated to the Reich in was then fired from his post in 1933 for It is worth considering the way the Ger- 1940. From the mid-1930s he was increas- racial reasons and settled temporarily in man pianist and music journalist Ernst ingly drawn into the net of politics, which of Prague. The first congress of this society Latzko, who had also been involved in course it was hard for him to avoid given his also took place in Prague, to great acclaim Prague musical life, summed up the situa- senior position. He continued to associate in 1936. tion in an article for the Tempo journal in with Czech musicians, for which he was pil- As far as promoting and disseminating 1938. He wrote that, “The Czechs rightly loried in the German press, while the music is concerned, we should also remem- sees in music one of the most precious of Czechs branded him Henlein’s lackey pro ber the role of broadcasting, launched his national possessions and so overlooks because he attended a lecture by Konrad in Prague in 1923. In 1925 the ground was no opportunity of placing it in the services of Henlein (although he may well have had no prepared for the establishment of a radio national sentiment. A foreigner may see choice but to attend). In 1938 he chaired orchestra that soon became well-known and a certain danger in this approach and can- a congress of the Music Teachers’ Associa- started to give its own concerts (its conduc- not help but think that apart from The tion, where he expressed his support for tors included Otakar Pařík and Otakar Bartered Bride, My Country, the New World Henlein’s nationalist policy. In the last two Jeremiáš, for example). In 1934, yet another Symphony and a number of other, often years of the war, however, his position as orchestra was born to take its place along- repeated works, there are many more jewels rector became ever shakier, the Nazis side the and Radio in the Czech treasury that deserve more regarded him as unreliable and he lost any Orchestra: this was the FOK Symphony attention than they have so far attracted.” He kind of practical influence. After 1945 he Orchestra (Prague Symphony Orchestra; himself was personally acquainted with the was expelled in the mass transfer of Ger- see CM 3/2004). Naturally, in any survey of contemporary Czech musical generation mans to . He settled in Dresden, orchestral life in Prague we should also and could therefore go on, “The first impres- got involved in politics even there and at the include the orchestras of both opera hous- sion is of richness and diversity, an undeni- price of further ideological volte-faces es, the National Theatre and the New Ger- able instinct for musicianship, and in the became a prominent composer in the Ger- man Theatre, and the orchestra of the interpretation of foreign works a preference man Democratic Republic. Fortunately there Prague Conservatory. for feeling and temperament at the expense were enough people remaining in Czecho- of style and tradition.” He expresses great slovakia who knew and understood the situ- Music Societies admiration for the standard of Czech perfor- ation, and were aware, for example, that mance (orchestras, choirs, chamber ensem- under the Protectorate it was Finke who had As has already been suggested, the bles), considered that more Janáček operas ensured that the decree banning Czech young generation of Czech composers should be staged in Prague(!) and is not higher schools and universities (which could made up for a certain lack of definition in entirely satisfied with the standard of stage have threatened his master school) was not their own work by eager efforts on the level performances “especially when the stage enforced and that its collection of musical of organisation. The 1920s saw a positive has a distinguished orchestra, excellent instruments was not confiscated. avalanche in the founding of music societies choir and range of distinguished soloists at A sadder and even more absurd fate and Czechoslovakia did not lag behind. In its disposal.“ He appreciates the enormous was in store for Finke’s colleague Theodor 1920 the Czech Spolek pro moderní hudbu importance of the music department of the Veidl, the first recipient of the Czechoslovak [Society for Modern Music] was formed on radio, then headed by Karel Boleslav Jirák, State Prize for Opera (1929); he died in the initiative of Vítězslav Novák, and after and praised the excellent orchestra con- Terezín after it had been changed at the end 1922 it also de facto represented the ducted by Otakar Jeremiáš and the choir led of the war into a reception camp for Ger- Czech part of the Czechoslovak section of by Jan Kühn. He pays tribute to the Czech mans awaiting expulsion, which meant that the ISCM. 1924 saw the founding of anoth- public too, which “is never blasé, has he died absurdly in the place to which other er Czech society, Přítomnost [The Present]. unusual musical gifts, and gives precedence creators of the Czech German musical cul- Some people were involved in both soci- to musical enjoyment and imagination over ture between the wars, a culture that had eties, which sometimes complemented each critical reason”. And from this characterisa- sought to be united, had been sent under other in concert activities and sometimes tion he draws a conclusion that – consider- different conditions: the Jewish composers competed. In 1927, for example, the Society ing he was a German – is remarkable. Viktor Ullmann and Hans Krása among oth- for Modern Music presented “This naive way of listening corresponds ers. (Veidl’s opera The Small-Towners [Die Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale with Dutch to the naivety of Czech music and the for- Kleinstädter] was staged again in the guests, and then in 1931 Přítomnost pre- eigner who compares both with the more autumn of 2005 as a joint production by the sented the same piece with a complete self-critical and reflective method of Ger- Theatre in Regensburg and the Prague Czech line-up and in Czech. In the man music arrives at the conclusion that the National Theatre. On the 18th of March 1930s Alois Hába took over the decisive competition between the two cultures and 2006 a plaque commemorating Veidl was role in running Přítomnost and under his mentalities, which are so different but at the unveiling at the Church in his native village vice-presidency and later presidency the same time border on each other and inter- of Vysočany u Žatce – one of only three society’s programme became very diverse sect, must necessarily bring forth the most buildings that remained of a village buried and adventurous, involving foreign com- beautiful fruit.” by the waste material from the Tušimice posers and soloists, monothematic power station. evenings, and evenings of new pieces The End of Co-existence Another testament to the international played from manuscript scores. Another character of inter-war Prague, and its open- Czech society that organised evenings of Latzko’s words fell on a ground already ness to everything new and its democratic new chamber music was the Hudební being trampled under the boots of German spirit – especially in the period of the grow- skupina Mánesa [Mánes Music Group], nationalists, and their seeds could never ing threat of Nazism – was the fact that it attached to the Mánes association of fine germinate. After 1933, when Prague was here that the International Society for arts. Prominent among the German soci- became a transitional place of exile for many Musical Education [Internationale eties were the Literary-Artistic Society men- artists fleeing from Hitler’s Germany, the co-

16 | theme | czech music 2 | 2006 operation between Czech and German Variations (I have just played them for the come for the premiere, and there was no sec- artists had deepened further than in the ear- first time and I shall be playing them in San ond performance. The reaction of the Ger- ly years of the republic. In 1937 the New Francisco, and London – they man nationalist press had been unambigu- German Theatre, which was increasingly take 22 minutes). I would also like to offer ous. The New German Theatre was con- a thorn in the flesh of the more nationalistic you the first performance of five small songs signed to oblivion, and its activities ended at Germans, presented Otakar Ostrčil’s opera on texts by Franz Kafka, I have three of them almost the same moment that the agreement Honzovo království [Honza’s Kingdom] ready now. They will be about 6 – 8 minutes for the cession of the Czechoslovak border- (see CM 3/2004), a strongly anti-militarist long. They would probably need a voice like lands to Germany was signed at Munich. work, and in it last complete season, in June Frau Nessy, since they are relatively difficult. A year later Czechoslovakia was occupied by 1938, the world premiere of Ernst If you would like them, would a radio broad- Hitler’s forces. The invasion by Greater Ger- Křenek’s Charles V, an idealistic dream of cast be possible? Financially it would come man “Culture” meant the end of co-existence a united Europe. By that time the composer in very handy for me. I would be very happy between the two language cultures in had already found exile in the United States, if it worked out, because then at last would Bohemia and Moravia, a co-existence that having fled from Austria after the Anschluss have another chance to play you some prop- had not always been free of problems, but in March. In 1937 he had written to Alois er music!” (Julie Nessy-Bächer was had always been mutually inspiring. Hába from Hollywood, saying, “As you a harpist and singer who had emigrated to know, I am coming to the premiere of the USA to escape from Nazism) Charles V in May – at least I hope it will take The date of the premiere of place. On that occasion might I play at a Pří- Křenek’s opera was shifted back to the very tomnost concert? I would like to play my end of the season. Ernst Křenek did not causa wozzeck 1926

JITKA LUDVOVÁ WITH SUPPORT OF GOETHE-INSTITUT PRAG

A great deal has already been written about the Prague pre- miere of Alban Berg’s opera Wozzeck at the Czech National Theatre in 1926. Organised disturbances at the third night of the opera on the 16th of November meant that the perfor- mance could not be finished and led to an official ban on fur- ther performances. The scandal provoked counter-protests by writers, artists and musicians in Prague, and the unfin- ished performance became a warning example in later debate on restrictions of freedom of artistic expression. The whole episode is very well documented in the literature, but hither- to attention has centred mainly on the immediate events sur- rounding the premiere in November, and these are treated as I. a kind of unique and unprecedented explosion resisting easy For Czech society, towards the end of the 19th century theatre, particularly opera had explanations. The affair around Wozzek was not, however, the become one of the chief symbols of modern first theatrical storm to involve street disturbances and national revival and embodied the Czech aspirations to lift Czech culture out of long- demonstrations. Prague’s public life, divided by permanent term decline and onto the same level as its nationalist tension and dissension into separate Czech and large European neighbours. The National German camps that were nonetheless closely related through Theatre had taken thirty years to build, and was financed partly from public collections individual relationships between artists, was a fertile seedbed among the Czech population and partly by for conflict that could all too easily erupt over opera and the- the central authorities. It was opened in the autumn of 1881, almost immediately atre. destroyed in a fire but then rebuilt within two years. For the quarter of a million Czechs living in Prague it was not just an object of national pride, but also a prime instrument in the political struggle to obtain

czech music 2 | 2006 | theme | 17 forth had to share buildings with Czech companies. Even before the end of the war, representatives of Czech theatre and opera, and politicians, had been expressing scepti- cism about the prospects for Prague Ger- man theatrical life in the future Czechoslo- vak state. Some Czech artists went consid- erably further than the Czechoslovak gov- ernment, which did not in fact wish to curtail the cultural development of the German population in the new state. Radical anti- German speeches by artists and deliberate provocation on the part of the press led to mass response that the police were unable to control.

The theatre-related event with the greatest political implications was the forcible Czech Alban Berg takeover of the Estates Theatre, carried out on the 16th of November 1920 by a group of Czech actors and legionaries supported by several parliamentary deputies. The Otakar Ostrčil Estates Theatre was incorporated into the National Theatre and the authorities de fac- to accepted the violent approach that had a better position for Czechs within the (i.e. including Czech-German) Society, been adopted. The actual takeover had framework of the Austro-Hungarian monar- founded in 1905, but the collaborative been preceded by a campaign lasting more chy. approach of the musicians in this affair was than a year in the Czech newspapers and the exception in the general atmosphere of the pressure of Czech deputies in parlia- German theatre enjoyed a different status. It nationalist tension. Most of the Czech news- ment. The immediate trigger for the action had an unbroken history in Prague dating papers continued to slander the Prague was the Czech-German conflict in Cheb the from the 17th century, and use of German German stage and print articles wondering day before. On the 16th of November made it a permanent part of the European- whether a proper Czech ought to go to Ger- unidentified organisers called an anti-Ger- wide network of German . Many man performances at all. The German opera man demonstration on Wenceslas Square; more foreigners were involved in it than was criticised for not playing Czech works, egged on by sloganeering, the crowd then domestic artists, and the domestic public although this of course was partly based on set off for the Estates Theatre and eight was also small; it played for the mere agreement for the division of repertoire actors and legionaries occupied it. Violent 40.000 German inhabitants of Prague. The made between the two directors. For their street elements joined the original core of official German stage in Bohemia was the part most of the German papers ignored the demonstration and several hundred peo- Estates Theatre (from 1783), while since Czech cultural life and had no qualms about ple ransacked the editorial offices of the 1888 what was known as the New German printing comments on the superiority of German newspapers, Bohemia and Prager Theatre (today the State Opera), built by pri- German to Slav culture. Tagblatt. The very next day, the 17th of vate money, had also been running. When November, a synagogue in after 1880 the German deputies in the par- The First World War opened up a large Prague’s Vinohrady district was attacked. liament requested a subsidy for the new space for propaganda in which nationalistic The nationalist pogrom took place under the building, the issue became part of a bitter passions were turned against other nations slogan “theatre of the Czech nation”. political battle in which the obstructive tac- as well. After the announcement of a state tics of the Czech deputies, supported by of war between Austria and , the cam- Most leading figures in the cultural and the Czech public, twice prevented the grant paign against Italian opera spread from Ger- political world, like most of the press, finally of state support for the building of the Ger- many to German Prague. “Do we need Ital- distanced themselves from the extreme con- man theatre. All this took place against the ian opera?” asked the music critic of the sequences of this event, but the police background of impassioned and none too German paper Bohemia on the 23rd of May hardly intervened at all. A court too con- fastidious press campaigns that kept up the 1915. He reminded his readers of the patriot- firmed the validity of the transfer of the the- level of nationalist fervour on both sides. On ic aspects of the work of Richard Wagner atre into Czech hands, especially since dur- the other hand, however, the two theatres, and proposed that the “worthless and artisti- ing the court hearing street hoodlums Czech and German, were capable of a high cally antiquated” Italian works be expunged threatened to destroy the theatre building if degree of co-operation and their directors from repertoire, although a few operas by it was “returned to the Germans”, and the were on friendly professional terms. Verdi and Rossini might be allowed to stay. government ultimately found unofficial ways of compensating the German directors for In the last decade of the 19th century, At the end of the 1st World War, with the the damages they had suffered. It was in nationalist street conflicts escalated in the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy this context of recurrent explosions of struggle over Czech-German constitutional and proclamation of an independent Cze- nationalist tension that preparations were rights and culminated in 1897 when martial choslovak Republic, Czech-German con- made to present a difficult modern opera by law was imposed in Prague. Both Czech flicts were then to take very acute and visi- a German composer in the Czech National and German anti-semites became active ble forms directly related to theatre, as well Theatre. and publicly visible. Events surrounding the- as other issues. On the 28th of October atre acquired aspects of social tension 1918 a number of German theatres built in II. when in January 1901 the orchestra of the the 19th century by towns and their German The work of Georg Büchner (1813–1837), National Theatre went on strike and in Octo- theatrical companies, for example in an author discovered at the turn of the ber 1907 the orchestra of the German the- Liberec, Olomouc and Brno (see the article 19th/20th century, was well known in atre followed suit. The German orchestra by T. Pávová), were confiscated and handed Prague after the 1st World War. In 1921 he strike was even backed by the All-Austrian over to Czech companies, or at least hence- had even been the subject of a doctoral the-

18 | theme | czech music 2 | 2006 © Bohemia Piano

Prague Wozzeck scenography, seventh act - the street

sis by Gerhard Schulz at the Prague Ger- Berg’s opera. The answer is fairly obviously man University. The Prague German theatre that he no longer had enough energy for undoubtedly noticed the premier of Büchn- such a demanding project. He was in his fif- er’s drama Dantons Tod in 1910 in Ham- teenth season of work in Prague, was tired burg, the premiere of the romantic comedy of the unending fight to preserve the exis- Leonce und Lena in 1911 in Vienna, and the tence of the theatre, no longer had his for- performance of the fragment of Wozzek in mer authority with the company and was Munich in November 1913, followed by its planning his departure to Berlin. It would be Vienna premiere on the 5th of May 1914 in no surprise if it were ever established that the small Residenzbühne. In 1916 Hans he himself negotiated on the Prague pro- Demetz, a young man scarcely twenty- duction of Wozzek with the head of the years-old, was appointed repertory director opera of the Czech National Theatre Otakar Novák as Wozzeck Václav at the German theatre company in Prague. Ostrčil, with whom he was on friendly terms. He devoted a special repertoire series to Zemlinsky was well aware of the high stan- probably changed his mind only after the Expressionist drama (Kammerspiele), dard of the Czech opera company, and performance of the fragments of the opera. including, on the 4th of October 1920, could well have seen it as a better guaran- He had already decided to stage it in the a production of Büchner’s Wozzek in the tee for the quality of the production at that autumn of 1925, and attended a reprise Estates Theatre. At almost the same time particularly juncture. performance in Berlin. He was well aware the Czech Revoluční scéna (Revolutionary that the premiere had aroused mixed Theatre Company), one of many short-lived In any case, the main architects of the world responses and dramatically contradictory post-war companies, presented its own pro- premiere of Wozzek, which took place in reviews. He must have anticipated that duction of Wozzek. In 1921 the Prague City Berlin on the 14th of December 1925, were reactions would be similar in Prague. Theatre at Královské Vinohrady, an ambi- well acquainted with the Czech music tious Czech company that competed with scene. The conductor Erich Kleiber had Problems arose immediately during the first the National Theatre company, staged studied at the Prague Conservatory, in the rehearsals, when the orchestra of the Büchner’s Danton’s Death. In 1923 the play years 1909–1912 had been conductor at National Theatre refused to play the difficult was also produced at the Prague German the Prague German theatre, and came back parts, demanded that the opera be with- Theatre, which included the comedy Leonce on occasion as guest conductor of the drawn from repertoire and adopted a policy und Lena in the same year. Czech Philharmonic. Together with Zemlin- of passive resistance. The members of the sky, the director Franz Ludwig Hörth had orchestra failed to keep quiet about their As far as Berg’s opera was concerned, on staged Wagner’s tetralogy Der Ring des views even outside the theatre and so the 19th of April 1925 three scenes (Drei Nibelungen with the German opera in encouraged a negative public climate of Bruchstücke), which the composer had Prague in 1923 and 1924 and had certainly opinion. At first the soloists were equally extracted from his work for separate treat- exploited the chance to visit the National unenthusiastic, fearing that the parts would ment, were presented in concert form in Theatre. It is well-known that Otakar Ostrčil damage their voices, and it was only as Prague. They were performed by the had some reservations about Kleiber’s Ber- rehearsals progressed and the hard work orchestra of the German theatre under its lin production, but he could definitely have bore fruit that they became less suspicious. conductor Alexander Zemlinsky, who gave drawn on the experience of the Berlin con- Even before the premiere, a brochure from a second performance of the pieces on the ductor and director through personal con- the Universal Edition publishing house 20th of May at the Prague festival of the tact. reprinting the positive and negative reviews ISCM. Zemlinsky was a friend of Berg’s and of the Berlin premiere was in circulation in was undoubtedly the moving force behind On a first acquaintance with the piano Prague, and the sensation-hungry Czech the choice. It is reasonable to ask why he reduction of Wozzek in 1924, Ostrčil was press started a negative campaign. Alban did not try to put on the whole of by no means taken with the work, and he Berg turned up in Prague before the 7th of

czech music 2 | 2006 | theme | 19 November so that he could be present for III. miere of Wozzek, the dissatisfied letters of the final preparations, and on the 11th of Three basic questions immediately arise respected and well-known citizens, mirrored November the curtain rose on the premiere. when we look at these events: Who initiated the horizons that the National Theatre had and carried out the whole action, against been providing for its audiences. “We According to the first reports in Czech and whom was it directed, and what was sup- demand our money back for this piece, for it German newspapers, the Prague produc- posed to be the result? The vandalism was was a bore and not entertainment,“ wrote tion, attended by a Czech and German audi- definitely not provoked from inside artistic one offended theatre-goer, and it is easy ence, went much as could have been circles, even though many Czech com- enough to see his point of view.. expected. The performances were of a high posers did not approve of Berg’s music. standard and the composer was satisfied. Expert opinions on the opera differed in It was on these voices of the middle-of-the- Enthusiastic applause alternating with angry Prague just as they did in Berlin. Some road and poorly informed public of the whistles and other expressions of distaste reviewers were enthusiastic, while others National Theatre that the initiators of the sounded from the auditorium and during the expressed major doubts, and disliked both scandal relied. Immediately after the pre- interval the audience loudly exchanged Berg’s unusual composition techniques and miere the Czech right-wing daily Národní opinions on the pavement. The overall the brutality of the subject matter. There listy published a piece under the title “In the response to the evening was favourable, was nothing peculiar about these reactions. Service of Foreigners”, in which it accused however, and a substantial part of the audi- It was also to be expected that the Prague the National Theatre of letting works by con- ence realised that they were encountering German cultural community would have temporary Czech composers wait for perfor- an extraordinary work of music. By pure more understanding for the opera than the mance, while undertaking “costly experi- chance a sad event occurred that was later Czechs. This was not only because of the ments with foreign rubbish“. The extreme abundantly exploited by the press – during nationality of the composer; the Prague right-wing Czech newspapers were writing the performance, offstage, a high official of German public had simply had more con- about the “decadent opera of a German the city authorities suddenly died of heart tact with bleak and unconventional modern Jew”, using just the same vocabulary that failure at the age of sixty-six. opera and drama and was therefore more the German National Socialist Party would inclined to accept them. Of course, the Ger- be using ten years later against „entartete The second performance took place without man theatre audiences had a strong conser- Kunst“. It was pure chance that the attack incident, but rumours were already going vative middle-of-the-road element too, and on Wozzek happened six years to the pre- round that “something” was being organ- such people reacted with outrage to new cise day after the fanaticised crowd had tak- ised for the third performance on the 16th work. For example in May 1920 the public en over the German Estates Theatre, but it of November, which was the first perfor- was sharply divided at the premiere of was no accident that the target was a Ger- mance for subscribers. On the fateful day Hasenclever’s drama Die Menschen, while man work and that the arguments used there was no sign of trouble until the sec- at the end of February 1925 the directorate were extreme nationalist ones. The events in ond act, and the entrance of the choir of preferred to withdraw Ernst Toller’s comedy the theatre were inspired by the first Czech sleeping soldiers. At that moment the signal Der enfesselte Wotan from repertory, fascists, who exploited Prague’s “Gilded for the beginning of the demonstration was because its caricature of Prussian rightwing Youth” to carry out their plans. Behind the given from one of the boxes and catcalls, attitudes provoked too much controversy. banning of further performances of the whistling, trumpeting, hooting, sirens and There had also been noisy objections from opera were highly placed politicians in the general noise came from various points in some members of the German public at the Theatre Commission of the Land Adminis- the auditorium and lasted for more than half Prague premieres of other contemporary trative Committee, who saw in the scandal an hour. According to eye-witness reports German operas, such as Hundemith’s trilo- a possible way to achieve changes of per- there were no more than twenty to thirty gy Mörder, Hoffnung der Frauen, Sancta sonnel in the National Theatre and to hoodlums. The orchestra stopped playing, Susanna and Das Nusch-Nuschi in March increase their political influence on its direc- most of the audience tried to get the noise 1923, or the world premiere of tors. When the fascistic voices in the press to stop by loudly applauding over it, the cur- Schönberg’s monodrama Erwartung in June went to such offensive lengths that they pro- tain was several times brought down and 1924. Even the average German audience, voked a wave of counter protests, most of raised again, and no one knew if the pro- however, had a certain experience of new the politicians retreated. Nor was this simi- duction would continue until finally the the- trends in theatre and opera and it would larity with events after the 16th of November atre was gradually evacuated. Bunches of have been hard to exploit its reactions to 1920 pure chance either. theatre goers stayed on the pavement long provoke a public scandal. into the night in fierce discussion. The next The affair lasted for several months, but day the Land Administrative Committee, Yet a public scandal is what occurred in the actually brought little in the way of change which had jurisdiction over the National Czech theatre. To understand what hap- to the life of the National Theatre. While Theatre, met and decided to ban further per- pened we have to bear in mind that as the many who had provoked the scandal had formances into order “to prevent the abuse official Czech theatre the National Theatre hoped for the removal of Otakar Ostrčil, of the National Theatre for the purposes of “belonged to the nation” and this exception- attempts to unseat him failed, and the reper- political demonstrations”. al status tended to tie its hands as far as toire remained essentially unchanged. repertoire was concerned. It was supposed A production of Berg’s opera Wozzek was In the days that followed many articles were to maintain honour for historical traditions; staged (almost without attracting any published in the Czech papers condemning to avoid experiments, orientate itself primari- notice) in 1932 by the German Opera in the hooliganism in the theatre, and there were ly to mainstream taste and provide plenty of Brno, and then in 1935 Büchner’s original protests against the ban on further perfor- space for Czech authors and composers. Its spoken drama was put on by the Prague mances of the opera, with artistic clubs and fulfilment of these duties was overseen by German company, this time attracting associations issuing proclamations, the Czech political parties and most of the a great deal of attention in the Czech press. brochures and petitions. From every quarter Czech press. Contemporary opera was At this time Prague was experiencing of the cultural community voices were raised something with which the Czech public of a major influx of emigrants fleeing from Nazi in support of the chief of the National Theatre the National Theatre was clearly less well Germany. They were not welcomed by Otakar Ostrčil; a year later, 1927, he was acquainted than the German, even though those who had whistled ten years before in awarded a Czechoslovak state prize for the Otakar Ostrčil, chief of the opera from the auditorium of the National Theatre, but production of Wozzek on the recommenda- 1920, had included an above average num- those Germans and Czechs who back then tion of a committee of artists. The production ber of contemporary works in his repertoire. had protested against the banning of was not, however, revived at the National The protests written by subscribers to the Wozzek un the National Theatre, were ready Theatre. National Theatre to his bosses after the pre- to give them a helping hand.

20 | theme | czech music 2 | 2006 german brno

TEREZA PÁVOVÁ WITH SUPPORT OF GOETHE-INSTITUT PRAG

Until 1945 Brno was the town with the largest number of Ger- man-speaking inhabitants anywhere on the territory of what today is the Czech Republic. According to accessible sources, up to 1918 Germans constituted as much as 70% of the over- all population of Brno, and even after the establishment of the Czechoslovak Republic, when many Germans left, mainly to move to Austria while many Czechs came back from Austria, they continued to constitute almost a third. Up to 1918 it was the Germans who determined the character of Brno and the typical face of its cultural life, since the Czech element was in a minority here. In musical life, however, overlap between the two communities was far from rare. Czechs used to go to the was mainly the drama company that made the box office profits, but later operetta German opera house and Germans to Czech concerts – main- established a strong position, and was par- ly in the latter half of the 19th century, when the Czech society ticularly popular during the 1st World War.

Beseda brněnská – the Brno Arts Association, developed into German Opera and Operetta a major cultural phenomenon under the leadership of Pavel Opera began to flourish here under director Křížkovský and Leoš Janáček. There were also plenty of bridges Adolf Baumann in the years 1890–1893. Baumann concentrated on staging the between performers, with German instrumentalists and works of Richard Wagner (Rienzi, Die singers quite frequently taking part in Czech concerts, and the Walküre, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, ), but also organised an orchestras of both communities helping each other out when- important Mozart cycle that included Idome- ever necessary. neo and Cosi fan tutte and the singspiel Bastien und Bastienne, Mozart pieces rela- tively rarely performed in Bohemia. Bau- mann’s successor Andreas A. Aman, who Theatre and Opera pany on the Vienna repertoire. Before his was director until 1898, stayed with the As in the rest of the Moravian towns, in Brno departure for Vienna the capellmeister Wen- Wagnerian repertoire, adding the later parts too the theatre was among the oldest of cul- zel Müller (a native of Moravian Trnávka) of the tetralogy (Das Rheingold, Siegfried tural institutions. Its history went back to the worked in Brno, while conversely the theatre and Götterdämmerung). It was under his 17th century, although the Czech stage was director Emanuel Schikaneder astounded auspices that the Ring cycle was first very much younger, and not founded until Brno audiences with his huge theatrical staged as a whole in Brno. Aman also dis- 1884. The German theatre’s first building spectacles at the end of his career. covered the famous tenor Leo Slezak and was situated on Zelný trh. It suffered serious Towards the end of the 19th century the the baritone Rudolf Berger. The core of the fires from time to time, a common hazard of Theatre on the Zelný trh was no longer large opera repertoire continued to consist of the period, but these never interrupted its enough to satisfy public demand and so the German music. Only at the beginning of the existence for long. In view of its geographi- Germans, on the initiative of the mayor Gus- 20th century was the repertoire enriched cal proximity, Brno early established contact tav Winterholer, decided to build a new the- with non-German works (Niccola Spinelli, with the Viennese theatres like the Court atre (today the Mahen Theatre). Construc- Umberto Giordano, Camille Saint-SaĎns, Theatre (Hoftheater) and the theatres in the tion started in 1881 to plans by the Vien- later also Giacomo Puccini and Eugen suburbs. This was mainly a matter of tours nese architects Ferdinand Fellner and Her- d@Albert). In fact the core repertoire of all by individual artists and ensembles, but mann Helmer. The Brno City Theatre was German opera houses was Richard Wagn- there were also close ties in repertoire. a first in Europe in being fully electrified. Its er, and in Brno too a Wagner cycle was pre- Works that audiences had been able to see first director was Adolf Franckel. The gala sented in the 1904/05 season and Wagn- in the capital of the monarchy – above all opening on the 14th of November 1882 er’s Ring cycle was almost continuously in spoken drama, but also singspiels and later presented two works, the play Bei Frau repertoire. In 1910 Brno welcomed Wagn- opera – soon arrived in Brno, but we also Luna by Adolf Franckl himself and er’s son Siegfried, who conducted his own find influence in the opposite direction, for Goethe’s Egmont. The theatre had a drama opera Banadietrich there. Premieres of example the effect of the Brno ballet com- and an opera company. At the beginning it works by local German-speaking com-

czech music 2 | 2006 | theme | 21 posers also began to appear on the Brno petitor for theatre was appearing in the form The programme prepared for the 1918/19 stage, including pieces by Josef Gustav of cinema). Theatre and opera were faced season was never put on. Mraczek and Max Oberleithner, for example. with a tough fight to keep their audiences. As has already been indicated, operetta Despite the seriousness of the situation the German Brno in the Czechoslovak played a special role in Brno’s musical life. Brno German Theatre was among the first Republic The favourite composer in the genre here to launch the 1914/1915 season, but under The collapse of the monarchy and establish- was Franz Lehár (in fact a native of nearby completely different conditions. The theatre ment of the Czechoslovak Republic radically Komárno), as he was in Vienna as well. ceased to function as an institution funded altered conditions in Brno. In December Close on his heels in terms of popularity by the city and was transferred to 1918 the City Theatre was transferred to came Oskar Straus and Leo Fall. The pre- autonomous management by its members. the management of a Czech theatre compa- war period prefigured the approaching eco- For economic reasons, the company was ny with effect from the 1919/20 season and nomic crisis, which naturally had an impact reduced in size, and of course many mem- the Germans had to go back to the small on the theatre as well. The director Julius bers joined up or were conscripted. The theatre in Zelný trh. This situation was sup- Herzka, who headed the opera in the years number of performance days was cut back, posed to last only for the next three years, 1910–1918, nonetheless tried to maintain military uniforms became more common in after which the Germans would theoretically the theatre at least on the existing level. His the audience, but surprisingly the theatre be able to apply for return of their theatre, repertoire once again relied on Wagner, and held its own. The wartime audience was but from the beginning it was clear to every- he tried to lure celebrated operatic stars to grateful for every diversion that the theatre one that under the new political circum- Brno. In May 1911, for example, he present- could afford, and allusions to the current sit- stances the Germans would never get their ed the entire Ring in Brno, with Hermann uation increased its confidence. During the theatre back. It was an event that was hardly Wiedemann from the Hanburg Opera in the 1st World War the soloist of the Vienna conducive to harmonious Czech-German role of Wotan. In 1913 German theatres Court Opera and native of Brno Maria Jez- relations. Although the Czechs allocated the everywhere celebrated the 100th anniver- itza, for whom Max Oberleithner had com- Germans two performance days a week sary of the birth of Richard Wagner, and posed his opera Aphrodite, often appeared (Monday and Tuesday) at the City Theatre, Brno was no exception. The cycle started at the Brno theatre. The theatre’s main mag- this scarcely sufficed. The only option was with Rienzi and ended with Die Meis- net, however, was operetta – not only the to use the premises of the German House tersinger von Nürnberg. Up to the 31st of works of Franz Lehár and Oskar Straus, but and convert them for theatre use until a new December 1913 only Bayreuth has the privi- also of Edmund Eysler and Emmerich German theatre could be built. But that was lege of staging Parsifal. Brno was not as Kálmán, who were later to be banned by the never to happen. In the inter-war period the quick off the mark as Prague and many oth- Nazis. Eysler and Lehár even directed their German company played in three different er German theatres that presented Parsifal own works in Brno. In the war years the old places (in the City Theatre on its allocated immediately on the 1st of January, 1914, but subscription system was abolished and days, in the Theatre on the Zelný trh and in it lagged by only four months and on the 8th replaced by an open coupon system that the German House), an arrangement that of April, Parsifal was staged at the Brno allowed people to choose performances naturally had many disadvantages. Opera City Theatre. The orchestra was specially while assuring the theatre the same income. was the genre the worst affected and it was reinforced by the Brno Philharmonic for the In the third year of the war, unlike in preced- operetta that increasingly had to compen- occasion and conducted by August Veit. ing years, there were performances in July sate for its box-office losses. The loss of Parsifal here enjoyed 6 absolutely sold out and the director Herzka for the first time a major part of the German public meant the performances. engaged Leopold Reingruber as permanent beginning of the end for the German theatre dance master. The last productions of the in Brno, but even so there were some The End of the Monarchy war years at the German Theatre included important events, such as the appearance The Brno company often visited Vienna and two new one-act operas by the Brno native of the Viennese Volksoper in November the population of Brno took pride in its suc- Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Der Ring des 1919 with Felix Weingartner and the pro- cesses. Pride, however, could not overcome Polykrates and Violanta. Violanta attracted duction of Mozart’s opera The Abduction economic depression and the imminent cat- significant interest from the critics, but the from the Seraglio. astrophe of war (and of course a new com- reaction of the public was unusually cool. There was not much left of the former

22 | theme | czech music 1 | 2006 tectorate of Bohemia and Moravia after the the era of the German Theatre in Brno end- Munich Agreement meant the rupture of the ed a year before the war itself. last ties between Czechs and Germans. The Germans took over the running of the city German Music Societies and Orchestras and, after twenty years, regained control of In Brno as elsewhere, music societies and the City Theatre. The newly appointed inten- choirs played an important part in musical dant Theodor Anton Modes and his sup- life. In the German musical community the porters from Henlein’s Sudeten German most important was the Liedertafel society movement ruled them in the spirit of instruc- (which had the same name as its model in tions from the Reich. The first season in the Germany), from which the Czech society “liberated theatre” (befreites Theater) Beseda brněnská – the Brno Arts Associa- opened on the 6th of December, still in the tion, which was later to have a crucial Today’s Mahenovo Theatre German House, with Mozart’s opera The impact on Czech musical culture in Brno, Marriage of Figaro. In March 1939 the Ger- split off in 1864. The Brno Musical Society mans ceremonially returned to their theatre (Brünner Musikverein), founded in 1862, with a production of Wagner’s Die Meis- made a major contribution to German con- mutual tolerance and even collaboration tersinger von Nürnberg, with the Vienna cert life in Brno, and operated its own music between Czech and German artists. Often, Philharmonic Orchestra and soloists of the school for training orchestral players and if the Czech public attended a German per- Vienna State Opera under the baton of choral singers. The society experienced formance it was only to provoke clashes Leopold Reichwein. a particularly fruitful period under the leader- (and vice versa). Yet it was in the ship Otto Kitzler, propagator of the work of 1920s that works by Czech composers Brno under the Protectorate of Bohemia Anton Bruckner and Richard Wagner, who were presented for the first time by the Ger- and Moravia headed the society and the school in the man company, a development previously The clock had been put back to the situation years 1868–98. unheard of. They staged works by Smetana, before the founding of an independent Cze- The first Brno symphonic body was Janáček and Dvořák, but also the most choslovakia. In the new political order, the founded in 1902 from members of the the- important composition by František Neu- theatre community (Theatergemeinde) start- atre orchestra under the title Brünner Phil- mann (the head of the Brno Czech opera), ed once again to battle for audiences. This harmoniker, with August Veit as its conduc- the opera Liebelei, which was produced at time publicity campaigns were focused on tor. Its guest conductors included leading many German opera houses at the time. The adherence to the German Reich and senti- European figures, such as Gustav Mahler very first Czech opera to be performed on ments of unity with the German nation. The (1904), Felix von Weingartner (1910), the German stage was Bedřich core repertoire had not changed very much. Richard Strauss (1911, who directed his Smetana’s The Kiss, in Ludwig Once again we encounter Mozart, Lortzing, own Electra here in the theatre in the same Hartmann’s German translation (as Der Wagner, Verdi, Puccini and Strauss, year), and Klemens Krauss (1924). The Kuß) for the 100th anniversary of the com- although the Jewish composers (Kálmán, orchestra used the German House poser’s birth. The Czech company even lent Eysler, Offenbach) were dropped. The (Deutsches Haus), built in 1891, for its con- costumes and its director Václav Štech greatest change, however, was in the func- certs. As in other Czech towns the German designed the sets. The theatre made tacti- tion of productions. The aesthetic side often House fulfilled the function of centre of the cal attempts to establish contacts with sum- suffered, replaced by an orientation to pro- local German cultural life. The largest hall in mer theatres in Mariánské Lázně and Fran- paganda or pure entertainment. the Brno German House was equipped (as tiškovy Lázně, and in Moravian Ostrava, and Hitler’s favourite Franz Lehár became far as we can tell from reports in the press to develop its existing tradition of co-opera- the most frequently performed operetta of the time) with an excellent organ. Max tion with the theatre in Olomouc, which was composer, and actually visited Brno several Reger, for example, gave an independent also experiencing a crisis at the time. Every times in the course of the war. Modes recital here. Today you will not find this tour and appearance elsewhere meant more nonetheless introduced a number of con- grand building. Towards the end of the 2nd income for the company. temporary works into Brno repertoire, for World War it was several timed damaged by Nor did the 1930s get off to example presenting the Protectorate pre- air raids and in 1944 it was demolished. a favourable start. The theatre tried to miere of Werner Egke’s opera Die A symphony orchestra was a necessity extract itself from economic crisis by Zaubergeige (1940), or Ottmar even under the Protectorate. The Regional appealing to a national spirit – anyone who Gerster’s opera Enoch Arden (1941). From Symphony Orchestra of the Brno NSDAP, feels for the nation will become our sub- the 1942–43 season Brno had a new inten- founded in October 1939, carried on the scriber: “Are you already subscriber to the dant, Fritz Gerhard Klingenbeck, who devel- tradition of the Brno Philharmonic. Nikolaus United German Theatres in Brno?” (“Sind oped relations with Viennese and Reichs- Janowsky was appointed as its principal Sie schon Stammsitzmieter der Vereinigten deutsch artists still further. He was only to conductor. During the season the orchestra Deutschen Theater in Brünn?”) or “The hold the post for two years but managed to gave between 5 and 7 concerts, concen- strongest unity of the Brno German com- attract incomparably larger audiences to the trating on symphonies by Beethoven, munity will be ensured by its theatre!” theatre than his predecessor. He deliberate- Mozart, Brahms and Bruckner. Its guest (“Den stärkesten Zusammenschluß des ly changed the repertory, shifting it towards conductors included names like Robert Brünner Deutschtums bringt sein Theater operetta at the expense of spoken drama. Heger, Hermann Abendroth, Hans Pfitzner, zustande!”) (1929/30). In Germany the After what had been a gap of twelve years Franz Konwitschny, Peter Raabe and others, National Socialist movement was gaining in he presented Hans Pfitzner’s opera Das and prominent political figures attended its strength and only a few theatres that Herz (1943) and Heinrich concerts. Just like the theatre, the orches- embraced the democratic idea remained Sutermeister’s Romeo und Julia (1942) tra’s life came to an end in the summer of (one was the New German Theatre in again. A major fan of ballet, he brought the 1944. Prague). The situation came to a head in Brno public Tannhäuser (1944) in the third The transfer of the German population 1938, when the two major political groups “Paris” version, i.e. with ballet. The 1944/45 was legalised by the Potsdam Conference clashed in Brno – the nationalist group season was planned, but never launched. but had started earlier with spontaneous and headed by Hans Baumann and the democ- The company gave no more performances often violent actions in many places, and for ratic forces. Aggressive nationalism won the to the end of the war, some of the artists many decades the theme of German culture day and strivings for a democratic theatre managing to escape in time, and the others in Bohemia and Moravia (and so in Brno as were smothered. The declaration of the Pro- being transported for forced labour. Thus well) was to be taboo.

czech music 21 | 2006 | themeinstrument makers | 23 Hana Kotková euroart international festival

Jana Boušková

In the six years of its existence, the Prague visitors two significant musical experiences and string quartet, which the well-known EuroArt International Festival has earned by presenting the works of Czech contem- jazz pianist and composer Karel RÛÏiãka itself a place of honour among Czech festi- porary composers on the one hand and top wrote specially for the occasion. Czech vals and has gradually been making a name Czech performers on the other. Seven Radio expressed an interest in the piece, for itself in music-loving circles abroad. Last pieces by 20th-century Czech composers, which is soon to be jointly recorded. One of year it became a member of the Czech five of them contemporary and mainly from the festival’s aims is to provide a space for Association of Music Festivals and of the the ranks of teachers at the Prague Music young composers, students at European Association of Music Festivals, Academy AMU, were played at the Licht- Prague’s Musical Academy HAMU. In this which testifies to the quality of its choice of en‰tejn Palace in the Lesser Town in this context the performance of Tomበperformers and compositions, and to the first festival. In the second year the pro- Pálka’s 1st String Quartet with Tape was fact that it has been succeeding in a com- gramme was comparable, and in subse- an interesting aspect of the festival and for petitive conditions by the “smart strategy” of quent seasons works by important com- the next season the festival is planning to filling a gap on the music market. This is posers from EU and candidate countries present the premiere of Michaela because it is the only year-round European were played in juxtaposition with Czech Plachká’s String Octet performed by the festival of chamber music and the only festi- work. Audiences therefore had the chance brilliant American ensemble the Alexander val of its kind in the Czech Republic. This to hear the Czech premieres of many String Quartet and the Stamic Quartet. year, in its sixth season, it will as usual be pieces, and what is more they were played offering audiences outstanding ensembles by outstanding foreign ensembles, which is Currently, the festival’s choice of pro- and soloists from all over the world, and a rather rare privilege for Czech com- gramme as far as Czech music is con- refined taste in its choice of pieces, many of posers. In the 2002/2003 and following cerned is focused on the promotion of gift- them rarely publicly performed. seasons, composers whose work was per- ed young musicians, to whom it offers formed at the festival have included Marek appearances at the festival as part of the The Prague EuroArt Festival is internation- Kopelent, Peter Graham, Jan Klusák, Milan prizes in international competitions. This al in its foundation, presents music by inter- Slavick˘, and Svatopluk Havelka as well as meant that in 2005/2006 season, for exam- national composers and brings leading for- the classics L. Janáãek, B. MartinÛ, I. Kre- ple, the festival included a performance by eign musicians to the Czech Republic. jãí, J. Suk, A. Dvofiák, B. Smetana, L. the winners of the International Prague Nonetheless, let us now take a look at the KoÏeluh and J. L. Dusík. The world pre- Spring Festival Competition for string quar- way in which the festival promotes Czech miere of R. Z. Novák’s String Quartet, tet, the Pavel Haas Quartet, and from the music and helps Czech musicians on their played by the British Arditti String Quartet next season the Stamic Quartet will be way to an honourable position alongside started a tradition of the performance of joined as resident musicians of the festival renowned foreign ensembles. works specially commissioned for the festi- by the young pianist Ivo Kahánek, who is val. This policy was crowned with the pre- likewise a laureate of the Prague Spring In its very first year, 2000, the Prague miere in December last year of “Fragments competition. Other outstanding Czech EuroArt Festival already managed to offer of One Afternoon” for vibraphone, piano soloists and ensemble have also had the

24 | public relations | czech music 2 | 2006 chance to shine at the festival. Just at ran- dom, let us mention the cellist Jifií Bárta, the violinist Hana Kotková, the harp player Jany Bou‰ková, the oboist Vilém Veverka, the vibraphonist Radek Krampl and the young Zemlinsky Quartet.

One important development is the increas- ing organisation of festival concerts outside Prague, in the Czech regions. This extends the audience base and the festival’s aim, which is now not just to offer excellent Czech and international chamber music in Prague, but to bring its concerts to listen- ers in what are already ten partner cities. Zemlinsky Quartet The next season will offer audiences keen of a chamber player. In the opening festival to hear Czech musicians the pleasure of concert Kahánek will also partner the Swiss concerts by the ·kampa Quartet and clar- soprano Brigitte Fournier, and at the end of inettist Katefiina Soukalová – Váchová, the festival accompany the Japanese vio- winner of the Prague Spring Competition, linist Okazaki Keisuke and the Stamic and also a recital by the piano Trio Con- Quartet. certino, at which the resident musician Ivo Kahánek will introduce himself in the form We look forward to seeing you there!

International Festival of the Chamber Music EuroArt Praha www.euroart.cz Season 2006/ 2007 Opening concert 20. 9. 2006 Trutnov, Brigitte Fournier, Soprano (Switzerland); D. Milhaud, E. Chausson, A. Honegger, 19. 9. 2006 Praha 21. 9. 2006 Jičín Ivo Kahánek, Piano; Stamic Quartet J. Turina 17. 10. 2006 Praha 16. 10. 2006 Domažlice, Jing Zhao, Cello () – Award for the Winner A. Vranický, Work by Chinese composer 18. 10. 2006 Brno of the ARD Munich Competition 2005; for Cello solo, A. Borodin Stamic Quartet 21. 11. 2006 Praha Škampa Quartet; I. Krejčí, H. Sutermeister, D. Shostakowich, Kateřina Soukalová - Váchová, Clarinet W. A. Mozart 12. 12. 2006 Praha 13. 12. 2006 Liberec WORLDS BEYOND TRIO: Daniel Schynder, J. C. de Arriaga, G. Gershwin, K. Weil, Saxophone (USA / Switzerland), Kenny Drew, Jr., D. Schnyder Piano (USA), David Taylor, Trombone (USA); Stamic Quartet 16. 1. 2007 Praha 15. 1. 2007 Kralupy nad Vltavou Faust Quartett (Germany); Stamic Quartet J. C. de Arriaga, G. Kurtag, J. S. Svendson 20. 2. 2007 Praha 23. 2. 2007 Chrudim Trio Concertino; W. A. Mozart, D. Shostakovich, Works by Kaspar Zehnder, Flute (Switzerland) Swiss composers in negotiation 20. 3. 2007 Praha 21. 3. 2007 Jičín Quartet Amedeo Modigliani (France) – Winner R. Schumann, K. Beffa, G. Onslow of AFAA Declic and Young Concert Artists New York; Vladimír Leixner, Cello 17. 4. 2007 Praha 18. 4. 2007 Děčín, Javier Echecopar Mongilardi, Guitar and Ba- Works by Baroque Peruvian Composer, 19. 4. 2007 Jablonec roque Guitar (Peru); Stamic Quartet A. Vivaldi, L. Boccherini 22. 5. 2007 Praha 23. 5. 2007 Olomouc, Alexander String Quartet (USA); S. Barber, A. Copland, Ch. Ives, M. Plachká, 24. 5. 2007 Ostrava Stamic Quartet B. Martinů Closing concert 14. 6. 2007 Jablonec Okazaki Keisuke, Violin () – Award for the D. Shostakovich, M. Ravel, T. Takemitsu, 12. 6. 2007 Praha Winner of the ARD Munich Competition 2005; E. Chausson Ivo Kahánek, Piano; Stamic Quartet PARTNERS OF THE FESTIVAL: MEDIA PARTNERS: Festival EuroArt Praha is a member of Association of Czech Music Festivals and Europeane Association of Music Festivals

Hudební fakulta AMU

inzerce_kveten2.indd 1 2.5.2006 11:24:24 Petr Škvrně © Supraphon musica florea DENISA DOHNALOVÁ

I first encountered the Musica Florea good facilities and some helpfully inclined singing in the circumstances of today.““ ensemble at the 1995 Prague Spring Festi- professors, the members of the young At this concert the members of the val, where it performed a work by the Czech group became more closely involved in ensemble were already using old instru- master of the earlier 18th century Jan Dis- . ments, initially lent to them by Pavel Klikar, mas Zelenka – Missa Sanctissimae Trini- The ensemble’s first concert took place a friend of Marek Štryncl since shortly tatis (ZWV 17) of 1735. I was very struck by on the 10th of March 1992 in the Church of before the Revolution in 1989. It was from the precision of performance from what was St John the Baptist in Teplice. It presented Klikar that Štryncl also gained his first prac- at that stage an ensemble full of young a chamber version – 2 violins, viola, 2 cellos, tical experience when playing in his ensem- musicians entirely unknown to me, and it left double bass and harpsichord (or organ) – of ble Musica Antiqua Praha. an outstanding impression. Since then works by the lesser known Baroque com- “…in the first year on the Valtice cours- I have followed with interest the further posers Johann Rosenmüller and Tarquinius es I completely fell for the charm of development of the ensemble at numerous Merula and a mass by Adam Michna of ‘authentic performance’ thanks to one of concerts and in recordings that soon start- Otradovice. For the Michna mass Marek the concerts by the Musica Antiqua Praha. ed to collect many awards from Czech and Štryncl found six amateur singers, which in I liked the completely different sound of the foreign music institutions. itself reveals his desire to find a new, non- Baroque instruments, the colour, technique The origins of Musica Florea go back to traditional sound using voices unencum- of play, and even the tuning between the 1992, when Marek Štryncl, the founder, cel- bered by classical training. separate pieces. It just grabbed me...” list, conductor and musical director of the “In an experimental spirit I really looked ensemble and its first members were study- forward to ‘untrained’ voices, as a way of Musica Florea does not have a fixed ing at the conservatory in Teplice. With getting closer to the aesthetics of period number of players but uses different combi-

26 | portrait | czech music 2 | 2006 Musica Florea is today one of the best ensembles in Europe spe- cialising in the performance of earlier music on period instru- ments and basing its interpreta- tion on the careful study of sources and period aesthetics. In the almost fourteen years of its existence it has appeared at hundreds of concerts in the Czech republic and throughout Europe, and has also been a guest at such important music festivals as the Prague Spring, Europalia, Resonanzen Wien, Festival van Vlaanderen Brugge, Škvrně © Supraphon Petr Europamusicale and others. As well as playing the works of J. S. use copies of the original wind instruments the Vladislav Hall of Prague Castle as the produced in the 1990s, while the ensem- final concert of the Europamusicale Festival. Bach, G. P. Telemann, Jan Dis- ble’s bassoonist plays an early 18th-century It was an enthralling occasion, thanks to the mas Zelenka, A. Vivaldi, J. B. Lul- German instrument. Playing these wind choreography by the French director Marc instruments in line with Baroque models Leclercq which underlined the visual side of ly, W. A. Mozart and other well demands considerable dexterity in the cre- the work, striking costumes by the artist known composers, Musica ation of tone and above all in the intonation, Márie Fulková amd sensitive conducting by where the player must use his skills to make Marek Štryncl who was still only twenty five Florea has given modern pre- up for the technical shortcomings of the at the time. The orchestra was created by mieres designed to revive inter- instrument. That is one reason why I have combining the instrumental ensembles great admiration for the solo wind passages Musica Florea, Musica Aeterna, and the est in many forgotten com- for example in the recording of Bach can- Ansamble Philidor, and the vocal elements posers and their music. tatas with Magdalena Kožená, where we provided by the boys choir and find brilliantly executed obligato parts by the soloists Anna Hlavenková (soprano), Noémi flutes, oboe, bassoon and horn. The whole Kiss (soprano), Markus Foster (counter family of trombones, alto, tenor and bass tenor), Jaroslav Březina (tenor), Adam trombone can be heard on the recording Zdunikowski (tenor) and Aleš Procházka nations of musicians drawn from a circle Vejvanovský – Rittler – Biber (Studio (bass). who co-operate with the ensemble depend- Matouš 1996). Shortly after the performance ing on the needs of each programme. Thus Supraphon promptly made a recording (SU other strings, a wind section, and some- Musica Florea’s first recording was the 3520-2 232), which was released almost times percussion, can be added to the Missa Sanctissimae Trinitatis by Jan Dismas exactly a year after the production of the seven core players – 2 Baroque violins, Zelenka. In this, the last of his five crowning work at the festival. This project, complete viola, cello, archlute, double bass and mass compositions, the influence of the with the prestigious label “world premiere harpsichord / organ. then modern forms of secular music, con- recording“ offered the world one of the The core of the orchestra is therefore certo and opera, is apparent. One curious most important of Zelenka’s vocal-instru- stringed instruments, sometimes with a vio- feature of the recording was that it was mental works in authentic form. It was la da gamba which ceased to be used in made in the Chateau of Duchcov at a tem- a recording for which Musica Florea won later music. The members of the ensemble perature of 14 °C (due to a heating break- the Cannes Classical Award at the world mainly play on original old instruments from down). The ensemble more than coped with music fair MIDEM in 2003 the later 18th century, and the viola da the unusual conditions, and the recording So far the most recent project on work gamba is a copy produced in the 1990s on won an award in the prestigious French by is a recording of his the model of old instruments from the turn magazine Diapason. Good Friday Responsorios (Supraphon of the 17th/18th centuries. Přemysl Vacek, Musica Florea has since returned more 2005, SU 3806-2 2). the court player on the archlute and theor- than once to the musical heritage of Jan One very important area in the ensem- bo in Musica Florea, uses Jiří Dismas Zelenka. Apart from concert perfor- ble’s repertoire is made up of works from Čepelák’s copies of instruments from the mances of his Psalms and Lamentations, the archives of the episcopal residence in mid-17th century. the ensemble took a major part in the ambi- Kroměříž, which in the years 1664 – 1695 As far as wind instruments are con- tious modern premiere of the one Czech was the seat of the music-loving Bishop of cerned, when necessary a Baroque coronation opera. Sub olea pacis et palma Olomouc Karel Liechtenstein-Castelcorn. recorder or flute, oboe, chalumeau (always virtutis (for Charles VI, first performed on This includes above all works by the com- played by Christian Leitherer), corno da the 12th of September 1723 in the Prague posers Pavel Josef Vejvanovský, Johann caccia, bassoon, clarino and sometimes Clementinum). A stage presentation of this Heinrich Schmelzer, Heinrich Ignatz Franz trombones are added. The players mostly opera took place on the 17th of July 2000 in Biber and Filipp Jakob Rittler. The ensemble

czech music 2 | 2006 | portrait | 27 has devoted three compact disks, released In the Spring of 2004 the ensemble reduced purely to pleasant emotions or in 1995 – 1996 to these authors. expanded its repertoire to include the later experiences, and this has led many people, In July 2001 at the Chateau of Kroměříž 19th century by performing several pieces instead of trying to restore to beauty its right Musica Florea presented the modern pre- by Antonín Dvořák on period instruments. At face, to reject it altogether as an inferior cat- miere of Vejvanovský’s St Wenceslas Ves- a June concert as part of the Prague Spring egory, inadequate for the explanation and pers. This composition is also included in festival, Musica Florea played the Overture understanding of modern trends in art. But a recording for Supraphon in 2002 (SU to the opera Vanda op. 25, Symphonic Vari- the classical concept of beauty has broader, 3535-2 231), in which apart from Musica ations op. 78 and the 7th Symphony in D metaphysical implications. It no way rejects Florea the participants were the choir and minor in a form reminiscent of the mildly artistic contrasts involving ugliness, dramat- young soloists from the Boni Pueri boys scandalous performance of Smetana’s Má ic contrast or even images of despair, but it choir and the soloists Jaroslav Březina vlast [My Country] at the opening concert of assimilates them in a meaningful whole (tenor) and Michael Pospíšil (bass). The the Prague Spring in 1996 by the British which is ultimately receptively perceived as ensemble has also presented the works of London Classical Players under the baton of a “gift”, a “grace” a “glorification”. The main less well known composers from the Sir Roger Norrington. Dvořák’s pieces were overarching principle behind the aspirations Kroměříž archives, such as A. Bertalli, C. performed by an ensemble consisting of of artists and their creations is not absurdity, Rosier, J. J. Flixi, J. K. Dolar and others. eleven first and nine second violins, seven which has afflicted especially the 20th cen- Another unique Musica Florea record- violas, five cellos, four double basses, two tury like a plague. So long as classical artis- ing (Supraphon 2000, SU 3474-2 231) is flutes, oboes, clarinets and bassoons, five tic principles (unity in diversity and beauty) Cithara Nova by Josef Leopold Dukát, writ- french horns, two trumpets, three trom- are not degraded, in a way full of contradic- ten in 1707. It shows clearly that this Czech bones and timpani. The stringed instru- tions, to the level of mere material experi- composer, organist and regenschori in the ments used gut strings, and the wind instru- ence, they have the power to explain even Premonstratensian monastery in Želiv has ments were either originals from the period modern artistic movements. They simply a worthy place among the composers of 1860 -1900 or modern copies. Once again involve an insistence on the fact that art the High Baroque. The compact disk con- there was a wave of polemic over whether must ultimately, to put it shortly, be mean- tains 7 of his total of 12 church cantatas for music of the later 19th century should be ingful and must not deny the metaphysical solos, two violins and basso continuo (pre- played on period instruments and with the nature of human existence, to which the pared by Přemysl Vacek). The core mem- original, more chamber-style set of players, phenomenon of beauty, the good and the bers of the ensemble are here accompa- but this time – thanks to the very precise true belong as automatically as human nied by soloists Anna Hlavenková (sopra- performance by the combined ensembles beings breathe. Can we really afford defini- no), Markus Foster (counter tenor) and Aleš Musica Florea, Amphion Bläseroktett Basel tions of art of the type “art is essentially Procházka (bass). and Solamente naturali, the critics were meaningless, indefinable” or “art simply nat- generally significantly more positive. urally feeds off itself and devours itself,” or Musica Florea has completed many other One novelty in the Autumn of 2005 was else that “beauty is just a by-product like the concert and recording projects up to now, a series of concerts entitled “Rediscovered experience of taste”? The Marxist dialectics let us name here just a few more that have Concertos of the Czech Baroque“. Here that inform these ideas are massively con- drawn particular public attention for their Musica Florea presented works by generally tradicted by the spontaneous efforts of unique character or other reasons. little known composers of Czech origin such artists. To create works of art while believing From this point of view the seven con- as Johann Joseph Ignác Brentner, Antonín that they deserve to produce no feelings of certs that were part of a tour with the mez- Reichenauer, and Joseph Caspar Ferdinand exaltation, wonder and interest is barbarism, zo-soprano Magdalena Kožená with a reper- Fischer. and we are reaping the fruits of this attitude toire of Bach cantatas and oratorios, com- Musica Florea certainly doesn’t suffer in full. It makes no difference whether the plemented by Brandenburg Concertos nos. from a shortage of repertoire. An impressive object of this exalted feeling is a kitschy gar- 3 and 4 were an extraordinarily successful series of recordings for companies at home den gnome or Bach’s Art of the Fugue. achievement. This fruitful collaboration also and abroad, very diverse international pro- According to today’s art theorists the objec- resulted in a compact disk (Polygram 1997, jects, and a revelation of musical treasures tive nature of a work can have no decisive J.S.Bach – Arias), which won the presti- from almost three centuries – all this adds influence on its beauty, because these theo- gious “Golden Harmony Award 1997“ as up to great promise for the future and an rists reduce beauty simply to subjective the best domestic recording. assurance not only that Musica Florea will “pleasure”, which arises just out of the Musica Florea returned to opera in April go from strength to strength, but that other chance encounter between a person and 2000, performing for a stage production of similar ensembles will be encouraged by a work of art. We are no longer allowed to Jean Phillipe Rameau’s Castor and Pollux at their success and find in them impulses and decide on the justification or otherwise for the Prague Estates Theatre. This repertoire inspiration. such “pleasure” because that conjures up production was based on French-Czech co- a moral appeal, so hated today, suggesting operation between the National Theatre and that acts we enjoy might be in breach of an the Institut Francais in Prague. In Prague the An interview with the director of Musica objective law of the good, based on the international team created a project unique Florea, cellist and conductor Marek “objective character of the work”, especially even by all-European standards, creating for Štryncl a work of man. The desire for genuine “char- the first time on a modern European stage acter”, originality, something right and mean- a production faithful to the Baroque reality Your ensemble Musica Florea has been ingful is what has given life to the authentic in almost every detail (including the lighting working successfully for almost 14 years. performance phenomenon including our of the stage by candles). The staging What have these long years of musical own ensemble. The attempt to get rid of opened the way for other new and adventur- collaboration given you personally? false ideological prejudice in attitudes to the ous productions at this leading Prague the- cultural artistic legacy of our predecessors atre. First and foremost the knowledge that no is something essential. Over the 14 years of French music has been the subject of sort of artist activity can be torn away from the existence of our ensemble I have two recordings in 2004 and 2005, created the concept of beauty, which in contempo- realised that it would have ceased to exist in collaboration with the Centre for Baroque rary aesthetic theory tends to be damned without these ideals. I have discovered at Music in Versailles. These are four major more than anything else. It seems to me that first hand and keep on discovering that motets by Jean Baptiste Lully and a motet it is suffered at best only so that artists can human or financial obstacles that seem for two choirs by Marc’Antoine Charpentier. ostentatiously and defiantly avoid it. In out insoluble can be overcome by painstaking (K617157, K617171). time beauty has been materialised – faithfulness to a vocation that relates not

28 | portrait | czech music 2 | 2006 just to the music, but to the members of the we really ought to give the public the filosofa and with many other chamber and ensemble. Despite small changes the core chance to get to know them, and that will be symphonic orchestras especially outside of the ensemble has remained the same, our goal over the next year. Most of the pro- Prague. which is something I have to rate as jects concerned have already been present- a decent moral achievement. ed (F. X. Richter Te Deum, rediscovered I know that you recorded music by concertos by Czech Baroque composers – Vladimír Godár with the Solamente Nat- You take on various different roles in your Gurecký, Reichenauer, the complete perfor- urali ensemble for a by Petr Šulík, ensemble and elsewhere. Do you think of mance of J. S. Bach’s Musical Offering and and this was played on Baroque instru- yourself as more a cellist or more a con- the Art of the Fugue and so on.) We are ments. Have you been involved in other ductor? preparing to record all Bach’s Brandenburg similar projects? Do you ever have a yen Concertos, which we performed in concert to try a completely different field of Both. So far I really haven’t felt that artistic last year. Currently we are “editing” our sec- music? schizophrenia that afflicts some conductors ond recordings of the symphonic works of until they get it together to decide which A. Dvořák using period romantic instru- My collaboration with Vladimír Godár has has precedence. Although as a conductor ments (the 8th Symphony, the prelude to been going at full tilt in the last year. I am very committed to symphonic romantic Vanda, Prague Waltzes, Polka). I recorded other pieces by him with this or contemporary repertoire, there would be orchestra and the soloist Iva Bittová (folk no point in my saying goodbye to the branch What about your current musical activi- music elements are present, of course). I have been trained in – older music, which is ties apart from leading the ensemble? I believe that in the future audiences in clearly based on a chamber approach to per- I am thinking of your work in other musi- Prague will be able to enjoy this project. formance. Actively playing an instrument is cal groups... I would like to mention an interesting avant- a necessity for me, because it is the only way garde concert at the Hradec Králové Phil- to internalise the newly discovered means of Recently I have been forced to cut back my harmonic Festival, which cleverly combined expression that can then become second activities in other groups, because a grow- what at first sight might seem completely nature to performers and conductors. ing family is demanding in terms of time. incongruous, J. S. Bach’s Musical Offering But these are groups I worked with more or and the violin concerto Offertorium by Sofia What are you working on currently with less on an ad hoc basis. I now have the Gubaidulina, composed on the same theme. Musica Florea? Are you planning some- interesting prospect of working with the In addition to Musica Florea the concert thing new for the near future? Capela Apollinis ensemble and the harpsi- incolved the Hradec Králové Philharmonic chordist Barbara Maria Willi. As a conduc- and the soloist Gabriela Demeterová (vio- I must admit that in the last few years we tor I shall be involved in projects with the lin). I wouldn’t want to exclude other genres. have presented so many new pieces that Spanish Baroque orchestra La principessa Maybe I shall get round to them too.

announcement

YOUNG BLOOD The Music of Young Czech Composers

Michal Nejtek: Nuberg 05, Miroslav Srnka: String Quartet no. 3, Ondřej Adámek: Strange Night in Daylight, Miloš Orson Ště- droň: Prosper and Gamble, Markéta Dvořáková: Waters, Petr Bakla: Wind Quin- tet, Martin Hybler: Echoes of Trees and Rocks, Marko Ivanovič: Rock’s Goin’ On?

The Czech Music Information Centre has just published the CD Young Blood as a rep- resentative sampler of the work of the young generation of Czech composers. We are offering this CD free of charge to all existing and new subscribers to the magazine Czech Music. If you are interested in the CD, please send us your request at [email protected] or at the postal address HIS o.p.s, Besední 3, 118 00 Prague 1 Czech Republic, and we shall be plesed to send you the CD. It comes with a booklet in English.

czech music 2 | 2006 | portrait | 29 LUBOŠ STEHLÍK jakub hrůša the secret weapon of czech music

He was born only twenty-five years ago in Telegraph. The next project will include Josef Why did you go to the academy in Prague Brno, and his path to the elite may still be long, Suk’s Serenade and Fantastic Scherzo. and not in your native Brno? involving hard work, sacrifice and the neces- sary good luck, but Jakub has all the qualities Unlike most of your colleagues you The main reason was the teaching staff, needed to get him to Olympus one day. Cur- attended ordinary grammar school and headed by Jiří Bělohlávek. I just had great rently he is entirely in the power of the magic played the trombone. Why that particular respect for them and wanted to be in contact pentagram formed by Brno, where he has his instrument? with them. And I won’t deny that Prague family background, Zlín, where last year he attracted me as the musical centre of our was appointed principal conductor of the It was simple. I always wanted to play a wind country. Bohuslav Martinů Philharmonic whose stan- instrument and my favourite was the clarinet. dard he aims to raise, Prague, where he con- As it happened, they didn’t have a place in Were you satisfied with AMU as a school, ducts the Prague Chamber Philharmonic, and the clarinet class in music school, but I didn’t with its system of teaching? Paris. He triumphed in a competition with 90 abandon my dream and in the end I chose conductors from throughout the world to the trombone, which suited me physically. I I know that many people have criticisms of become, since September 2005, assistant to really loved it at the time and I was very the school, but my experience has been gen- the principal conductor Myung-Whun Chung impressed by the way it was played altogeth- erally positive. Perhaps that is partly because at the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio er. Thanks to the trombone I could play in a I see it now in healthy retrospect. All my France. (To any readers not entirely familiar student orchestra, and I started to admire the teachers were very forthcoming and I felt they with the name I recommend a look at the phenomenon of conducting. In fact from that were all simply trying to help me. Of course, Catalogue.) But even time on I started to think seriously about con- there is one problem, although all higher earlier, in the years 2002–2005, he was assis- ducting and in the end I decided while still at music academies suffer from it too – a lack of tant to two successive heads of the Czech grammar school that I would go on to a music resources for practical exercises. Or to put it Philharmonic, and Zdeněk academy. another way, student conductors have only Mácal. The year 2005 was a turning point for rather limited chances of contact with an him in other respects. Not only was he offered With hindsight, do you think you were right orchestra. Actually AMU provided students positions in Paris and Zlín and started to qual- to get a general high school education with this practice annually from the second ify for the title “flying conductor”, but he also rather than go to conservatory? year, and that is unusual! Naturally it is up to conducted for the first time at the Prague the students to find ways to work with Spring Festival. Definitely. In fact the older I get the more I orchestras outside the school as well. I was appreciate the fact. Of course, when I start- lucky, and I was helped enormously by the All four landmarks of his life today are, how- ed to study at the Music Faculty of the Prague chance to work with the Prague and later the ever, linked by the fifth angle of the penta- Academy of Performing Arts (AMU), I felt I Czech Student Orchestra. gram – music. It is music that is his alpha and had a certain handicap in music theory sub- omega. In his annus mirabilis last year some- jects, and I studied privately to catch up, but Last year you had a scholarship at the thing else important happened. The other- now my general education is paying divi- Universität der Künste in Berlin. Did you wise usually conservative Supraphon, which dends. get more orchestral practice there than in usually bets on certainties rather than taking Prague? risks, this time gave rein to instinct (the Have you definitely finished with your essential attribute of a good producer) and trombone playing? No, none at all, in fact, except one week of have Jakub Hrůša the chance to make his work with an orchestra from outside Berlin, debut record with the Prague Chamber I’m losing it, but one a year, at Christmas, I which was full of enthusiasm but didn’t have Orchestra and a Dvořák programme (please take out my trombone and play with a brass such a high standard. This is typical though. see the review section in this issue). His CD quintet. That’s when I get back my “five- In Prague students conducted only once a debut has already got excelent reviews from, minute“ embouchure which goes the moment year but with professional orchestras, while among others, The Gramophone and Daily I put the instrument back in its case... in Germany maybe more, but in the country

30 | interview | czech music 2 | 2006 In the rather staid and stiff world of Czech music, the dizzy career of conductor Jakub Hrůša (*1981) has a very clear message. Which is that for Hrůša it is more important to seek for the uni- versal beauty in music than to specialise in one particular sector of music. With enchanting lack of affectation he is conducting both unknown Mozart, and the organisationally complex pre- miere of a work by a living composer. This extraordinarily talent- ed young man with clear opinions has been arousing great hopes and could be the Czech “secret weapon” that will penetrate the international musical scene. (His membership of the musical stable of the IMG British agency may stand him in good stead). It is a sad fact that since the generation of Jiří Bělohlávek, no Czech conductor has achieved a place in the prestigious club of top international conductors. and in the style of conductors’ courses. But it, and the encounter was so strong that I in Germany I mainly got to understand the wanted to focus on in. Later when I got a gen- place, its language and mentality better. The tly push from my teachers, the choice felt you in your music career, was a competi- Germans are extremely thorough in their generally logical. A very strong bond had tion too. studies of the German repertoire. Teachers developed between me and Asrael. there insist you explore absolutely every Yes, effectively it was a competition in Paris. aspect of a piece, not just practically, but by What do you like best at your present lev- Around 90 candidates, a very wide range of thinking and talking about it. Naturally this el of exploration of music? people applied. In my view this kind of con- can be rather at the expense of the breadth frontation actually has more sense than a of repertoire. It seems to me that I have a certain feeling for mere competition. It’s about real support for romantic music in the broad meaning of the our profession, because the winner is offered What was it like studying with Jiří word. But then that probably means I enjoy ear- concrete work. Not laurels and titles but a Bělohlávek? lier or later music all the more, just for a change. real post, experience. In fact for the French the post of “young conductor” or “young prin- Generally marvellous. Naturally any strong You still haven’t had enough of studying cipal” even has social prestige. The reality is teacher leaves a strong imprint, and so sub- and you are continuing at AMU with doc- great just now, because I have practical tasks consciously and consciously I bear his toral studies... that enable me to learn a lot and move for- imprint, his seal. Nonetheless his style of ward. A title is good for the external dimen- teaching is very open and tolerant and actu- It’s a way of developing my positive relation- sion of one’s career, but for musical work ally encourages students to argue and be dif- ship with the school. Furthermore, I can work itself it is the reality that counts. ferent. He is stricter about the need for per- on a theme that is a challenge and an intellec- fect mastery of manual technique. Perhaps tual stimulus for me and seems necessary to You were an assistant in Prague as well that is why you can tell that someone belongs me – the theme of new music, premieres, the while you were studying. Could you tell to his school. relation between the author of a new work and readers what an assistant actually does, a performer-conductor. I wanted to combine at home and abroad? Do you have a distinctive personal two things – my need to carry on learning and approach to a piece in the preparation my need to provoke myself into performing It depends on what people mean by an assist- stage? contemporary pieces. antship. In the Czech Philharmonic it was above all a study post – the chance to watch I don’t know if it is really a specific feature. I In 2000 you were the best and the youngest the orchestra in all its activities – rehearsals, try to consider the score down to the small- Czech entrant in the Prague Spring Com- concerts, communication with conductors, est details. I sit at it “manually” and write lots petition, where you came fourth. Wasn’t this and you get to know things that are maybe of things into it. This has one negative effect. a little hasty? You would certainly have unpublishable. For me it was a counterpart to If I go back to a piece after a significant gap done better a year or so further on. my AMU studies, and real contact with a liv- the score is sometimes so scribbled over that ing orchestra, and what is more the leading I have to get myself a fresh copy. Although I didn’t finish among the “medal- orchestra in the country. If a crisis comes up, lists”, it was a milestone for me, and as little then you may even get the change to stand in At your AMU graduation concert you more than a first year at AMU it was a mas- as an “understudy“, which actually happened stunned people by choosing Josef Suk’s sive psychological boost for me. It confirmed to me with the Czech Philharmonic and I am Asrael, which is difficult even for an expe- me in my decision to become a professional grateful to the orchestra for its friendly toler- rienced conductor. Do you have a special musician, and then on the practical level I ant attitude... In France the post is conceived relationship with Suk? immediately got a number of opportunities to in a much more practical way. I already have conduct good orchestras, which probably my first subscription concert behind me, and It definitely wasn’t a purely rational decision. wouldn’t have happened otherwise. I shall be conducting another in the spring. While I was studying I was encountering My specific task, the one I am supposed to masses of music for the first time and as it I assume that the selection process in master, is the most recent music. My work were wolfing it down, and Asrael was part of Paris, which opened up a new horizon for with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio

czech music 2 | 2006 | interview | 31 France also has some curious aspects. post as director of the Prague Chamber music in the concert hall to become a stereo- Before Christmas I made a recording of music Philharmonic, which is still regarded as a type and performance to be left without a cre- for an animated film. I can attend all the audi- young orchestra. Is it an advantage for the ative artistic dimension. Not to be just the tions as one of the selectors, and that is inter- orchestra to be homogeneous in terms of executive, as it were, but to remain the inspir- esting experience too. For example I have a generation? er of creative work. The well-known saying vivid memory of the kettle drums audition, about “searching behind the notes” applies where there were dozens of candidates – it That is not a question I can answer. I would all the more to an orchestra because it isn’t a revealed to me all kinds of ways of playing the go as far as saying that the secret of an quartet, but a fifty – or a hundred-member instruments that I had never known of before. orchestra’s success is not directly related to collective, a mass of different views and it. I couldn’t imagine an orchestra made up approaches. The conductor has to be a uni- When so many people are interested in the only of really elderly players, but in the world fying agent. position of timpanist, how many apply for there are top orchestras that are mixed in the post of one violinist? terms of generations and top orchestras that Remaining for a moment at this exalted are fairly homogenous in that respect. level, does music of this kind have a Usually it can be close to a hundred. chance in the fragmented world of today? I have noticed that many people watch your What else do you have to do in Paris? conducting with real pleasure because it Undoubtedly, even if its listeners will contin- has a certain elegance. How important is ue to be a minority. I have an unshakeable Sometimes I have to take separate the movement side of conducting? belief that there will always be enough peo- rehearsals....It’s wonderful for me to have the ple wanting this kind of music to live on. chance of real contact with important musi- Elegance isn’t important. I know plenty of cians, which I didn’t have in Prague. For conductors who conduct in a very inelegant Especially in relation to the Czech Philhar- example just before Christmas it was Pierre way but there is no doubt that they are out- monic, people have written about a typical Boulez and . My experience in standing. Manual technique (naturally con- sound. Paris so far has been an education in the real- veying your ideas to the orchestra) is another ity of performance. Sometimes it is uplifting, matter. It is the alpha and omega of our field. I would prefer to talk about a way of playing and sometimes disillusioning. It is also very particular music. The philharmonic first and useful to see your own country’s musical life Since we’ve taking a side-turning into the foremost has a natural and positive domain in from a distance, from another country. Given question of craft, tell me which is better: to the specific way it plays Czech music. I have that I am distinctly sceptical about some signal the maximum or to “radiate ideas”, to say that when I hear Czech music played aspects of Czech musical life, it was won- fluid, to operate through charisma, as we by foreign orchestras, I often find quite a lot derful that one of the greatest experiences in see it in Karajan, Gergiev and others? missing. It may be technically perfect or tech- Paris was the production of Rusalka with Jiří nically poor – that is not the main thing, but Bělohlávek in the Opera Bastille! Both approaches are possible. But it is not what is often lacking is naturalness of phras- so much about signalling as about leading. ing, the specific character of dances, the You have already mentioned your work And so the question is whether it is better, to structure of the melody, ideal breathing, bow with two important student orchestras. put it in a simplified way, for the conductor to strokes, the choice of tempi for the different What are your memories of those years? lead the orchestra all the time, or to “let it movements. I don’t feel qualified to speak play” at certain suitable points. I won’t hide about the sound of the CP as such. Here I It was tremendous and at the same time the fact that the leading concept appeals to don’t really see any specific feature other than essential experience... It was a sensational me more. For me the ideal is to be capable of what I have just mentioned – except perhaps complement to my studies at the Academy. leading the orchestra at any time, and to a unified school in the teaching for individual The reality of the constant rhythm of two know when not to lead it... The way music is instruments, yes... The CP applies what is typ- evening rehearsals each week with an ama- conducted always has a fundamental effect ical for Czech repertoire to other music as teur group was sometimes difficult, musically on the overall result. I think that if a conduc- well. This then has interest for people abroad. speaking, but that is something I see more in tor is inexact, then you will hear it in the music retrospect than I did at the time. At the time I – and now I’m not making a judgment about Do you have inspiring models that mean a was purely and simply hungry for any kind of whether it is good or bad. It depends on the lot to you? chance to conduct and mould something and specific example. It’s just the case with Kara- so the opportunity was a blessing and I did it jan, for example, even though the way his As far as conductors are concerned, then all with enthusiasm. It gave me a huge foun- played is phenomenal. definitely my teacher Jiří Bělohlávek, and then dation and specific experience. Everything The question is when that imprecision is a from history Leonard Bernstein, and Sergio that I lived through with the Prague student fault and when it is not. A certain „fluidity Celibidache and the still living Claudio Abba- orchestra I deepened in my experience with was typical of the Berlin Philharmonic under do. Although for example Bernstein was very the Czech Student Orchestra. This great Karajan and for a certain kind of music that different from me in character, I find it very experience culminated in 2003 with our was a good thing. And of course a top inspiring to experience his work at least appearance at the Young Euro Classic in the orchestra can be led in an inexact way, while through recordings and . Celibidache is Berlin Konzerthaus. When you realise that the you cannot do that with a less good orches- a titan in terms of intellectual grasp of music! orchestra, which was purely amateur apart tra. The conductor’s charisma, the atmos- There is a quality in his recordings that I have from some wind players from music schools, phere that he radiates, his inspirational pow- never found anywhere else. That remains true played (and sturdily!) Janáček’s Taras Bulba er is something interesting for us as music despite his sometimes unbearable “style”. and Miloslav Kabeláč’s Mystery of Time [Mys- lovers, but in fact it is just a bonus to perfor- For example his slow tempi in slow move- térium času], then I don’t need to add any- mance, even if beautiful and important in the ments, for which he had all kinds of argu- thing. Despite all the inevitable shortcomings highest art. ments. His creations are simply an amazing and problems, I had a feeling of pride there. school of phrasing, work with motifs, the The enthusiasm of all the players, which is What then is the vocation of the conductor? build up of dynamics, and tectonics of every often lacking in professional ensembles, was kind. And above that there is his personal very cheering. I ponder that for example when people ask courage to think about music in unconven- me whether conductors are really necessary tional ways. Abbado is as it were his oppo- You are actually keeping up your contacts at all (and the question isn’t so rare!). In my site pole. In Abbado I always find the most with young musicians in your other new view the content of our work is not to allow natural path to the music that I can imagine.

32 | interview | czech music 2 | 2006 what did prague mean for mozart?

The 250th anniversary of W. A. Mozart’s birth is an excellent rea- son to look back and take stock of the whole Mozart phenomenon. Since January people have been making the attempt all over Europe, since was born on the 27th of January 1756 and it would be unthinkable not to mark the occasion in any civilised country. To mark the occa- sion is one thing, however, while to reflect more deeply, consider all the issues and evaluate the impact of so great a genius in the two and a half centuries since his birth is something quite different. Essen- tially, in fact, the task is so difficult as to be beyond the capacities of any author. (Stendhal: „The theme dwarfs the narrator”). Editors have unfortunately been oblivious of the basic asymmetry of the task, which might be summed up in the words, “a small person of 2006 confronts a creative giant spanning two and a half centuries“, and they have contributed to a contradictory situ- ation in which all the media (includ- ing the tabloid kind) have felt the need to say something about the major jubilee of a genius, but despite the token superficial expressions of respect, the lack of authors competent to speak on the matter has been sadly obvious. What kind of results could have been expected!? TOMISLAV VOLEK Miserable results indeed. It doesn’t seem to gossip! The Mozartian Society in the Czech seems not to have got over the habit of tak- have occurred to many papers, magazines Republic has tried to counter products of ing the embarrassingly politicised view of and pen-pushers that to write about a cre- this kind on its web pages. Yet what do we historical facts that afflicted his earlier book ative genius behind a huge body of work find when we look at attempts to take stock Mozart und die Nachwelt (1985). There he that has come down to us through ten gen- of Mozart in 2006 from better qualified pens could actually write that, “Among the rea- erations is something quite different than to and in international academic publications? sons for the warm reception of write about actors, models, footballers or New publications abroad provide us with Mozart’s operas [in Prague] the patriotic hockey players, members of parliament or a chance to join in the anniversary debate on [?!] aspect is the most striking. The very ministers of the year 2006, who are of Mozart by responding to the arguments and enthusiasm with which Praguers recon- course legion and who practically all know interpretations of foreign scholars, particu- ciled Mozart with his disappointments in only one song: a song about themselves. larly in relation to the theme of Mozart and Vienna speaks of the artistic understanding But Mozart gave unforgettable voice to Don Prague – a theme close to our heart, of and open-mindedness of the citizens of the Giovanni, Donna Anna, Leporello, the Com- course, but with broader implications than city, but also of the patriotism of Germans mendatore, the Queen of the Night, Saras- the merely local. In this context the most in Prague. Mozart was also a factor in the tro, Papageno, Tamino, Tito, Vitellia, Don immediately striking publication is Das fight [!?] against the Czech nationalist [!?] Alfonso, Guglielmo, the Count and Count- Mozart-Lexikon, a book produced for the movement [!?].“ If a text like this had been ess, Figaro and Susanna, Cherubino, Con- anniversary under the editorship of the lead- written during the war, at the time of the Nazi stanze, Osmin, Idomeneo, Electra, Zaide ing Vienna Mozart scholar, Prof. Gernot Gru- occupation of Prague, it would not be so and Gomatz, Mademoiselle Silberklang, ber as part of the planned six-volume, Das surprising, but in 1985? Mozart scholar Sandrina, Podesta, Mitridate, Aspasia, but Mozart-Handbuch (Laaber-Verlag). As one Gruber seems to be oblivious of the fact that also the Christian Spirit (Christgeist) and might expect, this huge 933-page lexicon in Mozart’s time nationalist conflicts had not World Spirit (Weltgeist), Apollon and includes entries on the cities that played an yet afflicted Prague, and that to ignore the Hyacinth, Bastien and Bastiennne and so important part in Mozart’s life. Surprisingly, role of Czech musicians and the majority on, just to mention about a quarter of the however, we do not find “Prague” among Czech public in the creation and develop- characters of his dramatic works, almost them. The basic information on the theme is ment of the cult of Mozart in Prague would every one of them unique and irreplaceable. included under the entry Die böhmischen mean retrospectively erasing from Yet the less the jubilee pen-pushers Länder but we Praguers can scarcely fail to Mozart’s circle of Prague friends the know about Mozart’s characters and other ask why Prague is not accorded the same Dušeks, Kuchař, Němeček, Vitásek, Mašek, works, the more they assume a pseudo-priv- importance in Mozart’s life that the Mozart- and in the Prague Opera Orchestra Král, ileged viewpoint and tell us all about the Lexikon attributes not only to Salzburg and Šebek, Kučera, Mazancl, Houska, Střel- need to “demolish Mozart myths”. The music Vienna, but to Dresden, Leipzig, Berlin, and ský,Vaněřovský, Matějka, Votruba and so on, correspondent of a leading Czech newspa- even Mainz? Mozart’s Mainz yes, but not to mention the friend from Salzburg that per, for example, wrote about the need to Mozart’s Prague no? (Please don’t try to Mozart visited at the University Library, Hur- “change the image” of a composer “whose remember how many operas Mozart com- dálek (incidentally, the only Praguer from concerts brought in dizzy sums to him” posed in Mainz, because the answer is zero, whom Mozart requested an entry in his per- while he himself behaved like an “immature, but the entry nonetheless informs us that in sonal album...) and so forth. over-sensitive profligate”! In the mass of Mainz once presented a play After this disturbing evidence of a cer- rubbish produced about Mozart in January by his seven-year-old son in an inn and that tain continuing tradition of distorted inter- you could also learn that he was an infantile the adult Wolfgang once played there at the pretation in a German publication subject and vulgar man, a peacock and a gambler, chateau. It is curious that Mainz merits an to expert Austrian editing, one naturally a drinker and womaniser and so on, who entry when there are dozens of towns with looks around for a different, more qualified allegedly immediately squandered an1y the same status in Mozart’s life all over view of the question of the cities that money he earned, and so fell into debt and Europe. These, naturally, get no mention.) played an important role in Mozart’s life. “no-one in Vienna had any time for him any When we discover that the lexicon has no And, lo and behold, the editors of the musi- more”... It is almost as if there were an separate entry for Milan either, although three cal monthly, Österreichische agreed common aim behind these lousy of Mozart’s operas were premiered there, we Musikzeitschrift definitely take a different stylistic exercises, i.e. to denigrate the com- can reasonably conclude that we are dealing view of the issue. In their special Mozart poser as a human being and not to write with a certain systematic historical distortion number in 2006 they decided to include about his work! Perhaps because it would in a book produced by a German publishing a block of articles under the general title, be pretty hard to connect this picture of house. Can it be that someone somehow Zwölf Mozartstädte. They commissioned a second-rate and morally decimated man wants to give readers the impression that contributions from 12 authors from differ- with music that takes up 130 volumes of Mozart is primarily a phenomenon of Ger- ent countries, and unlike Prof. Gruber they a critical edition and whose value no one man-speaking lands with a few episodes in did not consider Prague and Milan were would dare to doubt. Paris and London? (These major capitals unworthy of the designation “Mozart Horribile dictu ! – so the old Latinists obviously have to have a place in the Lexicon, Cities”. Unfortunately, however, in the case would groan over this curious way of “glori- while the peculiar “marginalisation” is of Prague they made a different mistake by fying” one of the greatest musicians in applied only to cities in “marginal” countries commissioning an article not from an human history by resorting to backstairs like Italy and Bohemia.) Gernot Gruber expert but from a functionary, a head of

34 | history | czech music 2 | 2006 The Nostitz Theatre with a partial view of the Kotce Theatre (by Leopold Peuckert, around 1790) department at the Czech Museum of Music, when Rudolph Procházka published his a total of 10 years and 2 months. This who hastily and with numerous mistakes book Mozart in Prag in Prague in 1892, he makes the time he spent in dozens of towns copied from the work of other people, so was continuing a well-established tradition. and cities one of the main themes of his that a chance to provide the international This was developed further in the 1930s by biography. Is it therefore reasonable to ask music public and the music-lovers with an Paul Nettl, a reader at the Prague German why he undertook specific journeys, what informed view was lost. University, who emphasised the continuity kind of city he chose, how he and his music Otherwise, the editors’ idea of compar- of Prague Mozart scholarship in the sub-title were received there, what stimuli and ing important cities in Mozart’s biography as of his book, Mozart in Böhmen (1938): opportunities each city offered him and a way of achieving insights that other Herausgegeben als zweite, vollständig what traces his works left there. approaches to the Mozart phenomenon neubearbeitete und erweiterte Ausgabe Naturally we need to make a distinction miss, has proved genuinely fruitful. In the von Rudolph Freiherrn von Procházkas between the European tours he made as an knowledge that Prague is a city without Mozart in Prag. infant prodigy and the journeys he made as which something very fundamental would After the 2nd World War, Mozart a musician with professional skills and expe- be lacking in Mozart’s life and work, we are research in Prague slowly revived. Archival rience. As an infant prodigy Mozart – tem- therefore happy to join the kind of compara- discoveries provided the basis for the pre- porarily – attracted attention and enthusi- tive project conceived by the editors of the sent author’s book, Mozart a Praha [Mozart asm among the social elite sought out by Österreichische Musikzeitschrift. and Prague] (1973) and his studies about his father, but what was the situation in his In this we have many advantages com- the Prague connections of the two operas later years? It is safe to say that Mozart nev- pared to the others, the first being the fact composed specifically for Prague. After the er set out on a journey at random, „au haz- that research on the theme of Mozart and fall of the Communist regime, the present ard“. His destination was always a city with Prague has a long history, de facto longer author was also able to train a new genera- a ruling court, where the position of court than any comparable scholarly project. After tion of scholars in Mozartian lectures and capellmeister existed and, ideally, an opera all, Prague was the first European city in seminars at Charles University. This genera- as well. It was in cities of this kind and with which a book about Mozart was published, tion has plenty of material to tackle, as Mila- the prospect of such a position at a court and one that naturally contained some sec- da Jonášová in particular has shown with that Mozart sought to make his career. tions on the relationship of Praguers to her discoveries of new important period As many of the contributions to the Mozart’s music. In 1798, the then high copies of Mozart’s work, published at home Mozart issue of the Österreichische school teacher František Xaver Němeček and abroad. These discoveries demon- Musikzeitschrift confirm, there is no reason published his Leben des K.K. Kapellmeis- strate, inter alia, that not only did Prague to doubt the composer’s systematic efforts ters Wolfgang Gottlieb Mozart. It was so respond to Mozart’s music with deep inter- in this context, and this leads us to a crucial well received by readers that ten years later est, but that it was from Prague that many and in its way shocking fact, one not usually this unique work by a historian and witness pieces were disseminated in numerous mentioned and not even touched on in the – by this time Němeček was a professor of copies and transcriptions, abroad, and even project Zwölf Mozartstädte, which is that practical philosophy at Prague University – to Vienna. no-one anywhere in Europe ever offered was published in a second edition. Since Mozart the post as capellmeister or com- then there have been many more editions, During his short life W.A. Mozart took poser that he so eagerly sought! No city, no including facsimiles and translations, and so 17 journeys, and was away from home for royal or princely town ever offered him what

czech music 2 | 2006 | history | 35 Opposite: Page from Mozart’s autograph of Don Giovanni, where the quotation of the melody from Le Nozze di Figaro appears

František Xaver Němeček

he looked for and put himself forward for How have these facts about Salzburg other major musical works and assure over so many years. And it is this fact that and Vienna been interpreted by the Mozart a decent income for himself and his family. ought to be mentioned at the end of every scholars from these cities in 2006 in the At a time when he was interested in a posi- set of texts on the theme of Mozartstädte! Mozart issue of the Österreichische tion at court in 1777, he saw it as an oppor- This would once and for all make clear Musikzeitschrift? Prof. Ernst Hintermeier in tunity that would enable him, „alle jahre 4 a major tragic feature of Mozart’s life as his article „Sie wissen, wie mir Salzburg deutsche opern, theils Buffe und serie, zu a musician and a man. verhasst ist !“ („You know how I hate liefern“ (“to produce 4 German operas, part Mozart took this failure particularly hard Salzburg“, which is a quotation from one of comic, and part serious, every year“). What in the case of the two cities that were his Mozart’s letters) presents the real situation is extraordinary is not Mozart’s attitude but home for many years: Salzburg and Vienna. without evading the issue in any way, but the behaviour of today’s representative of In both he had a period of hope that he Prof. Manfred Wagner in his article Mozart numerous Viennese musical and non-musi- might be appointed to such a post, in als freier Künstler in Wien (Mozart as an cal institutions M. Wagner („Titelsuche“ is Salzburg when the death of the court Independent Musician in Vienna) performs much in evidence on his web page!), who capellmeister created a vacancy in August an extraordinary academic tight-rope act in after ridiculing Mozart for his alleged need 1778 and in Vienna in December 1787 order to be able to put forward the theory for titles takes it upon himself to grant the when the position of court composer came that in Vienna Mozart found “optimal oppor- composer a nonsensical, ludicrous and free. Unfortunately, giving Mozart such tunities for his work”. The claim is of course degrading title of his own devising: „höch- a high position was out of the question as at odds with the historical facts. It would be ster Unterhaltungschef des Kaiserhauses“ far as Archbishop Colloredo in Salzburg or more correct to say that “yes, Vienna was (“supreme head of entertainment at the Josef II in Vienna was concerned. In the a city that could have offered Mozart optimal emperor’s house”)! case of Vienna the situation was quite obvi- opportunities for his work but did so only to When claiming that in Vienna Mozart ously “political”. With his excellent musical a very limited extent”. As is generally known, found “optimal work opportunities” (“die education the emperor no doubt realised Mozart more than once expressed dissatis- optimalen Arbeitsmöglichkeiten”), M. Wag- that Mozart, who had then been resident in faction with his situation in Vienna, a fact ner adds with clear distaste the words, Vienna for six years, was by far the most that Wagner shrugs off with derogatory “even if this has not always been a view suitable candidate for the post left vacant comments at Mozart’s expense! First he taken in the literature” (“auch wenn dies in by the death of Gluck, but he clearly felt that suggests that the composer was sorely der Literatur nicht immer so gesehn it was best to avoid the conflicts that could tempted “to hanker after positions”(„war er wurde”). Not only has it not been taken “in be expected between the court capellmeis- dennoch versucht nach Anstellungen zu the literature”, but it was certainly not a view ter Salieri and a new court composer with schielen“), and then takes the notion of taken by Mozart himself, since otherwise he the provocative genius of Mozart. The impe- “hankering” even further by intimating that would hardly have written the following to rial decision of December 1787 was there- Mozart had a “marketing-tainted mania for Puchberg on the 12th of July 1789, and by fore very much a “Judgment of Solomon”: titles” („Mozarts marketingverdächtige Titel- extension to us in 2006, that, “… Mein the position of court composer remained suche“). This is nothing but disinformation Schicksal ist leider, aber nur in Wien, mir vacant, and while Mozart – whose new designed to conceal the fact that Mozart so widrig, daß ich auch nichts verdienen Prague opera “Don Giovanni” had been was not considered worthy of the office of kann, wenn ich auch will; ich habe 14 Tage greeted with admiration by the experts – court composer in Vienna. Mozart was by no eine Liste herumgeschickt und da steht der was accepted into court service, this was means a title chaser by nature, as we can einzige Name Swieten !“ (“… My fate, but on a more or less formal basis, since he was see quite clearly from the fact that when the only in Vienna, is so wretched that I too can placed in the vaguely defined category of pope honoured him with a higher chivalric earn nothing, even when I want to: for 14 „Kammermusicus“, given the average pay of order than the one awarded to Ch. W. days I had a (subscription) list circulated, a member of the court orchestra and Gluck, Mozart soon ceased to add the title and the only name on it is Swieten“). Are assigned no specific duties. (After “cavaliere” to his name, while the socially these the words of a proud musician enjoy- Mozart’s death, however, the position of adept Gluck signed himself “chevalier” to ing “optimal work opportunities” in Vienna? court composer was filled again, this time the end of his life. So what has “Titelsuche” As an impassioned defender of the good by the consistently loyal Leopold Koželuh to do with it? Mozart was naturally and justi- name of imperial Vienna, Wagner develops who was unencumbered by any embarrass- fiably keen to obtain a position that would the theme of Mozart’s income still further, ini- ing genius…) give him the chance to compose operas and tially with a claim that is in fact valid only for

36 | history | czech music 2 | 2006 the last four years of the composer’s life: If the desire to compose operas took bardy), i.e. the governor with his seat in “Mozart had a fixed income ...”. Yes, 1.200 first place among Mozart’s creative inter- Milan (and with relatives in Salzburg), the florins annually as court “chamber musician”. ests, then it is evident that only four Euro- count Karl Joseph Firmian. The Italian But Wagner’s next claim about this fixed pean cities provided him with such an record in respect of commissions of Mozart income is unsupported by any evidence, i.e. opportunity at any point in his life. They operas is therefore very ambivalent and is “...it was probably much higher than might were Milan, Munich, Vienna and Prague. qualified by the fact that a) no Italian opera be supposed from the bare figures”. And Only four cities commissioned and also pre- house ever came up with the idea of com- this is followed by another logical somersault sented operas by the greatest musical missioning an opera from Mozart and stag- on the theme of Mozart’s “fixed income”. dramatist of the 18th century! (For purposes ing it, and b) no other opera house took over Apparently, “... it varied from year to year” of comparison: in the case of Verdi it was Mozart’s Il Mitridate and Lucio Silla and („es schwankte …“), with Wagner estimating 12 cities and in the case of Wagner five presented it in their own programmes. And it at as much as 5.000 florins for the year cities but also a theatre in Bayreuth built of course the „festa teatrale“ Ascanio in 1791…! Given this kind of conjuring with exclusively for his operas...). Alba was so closely bound up with the envi- facts and “fixed incomes”, it is no surprise Let us start our comparison of these ronment and immediate situation at the Aus- that the author entirely fails to mention four Mozart “operatic” cities chronologically, trian Habsburg court in Milan that it could Mozart’s debt of 1.435 florins and 32 and therefore with Milan. The situation here not in fact have been taken up by another kreuzers to Prince Karl Lichnowsky, which he was very peculiar, although the literature opera house. Altogether, the musical dra- was ordered to pay by a decision of the rarely informs us of just how peculiar it was. mas that Mozart wrote for Italy and that Viennese court towards the end of 1791. It is true that the capital of Lombardy provid- were staged in Italy were presented a total But let us leave the advocate of the City ed Mozart with three opera commissions, of 52 times. With this their effect ended, of Vienna, Wagner, and confront and this is the highest number from any city since they returned to the Italian stage only Europe’s Mozart cities with some more in which he did not actually live. But we in the mid-20th century, in all kinds of differ- questions. We know that all Mozart’s long must be careful, for these commissions ent arrangements. nursed hopes of a position as capellmeister were not genuine orders from an Italian Initiated by the Austrian governor, the were to be frustrated, but what other opera house! Two of them (Il Mitridate, commission of Ascania for the Austrian expressions of favour could he expect from Ascanio in Alba) were commissioned by court in Milan, which since 1771 had been the European cities that we today call one and the same Austrian patron (!), who presided over by the Archduke Ferdinand, “Mozartian”? What creative commissions or was also undoubtedly the moving force awakened in Mozart the hope that the arch- opportunities did they offer him? Who gave behind the third commission (Lucio Silla). duke would appoint him to the head of his him important commissions as a composer He was the supreme representative of the court music. An Austrian promoting an Aus- and where? Austrian state in occupied North Italy (Lom- trian... The Mozarts, father and son, there-

czech music 2 | 2006 | history | 37 plined way with a whole range of obstacles: the subject had been imposed on him; the adaptation of the libretto was the work of G. Varesco, an Italian chaplain to the prince archbishop of Salzburg with no experience in the field of drama; for the title role of war- rior-king and lover Mozart had to accept a once outstanding but now sixty-six-year- old tenor... In Munich the brilliant and still highly effective tragic work was performed three times – and that was it. Ergo: the two Mozart operas written for Munich had no more than six performances altogether. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that this says something fundamental about the Munich opera public of the day. Between the two Munich commissions Mozart wrote one opera independently and not to order – Zaide. It was a desperate expression of Mozart’s desire to compose opera, even without commissions, at a time when instead he was having to make a living in Salzburg as an organist! Zaide is a work of great quality using a German text, but when in 1781 Mozart arrived in Vienna there was no interest in the piece from the recently founded court singspiel company. One reason must certainly have been that some of the roles in Zaide were too difficult for the inexperienced singers of that company. In the ten years of life left to Mozart after his arrival in Vienna in 1781, fate decreed that only two cities were to provide him with the chance to compose opera. They were Vienna and Prague. Of the two only Vienna was a capital with a royal court and court opera. Only there could a brilliant musicians hope to become a court compos- er or court capellmeister. Naturally Mozart took that into account in 1781 when he wrote a letter to his father from Vienna justi- fying his decision to stay there. He wrote Report about the first performance of Don Giovanni in Prague that it was “für mein Metier der beste Ort von der Welt“. As we know from letter of July 1789, Mozart’s experience of the city in fore prolonged their stay in Milan by several first commission, which resulted in the the intervening eight years in Vienna was to weeks, waiting for a summons to the court opera buffa La finta giardiniera. This was be quite different. (which came) and an engagement (which staged – but not under the direction of Unsurprisingly, given his method of did not). In one of the letters written by Mozart! – in January 1775 at Munich’s sec- “striking out the inconvenient facts”, in his Marie Theresia (that loving mother and ond theatre, the old “Salvatortheater” and text on Vienna M. Wagner offers readers the “beneficent ruler”) to her son Ferdinand, she was performed only three times. vaguely formulated information that Josef II adds a warning not to engage „useless peo- Mozart’s first opera composed and staged “initiated the German National singspiel“ ple“ („gens inutils“) like Mozart and his fami- on German soil failed to make much of an („initiierte das deutsche Nationalsingspiel“) ly! Thus in Habsburg Lombardy as else- impact. but omits to mention its inglorious end. where, Mozart’s dream of obtaining a post Mozart’s second Munich opera, Idome- Above all, he makes no attempt to interpret as capellmeister ended in fiasco. Instead neo, re di Creta, was a much deeper work the fact that despite the brilliant success of the position was entrusted to the much less with much better prospects. The elector The Abduction from the Seraglio (1782), gifted Czech composer (in Italy an Austri- himself was behind the commission and the the court in Vienna commissioned no further an), Václav Pichl (see CM 4/2005)... And opera was staged in January 1781 in the singspiel from Mozart and allowed the Ger- we can only wrack our brains over the ques- beautiful new court theatre (Cuvilliés- man company in the Burgtheater (1778–83) tion of why Pichl should have been “more Theater). This in itself testifies to the fact to collapse for lack of repertoire. Equally useful” as a court capellmeister – according that Mozart’s social and musical credit had unsurprisingly, Wagner then passes over in to the honourable empress – than Mozart... already risen considerably, at least in this silence the fact that the only demonstrable After Milan, we move on to the two part of Germany. Suffering from an absence theatrical commission given to Mozart by opera commissions for the official seat of of opera commissions in Salzburg, Mozart the court was the music for the one-act The the Elector of Bavaria, Munich. It is not pre- threw himself into the work with enormous Impresario (Der Schauspieldirektor). Nei- cisely known who it was that initiated the energy and struggled in a brave and disci- ther Le Nozze di Figaro nor Cosi fan tutte

38 | history | czech music 2 | 2006 was composed on the commission of the in the Central Europe of the time, and one composers of Italian operas whom Prague, court; in both cases the court poet Lorenzo still unknown to cities such as Vienna, thanks to its public opera house, commis- da Ponte negotiated the composition with Munich, Berlin or Dresden with their feudal sioned to write an opera. Or to put it anoth- Mozart and then managed to arrange the courts and court operas. The crucial factor er way, one of many composers from whom staging of the already finished works on his behind the creation of a beautiful relation- the Prague public, through the local impre- own initiative. Another question that arises ship between the composer Mozart and the sario, ordered a new opera. Some of the here is why, in their accounts of Mozart’s sit- Bohemian metropolis was precisely the themes of Mozart’s operas were hardly new uation in Vienna, none of the Viennese spe- existence of a large opera public with to Prague. The city had experienced its first cialists have taken into account a source a strong interest in and experience of new opera on the Don Juan theme in 1730, and published 46 years ago in the Salzburg productions in Italian opera. another in 1776 (by V. Righini and success- Jahrbuch by the present author. This source Considered from this angle, Prague ful enough that it was transferred to Vienna records the view expressed by the Bohemi- emerges among the Mozartian cities as the after a year, just like Mozart’s opera eleven an Estates Theatre Commission after the perfect polar opposite to Mozart’s native years later.) Prague had also seen an opera staging of the opera La clemenza di Tito as Salzburg. While Salzburg had a ruling court about the noble Tito 30 years before part of the coronation festivities in Prague in and court orchestra, as an archbishop’s Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito. 1791, to the effect that “a prejudiced antag- court it had no opera, a fact that was devas- In the 1780s the popularity of Italian onism to Mozart’s composition has been tating for Mozart: „Es ist kein Theater da, opera was at its height, creating particularly evident at the court” („zeigte sich bei Hof keine opera !“ To some extent Prague also favourable circumstances for wider Mozarts Composition eine vorgef- seems to be an opposite case to Munich Prague’s meeting with Mozart. Testimony to faste Abneigung“). For purposes of compar- and Vienna as well, since while the latter had the atmosphere is given by a local newspa- ison let us add at that no prejudice against operas, these had for decades been “only” per story printed on the 8th of July, 1786, Mozart’s composition was discernible in the court operas, which excluded the public reporting that in Prague a visitor need only Prague public. On the contrary, after the from a share in the genre. Let us remind our- stand on the corner of a street for a while, departure of the court and its society, Tito selves that Mozart wrote two operas for “… and from all sides he will hear arias achieved a popularity comparable with that Prague just as he wrote two for Munich, but from popular Italian operas, and so it may of the other Mozart operas. in the Bavarian capital they found a public be feared that one day whole operas will be Since we know what kind of cities only for six performances, while in Prague performed in the street.“ („... und es werden Mozart gave priority to on his travels the two operas played on and on. This was ihm von allen Seiten die Arien aus den through Europe, it will be clear why Prague because in politically provincial 18th-century beliebten italienischen Opern entgegen was not one of his destinations for many Prague, Italian opera had for decades been tönen, so dass zu fürchten ist, es werden years. It was only another bitter experience the main attraction of the local secular cul- auf der Gasse ganze Opern gegeben wer- in Vienna – the withdrawal of his brilliant ture. Italian opera had enjoyed an uninter- den.“) opera buffa Nozze di Figaro from the pro- rupted life here since 1724 and – an It was just a few months after this report gramme after only nine performances, but at extremely important point as far as Mozart on Praguers’ love of opera that Le Nozze di the same time the arrival of a celebratory would be concerned – it differed fundamen- Figaro was first staged in Prague. It was not poem and invitation from Prague after the tally in type from all the other opera houses the first Mozart opera to be performed in the success of the same opera in the Bohemian north of the Alps. It was not the private the- city – that was The Abduction from the metropolis–, that led the now thirty-one- atre of the ruler and a small circle of his Seraglio in 1783 – but this time the year-old Mozart to decide on a trip to court society, but a publicly accessible city response was absolutely extraordinary, and Prague. Friends had invited him there opera that anyone could attend if they had led to the equally extraordinary step, an his- before, but Prague lacked the key magnets the interest and money for a ticket. In line toric moment in European opera, when the of a princely court and a court opera. In with Italian practice this institution was orchestra sent the composer of the suc- short, a city that could offer no position as headed by an impresario, who in Prague cessful opera a letter inviting him to visit court capellmeister or composer was simply enjoyed the kind of freedom of which the Prague. The letter itself has been lost, but it not attractive for Mozart. (To point up the intendants of court companies, hemmed in is mentioned with evident paternal pride by tragicomic aspect of the situation we should as they were by the requirements of official Leopold Mozart in a letter of the 12th of Jan- add that theoretically a Habsburg could duties, could not even dream. It would, for uary 1787. The very existence of such a let- have offered Mozart the post of capellmeis- example, have been unthinkable at a court ter underlines the unusual character of the ter to the King of Bohemia, because he was production to have an inebriated (Roman) situation: the orchestra of an opera house, also King of Bohemia, but like all his prede- emperor turning up on stage, blathering not under the direction of any „Hofthe- cessors except for Rudolf II he resided in inanities in several languages and drunkenly aterkommission“, could of its own accord the Arch Duchy of Austria...) combing his hair with a branch. Or – in the invite a composer from another land to visit Yet while Prague could not offer Mozart intermezzo – to have a scene in which the and to collaborate with it. Could the orches- the permanent source of income and free- “hero” in the costume of an emperor com- tra of a court opera have been able to do dom to compose represented by the post of mands a lady in front of his “throne” to take such a thing? court composer or capellmeister, in 1787 it off all her clothes...This freedom, appreciat- could offer him something else he wanted ed by a public that was also big enough to With its enthusiasm for the Le Nozze di too – a commission to write an opera. While pay for a large number of performances, was Figaro, the Prague public effectively decid- Prague was not a royal seat, unlike any of undoubtedly a major reason why the Prague ed on the commission of a Mozart opera the non-Italian royal seats to which Mozart opera became so popular with Italian artists, written specially for itself. It happened to be had been offering himself for years, it had especially at the beginning of their careers. the “opera of operas”, Don Giovanni. Today a public opera house. Furthermore, since This was why dozens of world premieres of we know that it was commissioned from this opera house had been in operation for Italian operas took place here, including Mozart by a Prague impresario whose more than sixty years, the city also pos- works by such authors as A.Vivaldi, motive was undoubtedly cool calculation sessed two or even three generations of Ch.W.Gluck and – W.A.Mozart. and the prospect of excellent takings after opera enthusiasts. An institution and public In a chapter on Mozart and Prague we the commercial success of Le Nozze di of this kind was a totally new cultural factor need to see Mozart as one of a decade of Figaro. In his book, F. X. Němeček did not

czech music 2 | 2006 | history | 39 forget to mention that „… this opera was public today can respond with amusement original, in Czech translation and in an Ital- played almost without interruption through- only to one of these allusions, and that is ian version, with recitatives composed in out the winter (…) and was a wonderful Mozart’s quotation from his own work, Prague. Another unique achievement for help in getting the entrepreneur out of his Figaro’s popular aria Non piu` andrai. Mozart’s Prague! miserable financial situation.” (“… diese It is remarkable that even in this, the ear- Oper fast ohne Unterbrechen diesen liest history of the staging of Don Giovanni, The love of Praguers for Mozart’s music ganzen Winter gespielt ward, und (…) den the difference between the Prague Opera was also reflected in the activities of many traurigen Umständen des Unternehmers and the Vienna Opera of Mozart’s day is musicians away from the opera house, as is vollkomen aufgeholfen hatte.“) very clear. While the Prague public immedi- evident from the concert programmes of The heart of the answer to the question, ately and rapturously welcomed Mozart’s friend Josefina Dušková and the “What did Prague mean for Mozart”, should Mozart’s crowning work in the form that he much younger pianist Jan Vitásek, for exam- therefore be sought first and foremost in the composed it, a year later the same work ple. Mozart’s friend and fellow Mason, the Prague commission of an opera for the went down less well in Vienna. First of all outstanding clarinettist Anton Stadler, autumn season of 1787. A composer at the the singers of the court opera took a conde- begged Mozart to finish the clarinet concer- height of his creative powers was given scending attitude to both Mozart and his to quickly enough for him to include it in his a chance to compose a major opera entirely work. The tenor refused to sing the aria, Il Prague concert, and so on the 16th of according to his own ideas, without any kind mio tesoro, and insisted on the composition October 1791 Prague was the first city to of prior limitations or conditions. There was of a different aria, and the singer playing enjoy a performance of Mozart’s last com- no censorship in his way, no interfering Donna Elvira behaved in the similar way. In position for orchestra and soloist. instructions from the theatre management order to satisfy the local public Mozart and Prague’s love of Mozart and his work or the „Hoftheaterkommission“, no binding Da Ponte had to add the comic duet remained constant even after his death, and extra wishes of particular singers, and no between Zerlina and Leporelo. This duet, indeed the city’s response to his death once reason to fear a lack of sympathy from the which introduces the alien spirit of a coarse- again gave it primacy among “Mozart cities”. public. Mozart could fully develop his whole grained suburban farce into a masterwork Did any other city express such an honour personal universe of human and musical and which is always left out today, itself for the dead musician shown by Prague with experience and imagination in his favourite suggests something about the difference its mass in the Church of St. musical dramatic genre! And because the between the opera public in Prague and Nicholas on the 14th of December 1791? Prague orchestra consisted of outstanding Vienna. And even with the forced changes, To which city, if not Prague, did his widow instrumentalists, he could write an orches- after 15 performances Don Giovanni was Constanze send her sons to be cared for? tral score that was far more demanding than withdrawn in Vienna. There was no one left And was not Prague the first city to set up in any of his previous operas. who wanted to see it. a Mozart memorial (1837, kept in the Univer- It is a pity that no sources survive to pro- In 1791, Prague had another chance to sity Library, now the National Library, to this vide us with insight into the process by enter the life of Mozart with a new initiative day)? Is there any city in which the “opera of which the opera was composed. What is and did not waste it. The impresario operas”, commissioned by Prague, is per- certain is that when Mozart and his wife Domenico Guardasoni, whose knowledge formed more frequently than in Prague? arrived in Prague on the 4th of October of the Prague opera public was unrivalled, There is not, and even in this point Prague 1787 to direct the preparations for the stag- chose Mozart to compose an opera for the maintains its Mozartian primacy. ing of Don Giovanni, the opera was far from celebrations of the coronation of Leopold II It is sad that after so much in the way of finished. Fortunately, in a rather paradoxical as King of Bohemia, and the Bohemian praise for Mozart’s Prague, this Prague way, our Bohemian forbears made it easier Estates hastily commissioned the composer Mozartian cannot but admit in conclusion – for the English expert on Mozart autographs, by a contract of the 8th of July. Guarda- in the interests of an objective view – that Alan Tyson, to make a laborious identifica- soni’s motives were the same as those currently far from all the productions of tion of which parts were written in Prague. behind the commission in 1787, but this Mozart’s operas in Prague are of the artistic This is because the Bohemian paper used time with the prospect of even better finan- standard they deserve. In a number of by Mozart is even on a first glance worse in cial rewards, for the arrangement meant aspects the Mozartian tradition in Prague quality than the rest of the papers used for that the Bohemian Estates would be footing seems to be undermined and weakened. this composition... This means we can be the bill for a new opera that he could add to Today the Czech metropolis no longer has completely sure that apart from the overture his repertoire and continue to stage for the the kind of enlightened opera public that it and Masetto’s aria from Act I, Mozart com- Prague public in years to come. When the possessed in the last years of the 18th cen- posed a substantial part of Act 2 in Prague. Italian opera company left Prague for ever in tury. But this – fortunately – is not our In total this means around 1,600 bars, rep- 1807 after his death, they gave as their last theme in these pages… resenting a third of the entire score. Mozart performance Mozart’s Tito. The opera had found quiet for composition just outside the been so popular that when choirs from this city in the Villa Bertramka, where he was the opera were performed at concerts, the pub- guest of the musical couple Josefina and lic was capable of singing along. Which of František Xaver Dušek. (After the premiere us has ever experienced such a thing in of the opera he rewarded his hostess with a concert hall? a beautiful aria and recitative, “Bella mia Was The Magic Flute any less popular fiamma, addio”.) Then, to amuse himself and in Prague? This unique Mozart singspiel his Prague friend, in the comic part of the was first performed outside Vienna by the opera finale he included small allusions to company of the Praguer František Bulla in the harpsichordist and author of piano Lwow (Lemberg) and immediately after- reductions of his operas Jan Křtitel Kuchař, wards in October 1792 in Prague by Václav the charming singer of the role of Donna Mihule’s company. The Praguers were Anna, Tereza Saporiti, the simple melodies enchanted with it. The popularity of The of the opera Cosa rara by Martin y Soler, Magic Flute reached a peak in 1794, when which had squeezed his Figaro out of opera it could be heard in the Bohemian metropo- programmes in Vienna, and so forth. The lis in three different versions: in the German

40 | history | czech music 2 | 2006 reviews reviews | reviews | 41 Production: Petr Vít. Text: Eng., Ger., French, Eng., Ger., Production: Petr Vít. Text: Antonín Dvofiák Music for Violin (Romantic Pieces, Capriccio, Romance in F Sonatina in G major,minor, Mazurek, Ballade in D minor) Pavel ·porcl – violin, Petr Jifiíkovsk˘ – piano. French, Eng., Ger., Production: Petr Vít. Text: Czech. Recorded: August and September 2005, Dvofiák Hall of the Rudolfinum, Prague. Pub- 70:35. DDD. 1 CD Supraphon lished: 2005. TT: SU 3860-2. Alternative: Shaham – Dvofiák for two (Deutsche Grammophon). Antonín Dvofiák op. 39, Polonaise in E Flat Czech Suite in D Major, op. 54 major B 100, Waltzes Jakub The Prague Chamber Philharmonic, HrÛ‰a. Studio Domovina, Czech. Recorded: 10/2005, DDD. 1 CD 55:10. TT: Prague. Published: 2006. Supraphon SU 3867-2. Alternative: Czech Suite – Pe‰ek, (Virgin), Prague Chamber Orchestra, Vlãek; Vlach (Supraphon), Polonaise in E Flat major – Neu- mann, Czech Philharmonic (Orfeo), Polonaises and – Bûlohlávek, FOK (Supraphon). Waltzes 2 | 2006 The ), czech music czech , sweet- Romance Czech Suite Czech , which is unfortunately not includ- , which in fact in many respects improve on the older Sonata in F major Prelude , evergreens on concert podia and the subject are which ? As an initial basis for comparison I chose Gil Shaham’s ? As an initial basis for comparison I chose Sonatina at his graduation concert at Prague’s Academy of Music (AMU)at his graduation concert in 2004 or the . ’s new image in a photograph by Robert Vano with Dvořák I in connection Asrael Polonaise in E Flat major and lyrically delicate introductory (see the interview in this issue) became the principal conductor of the Bohuslav the principal conductor in this issue) became (see the interview Martinů and the Pavel Šporcl Romantic Pieces The Czech Suite Czech The was written by the composer for a small orchestra and this recording fully respects the fact. I was written by the composer for a small orchestra in Jarmil Burghauser’s instrumentation. Looking at the contents of the CD cannot but remem- one Sousedská akub Hrůša akub Hrůša Czech Suite Czech When I first saw When ly genial recordings of BOHUSLAV VÍTEK couldn’t help feeling a certain distrust. Would this pseudo-Paganinian appearance also inform the intimate this pseudo-Paganinian appearance couldn’t help feeling a certain Would distrust. lyricism of the project of 1997, when with his sister Orli he recorded the core of Dvořák’s legacy for violin and piano – both project of 1997, the already mentioned cyclical pieces and the exquisite my great surprise it was Shaham, who looks like a young, mild To ed on the Supraphon CD under review. American professor from Stanford, whose performance went in for the spectacular effects, excessively fast violinist, on the other hand, seemed to be Czech tempi and virtuosity of the Paganinian romantic legend. The deliberately reining in his spontaneity and passionate engagement with every phrase. In comparison not only with the American’s, but also with Josef Suk’s or Bohuslav Matoušek’s Dvořák, his Dvořák is very restrained, and I would even venture to saychamber-style, spiritually ascetic. Shaham’s play is in great contrast, he passionate life as he can, and is not afraid to display the splendour of his phrase to as much brings each Curiously, tone enhanced by a brilliant instrument. It seemed to me, therefore, that Šporcl had no chance. of it was over- after a while Shaham’s concept of Dvořák began to weary me, because so much however, and above all the fast tempi which done – tone, contrast, dynamic waves enough to threaten an avalanche, in my view lend Dvořák’s music an unnecessary hastiness and one-sidedness. Although Šporcl wanted to tradition has indeed succeeded in this, he has strong roots in the Czech and record Dvořák in his own way, foundation, an Although Shaham had the better technical of melodiousness, phrasing and tempo order. instrument that was superior by a class and a slightly more sensitive piano accompaniment, it was actually ideal situation would be Šporcl who in his conception and more interesting sound appealed more to me. The for contrast and impressive vir- if the two violinists met halfway along the line. Shaham would stop reaching per- and arrive at the technical tuosity at any price, and Šporcl would gain in expressiveness and flexibility, fection of his competitor. STEHLÍK LUBOŠ with Hrůša’s Jiří Bělohlávek conducting the Prague FOK Jakub Hrůša, teacher Symphony Orchestra. howev- a conductor has to work in an entirely different Philharmonic, with which was given the Prague Chamber er, even in this specific area he has often co- He knows this very well, since way than with a large orchestra. contrast to the traditional record- ensemble and is entirely at home with them. In operated with this first rate ings here we can savour the sensitively elaborated details and pleasantly sound of the different colourful instrumental studio rather of the Domovina is the choice groups. One factor that also helps in this context musical director and sound master have also done The than the Rudolfinum more often used in these cases. voices, sounds delightful and the accompaniment the Polonaise version an excellent job. In this chamber to the entire cycle of we listen wonderfully audible. When easily lost to the ear in the symphonic current, are better known in the original piano version, the question of their instrumentation by another the eight Waltzes, composer inevitably Despite all Jarmil Burghauser’s best efforts to ensure the maximum arises again. different, albeit not a distant we cannot help feeling that we are in a world. Dvořák himself authenticity, then only for string ensemble, where the result is much instrumented only two waltzes (nos. 1 and 4) and sound. One examplemore poetic and closer to the original chamber might be the entirely different concep- Jakub Hrůša’s interpretation and in of the cycle is highly inventive tion of the middle section of the 1st Waltz. for examplesome sections the results are very charming, the colourful instrumental to cascade at the return or the very ingenious the colourful play at the beginning of the 4th Waltz or the reprise in the 1st Waltz, in this instrumentation which the closest to the Dvořákian world. is probably expression in the 6th Waltz, Suite Czech entrancing main theme of the pol- are too fast! The see a problem in the tempi of the Polka and Furiant. They the trio is more a rather hasty episode than a and ka poetry, thus becomes ordinary to the point of lacking At artistically stylised, tends to lose its original identity. sweet trifle. And the furiant, although significantly a tempo is it a long way from the original rhythmically arousing even demonic passages.such Incidentally, the basic dance figures at this speed. But it should be not even the best dancer would be able to cope with said that even Hrůša’s more experienced colleagues present the furiant in this kind of insensitive way, much beautiful that is perhaps my only reservation. The Yet without regard for its original identity. The recording debuts of Czech conductors are frequently relatively late, and in the same way the manage- late, and in the same are frequently relatively debuts of Czech conductors The recording conductors from the to appointing principal cautious when it comes music institutions are very ments of our said Let it therefore be younger generation. twenty-five-year- exception! Last year the that here we have an old J He is the assistant Chamber Philharmonic. conductor of the Prague in Zlín and the principal Philharmonic to he gives concerts. with which de Radio France, Philharmonique Chung at the Orchestre Myung-Whun two musically Philharmonic. At the Czech including Hrůša orchestras many of Czech has already conducted is now a remarkable he showed that he outstanding Orchestra Radio Symphony concerts with the Czech considered and mature given his age, he gave what was a surprisingly and highly promising conductor: interpretation of Josef Suk’s His debut album with Supraphon is appearance at the Prague Spring last year. and also made a successful entrusted with minor works by recording company best known Czech oldest and The thus very timely. for these are very famous pieces – especially didn’t make his taskAntonín Dvořák, but this definitely easier, the the CD inviting tough comparisons. Apart from these pieces of many older recordings the complete includes Waltzes made twenty years ago (the music was the sameber the Supraphon record except for the in cooperation with the magazine with the in cooperation reviews reviews reviews tra no.2,op.104 andOrches- forCello in GMinorop.33,Concerto forPianoandOrchestra Antonín Dvořák:Concerto Václav Talich –SpecialEdition5 2|reviews | | 42 Dušan Foltýn Pezelius) (Biber, Vejvanovský, Zach, Plánický, Brixi, Benda, Baroque musicintheCzech Lands (no.9). (no.8), 3984-25254-2 Nikolaus Harnoncourt,Teldec 3984-24487-2 Alternative: RoyalConcertgebouwOrchestra, 76898 2 6 (EMI). TT: 78:07. Classics7243 4 EMI 1CD ADD. (no.9), Philharmonie,Berlin.Released:2005. Recorded: 2–3.1.1979 (no.8),2–3.1.1977 Production: Michel Glotz.Text: Eng.Ger, French. Berliner Philharmoniker, HerbertvonKarajan. Symphony nos.8and9“From theNewWorld” Antonín Dvořák Matouš). 131(distributionStudio 0805-2 Matouš MK Studio 1CD DDD. Published: 2005.TT:58:46. the MinoriteChurch oftheHolySpiritinOpava. Eng., Czech. Recorded:12thand13thofJuly2004, Tomáš Thon – – organ. oboe, PavelHromádka oboe, Production: not stated. Text:Production: notstated. czech music – trumpet, 2 |2006 offers the soloists all the necessary support. The concertos wererecordedbySupraphonin 1951and1952 offers thesoloistsall thenecessary ofourmusiciansthroughouttheworld. part responsibleforthegreatreputation Václav Talich needsnofurtherintroduction.Hewas oneofthemostfamousCzech conductors,andinlarge perfectwork. greatworkintoa turn whatisalwaysa owntrue visionandemotionalreflections abilitytoconveytheaudiencecomposer’s Rostropovich’s The cantilenaofthesoloinstrumentissupported bythewholeorchestra, andwhatismore, fullofenergyand, unsurprisingly,cellist ofhistimeprovidesaninterpretation amazingsympathyandfeeling. PETR BUDÍN PETR isstilloneofthebest. ing ofthe1970s record- recordings ofDvořáksymphoniesasitmightseem,anddespitethereservationssuggested,Karajan’s al ConcertgebouwOrchestra canbeconsideredmodelandrevealing.Buttherearenotasmanygood recordingwiththeRoy- Inthisrespect(andnotonlyinthis)NikolausHarnoncourt’s Beethoven, forexample. withDvořákas “blurred” attheexpenseofpregnantarticulationandphrasingthatareasimportant beautiful sound,andtheresultwassometimesthatsoundisexcessivelyrounded,occasionallyeven phraseinthethirdmovementof8thSymphony. Karajanalwaysstrivedforanideal of the beginningofa betweentheupbeatandfirstbeatat other hand,Karajanwouldhavedonebettertoleaveouttheglissandi of theclarinetstocallflutesinbars11–17 inthesecondmovementof8thSymphony).On theslowerresponse is thewaytempousedtodiscriminatebetweensomecontrastingphrases(forexample versionseemstrulypioneering.Alsoveryeffective(andtasteful) mezzoforte”,played in“workaday Karajan’s withtherecordingmadebyVáclavexample whereitis NeumannwiththeCzech Philharmonicinthe1980s, for three dynamicbelts(pp,p,mp),playedwithpeerlessdelicacyandgrace.Ifwecomparethispassage, isthesecondarythemeofsecondmovement8thSymphonywithitsclearlydiscernible example Oneexcellent sion, andespeciallythewonderfulrichness ofnuanceandcolourinthequieterpassages. instructionsondynamicsandexpres- thoroughrespectforDvořák’s matterofKarajan’s cases itissimplya compared tothedomestictraditionofperformance,whenwelookcarefullyatscorefindthatinmost symphonies.Ifitstrikesusasunusualorevenground-breaking trueoftherecordingDvořák’s is certainly toustoday.18th andearly20thcentury),inhislater19th-centuryrepertoireKarajanstillhasmuch tosay This ofmusicthe recordingsmaytodaybeconsideredoutdated(thisrelatesmainlytohisinterpretation jan’s greatchallenge forperformerstoday. While someofKara- thatitthensetremainsa time andthestandard musicalideas.Inprecisionandqualityofsoundtherewasnoonetocomparewiththeorchestra atthe jan’s ten toAntonínDvořák’s The mostbeautifulconcertoplayedbythebest performer. This idealcombination canbeenjoyedasyoulis- positive factorforlisteners. a thehumanfactorisoften re-edition,havethecharm ofunmediatedmusicianship. Retaining lished hereasa cultivatedperformancefullofemotionandgenuineromanticresolve. The original recordings,pub- to givea vey itsfullexpressivepower. Indoingsohecouldrelyonhisextraordinarytechnical skill, which allowed him Maxián, whoseconceptofthepartwasfoundedonenormousexperiencewith romanticmusic,seekstocon- musicalphenomenon oftheromanticepoch andarefullyevidentinthisconcerto.František most important newperceptionoftectonicstructuretogetherconstitutethe melody, expansiveharmoniesandabovealla 33 a timewhenafterlongyearsofdrill,the was a recordingunderreviewwasmadeinthe1970s. throughouthislife.The It EMI worked ontheirinterpretation ninesymphonies, Of AntonínDvořák’s T quets anddances.And poser goesbeyondtheintellectualcontentofotherpieces,which wereoriginallydesignedmoreforuseatban- pieceisthe outstanding gets thebestoutofthem,relyingongreatdisciplineallthreemusiciansasensembleplayers.Musically worksdeliberatelywithalltheseaspectsand ment andsoalsothechurch thattheCD environment.Icanonlysay trasting lyricismoftheoboepiecesacquireanewdimensionforlisteners,andoneenhancedbyroyalinstru- instruments areroughlyasrich aseach otherinovertones,andwiththefanfaresoundoftrumpetcon- cannot befound.Furthermore,thecombinationofoboeandstrumpetisahappyoneintechnical terms.The two performers that isalmosttheonlywaytorevivepieceswhenoriginalcombinationofinstrumentsorasuitable or evenseemtolendthemselvesthisapproach. Currentlythisisafashionabletrendanditshouldbeadmitted repertoire foranensemblewiththeseinstrumentshastobeputtogetherbytranscribingpiecesofakindthatallow Thebut thedesiretomultiplywhateach hasalreadybeendoingforyearsatthehighestprofessionalstandard. ensemble bondhasformedbetweenthem,itsbasisnotbeenjustthedesiretogetconcertsinfirstplace, trap, butitisclearthateach oneofitsmembersalreadyhasarich andvariedconcertlifetohiscredit,ifan formed onthemusic-historicalinitiativeof trio(oboe,trumpet,organ) an almostperfectsoundproductineveryrespect–andthennothingelse!The Baroque isanecessity.CD Ihavealwaysalsopointedoutthedangeroffirstwaveenthusiasmwhich initiallyproduces andsoensemble inamatureformfromwhich itisbutashortsteptopublicpresentation, pressure havestabilised More thanonceIhavehadoccasiontowriteareviewofthefirststudioeffortsgroupsthatundervariouskinds Talich JOSEF ŠEBESTA CD. enhances thewholeoutstanding of thebooklet,ImustnotforgettomentioninsightfulprefacebyPetr whosehistoricalerudition Koukal, Triolet prefiguresthehonourthatBaroque fromOstravadoesherwith theirrecording.Andsincewearetalking oforganistsandchurchthe organ.The pictureofSt.Cecilia(thepatronsaint singers)onthetitlepageofbook- the introvertedtoneofoboeisratherdrownedbymassive(andatthispointinsensitivelymixed)sound oratura toneperfectlyhighlightstheoriginofpieceinBenda’sviolinvirtuosity. Itisapitythatinsomesections choicelong andarching ofthereedforabrightcol- legatos,thedynamicproportions,andparticularlysuitable he grandmastersofEuropeanmusicperformingAntonínDvořák.Atthe beginningofthefifties . The pieceisbasedonclassicistfoundationsbutadornedwithmanyromanticelements. Richly arched joined forceswiththepianist Dušan Foltýn Sonata inFmajor Sonata Cello Concero inBMinor Concero Cello František Maxián is simplyexcellent.The brilliantstructurationofthedifferentmovements, Tomáš Thon Herbert vonKarajan for oboebyFrantišekBenda.The musicalmasteryshownbythecom- Berlin Philharmonic played by in Ostrava,onfirstsightseemsasifitmightfallintothis for performanceofthe only hadthelasttwoinhisrepertoire,buthe had becometheperfectinstrumentofKara- Piano Concerto inGMinorop. Piano Concerto The Czech Philharmonic . The mostcelebrated Václav and today it has published the rare recordings on CDs as well. The accompanying booklet offers details on František Maxián – piano, Mstislav the conductor and some other information, but nothing on the pieces and the performers – no doubt a print- Rostropovič – cello, The Czech Philha- er’s error is to blame for the missing pages. monic, Václav Talich. Production: Jana Gonda, Petr Kadlec, Petr Vít. Text: Eng., MICHAELA KOMÁRKOVÁ Ger., French, Czech. Recorded: 1951(1–3), 1952 (4–6) Rudolfinum Prague. Published: 2005. TT: 78:03. ADD mono. 1 CD Supraphon SU 3825-2. reviews Two newly published recordings of Janáček’s piano music offer us a marvellous opportunity for comparison. The re-edition of the old recordings by Josef Páleníček from 1971 and 1972 offers an impressive Janáček, if (to put it mildly) a very individual one. If someone wanted to play like this at a competition today, he or she would be sent packing for many sins against the score. This is a romantic but very original Janáček, to the extent that in the rippling first movement of the Sonata, for example, one might even think if the composer wasn’t someone else entirely. In the On an Overgrown Path [Po Zarostlém chodníčku] too, there are many peculiarities of rhythm, conjuring with touch and surprising dynamic changes. These we can justify only by the personality of Josef Páleníček, but behind them there is quite extraordinary art and faith in the durability of a composer who at that time was far from an acknowledged classic, especially not in his piano music. The subtitle of an old gramophone record, “My Janáček” would be more appropriate for this interpretation, but it succeeds in defending its own independence. It is, however, a very interesting proof of the fact that interpre- tation is above all a search and has its history. Páleníček conceives the Capriccio and Concertino very much as a small piano concerto.

The most recent recording by Jan Jiraský last year, on the other hand Leoš Janáček goes right back to the sources. It is less romantic in terms of expres- sion and in places even insufficiently melodious, and is exceptional for Piano Works its enthusiasm, care and thorough preparation. In my view the Over- On an Overgrown Path [Po zarostlém chod- grown Path would benefit from more tension and contrasts between níčku], In the Mists [V mlhách], Sonata 1. X. the individual movements. But I would not venture to predict whether 1905, Concertino, Capriccio) after thirty years we shall be returning to this recording with interest, as in the case of J. Páleníček. The double CD also includes two record- Josef Páleníček – piano, Chamber Harmony ings of the cycle In the Mists (V Mlhách), one of them on Janáček’s of the Czech Philharmonic, Wind Harmony of original piano. This is more a point of interest than something that the Czech Philharmonic Text: Eng., Ger., offers new insight. In the Capriccio he emphasises the playfulness and French, Czech. Recorded 1971 and 1972. Pub- programmatic character of the piece, while it is evident that it is being lished: 2005. TT: 53:59, 41:16. ADD 2 CD played by an “ensemble of soloists” rather than a tightly knit chamber Supraphon SU 3812-2 group. I would in any case continue to consider Rudolf Firkušný’s recording of Janáček as the classic recording, since it seems to con- Leoš Janáček tain the best elements of the two we have been discussing. Both can be recommended to anyone seeking a deeper understanding of Janáček’s piano works, although for completely opposite reasons. Complete Piano Works JINDŘICH BÁLEK (On an Overgrown Path [Po zarostlém chod- níčku], In the Mists [V mlhách], Sonata 1. X. 1905, Tema con variazioni, Concertino, Capric- cio) Jan Jiraský – piano, J. Ševčík – flute, J. Houcek, M. Vajo – trumpet, S. Penk, P. Fríd, P. Čermák – trombone, J. Nauš – tuba, directed by L. Mátl (Capriccio), P. Wallinger, J. Vašta – violin, M. Kovář – viola, V. Spilka – clarinet, R. This set of three CDs, which was released in 2005 – i.e. in the year of the 70th anniversary of the death Novozámský – bassoon, J. Petráš – French of the composer Josef Suk (1874–1935) and also the 80th anniversary of the birth of the performer, horn (Concertino). Production: Jiří Štilec. Text: leading Czech pianist Pavel ·tûpán (1925–1998) – represents a cross-section of Suk’s music for Eng., Czech. Recorded: 2004. Published: 2004. piano. Pavel ·tûpán came from a well-known musical family (he was the grandson of Prof. Vilém Kurz TT: 61:22, 65:03. DDD 2 CD ArcoDiva UP and son of Dr. Václav ·tûpán and pianist Ilona ·tûpánová-Kurzová), who was a close friend of Josef 0071-2 132 (distribution Classic). Suk. It was therefore natural that he should become as it were the “court” interpreter of Suk’s works (like F. Rauch in relation to the works of Novák). He devoted himself to Suk intensively particularly in the sev-

enties, when this recording was made (1974–75) and in 1978 he won the Supraphon Golden Disc for reviews his five-disk (LP) complete set of Suk’s piano works. The CD set contains Suk’s most important piano pieces, leaving out only a number of early minor pieces of the 1880s and 90s and, surprisingly, the famous PíseÀ lásky [Song of Love]. Taken altogether the three discs allow us to form a good picture of the way in which Suk’s piano output developed, since the pieces are arranged chronologically – with the exception of a kind of supplement in the form of four minor pieces under the title Episodes at the end of the third disc. Thus the first disc introduces us to Suk’s early work – Fantasia-Polonaise op. 5, Humoresque in C major, Village Serenade and the cycles Nálady [Moods] op. 10 and Piano Compositions op. 12. The second disc contains the Suite op. 21 and the cycles Jaro [Spring] op. 22a, Letní dojmy [Summer Impressions] op. 22b and O matince [About Mother] op. 28, in which the composer is already finding his own musical voice. On the third disc we find Suk’s crowning piano music – the cycle Îivotem a snem [In Life and Dream] op. 30, Ukolébavky [Lulla- bies’ op. 33], the piece O pfiátelství [On Friendship] op. 36 and the Episodes already mentioned. For the performer this wide range of pieces demands a mastery of various different styles – from salon influ- ences in the early work, through the intimate and impressionistic cycles on the second disc to the spe- cific musical idiom with elements of expressionism in the cycle In Life and Dream. Pavel ·tûpán carries Josef Suk off all these forms of expression with excellence, but if I had to choose, then what impresses me most is Piano Works his interpretation of the slow parts in the cycles of Suk’s mature period. For example in sections VII and X of the cycle In Life and Dream op. 30 ·tûpán shows himself to be the master of the most subtle Pavel ·tûpán – piano. Production: Vít dynamic nuances, each note sounding at the right moment with the right power to the point where the Roubíãek. Text: Eng., Ger., French, Czech. hairs stand up on the back of our neck. The same can be said of the Lullabies op. 33, Suk’s last piano Recorded: 1974–1975. Published: 2005. work. The high standard of the CD is complements by the excellent text by Vít Roubíãek. TT: 65:39, 74:02, 79:08. ADD. 3 CD Supraphon SU 3820-2. KATE¤INA RIETHOFOVÁ

czech music 2 | 2006 | reviews | 43 „For performers who have fallen in love with the music of Bach, the Goldberg Variations are a great chal- lenge,” observes the performer himself in the booklet. One of leading Czech organists, but also harpsi- chordist and player on the clavichord and hammerklavier Jaroslav Tůma has accepted the challenge, and could be said to have triumphed just by having recorded the whole monumental cycle of thirty variations rep- resenting a difficult compendium of approaches to composition not just once but twice over. Once on a two- manual harpsichord, the instrument for which the Goldberg Variations was written, and once (clearly for the first time ever in the history of recording the piece) on a pair of clavichords, an instrument Bach supposedly found more sympathetic than the harpsichord. The listener expecting that a recording by Jaroslav Tůma will reviews offer artistic erudition and insight, maturity of performance and great musical experience will not be disap- pointed. Everything here has its order, its proper place and its proper time. All the movements have a steady pulse, but at the same time there is very thoughtful, detailed work with agogics. The tempi chosen for the individual variations are very sympathetic. Nothing is taken to extremes and so all the variations remain musi- cally lucid. Naturally the two different instruments with different dispositions produce two different versions of the same work. While the clavichord version is reminiscent of a soft drawing in charcoal, with every tone sensitively modelled, the harpsichord version is more like an engraving with sharp and clear lines, in which the overall composition of the picture plays an important role. In the clavichord version Tůma beautifully brings out the plastic polyphony, in which every part is finely dynamically shaded. The acoustically finely The Goldberg Variations BWV 988 worked gallant conclusions of every variation are like charming compliments. In contrast to the preceding Jaroslav Tůma – clavichord, harpsichord. clavichord version, the harpsichord version involves a great deal of ornamentation, and thanks to the change Production: Jaroslav Tůma, Vítězslav Janda. of registers offers the chance for more diverse changes of colour between the variations. As just one exam- Text: Czech, Eng. Recorded: 10/2004 Petro- ple of many we might mention the twenty-fifth variation, the last of the mere three in a minor key, which unex- vice. Released: 2005. TT: 154 min. DDD. 2 pectedly seems to transport us to another world. And in addition, the CDs’ very professionally conceived CD Arta F 10136 (distribution 2HP Produc- booklet provides us with Tůma’s own erudite and detailed, but hugely loving and readable commentary. The tion). set is a stimulating and valuable contribution on many levels and can be warmly recommended. MARTA NĚMCOVÁ

The Talich Quartet has brought off another daring feat. Two years ago they crowned their complete Men- delssohn, then they shocked the experts with a highly mature conception of Smetana’s quartets and Fibich’s 1st Quartet, and now they have released another wonderful title with their home French record com- pany. Their interpretation of Janáček astounds the listener with the tension of each phrase, the dramatic spir- it, the erotic punch, and despite all the abrasiveness an intoxicating sweetness of tone. Currently it would be hard to find any parallel for their treatment of agogics, which pervades even the details. The expressiveness is taken so far that in places I wondered if it wasn’t over the top, yet everything is so beautifully balanced and reviews in proportion that I was entirely convinced. Of course it is just one of the possible interpretations of a com- plex score and other ensembles offer other versions (the Panoch, Stamic, Kocian, Wihan, Hass and other quartets). As far as the standard of the performers is concerned, the ensemble is ideally balanced. The first violin Jan Talich is a brilliant violinist, able and dominant, but the violist Vladimír Bukač is also capable of masterly solo play. The second violin Petr Maceček is not just someone who provides the accents and the “feedlines”, but a complementary partner to the first violin, and background is reliably created by cellist Petr Prause. The Talich Quartet seem to be entering a golden period when they can record almost anything at top level. The Schulhoff Quartet is a good supplement, and played with no less enthusiasm, but it is just one Leoš Janáček of the possible solutions. Filling extra time on a CD of brilliant Janáček quartets is difficult and can never be String Quartet no. 1 „Kreutzer Sonata“, String absolutely right. Quartet no. 2 „Intimate Letters“ LUBOŠ STEHLÍK Erwin Schulhoff String Quartet no. 1 The Talich Quartet: Jan Talich, Petr Maceček, Vladimír Bukač, Petr Prause. Production: Jac- ques le Calvé, Michael Adda. Text: Fr., Eng. Recorded: 12/2004, 3/2005, Studio Arco Diva, Praha. Released: 2005. TT: 57:08. DDD. 1 CD Caliope CAL 9333 (distribution Classic).

44 | reviews | czech music 2 | 2006 5 CD

An Anthology of Czech Music is the first project of its kind. It provides more than 6 hours of excellent record- ings of the most important works in Czech musicalhistory from the Medieval period to the music of contemporary classical composers In addition, one of the five CDs offers samples of Czech folk music in authentic form. The anthology also features a bilingual brochure with a wide-ranging and accessible account of the history of Czech music written by leading experts on each partic- ular period. The text includes references to the specific samples on the CDs and is lavishly illustrated. -

Anthology of Czech Music

• selected works from the earliest times to the present (CD 1–4) • folk music of Bohemia and Moravia (CD 5) • Czech-English brochure www.musica.cz/antologie Orders: Hudební informační středisko [Music Information Centre], Besední 3, 118 00 Prague 1, tel: +420-257 312 422, e-mail: [email protected]

Price: € 22 + shipping Über die

Grenze Tage der Konzerte, Vorträge, Komponistenbegegnungen neuen Musik Koncerty, přednášky, setkání se skladateli Dny nové hudby

6.6. 18:00 Goethe-Institut Prag, 2. patro/ Stock Masarykovo nábřeží 32, Praha 1 Laudatio Pacis Paul Heinz Dittrich, Sofia Gubajdulina, Marek Kopelent Poslech nahrávky, diskuze s autory/ Präsentation der Rundfunkaufzeichnung, Diskussion mit Autoren 7.6. 20:00 Salón Philharmonia, Krocínova 1, Praha 1 13.6. 20:00 Early Reflections Kostel sv. Vavřince, Hellichova 18, Praha 1 Werk + Kraftwerk Ensemble Konvergence Dan Dlouhý: Surrealistický objekt Hudební expresivita/ Mauricio Kagel: Ludwig van ** Musikalische Expressivität Sylva Smejkalová: Cat's Games * Emoce a řád ve vzájemných vztazích/ Emotionen Peter Graham: Work II * und Regeln in gegenseitigen Beziehungen Michal Trnka: Kraftwerk * Luciano Berio: O’King Edison Děnisov: Sonáta Z cyklu/ Aus dem Zyklus: Jan Rybář: Písně na Morgensterna Retro Reflections George Benjamin: Viola, viola ** Bernd Franke: I met Feldman at the crossroad ** Kaija Saariaho: New Gates

Po koncertě proběhne diskuze s Berndem Fran- kem a Juliane Klein/ Nach dem Konzert findet eine Diskussion mit Bernd Franke und Juliane Klein statt. www.konvergence.wz.cz

14.6. 20:00 Lichtenštejnský palác, Galerie Malostranské nám. 13, Praha 1 MoEns Annette Schlünz: Weiter ** Marek Kopelent: Furiant Pořadatelé/ Veranstalter: Michael Hirsch: Trio I ** Early Reflections, skladatelské sdružení KONVERGENCE, Hanuš Bartoň: Begegnung der Zeit ARBOS - sdružení pro novou hudbu, Goethe-Institut Prag Juliane Klein: Aus der Wand die Rinne 1,2,5,6 ** Miroslav Pudlák: Om-Age www.musica.cz/moens

Za finanční podpory/ Mit finanzieller Unterstützung von: MKČR, Deutsch-Tschechischer Zukunftsfonds, Goethe-Institut Prag, Nadace ČHF, Nadace OSA, Nadace Gideona Kleina

Goethe-Institut Prag, Masarykovo nábřeží 32, CZ – 110 00 Praha 1, tel.: (00420) 221 962 111, www.goethe.de/prag ** česká premiéra, * premiéra