czech music

4 | 2004 quarterly magazine

Jan Klusák

E. F. Burian

Vilém Veverka czech music 4 | 2004

editorial Contents 2004

Dear readers, My deepest musical impression lately? You approach a frozen fishpond (obviously it could Page 2 Create – and Do What You Will also be a lake, or a river), and if the ice is still An Interview with Jan Klusák relatively thin and the ice surface not covered in snow (which is quite possible in our climate JAROMÍR HAVLÍK this time of the year), find a stone and send it 4 skimming across the ice. I bet that even those of you who undertook such experiments in their childhood will be mesmerised by the beauty and the range of the swishing sounds a stone makes as you send it bouncing across Page 8 E. F. Burian: Sweep the Stage the ice. You can experiment with different sized stones, different angles and pointed VLASTA REITTEREROVÁ ends, or you can rotate the stone with a differ- ent speed. The results are always different, and always beautiful. The effect is exception- ally romantic and mysterious on freezing moonlit nights, except that it may be hard Page 13 E. F. Burian: Composer finding the stones on the bank. JOSEF BEK Another thing that fills me with a genuine (and immodest) joy is this new issue of Czech Music that you are reading just now. We bring you a triple portrait of Emil František Burian, the man of vital importance for the interwar Page 17 E. F. Burian and Faith theatre avant-garde in this country, whose contribution to Czech music has still not been PETR KOFROŇ adequately recognised. But things seem to be looking up at last. This year, proclaimed as the year of Czech music (the reason for this is fair- ly straightforward: many of the key figures in Page 18 A Few Minutes with an Oboist the Czech musical heritage were either born or died in a year ending with the number four), MAREK KOPELENT there has been a noticeable increase in the interest in Burian the composer. Although we could not really say that Burian the composer has all of a sudden become fashionable, a large number of concerts featuring his music this year have convincingly shown us that he deserves a bit of additional acclaim as a “new- ly discovered” composer of classical music – of his versatile musical output, it is his jazz evergreens that have thus far remained in the public’s consciousness. This year marks a cen- tenary of Burian’s birth; let us hope that with it, his music will be revived in its full range and vigour.

All good wishes for the new year. Czech Music Czech Music is issued by the Czech Music Information Centre with the support Information Centre, of the ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic, Bohuslav Martinů Foundation, Leoš Janáček Besední 3, 118 00 Praha 1, Foundation and the Czech Music Fund Czech Republic, Editor: Petr Bakla, Translation: Anna Bryson fax: ++420 2 57317424 Graphic design: Ditta Jiřičková, Photos: Karel Šuster (cover, p. 2–5, 17, 19), Tomáš Vodňanský phone: ++420 2 57312422 (p. 12–15), Olga Štajnrtová (p. 14) and archives e-mail: [email protected] DTP: HD EDIT, Print: První dobrá s.r.o. PETR BAKLA http://www.musica.cz ISSN 1211-0264 The subscription fee is 25 for Europe, EDITOR $ 30 for overseas countries, or respective equivalents. JAROMÍR HAVLÍK

create – and do what

Jan Klusák long ago won him- been taking a more conspicu- bolised by names like Rilke, self a firm place among the ous role in public life. Kafka, Brod, Meyrink, Werfel, classics of Czech music of the The author of a book on Kisch, and Schulhoff. These later 20th Century. He is a Klusák, Ivan Poledňák, would are apparently very disparate remarkable man in many probably aphoristically sketch areas full of internal paradox- respects. As a musician he is a Klusák as follows: “The es, and perhaps that is one rea- relatively unique case of a descendant of poor plebeian son why Klusák’s own music is “pure” composer, who devotes Czechs and affluent Jews hit by so characteristically esoteric. himself only to composition the Holocaust. An heir to the On the other hand, he has also rather than spreading his traditions of “Czech national written fully functional music activities over other possible music“ (Klusák has a great and for the mass TV serial Hospital musical professions. Even so, humble admiration for the on the Edge of Town. Klusák he is a many-sided person: works of Smetana) and also honours spiritual values, but writer, journalist, film and the- heir to the distinctive tradi- also enjoys succumbing to atre actor, astrologer… Since tions of the „Czech-German- bodily temptations. He is a November 1989 he has even Jewish-Prague“ culture sym- man of remarkable vitality and

2 | interview | czech music 4 | 2004 time shows extraordinary this world. I would like this interview of ours toughness and principle in to be based on that idea, because it seems to me that music has three basic stages of public matters and in matters development. First monophony, then of artistic integrity. He is an polyphony, which music essentially lived by individual par excellence, the up to the 20th century , and then modern music, which has been as it were striving for opposite of a “herd animal”, some kind of self-transcendence, as if it but a man who has no yen to wanted yet to change its state again and become a kind of “radiance” or better still publicly stand out above the “radiation outwards”. But this has only been others either. Instead he is achieved in a few exceptional cases. In my unshowy and inconspicuous, view Varés has managed it in some of his works, for example, or Boulez or Stock- convinced that what makes a hausen – but let me emphasise that it is very person into a man of stature is exceptional even with them. Only the shift from monophony to above all his work, what he polyphony meant first and foremost a demonstrably knows how to complication of the texture, while in my do and what he has achieved.” view that quality of a “new state” in 20th-century music isn’t comparable to In matters of music Klusák is that previous development. Modern admirably serious, admirably music is still polyphonic or a type of polyphonic structure on the same level. sober and tolerant, as will So the transformation must have hap- soon be apparent. In ordinary pened (or be happening) on some dif- communications he has a won- ferent level. You’re right. One feature common to derfully personal sense of monophony and polyphony was a kind of lin- humour. As with all deeply ear development in time. What is new in 20th-century music has brought – or been educated and many-sided peo- striving to bring – a halt to this time move- ple, an interview with Jan ment in music, as it were, exchanging the Klusák is an intellectual treat progression for radiation from a point, ema- nation. This is movement as well, but of a sui generis. I am delighted to completely different quality. have had the opportunity to But the radiation was certainly present in monophony as well. Gregorian chant talk to him in what is a person- had it almost in its job description. And al jubilee year (he celebrated so it probably can’t be considered the his seventieth birthday on the distinguishing mark of music in the “post-polyphonic stage”. 18th of April). Once I studied Gregorian chant quite inten- sively and it struck me that it might be possi- you will ble to create a kind of dense polyphony by linking up many melodies of Gregorian chant together. I tried this in my electronic piece O sacrum convivium – which is an antiphony on Corpus Christi. strong health who refuses to Let’s start this interview with the pre- Would it not then be possible to define engage in sport on principle. sent. How does a seventy-year-old feel the characteristic features and trends in a contemporary musical world of in 20th-century music more in terms of He is a composer working in a which he is still a part? material, and at the level of the musical strictly rational style, but at the I live my life these days thinking mainly about (or more precisely acoustic) expressive same time he believes in a the fundamental thing that art should be techniques? about. Recently it was formulated very well Today that is a very complicated question magic power that rules the by the poet Miloslav Topinka, who published and hard to answer. We don’t yet have world, life and creativity. a poetic composition Trhlina [The Crack] enough distance on it, or enough material (and won the Seifert Prize for it). It is one that would allow us to generalise. What Klusák is someone who never long poem divided into small parts. What became very visible in 20th-century music flirted with the communist Topinka constantly emphasises (and not only and a far more active aspect than before is regime and who even today in this poem, but in various interviews) is the the parameter of timbre – today there are Rimbaudian (but also for example Holanian) few people who would challenge that. does not let his political atti- attempt to get via art beyond some frontier, What does creating music mean to tudes overshadow his voca- as it were to “break through” into some other you? On other occasions you have of dimension, to get through that “crack in the often said that for you composing is an tion as an artist. Klusák is a heavens” somewhere beyond this reality. Of intrinsic need, a libido. On the other person who avoids public course this can’t last long, or at least can’t hand there are composers who see jostling for position, grandeur last forever. It is something like a mystical their motivation differently, more as a state: either you stay there for good, and question of the challenge of a compo- and pomp – but at the same have die there too, or else you come back to sitional problem. This was (and maybe

czech music 4 | 2004 | interview | 3 Are you planning something like that? still is) one very strong and widespread the 20th century by civilians like Stravinsky, motive particularly among composers Martinů, Poulenc… But the common denom- Yes, but I would rather not go into detail of the post-war avant garde. The solu- inator is the example of responsible work, about it now. I’ll just say that it would be a tion of a kind of algorithm, of some the striving for the absolute. You must always type of full-length one-acter, like Strauss’s sort of previously set, often mathemat- give it your best shot. Every artist creates Salome or Elektra. ically expressed project. with the feeling that he is creating a work of Once I saw the “Bunch of Critical But the libido could be precisely in that… art, because otherwise it would be impossi- Blooms”, views of the critics on your All right, but let’s try and stay away ble: creating with the feeling that I am not work that you sent round to your from libido, perhaps below the level of creating a work of art would be demotivating. friends and acquaintances on your fifti- libido. I would like to look more at the Of course, the process by which the feeling eth birthday What’s your opinion of material and techniques by which of a “work of art” arises in society is a more critics and journalists today? libido is processed. In artistic creation complicated matter. I think that the members of this profession is there a prime place for spontaneity, Roman Berger in his reflections distinguish- are the same as in other professions. There’s for intuitive emotional and who- es between creation and production. Natu- an elite minority of “creators” (genuinely!!! – knows-what activity – or is the priority rally production has the quantitative edge – it in the Šalda sense), and then a majority of more that of ratio, reason, the perfectly is like the relationship between the average “producers” – and alse a certain (probably thought out calculation, which is then and the work of genius. The one is impossi- necessary – like everywhere) percent of just “embodied in the given material” ble without the other. greaseballs including immoral scum. But in the next creative phase? How far is your work bound up with without critics things don’t work. That critical You see, I’ve gone through all those phases. astrology, “the harmony of the reflection is necessary! At the beginning composing was the purely spheres” and the associated mysti- Have you ever felt that a critic of your intuitive process for me, and it surprised me cism? work was right, or even learned some- to think that you could in some way rationally On the one hand it has certainly helped me thing from criticism? calculate while composing. Gradually, howev- to find my “Archimedian fixed point”, without Certainly – I learned a lot for example from er, I reached the opposite extreme – rational which I might well not be here at all. On the Miroslav Srnka’s interesting analytical study thinking. But it was still always “libido” with other hand I think music might come even based on a comparison of three pieces me as well. Otherwise I wouldn’t have done it without that. Astrology and so on has helped (Miloslav Kabeláč – Zrcadlení [Mirroring], at all. I think that both approaches are need- me intellectually, and it changes you in terms Luboš Fišer: 15 listů podle Dürerovy Apoka- ed. It’s always a pleasant “game with notes” of view of the world and religious ideas – but lypsy [Fifteen Leaves after Durer’s Apoca- and at the same time a rationally motivated music can be made without that. For me lypse] and Jan Klusák: Variace na téma G. task. The artist sets himself a standard that those ideas are the source of that fixed hori- Mahlera [Variations on a Theme by G. he then tries to overcome. This is a natural zon in the cosmos. In this way I get some Mahler]). Srnka comes to very remarkable quality we call ambition. In my own creative kind of different view from outside. I get out- conclusions, which pleased me partly work I combine the two perspectives you side the co-ordinates of music, which at the because he is a young man and partly mention. I can’t say that in the process I par- beginning, “before the music comes”, is very because I don’t know him well and he didn’t ticularly care about making the structure of important. And os course there is also a come and consult the thing with me, and so the work clear and recognisable, and how mythology involved that has always been a he came to his conclusions purely and simply the individual “cogwheels” fit with each other. great inspiration for art. on the basis of information from the music I think that when someone is lucky enough Today people sometimes talk of struc- itself. to produce a work or series of works that are tureless music. Do there exist certain typical themes in successful enough for him to be regarded by Without structure there is nothing – not even contemporary music (drugs, perver- the outside world as a creative artist and for the non-European music that is often sions, homosexuality, deviations, sui- his products to be called art, then it does brought up when people argue the case. cide, psychiatric institutions)? Some- seem to have all “slotted into place” even for Are you in contact with the work of the times I feel an absence of positive him, but at the same time it is a living, viable youngest generation? motivations here. organism. I have been lucky that when I To be frank, not very much. Maybe one rea- The man who mistook his wife for a hat etc. dreamt up some pattern, let us say, or some son is that I have never taught composition Yes. This general negativism is very typical of structural model to be tackled, then some and don’t intend to now. themes of art in recent years – paranoiac composition has come out of it. You are also an opera composer. Do states, the impossibility of partnership rela- Do you see it as a matter of chance or you believe opera still has any mean- tions, inability to find a fixed point… Certain- some thing that is and inevitable ing in the world today? ly it relates to the state of life at the moment. attribute of the “true creator”? I would very much wish that it did have. Isn’t contemporary music too easily I don’t know how other colleagues feel about Opera always has to be a little more accessi- giving up on its chances of communica- it, but for myself I think what probably hap- ble, popular, and comprehensible than that bility? Sometimes it seems to me that pens is that what you might think of as the “high” concert music. Here we face the ques- contemporary composers haven’t even Socratian “daimonium” in a person keeps tions of whether that “radiation” I mentioned tried to be accessible. watch on that subconscious activity and con- is possible in opera as well. I very much hope What actually is comprehensibility in music? stantly regulates and “tunes” the subcon- that opera finally achieves the radiation (cer- Music is comprehensible in the same way as scious and conscious level of creation in line tainly, Wagner tried and succeeded). In mod- birdsong, or clouds merging, while “under- with inborn attributes, with character, with ern opera I think Messiaen achieved some- standing nature” is a pretty strange and what it is that is the individual in every indi- thing of the sort in his opera about St. Fran- overblown expression. “To like” doesn’t have vidual. cis of Assisi. to mean “to understand”. It’s a question of What is your view of the vocation of Do you think any of your operas has what art wants. I personally hope that when the artist in the modern world? I’m the same tendency? my work works for me, when I understand it, thinking of anything from “craftsman” No, in my operas to date I have so far only then other listeners will like it and under- to “prophet sent from heaven”. practised within the tradition. And if I ever stand it as well, even if they may like it and I have never thought much about it. The role manage to produce something more original, understand it in a different way than I do. But of “prophet” was definitively demolished in more mine, I wouldn’t be so annoyed. that contact is nonetheless created.

4 | interview | czech music 4 | 2004 What about music for film – or other Schönbergian dodecaphony probably no music “over the picture”? You wrote longer has any point, and has been exhaust- the music for the famous serial “Hospi- ed. But the principle of dodecaphony can still tal on the Edge of Town” for example. be exploited and in a very versatile way too. Has this line of your work continued? One of the many possibilities is geometric manipulation, for example, which is what I Thank God no. I love film and in the sixties I work with myself. was up to my ears in it (as an actor as well), Can the Schönbergian principle be but I don’t like writing film music. For me it is combined with others? Is so, with “lost music”, where you are not your own which? Won’t the result of a combina- master and have to respect the screenplay tion like that be just an impure hotch- and the director… Sometimes it entertained potch? me writing for example a brass march so that My answer to the first part of your question “it was indistinguishable from Kmoch”. would be yes, dodecaphony can be com- On the other hand, composing in set bined with other systems and principles. For styles is one of the skills a profession- example with micro-intervals, I could imagine al composer has to have…. a quarter-tone serial system – a kind of Yes, and Profesor Janeček used to tell us “double dodecaphony” – and for years now that a future professional ought to practice I’ve been intending a piece like that. for example writing something ą la Mozart. As far as the hotchpotch point is concerned, But then it becomes clear who the genuinely mixing different elements need not just lead creative person is. The person who gets to an impure muddle, but might for example Mozart down to the last detail and is indistin- create a compact alloy with completely new guishable from him most probably doesn’t qualities – and that is of course desirable. have true creative talent… And that’s the After all, even Schönberg later mixed his issue in film music as well. originally very orthodox dodecaphony with So, given this scepticism, why did you non-dodecaphonic elements and think what ever take on writing the music for we could say about Berg! Even such a giant “Hospital on the Edge of Town”? as Shostakovich somewhere wrote that lution and repeated decomposition of the The reasons were the most prosaic possible. Wozzek was a dodecaphonic work. That’s theme is deliberate, and I think that I man- It was a decision out of necessity, I had the impression it gives – it’s a mixture and aged to express it quite eloquently and per- almost nothing to live on back then, and in yet it’s a stylistically pure work. suasively in compositional terms. such a situation I didn’t have much choice. Inventions – one of the key concepts The trend to that “dissolution of the Hospital (1977) didn’t have any sequel as far and products of your work and person- theme” is a process that followed later as I was concerned, with one exception – ality, one which forms the spine, as it in Inventions. In your view as the com- just after the revolution in November 1989 I were, of your work to date. Inventions poser, when was the ideal state actual- did the music for Jiří Menzel’s film adaptation are certainly at the heart of your con- ly achieved? of Václav Havel’s “The Beggar’s Opera”. And I ception of dodecaphony. Do they repre- Not until the Sixth Invention. did it with gusto, because it was precisely sent a kind of distilled out form, a How many Inventions you have written that “fake Rossini”. world unto itself, the earliest achieved so far? Which of your colleagues and contem- point on the road to an ideal in which Ten. The first in 1961 and so far the last in poraries knows how to write “supreme- the results of striving in other composi- 1992. ly creative – individual” film music? tionsal fields are as it were recapitulat- Back to the issue of mixing different But that’s common knowledge – we all know ed and stored, or are they tightly linked approaches: alea or logos? it was Luboš Fišer, Svatopluk Havelka and a to “non-inventions”? For example, Those are two poles that on the contrary number of others… and then professionals what do your famous Variations on a should not be mixed (actually, they cannot be in the field, for example of the stature of Theme by G. Mahler have in common mixed at all), but they can be combined. For Zdeněk Liška. with the following series of Inven- me personally both are important, but logos And anyway of course, film music in tions? is more important. That order is very impor- the past was not like it is today, when The Variations on Mahler are naturally from tant for a work, if not the most important musical colouring is so easy to add to the line of Inventions – except that they are thing. the picture and manipulate using stu- more intuitive. I have already mentioned Srn- So we shall not achieve a work through dio equipment. ka’s analytical study that compares works of aleatorics? Well yes, and let’s remember the kind of Kabeláč, Fišer and my Variations. Srnka But of course we shall. John Cage wrote real highly artistically autonomous music for films writes for example that especially in Varia- works, but their order is somewhere else – it written by composers of the stature of tions I have not achieved that ideal of com- is behind the structure, perhaps above it. Honegger, for example. That music comes plete “dissolution of the theme”, and that I This order has a spiritual dimension, it is in out today on CD as music in its own right… still have thematically recognisable surfaces the contemplation to which the piece gives But these days I’m an old gentlemen and and passages – which is true. The Inventions direction, which it “moderates”, in this way first and foremost I want to devote myself to differ from the Variations, for example, in the aspiring to be part of a higher order – like all “my monuments”, symphonic and operatic. sense that in the inventions I gradually true works of art. I remember a conversation You are a pioneer of dodecaphony reached absolute serialism as it appears in I had a very long time ago with the painter among Czech composers. In your view Boulez, Nono, Stockhausen. In the Inventions and sculptor Jan Koblasa sometime at the does the dodecaphony as a system, a “everything is dissolved” – it is simply pure beginning of the sixties, when there was a creative principle, a compositional seriality – there is no theme there, nor even growing interest in abstract art in this coun- technique still have any meaning at the any melody. But what makes Variations vari- try. At that time Koblasa had done these beginning of th 21st century? Or is it an ations is just the fact that they keep to the abstract picturesa ` la Pollock, which at first anachronism? theme to be varied. And they really keep to it sight were reminiscent of printed circuits – even if that tendency to the gradual disso- (back then this was the entirely new craze in

czech music 4 | 2004 | interview | 5 modern miniaturised electrical technology) I completed those in 1962. After the Varia- Have you ever considered writing a Fourth, and I wanted him to explain to me what the tions I spent several years looking for the or even more? meaning of these artefacts was. Koblasa “formula of invention” and found it in the 6th I’m thinking of writing a big vocal symphony looked out of the window and pointed out Invention for Nonet (1969). There I achieved in Mahlerian format. Perhaps it could be the tracks left by cars in the mud. “There is that effect of “dissolution of the tone row” or called Song of the World. an order in that,” he said to me, “but you “dissolution of the theme”, that as M. Srnka Instrumental concertos are also among understand it only when there is more than writes, is not yet present in the Variations on the traditional genres. I know you one of these tracks and when you look at a Theme by G. Mahler. Then I started search- wrote a bassoon concerto in your them from a long way above”. I think that ing again, this time for a way out of that uni- youth. Nothing else? many composers have given their works a formity and sameness, and I found it, I hope, Oh yes. I also wrote a flute Concertino and a similar order, very strikingly in the case of in the 3rd String Quartet in 1975. After that, saxophone concerto – it hasn’t been per- Iannis Xenakis, for example. Today it is com- my development has not involved any more formed here yet and was written for Holland, mon for people to think seriously about order branching off. There are some pieces that where it was presented. And in 1995 I even in chaos. deviate more from the main line, like Tetra- wrote a piano concerto. I am not a pianist What is your view of the possibility and grammaton sive Nomina Eius, for example and so I don’t know how to do the traditional productiveness of combining what is (which is the 10th Invention) – and then piano stylisation. But despite that, or maybe called “classical, serious” music with Zemský ráj to na pohled [Paradise on Earth] just because of it, I had a go. It has not yet jazz or even rock? The young genera- when I wanted to try out some new, or more been performed here yet. tion of composers today are very inter- precisely different possibilities of tonality. You clearly and indisputably belong to ested in this area. Has it ever said any- And then Osa času [The Axis of Time], for the musical generation that we sym- thing to you? the moment my last important composition. bolically call the Sixties Generation. As Once again this problem revolves round the You mentioned one isolated composi- a witness and joint creator of this centre question of the creative integrity of tion, that has had no successors – that important stage could you tell our such an approach. In principle there can be “trifle“ with jazz elements for the readers something more about the dis- no objections to contacts between so-called Baroque Jazz Quintet. As far as isola- tinctive features of musical life in the serious music and jazz or rock. I have always tion is concerned its counterpart is sixties? been impressed by the brilliant way Stravin- clearly O sacrum convivium – which is Jan Tausinger, Jan Kapr, Zbyněk Vostřák and sky, Martinů, Schulhoff, Ježek and others so far your only electro-acoustic piece. a number of others – with these people the managed to combine jazz with serious music. Is it really the only one and if so, why sixties brought a radical transformation of I must admit that it has tempted me as well, did it stay that way? their style as composers. In my view the but somehow I never got round to it in prac- Because just at the time I had a lively inter- process was the most organic with tice. So in my case it’s not a case of rejec- est in electro-acoustic music came those Tausinger. He is a composer we ought to tion, but more of a chance set of circum- “dry years” when I wasn’t allowed into any remember. In his case the transformation stances. electro-acoustic studio. And today I have dif- took place relatively smoothly, and in my view Does that means that you have really ferent interests. I am in the middle of a sym- artistically responsibly as well, by which I never written a piece with jazz ele- phony and also something for the theatre, mean, for example, that he didn’t publicise ments? and so probably now I won’t get round to his preparatory, study compositions in the Actually I have. For Jiří Hlaváč’s Baroque electro-acoustic music. new style for a long time, and it was only Jazz Quintet I wrote something, more or less What led you to abandon Neo-Classi- when he felt that he was “at home” with the a trifle, called Shaking Pears. It was a refer- cism? After all, in your early period you new materials and the new techniques that ence to Shakespeare (at the time I was writ- wrote more pieces in this style than he had pieces performed, ones that were ing an opera on Twelfth Night), whose name just the Music for Fountain. I can recall already not too derivative. There were also used to be a source of jokes even with his the Concerto grosso or the three sym- composers for whom the transition to New contemporaries and especially his rivals. phonies, at random. Music was obviously a last resort, but that’s Anyway, to cut it short, the piece uses jazz There were several reasons why I suddenly not a specifically Czech issue. I myself did elements, which was partly because of the felt that the old traditional forms were not immediately jump on all those various group I was writing for, of course. exhausted, for example the sonata forms currents springing out of Darmstadt, which I simply can’t resist asking you for a that had been a support to me at the begin- were the most influential in this country. I brief profile of your work through your ning. One of them could have been the fact started from the detail and gradually worked own eyes. Which of your works do you that after finishing my studies, for a year and my way through to dodecaphony. regard as milestones in your develop- a half I found myself outside my real life with In the fifties where did you get infor- ment as a composer hitherto? music, as it were, because I had to do military mation about twelve-tone and modern My independent composing career began service. When I came back to civilian life, I music in the West? Where could you with Music for a Fountain for wind quintet in suddenly saw many things in a different light. hear music of this type actually 1954 – it’s Neo-Classicism and akin to the I hadn’t spent my time in the Army Arts played? If I’m not mistaken the official style of Iša Krejčí. The next piece that was Ensemble, but with a combat unit, and in its sources were nugatory. important in terms of my evolution was Four way this had salutary effects. As relates to In fact there were some sources here. Peo- Small Voice Exercises, or Pictures for 12 the 3rd Symphony you mentioned, it definite- ple who were well informed, included Mirko Wind Instruments in 1960. That was the first ly isn’t Neo-Classical. I wrote that after my Očadlík, for example, or Jaroslav Šeda, who time I got to grips with the dodecaphony. return from the army, when I had begun to can take the credit for the legendary Theatre If I’m not mistaken, Libor Pešek’s look for a way out of Neo-Classicism. First I of Music in Opletalova Street. This had a rel- Chamber Harmonic had the lion’s wrote the 1st, 2nd and 5th movements, atively well-stocked and publicly accessible share of responsibility for getting you which are still a kind of “halfway house” in phonoteque with the music that wasn’t offi- to write these pieces. that respect, but the 3rd and 4th movements cially performed. And then there were private Yes, they needed repertoire and every other I were written later and they are already dode- sources: in Prague there were several private wrote some music for their every other con- caphonic. I wrote them after I had completed collectors and owners of good recording cert. the Pictures, and quite possibly the 1st libraries with this attractive music. There And then came Variations on a Theme Invention as well. would be private listening sessions in their by G. Mahler. So far you have written three symphonies flats. One was the photographer Josef and all of them fall into your early period. Sudek, and I was a frequent guest in his flat

6 | interview | czech music 4 | 2004 in the Lesser Town. Sudek had mainly Jan Klusák Selection of Work: The spine of Klusák’s Stravinsky and Honegger – and on standard Czech composer (but also theatre and film work to date consists of nine Inventions for records. Another source was Milan Mun- actor, writer and journalist), born on the 18th various combinations of instruments and five clinger, for instance, who also owned a very of April 1934 in Prague. string quartets. He has written as many as extensive record library, which musical He attended academic high school (school- 200 pieces to date. Prague was well aware of. In the sixties we leaving examination 1953), and then studied used also to meet at Eduard Herzog’s place. composition at the Prague Conservatory Hudba k vodotrysku [Music for a Fountain] He didn’t have his own recordings but he (with Jaroslav Řídký) and the Music Faculty for wind quintet, 1954 was employed at Supraphon and used to of the Faculty of Performing Arts (with Pavel Concerto for Bassoon and Orchestra, borrow them from there. And then there was Bořkovec). As a composer his starting-point 1954–55 another man to whom I went only for the Rite was Neo-Classicism (Stravinsky, Prokofiev, String Quartet no. 1, 1955–56 of Spring – it was a pre-war recording on Iša Krejčí). From the Autumn of 1959 he Concerto grosso, 1957 standard Columbia records (so a set of worked for some years with Libor Pešek’s Symphony no. 1, 1956 about 15 records) with Stravinsky conduct- Chamber Harmonic. This gave Klusák the Symphony no. 2, 1959 ing. And I listened to this recording many impulse to a new creative orientation in the Symphony no. 3, 1960 times with the score in my hands. That man’s direction of the then New Music. He wrote a Obrazy pro 12 dechových nástrojů [Pictures name was F. A. Kypta, and he knew a great number of pieces for the Chamber Harmo- for 12 Wind Instruments], 1960 deal about Stravinsky. He possessed not just nic, the most important including Obrazy pro Čtyři malá hlasová cvičení na texty Franze recordings, but plenty of scores from abroad. 12 dechových nástrojů [Pictures for 12 Wind Kafky [Four Small Voice Exercises on Texts Did you ever visit Darmstadt yourself – Instruments], Čtyři malá hlasová cvičení na by Franz Kafka], 1960 the Mecca of Czech modernists of the texty Franze Kafky [Four Small Voice Exerci- 1st Invention for Chamber Orchestra, 1961 Sixties? ses on Texts by Franz Kafka] and 1st Inven- Variations on a Theme by Gustav Mahler, No, but I was definitely in indirect contact tion. 1962 with the Darmstadt environment. Ultimately I In these pieces Klusák gradually made the 2nd Invention for Chamber Orchestra, 1962 wrote my 2nd Invention as a commission transition to the dodecaphony and the poe- 3rd Invention for Strings, 1962 from Darmstadt and it was premiered there tics of the 2nd Vienna School. Following on String Quartet no. 2, 1961–62 in 1963, conducted by Bruno Maderna. They from this shift he wrote Variations on a The- 4th Invention for Orchestra, 1964 invited me to the premiere, but the Union of me by Gustav Mahler in 1960–62, which is 1–4–3–2–5–6–7–10–9–8–11 for Solo Composers was against it and so I never got generally regarded as Klusák’s most impor- Flute, 1965 there. It was one of those absurdities that tant work so far. In the 60s Klusák also did a 5th Invention for Wind Quintet, 1965 seem to me today more comic than anything great deal of work in film – as a composer of Rondo for Piano, 1967 else. That time instead of me one of the film music and directly as an actor. O sacrum convivium (Motet Concréte), 1968 politically correct representatives of the After August 1968 he was marginalised by 6th Invention for Nonet, 1969 Union went there and his pieces were the communist regime. At this time, however, Mourning Monody for I. Stravinsky, 1972 assigned to the Darmstadt curiosities he also worked with the satirical Theatre of 7th Invention for Large Orchestra, 1972–73 department. Jára Cimrman. In his composing work he 8th Invention for Small Orchestra, 1973 How did they get to know about you in gradually developed his own individual form Jupiter, Duet for Clarinet and Cello, 1973 Darmstadt when you had never been of the invention and in 1975 created another Sonata for Percussion Instruments, 1974 there in person? milestone work in the form of his 3rd String 3rd String Quartet, 1975 Most probably from the Polish magazine Quartet. Following November 1989 Klusák Lev [The Lion], Duet for Flute and Piano, Ruch muzyczny, where they wrote a lot about “returned to the public” and took on several 1977 me. public posts (artistic board of the Prague Luna v zenitu [Luna at the Zenith]. Four Today people often talk about a general ten- Spring, advisor on repertoire at the National Poems by A. Akhmatova for Mezzo Soprano, dency to dumbing down and vulgarisation in Theatre, offices in the Arts Association Clarinet, Viola and Piano,1981 culture and art… [Umělecká beseda]) and received a series of 4th String Quartet, 1990 These trends are real and spreading like awards. He lives and works in Prague. 10th Invention “Tetragrammaton Sive Nomi- weeds, which upsets me. Once upon a time na Eius” for Large Orchestra, 1992 “vulgarisation” had a creative aspect, as a 5th String Quartet “Great passacaglia”, 1994 means of breaking through the rigid official Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, 1994–95 and officious “white collar” culture. But today it has become something very decadent and Stage Music (selection): very low, because it is often a cover for cul- Bertram a Mescalinda aneb Potrestaná věr- tural inadequacy. There is only one possible nost [Bertram and Mescalinda or Fidelity defence against it and that is an individual Punished]. Opera-pasticcio, 1974–82 defence: to be uncompromisingly decent. Dvanáctá noc aneb Cokoli chcete [Twelfth Can an artist do just as he or she Night or What You Will]. Opera in 2 Acts, wants? I am thinking of one of the pos- 1985 sible slogans of post-modernity. Povídka o Aucassinovi a Nicolettě [The Tale I would remind us of a sentence of St. of Aucassin and Nicolette]. Singspiel, 1986 Augustine: “Love and do what you will”. I Král se zlatou maskou [The King with the modify it in my own way: Create, then, have Golden Mask]. Ballet, 1986 an idea and do what you will. After all, to love Héró a Leandros [Hero and Leander]. Ballet, in the true sense of the word is a matter of 1988 genius. Love is one of the ways of breaking Dybuk aneb bludná duše [Dybbuk or the through into that other dimension we talked Wanderinf Soul]. Play with singing, 1995 about at the beginning. Zpráva pro akademii [Reports for the Acade- my]. Chamber Opera, 1992–96

czech music 4 | 2004 | interview | 7 “E. F. Burian (11th June 1904–9th August 1959) was what you might e. f. burian: call a ‘total’ artist. Composer, writer, actor, singer, theatre and film direc- tor, theoretician, politician, bon sweep the stage! vivant, prisoner, communist in uni- form. He was one of the first in Czech culture to pursue the idea of certain kind of gesamtkunstwerk, VLASTA REITTEREROVÁ an approach that was later to be taken up in Laterna magica (Black “Once as a small girl I was going for a walk with dicted, for example, that Emil the younger, Theatre), or Czech experimental my father when he said, ’Look, that’s the singer brought up to honour the great tradition of film, for example. Burian’s music is Emil Burian coming in the opposite direction.’ I Czech music represented by the legacy of almost entirely forgotten in this had only been to the National Theatre once to Smetana, would one day fall madly in love with country today, although it deserves see a fairytale and I had huge respect for any- jazz syncopation. On that summer day to be valued in the context of the one that acted or sang in the theatre. I stared described by Lola Skrbková, Emil may not have international avant garde between admiringly at Emil Burian, but I couldn’t help been very interested in being gawped at by the wars. His purely musical output noticing the girl on one side of him and the boy worshippers of his father’s art, but at 21, while on the other. The little boy in short trousers and still a pupil at the conservatory, he was already was vast (perhaps 200 opuses – cap made an indelible impression on my memo- embarking on a major musical career himself as several operas, a series of orches- ry. To this day I can still summon up a vivid pic- the National Theatre presented his opera Před tral works, many chamber pieces, ture of him walking beside his father with his slunce východem [Before Sunrise]. He had dozens of stage and film composi- hands in his pockets. I couldn’t have had any even written the opera, based on Maeterlinck’s tions). idea, of course, that this boy was one day going play Aladdin and Palomid, two years before. “E. Today it seems incredible that one to play such an important part in my work.” F.” was everywhere something was happening man could have done so much, This was how the later “Déčko“ (“D”) Theatre in music, poetry and theatre. His name made his actress Lola Skrbková remembered her first life easy and difficult at the same time. He directing his theatre (which accord- encounter with her future director. It was not knew the glamour and the pitfalls of fame from ing to witnesses he hardly ever left), only Lola who could have had no inkling of what his home and family. He must have been aware while yet managing to produce an the young son of the great baritone would of the envious voices that could not forgive his enormous amount of work in pretty become. His famous father could have had no uncle Karel (even more celebrated than his well every branch of art. Particular- inkling either, although he must have known brother Emil, younger by six years) his success- ly after 1948 his output as a com- that his son might well have musical and the- es abroad, and must have understood the atrical talents. He would definitely not have pre- tragedy of this great tenor, often compared to poser was remarkable, including a great quantity of new works, and the revision of a series of earlier V. E. Meyerhold and E. F. Burian works that he now cast in final form. (by A. Hoffmeister) Many of his works (for example his string quartets) he wrote in a strange solitude, despite the con- ventional view of Burian as a bully- ing politician – director. Burian’s pre-war music is charac- terised on the one hand by a kind of neo-primitivism and neo-folklorism foreshadowing the movement in Czech music in the 1950s, but on the other by admiration for jazz, the two strands often pit together in a weird hybrid that would most prob- ably upset today’s purist serious composers.” It is with these words that the con- ductor of the Agon Orchestra, Petr Kofroň, introduced a concert that this year effectively re-ignited interest in the music of E. F. Butrian, who was born exactly a hundred years ago. In this number we bring you three arti- cles – among them an essay by Kofroň –, which will, we hope, give you at least a basic idea of how extra- ordinary E. F. Burian was.

8 | portrait | czech music 4 | 2004 Caruso, who lived out his life in serious illness and deprived of the stage. But anyone who is born with the theatre in their blood is con- demned in advance.

“On St. Camile’s Day my wife hopes you will come, and meet Emil, who is my son.” Thus Emil Burian welcomed his son, and left his friends in no doubt of his paternal pride. It was not only thanks to his uncle and father that Emil’s home was full of music. His mother was a singing teacher and young Emil naturally grew up surrounded by all kinds of resonant voices, speaking or singing. Did he wonder even back then how all these voices would sound togeth- er, rhythmically arranged according to his direc- tion? The year 1920 saw the founding of the arts group “Devětsil“ [meaning “Butturbur”, a plant, but also literally, “Nine Forces”] that brought together writers, painters, architects, musicians and theatre people, but also critics and arts journalists. Burian became involved through his friendship with the poet Vítězslav Nezval. Here he met Jiří Frejka, and with him and Jindřich Honzl came to form the “trio of the most audacious” as it was later called. Burian joined “Devětsil” as a musician, but it was here than his taste for theatre came to the fore. It was here that the Osvobozené divadlo [Liberat- ed Theatre] was born, in which Burian started to develop his versatility: he played on the piano, composed and sang, but also acted and nursed a longing to be a director – the one who puts together and sets in motion that clockwork mechanism of interlocking wheels that is the- atre. Here as a musician he worked alongside Jaroslav Ježek who, for example “full of humour marvellously parodied famous musicians on the piano, and E. F. Burian recited, played at jazz accompanied by gramophone and sung his proverbs, and did all this with great gravity,” as the daily Lidové noviny reported on the 2nd of March 1927. A remarkable formulation: Ježek “parodied on the piano” and Burian “played at jazz”… The performance was something between cabaret, revue and poetic belts, with many elements of ordinary practical jokery, delight in combinations of words, sounds, objects and individual ideas. Gradually, however, a more serious note crept into what were still performances for “letting one’s hair down”.

The European avant garde identified with left- wing thinking, partly as a reaction to the tradi- tion-loaded bourgeois culture in which the working with Frejka), were ephemeral ventures, sented his ensemble at the International Soci- younger generation had grown up. Just as the but it was in these companies that Burian ety for Contemporary Music Festival in Siena. new bourgeoisie had once defined itself developed his highly individual approach to the- Here the Voice-band created a sensation and against the aristocracy, so the contemporary atre. It was in Brno that in 1929 Burian’s voice- of course had its critics, as is usual and desir- generation of artists took up the call for social band was formed. Burian was not the only one able with every new development. Burian was revolution, which it saw as the condition for the to be searching for a new relationship to the conscious that the audience would be interna- birth of a new kind of art. It was only logical that stage word at this period, but he was the only tional, and so the programme was put together this political conviction came hand in hand with one to develop ensemble recitation into orches- from Italian, French, English, German and Czech enchantment with the modern Russian theatre, tral score and to found a distinctive theatrical texts. One of the Italian reviewers gave a Alexander Tairov and Vsevolod Meyerhold, and poetics on the genre. In 1929 he presented a charming account not just of the performance also with the left-orientated theatre of the West Czech classic romantic poem, “May “by Karel but also of Burian himself: “A kind of spirit, a – Bertolt Brecht, Erwin Piscator. The Burian – Hynek Mácha. It was one of the best voice- medium, presented himself as cappelmaestro; Frejka – Honzl trio finally parted company and band presentations, one that he was to return not the sort we would have expected. No direc- went off to different theatres. Burian went via to twice with his own Déčko company and torial full beard, no glasses, no prim frock coat. the “Dada” and “Modern Studio” companies to which its member Nina Jirsíková was to stage Just two searching magnetic eyes shining with Brno, Olomouc and back to Brno. The “Dada” at the Terezín concentration camp. intelligent sympathy and – malice. It is hard to and “Modern Studio” (where Burian was still One year before “May”, in 1928, Burian pre- imagine the private life of this universal man.

czech music 4 | 2004 | portrait | 9 After so many attempt to break up old forms, between the arts would fall.“ In 1936 Burian ment of lighting, movement and other elements after so many sonatas and quartets ’at any published the slender booklet entitled “Sweep (Burian was one of the first in this country to price’, it is a magnificent experience to meet the Stage!”, dedicated to the memory of his use film as part of the stage design) was also someone who ultimately doesn’t care about any father. It is a summary of his views on theatre, based on a musical feeling for rhythm and its of it, learns directly from the birds and sings – his hopes for the future and what he had man- changes. can one put it like this? – the most beautiful aged to achieve with his own company over the Himself a musician, Burian knew how to choose free song of the last fifty years.” last two years. The “D 34” company was excellent musicians as colleagues. Those who Burian defined his “patent” invention like this: launched on the 16th of September 1933 with worked in Déčko included Karel Ančerl, Karel “The libretto of voice-band is the poem. The a performance in the concert hall of the Mozar- Reiner and Rafael Schächter. The three were text is not reproduced in the same way as in the teum in Jungmannova Street. The changing later interned in Terezín, where all of them old kind of recitation ensemble, but is trans- number of the company, always indicating the helped to maintain faith in life through music. posed into the ensemble key in such a way as year in the second half of the current season, The conductor Rafael Schächter, who directed to allow the beauty of the ensemble union to meant a journey ahead, and symbolised unend- Smetanaęs The Bartered Bride and Verdi’s stand out as much as possible. The word and its ing searching. The first production was symbol- Requiem in Terezín, did not survive. Nor did latent musicality constitute the building block in ic as well: Erich Kastner’s Life in Our Days. The Hans Krása, whose music for Adolf Hoffmeis- rhythmic harmony. […] The word is rhythmised other plays in the first season also showed ter’s Mládí ve hře [Youth at Play], presented at freely.” The melody of voice-band also flowed clearly the social groups Burian was gunning the Déčko on the 19th of February 1935, was from the latent musicality of the word, with har- for, and this inevitably meant that his audiences the first case of Burian using stage music that monies created by division according to the were composed mainly of young workers and he had not composed himself (apart from the natural registers of female and male voices. students. In his manifesto “Sweep the Stage!” use of Kurt Weill’s songs in The Threepenny Nonetheless the ensemble remained a set of he underlined several passages that formed the Opera, in which Burian himself played Mack- individuals, with each performer interpreting the axis of his programme: “The modern theatre eath). text as she or he wished. director serves, but is not a servant”, “Theatre Burian’s ensemble changed venues, appearing must be taken into the hands of those who cre- Burian’s avant garde company was soon con- at the Umělecká beseda [Arts Association], in ate it”, “The time has come when it will be nec- fronted with fascism and Nazism. During a tour the Na Slupi Theatre and in the Mozarteum: its essary to shoot for beautiful art. He who shoots of Switzerland in 1935 the company was faced performances included for example the Old first will be the winner”, “For us the nation is the with protests from fascist-influenced sections Czech Mastičkář [The Mountebank], Havlíček’s working people, and the culture of the working of the public provoked particularly by Burian’s Křest svatého Vladimíra [The Baptism of St. people is the national culture for us”. Vojna [War], a production based on folk poetry Vladimir], The Song of Songs (with text from Erben’s collection with a clearly pacifist arranged by Max Brod), and a Hans Sachs Director Musician message. Other sections of the public were farce, but also Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juli- In the autumn of 1936 Vsevolod Meyerhold vis- more understanding: “We don’t understand the et. Collaboration with Frejka, however, ultimate- ited Prague and saw Burian’s production of the words but a forsaken mother is always under- ly led to claustrophobia and “cabin fever”. Buri- Barber of Seville at the Déčko: “E. F. Burian is a standable, not only in Czech,“ someone wrote in an resigned and left for Brno, while Frejka went director very close to me in approach. He com- Berne. There were attacks on Burian at home, to the National Theatre. poses his productions like a musician, and I too. In May 1937 the company held a spring In the drama Studio in Brno, Burian was reunit- regard that as the only correct method in dra- festival linked to an international theatre con- ed with Jindřich Honzl, and staged Macchiavelli, matic art,“ he said. Music always played an irre- ference and an exhibition of the fruits of Czech Maeterlinck, O’Neill, and Šalda, for example, but placeable role in Burian’s theatre. His direction (Czechoslovak) culture from Bedřich Smetana the company did not have the funds to survive. was really a musical score, and he used to call to the current young generation. Rightists After a year of frustration in Olomouc, Burian the scripts the librettos. Burian’s “polydynam- branded Burian as a Jew-Bolshevik, and Czech tried again in Brno. Here he directed Nezval’s ics”, as he called the mutual interlinkage of all nationalists were outraged by the fact that the Milenci z kiosku [Lovers from a Kiosk] in 1932, the dramatic elements, was based on the princi- exhibition included several works by artists from effectively engaging in polemic with Frejka, who ples of musical form; he kept to a sense of pro- the German minority. The company continued to had just directed the same play at the National portion in the deployment of all elements, and play, however, and the number of premieres in a Theatre in Prague. The final verses of the play respected the laws of gradation and contrast as season never fell below five, not even in the caused both directors problems with the cen- in musical composition. It was not a case of first year of the occupation. sor: “I know a land near the pole, I know a land music accompanying the dramatic performance, of strange beauty, and to this land we shall go but of ensuring that all the dramatic methods In the company Burian was not only head, together and forever. It is not America, land of employed “resonated together”. For Burian author, repertory director, and director (includ- deluding mirages, where the black slave sobs in every theatre production was the composition ing involvement in stage design), but also the a sea of plantations. […] That land is strangely of an opera (the complete opposite of the gen- main composer of the music. Productions beautiful and full of sweetness, Oh, there you eral tendency today, which is for opera to be involving his own music included Nezval’s would be happy.. It is the land of freedom.“ directed like spoken drama). In Burian’s con- Lovers from the Kiosk, Mácha’s Kat [Hangman], Shortly afterwards the rebel Burian, persona cept, the musical element was already con- Musset’s Les Caprices de Marianne, Viktor non grata in Brno, returned to Prague. tained in the essence of drama. “If music is Dyk’s Krysař [The Ratcatcher], Nezval’s Manon already latently contained in drama, this does Lescaut, and with Karel Reiner’s music “Sweep the Stage!” not mean that the normal ear has to hear it just Klicpera’s comedy Každý něco pro vlast [Every- “Old Richard Wagner, or to go even further as music, i.e. as a series of notes and har- one must do something for his Country], Frank back Monteverdi, or as far as we can, the monies produced in time and space using Wedekind’s Spring Awakening, Pushkin’s Ancient Greeks, dreamed of the theatre that is instruments and the human voice. Music is Eugene Onegin, and Büchner’s comedy Leon only today starting to be a reality. They dreamed above all the hidden law of the stage. […] We and Lena. Déčko’s last season provided oppor- of creating a form that would be neither music say ’this space has rhythm’, for example, or tunities for young composers: Václav Dobiáš nor speech, neither sculpture not dance, that sometimes we say, ’the dialogue has tempo’. Or (An Old History by Julius Zeyer), Jiří Sternwald, would be neither poem not picture, but every- else people say, ’this or that actress has a and Václav Kašlík. Zbyněk Přecechtěl wrote the thing together. They dreamed of that synthetic melodious voice’. The trained ear recognises music for Nina Jirsíková’s ballet Pohádka o tan- form that was discovered for us when the first the pause the goes on too long. The individual ci [Fairytale about Dance]. electric ray fell on a boulevard, and which offers deployment of the actors in dialogue has its itself to us with each new technical invention. musical law.” Commenting on his presentation Shortly before the war, Burian as composer Today for the first time we can realise that the- of Mácha (a poet) he said, “Czech music has took a new path that he was to be prevented atre in which the frontiers of misunderstanding one of its best composers in Mácha.” His treat- from continuing. After a long interval he turned

10 | portrait | czech music 4 | 2004 once again to opera. Maryša, based on the story by the Mrštík brothers was completed in 1938 and premiered on the 16th of April 1943 in Brno. Its subject and treatment have led to fre- quent comparison with Janáček’s Jenůfa. It is an exceptional work, but one that in the context of Burian’s creative legacy tends to be wrongly regarded as a kind of “excursion” into a field uncharacteristic for him. Who knows the direc- tion that Burian would have taken had it not been for the war?

The Fairytale about Dance was the penultimate premiere at Déčko. In it a wood nymph teaches people to dance and is sent to her death for it by a wicked queen, but the people who have learnt to dance keep on dancing. The allegory was explicit and unambiguous. On the 12th of March 1941 the theatre was closed and Burian, who from the start of the occupation had been a constant target of attacks by the Czech fas- cist movement, “Vlajka”, was arrested, and with him Nina Jirsíková and Zbyněk Přecechtěl, although the latter was finally judged the least guilty and released. Burian was sent to a series of concentration camps and was one of the few to survive from the ship the Cap Arcona, loaded with prisoners by the Nazis who wanted to remove the traces of their crimes in the camps. The absurdity of all wars was apparent when on the 3rd of May 1945 the boat was sunk by the victorious allies. Thousands of its involuntary passengers were drowned or shot as soon as they reached the shore (official sources speak of eight thousand victims, Burian spoke of twenty thousand).

The Theatre that was Left Burian returned to Prague in June of 1945. “In the concentration camp I dreamed of the Theatre of Work. I believed with complete cer- tainty that when I returned to my liberated E. F. Burian and Marie Burešová (B. Brecht’s Beggar’s Opera) country, the workers of all nations would create the conditions for the creation of a Theatre of kind. The turbulent times resisted reminders of arguments. It is hard to recognise the former Work as the consequence of revolutionary the inter-war period even in the name of the theatrical experimentalist in the words, “The struggle against the bourgeoisie, and that I theatre company. In the period 1951–1954 it National Theatre was once built from the will of would be able to serve my homeland and peo- operated under the title Army Arts Theatre. the people and it is by the will of the people ple within it”, Burian wrote in 1953. His initial These words written by Burian in 1947 could that it stands today. This means that the man- enthusiasm cooled somewhat when he discov- have been addressed to himself. “It’s not that agement of the National Theatre has a duty to ered that the technically equipped buildings had we want to deny talent and destroy what is respect the will of the people who built it and already been taken apart, “And so all that was known as creative freedom. The point is who allow it to live. […] The Bartered Bride can- left for me was a hall that no one wanted, a rat whether people can be found among us who not be other than as Bedřich Smetana wrote it. hole under the U Rozvařilů Restaurant”. Burian will use their creative free convictions to find a What some artist or director dreams up to add finally resigned himself to the situation and relationship with today’s reality, with the man of to it is of no consequence at all. […] Our work- started activities in D 46. For a short time he today and his life, and whether they will have ers, our working people don’t ask whether also led the theatre in Brno and the Karlín the courage to get rid of the superstition that Mr. XY is so highly artistically educated that he operetta theatre. The first production of the prevents them getting into the heart of the man can discover Smetana on stage in a different new “D” – Déčko was Sen jednoho vězně [The of today.” One of the most audacious of the way to some discoverer ten days ago, but Dream of a Prisoner], Burian’s adaptation of inter-war generation turned to propagating the whether he has a right to Smetana’s Bartered Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. “A three- ideas of socialist realism, the marks of which Bride. It is the architect or director who vanish- dimensional and interesting example of how were “concreteness and clarity, unambiguous es from the stage as quickly as possible in people succumb to chaos. E. F. Burian, this dis- message and aggressiveness of content”, respect for a great classic work that is the tinguished director and unpleasant repatriatee, rejection of the formalism that “copies the genius!“ has come back from the concentration camp superficial signs of reality” and „experiments at with some kind of psychological injury”, wrote any price”. In 1957 he mused on how to fire the Barriers between Us Ferdinand Peroutka. People didn’t want to be young artists of the day and remedy errors, An overview of the repertoire of the postwar reminded of the war or the camps, and didn’t “caused by the unhealthy development of policy Déčko is testimony enough to the way artistic want to see Romeo with a prisoner’s number. towards youth since 1945”. He did not wish to ideals were adapted (yielded, pandered) to the Burian had no better success with operetta, and criticise the regime; on the contrary his essay times, how they helped to create (supported) his adaptation of Friml’s Král tuláků [King of was entitled Lenin has Taught Us and used the them, how they resisted them, dodged them, Tramps] was branded a mistake of the same consequences of the October Revolution as succumbed to them and sometimes found their

czech music 4 | 2004 | portrait | 11 original power again, but only temporarily. In the thirties, a way that is basically alien to us today. music directed by Jaroslav Dudek, with chore- first season Burian revived his old productions This impression is underlined by the music. The ography by Pavel Šmok and with Burian’s – Věra Lukášová based on a story by Božena preponderance of the rhythmic element, the daughter Kateřina in the title role (1974). His Benešová, Klicpera’s Každý něco pro vlast, often dogged repetition of a few harmonic con- adaptation of Dostoyevsky’s White Nights was Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera, Mácha’s May. nections, a few rhythmic figures and a melodic presented with music by J. O. Karel (1971), and Reactions were very mixed, as in the case of line that is for the most part suppressed or Burian’s repertory legacy was kept alive with Romeo and Juliet, so in the case of Klicpera, deformed have a crushing and stifling effect on the production of Büchner’s Leon and Lena Burian was even accused of propagating bour- most of the audience, even those who are used (directed by Petr Scherhaufer, 1969), Brecht geois ideology despite being a communist. to listening to modern and experimental music.” and Weill’s Threepenny Opera (directed by Garyk Convinced of his theatrical ideal, in the next When Vojna was published in book form, the Císař, 1969), Nezval’s Manon Lescaut (directed season he presented his adaptations of publishers Orbis were accused of devoting too by Karel Novák with music by Jiří Srnka in 1961, Coster’s Eulenspiegel, Čech’s Excursions of Mr. much care to the publication, while taking a and directed by Josef Palla with music by Brouček to the 15th Century, Maeterlinck, Tris- miserly approach to works that were “of vital Ladislav Simon in 1969), Pushkin’s Eugene tan Tzara, Dostoyevsky, but also a “platform” for importance for the life of the theatre.” Onegin with music by Jan Novák (1968 resp. his own ideas in the form of productions of Burian still, however, had enough strength to try 1970), and even a reconstruction of the Terezín Jeden ze všech, zpověď autora [One of All, the something new. In the 1955/56 season a small production of Mácha’s May in Nina Jirsíková’s Author’s Confession] and Hráze mezi námi opera ensemble was established in Déčko. In version, directed by Petr Novotný and with music [Barriers betwen Us]. 1956 it presented Burian’s Opera z pouti [Fair- by Milan Svoboda (1975). Even before the war, adaptations and dramati- ground Opera], “a great romp in three acts”. It Throughout his life the composer Emil František sations of folk texts had formed a significant was directed by Libuše Čechová with stage Burian remained unjustly overshadowed by part of his repertoire. Vojna [War] had been fol- design by Zdeněk Seydl, and the cast included Burian the director and dramatic author. His lowed by another five pieces based on folk Libuše Havelková and Vladimír Menšík. While legacy as composer is considerable and very inspiration and after the war he returned to the production was extremely popular, the crit- diverse. Apart from stage music for the needs these sources. He presented the Old Czech ics asked, “Is there anything more here than of his theatre he composed a number of cham- comedy Esther with his own music and then the ’great romp’? We think there isn’t. In particular, ber and orchestral pieces, individual songs and dramatic belt Láska, vzdor a smrt [Love, Resis- the play no longer seems to contain the idea song cycles. His early opera Bubu of Montpar- tance and Death]. A Folk Suite consisted of his […] of celebrating a good boy who wants to live nasse had to wait to be premiered until 1999, revived pre-war production of the Hry o svaté by the labour of his own hands and become a seventy years after it was written, at the State Dorotě a Saličku [Play about St. Dorothy and peerless master of his craft, and the fact that Opera in Prague. It was the best production of Salička] and he then rehearsed the medley he emerges victorious over a devious court the season, a major surprise with its multiplicity Vánoční hry českého lidu [Christmas Plays of good-for-nothing. While the original idea of the of styles and dramatic unity. The opera Maryša the Czech People]. In March 1949, however, he folk play is proclaimed here in the author’s pref- was recorded for television, directed by Eva premiered Parta brusiče Karhana [The Team of ace in the programme, it is hard to find in the Marie Bergerová in 1984, and the Opera z pouti the Grinder Karhan] by Vašek Káňa (which production itself. […] Doesn’t this work of Buri- [Fairground Opera] was presented a few years “showed how to represent today’s struggle for an’s offer us rather too little? […] A great romp ago by the Disk Theatre, while outside the Czech better methods of work and socialist competi- and the glitter of a fairground spectacle has Republic Burian’s inter-war music has been redis- tion”), in February 1950 Alexej Pluděk’s Případ this time seduced E. F. Burian away from most covered by the Dutch group Ebony Band. In com- Modrá voda [The Case of Blue Water] (roles valuable aspects of the folk tradition.” parison with his huge output, however, these are like the small farmer Šimek, the worker from Not even his new production of Eugene Onegin for the moment mere drops in the ocean. the patron factory Vaněk and the Chairwoman in 1957 pleased the critics. Unlike his pre-war of the Agricultutal Co-operative give a fair idea version, this new treatment was entirely based With permission of magazine Harmonie. of the direction of the company’s repertoire), on music. Here Burian once again trusted in and in November of the same year Burian’s himself and his faith in the musical laws of the- adaptation of Sirény [The Sirens] by Marie atre. The result, however, was criticised as a Majerová. These productions were followed by simplification of the story, and the creation of Spring Waters by Sergei Michalkov, Surovov’s “too clear and predictable a line […], Onegin is Dawn over Moscow, Pogodin’s Man with a Rifle, simplified into a repulsive villain, smooth and and Gorky’s Vassa Zheleznova. Meanwhile the courageous, but an unfeeling, selfish and con- theatre company had been renamed the Army ceited tyrant.” Burian was also criticised for Arts Theatre and the pacifist Burian had forced rhymes and vulgarisms in his version of acquired an officer’s uniform. On the occasion the text, and it was argued that while the adap- of Burian’s fiftieth birthday there were calls for tation brought more than one new and healthy a new Czech drama, “that would resonate huge- element, the treatment of the material was in ly through the time and its chaos, but also light some cases excessively subjective. The final it up and help to find a way out of it”, the kind of premiere at Déčko came in 1959 with Burian’s drama that would give Burian the chance to own play Rozcestí [Crossroads], a highly sym- “take the entire measure of the creative maturi- bolic title since Burian himself stood at a cross- ty of his whole personality and test its entire roads. Prematurely exhausted and defeated, development”. From the autumn of 1955 the however, the journey he took in the autumn of company was again allowed the title D 34, but the same year was to the land “from whose its position did not become easier. The revived bourne no traveller returns.” Vojna became the subject of debate in the The theatre that was to play under his name press. For some it was a “creative polemic until 1990 identified with his legacy in more against the impoverished, simplified and than name alone. Many actors whom he had monastic interpretation of socialist realism”, trained played in it, and the company from time while for others it was “formal wilfulness, noth- to time returned to some of the titles in his ing but stylisation, no truth of life”, “excessive repertoire, further generations of directors and avantgardism”. The spectator was said to get “a composers rising to the challenge each in his feeling of cramp, a strange ecstasy, in which own way. Music remained an inseparable ele- ideas are conjured up and connected in the way ment in the Divadlo E. F. Buriana productions. usual for the avant-garde movements of the Burian’s Věra Lukášová was staged with his

12 | portrait | czech music 4 | 2004 e. f. burian: composer

JOSEF BEK

vocal parts sing, if it it not otherwise specified, the vowel “a”. Where ‘in a suppressed way’ is specified, the parts should be sung with lips closed (singing through the nose). 2. The musial reciter should not sing. The notes here should not be understood as signs to determine the sung line, but as signs indicating the fall and rise of the voice during recitation.” These instructions are the first suggestion of the future voiceband that was to astound the musical public five years later. In 1922 he also started to compose an opera based on the play Aladdin and Palomid by Mau- rice Maeterlinck. Burian’s interest in this author was undoubtedly inspired by Claude Debussy, who had composed his opera Pelleas and Melissande on one of Maeterlinck’s works. The latter opera had its Czech premiere in 1921 and made a strong impression on Burian. In order to come as close as possible to Debussy, he even found a particularly similar play by Maeterlinck. Burian was still searching for his own style at the time and so did not conceal the Although Burian grew up in a family that was fact that he had been inspired by the French hugely and indeed famously musical, he took a master both in overall musical dramatic concept relatively long time to decide on systematic and in the composition technique in the details. musical studies. Towards the end of the 1st Thus, for example, he abandoned vocal melodi- World War the boy went through a stormy, dis- ousness in favour of a declamatory style turbed period, and even lived on the streets for derived from the cadence of ordinary speech, a while. His father, an opera singer, was at that renounced duets, ensembles, choral passages time working in Pest and the mother couldn’t or simultaneity of vocal parts. He linked up cope with her son. It was only with the post-war short scenes arranged in mosaic form using stabilisation of conditions that he saw sense several-bar orchestral interludes, and gave the himself and embarked on studies at the Prague whole score a subdued mood. His choice of Conservatory with passionate commitment. compositional techniques also reflected French After finishing his studies there in 1924 he inspiration. These include, for example, fre- went on to master’s school in the composition quent, sometimes even tedious, chromatism, a class of J. B. Foerster, graduating in 1927. use of the whole-tone scale, pentatonic scales, His first surviving composition, Variations for fourth-fifth and seventh-ninth chords, fifth and piano op. 1 (1920) is still very clumsy. By con- octave parallels and richly colourful and finely trast his opus 2 Beznadějná samomluva [Hope- differentiated orchestration with conspicuous less Soliloquy] (1922) for vocal quartet, speak- use of the harp and celesta. Although he soon er, violin and piano is already worthy of note: not freed himself from dependence on Debussy, he only is it skilfully mastered from the point of retained many of these techniques and they view of composition, but it is notable for the bal- became the basis for the creation of his own ance it strikes between classical music in style. accordance with the stylistic conventions of the During his studies Burian composed other turn of the 19th/20th century, and lighter music pieces in Late Romantic or Impressionist style. (operetta and Anglo-American musical revue – In 1924 he wrote a one-act opera, Před slunce “sweet music”). Furthermore, here Burian východem [Before Sunrise], that involved the emerges as a pioneer of the new way of using biblical characters Adam and Eve, a choir and the human voice in music. In his instructions for orchestra. This mystical symbolist and very sec- the performers he requires, for example, “1. The ularly conceived story of the birth of mankind

czech music 4 | 2004 | portrait | 13 differed from the previous work only in its more self in its original entertainment functions. He audacious polyphony and permanently modulat- had a talent for singing that he exploited with ing harmonies, moving in the direction of gusto as a jazz singer, cabaretier or musical Schönbergian atonality. What is more important, clown; he sang his own popular hits with per- however, is that here for the first time Burian fect charm, played in film as a jazzman, and was presents himself as an innovative director of a versatile jazz instrumentalist – a brilliant per- sound with a well-developed feeling for cussionist, for example, as well as having his acoustically effective use of theatrical space: own jazz orchestra (1931), put together follow- the choir, having the function of the ancient ing the model of Walt Whitman. chorus, has a precisely stipulated position (on In his free autonomous music he used jazz or behind stage, at other times to the back of inspirations with more caution than in his film or the auditorium, or revolving etc.), selected stage music. He subjected jazz dances to a instruments (3 French horns, harp and celesta) process of stylisation and adapted them to his playing backstage and so on. The one-acter needs in the same way as composers had was premiered at the National Theatre in 1925; stylised and adapted the mazurka, polka, or furi- it was directed by the head of the opera Otakar ant in the 19th century. He first incorporated Ostrčil and the role of Adam was sung by the foxtrot into his string sextet Z mládí [From composer’s father Emil Burian. The critics, how- Youth] (1924), and then into a number of other ever, were disappointed. They knew the com- pieces. In the later twenties he composed a poser from programme articles as a combative series of jazz chamber pieces. Most, alas, have radical and were expecting something avant not survived but one of the exceptions is Amer- garde. Burian was unlucky in the fact that he ická suita [American Suite] (1926), which was had changed direction fundamentally between published in the author’s own arrangement for the completion of the opera and its perfor- two pianos in 1948. In the original, however, it mance. Prague had opened to the world and was designed for a jazz ensemble consisting of Burian found entirely new sources of inspiration violinophone, cello, saxophone, piston, piano in Stravinsky, Satie and also in jazz, to which he and drums. We know some of the other pieces succumbed entirely. No less important was his only from secondary sources. Sextuor , for increasing involvement with the arts circle of example, was composed for three saxophones, Prague Dadaists and Surrealists known as piston, trumpet and trombone, Dva koncertní “Devětsil” {meaning “Butterbur” or “Nine tance [Two Concert Dances] was for piccolo, Forces”), with whom he shared in the birth of piston, saxophone and drum set, while opus 45 the new movement Poetism. The leading fig- was a Concertino for drums and piano. In 1927 ures in this purely Czech movement were the Burian’s jazz Requiem for soprano, tenor, voice- poet Vítězslav Nezval and the art theorist Karel band, saxophone, drums, two pianos and har- Teige. Poetism, akin to the Paris avant garde, monium was exceptionally well received. All did not want to be a purely literary affair and these pieces were most probably destroyed by sought to become “the art of life, the art of liv- the composer himself. ing and enjoying” (Teige). Poetism was modern In addition to the instrumental pieces has also Epicureanism, “a method of looking at the world wrote (and surprisingly it has survived) a jazz that changes it into poetry”. It found supporters cycle for voice and jazz orchestra on the words among both poets and people in theatre (for of Vítězslav Nezval’s Coctaily [Cocktails] example in the directors Jindřich Honzl and Jiří (1926), which is the quintessence of Poetism in Frejka, with whom Burian worked closely), music. It consists of three suggestively erotic painters and also composers (apart from Burian but also charming and highly imaginative bar himself, Bohuslav Martinů, Jaroslav Ježek and chansons, in which the composer starts from Erwin Schulhoff). Jazz, which best correspond- the then lightly decadent bar production and ed with their art programme, was at the centre raises it with great refinement to the level of of interest for the Poetist composers. The inte- serious music. gration of jazz elements into serious music It was in the period of his greatest enthusiasm undermined the musical grammar of esoteric for jazz that Burian started to compose his Late Romanticism and helped Burian to make a opera Bubu of Montparnasse (1926–29). The fundamental break with tradition. Unlike other story – by Charles Louis Philippe – like the “serious” composers he did not merely use jazz music has much in common with the Threepen- to refresh and vitalise music, but put it on him- ny Opera by Bertold Brecht and Kurt Weill

14 | portrait | czech music 4 | 2004 with great ingenuity and then wrap up and ground Opera] on the text of the folk play O clinch it to good effect and in good time. His Františce, dceři krále anglického a Honzíčkovi, preference for suites also, however, had anoth- synu kupce londýnského [Of František, the er rationale in the aesthetics of Neoclassicism, Daughter of the King of England and Honzíček, some principles of which Burian adopted as his Son of a London Merchant] (1956). own. Not that he avoided more complex musical The high point of Burian’s music drama output forms. His Sonata in C Major for piano (1937), is undoubtedly his opera Maryša (1937–39). Sonata romantica for violin and piano (1938) or The Mrštík brothers’ realistic-naturalistic drama Symphony with Piano Solo (1948), for example, of tragic love in the Moravian countryside has are pieces that show great creative power and much in common with the libretto of Janáček’s are among Burian’s best works. Jenůfa, and it is no accident that Janáček had Non-traditionally conceived village and urban turned to the same work not long before his folklore, and specifically its theatrical, dance death. Burian was aware that he had to be and musical forms, were a permanent source of careful not to copy Janáček and he confessed inspiration for Burian. These could be jewels of that when composing Maryša he continually folksong or products of the cultural periphery, heard Jenůfa sounding in his ears. He did not, (1928), and in part with Jonny spielt auf by folk art, pupils’ plays and other legacies of the however, succumb to Janáček’s influence, but Ernst Krenek (1927) as well. Philippe attracted distant Middle Ages, Baroque folk culture, patri- instead created a masterpiece which seen in Burian’s attention mainly because his work otic songs from the period of the National the context of Czech opera developed offered the theme of the underworld of the big Revival, broadside ballads, workers’ songs and Janáček’s legacy in the most thorough but at city together with a critique of modern society, semi-popular music from the turn of the 19th the same time in the most highly original way. i.e. something that had been unusual in previ- and 20th century. Burian first embarked on this Using his experience hitherto, Burian arrived at ous (especially Czech) opera repertoire. Burian territory with more than a touch of practical jok- a type of “stageplay opera” in which all the did not write a jazz opera in the strict sense, but ery as a member of the Dada theatre. He was musical events are derived from the spoken just used individual jazz numbers, and some- much taken with surviving fragments of the stu- word and from the dramatic stage action. Thus, times certain jazz elements in the rhythm, dent satire Mastičkář [The Mountebank] (also for example, the melodic ductus is based on the instrumental profile and so on. The basic dra- Mistr Ipokrast, mastičkář drkolenský), which had intonation of the spoken word in the Moravian matic structure is produced from a chain of originated in the Middle Ages, but was a dialect of the libretto. At the same time the short, cinematographically conceived scenes favourite on popular stages right up to the 18th musical rhythm strictly follows the cadence of and has certain elements in common with epic century. Burian’s first version of the material the spoken word. The operatic treatment is theatre, and sometimes theatre or film revue. In (1928) was a purely Dadaistic, self-consciously based on short and economical dialogues: arias, this composition Burian already shows a highly bizarre trifle based on improvisation, which did duets and ensembles have no place in Burian’s developed feeling for theatre and its specific not even try to engage with original, but Burian opera conception primarily because they hold features, which he fully respects, thus greatly returned to the play twice – once producing an up the stage action and reduce the dramatic strengthening the musical dramatic impact of incomplete treatment in 1949 and finally an tension. To characterise the main figures the the opera. It was not to be premiered until opera version in 1956 with the changed title composer used several quasi-leitmotifs, but 1999 in the State Opera in Prague. Račte odpustit [Be so good as to forgive]. The only treated one systematically throughout the Apart from jazz, another influence that helped new, very updated libretto by Radovan Krátký opera – the Maryša motif. It appears many the composer to overcome the residue of Late was a complete failure, and Burian’s musical times, always in a different light depending on Romanticism (or Impressionism) was the pro- arrangement, making striking use of folklore the dramatic situation on stage and in pro- gramme of the Paris Six and Stravinsky – or to elements, was not particularly effective. The nounced, unmistakable form. According to Buri- put it more broadly, Neoclassicism. Its direct opera was soon consigned to oblivion. an, Maryša is the central character and so her influence on Burian was short-lived but it In the context of Burian’s use of folk inspiration, motif is almost permanently present, thus nonetheless helped him to create the founda- a work that deserves a great deal more atten- ensuring the musical coherence of the opera’s tions of his own musical style, which later tion is Vojna [War] with the subtitle “a folk play overall structure, which is otherwise based acquired other innovative elements by a with songs and dances on the texts of folk mainly on non-musical principles. The obligatory process of organic development. The new poems collected by K. J. Erben for solo, male large orchestra is expanded to include piano, pieces that he was composing from the later and female choir and wind and percussion celesta, bells, deep tam-tam and a wind twenties have much in common: their formal instruments” (1934). Burian created a dramati- machine. The music is strictly diatonic and arrangement is clear and economical, the indi- cally powerful libretto from folk texts using the modally anchored. In addition to a melodic line vidual movements are short and rich in musical technique of montage and then composed agitated in its intervals, the sharp bitonality content, no note is superfluous, and the individ- sophisticatedly primitive music in which we can (often in the interval of a minor second) and ual movements in the chamber and orchestral hear the kinship with Stravinsky’s Russian Peri- polyrythms create a complex of expressive pieces (especially in the series of Poetic Suites od or the music of Carl Orff. The composer did techniques that is characteristic not only of 1925–51) give an aphoristic impression and not use a single quote from folk melody, but Maryša, but of Burian’s other work in the period are full of musical surprises. Burian also takes there is no doubt of the folklore basis. This anti- 1937–48, interrupted in 1941–45, when by great paints with the structure of composition war piece had a very strong musical dramatic some miracle the composer survived imprison- and the equilibrium of musical form, and the impact at its Prague premiere in 1935 and also ment in a series of concentration camps. flowing and logical unfolding of musical ideas made a deep impression on the Swiss audi- Voiceband occupies a very special place in (the nine string quartets 1927–58 are good ences when Burian toured with his theatre in Burian’s output. It originated from the borders examples). He most frequently used the form of the same year. Vojna has retained its power to between music and the stage speech, often the suite, which corresponded best to his natur- this day. choral recitation, which came into fashion after al musical instincts. Burian was an impulsive Several other musical stage works belong to the 1st World War in avantgarde theatres, work- person, who felt the need to use his musical the same creative line as Mastičkář. The most ers’ clubs and in schools. Burian began to ideas fast and as effectively as possible. In any successful include the I. lidová suita [1st Folk experiment with it in 1927 and found the pri- case he was so taken up with theatre and other Suite] (1938), made up of three folk plays, and mary impulse in music. In one of his first articles activities that he had to steal time for compos- the similarly conceived II. lidová suita [2nd Folk on the theme he wrote, “With voiceband we ing, which was an inner necessity for him. The Suite] (1939), the Old Czech folk comedy with have created for ourselves a special field of suite form made it possible for him in most cas- songs and dances Esther (1946), Láska, vzdor musical exploration. The vibration of the vocal es to make do with just one theme, which he a smrt [Love, Resistance and Death] (1946) chords, the natural accents of speech, the knew how to vary or treat in some other way and finally the whimsical Opera z pouti [Fair- movement of phrases, the rhythm of form have

czech music 4 | 2004 | portrait | 15 all expanded our normal tonality (from whole at home as well. Unfortunately we have no way his own artistic past voluntarily or under pres- tones to sixteenths tones) adding a tonal of accurately reconstructing the voiceband sure, and why he went as far as to destroy absolute, waiting like everything being born to pieces, since Burian did not employ a notation some of his works from avant garde times. The be assigned its rightful place” (see Voiceband – for voiceband and so we have little to go on. truth is probably that he wanted of his own will nová tonalita, the magazine Zvon 27, 1927, no. Nonetheless, there are a few surviving radio – driven by negative experiences from the pre- 40, p. 560). and gramophone recordings and also quite pre- war period – to become a pioneer of a new As the name voiceband itself suggests, it was cise scenarios of key voiceband pieces which socialist art. In music as well, with affirmatively jazz, and specifically the American vocal throw a vivid light on the direction Burian’s propagandist celebratory cantatas, mass songs jazzband the Revellers, that stood at the begin- imagination was taking. and so on, he tried to bring to life a socialist ning of the whole experience in a new way of Throughout his life Burian devoted the greater realism derived from literature. Burian’s situa- reciting verses (which was the original aim). part of his creative energy to music theatre. He tion in this fortunately not too long period was From the Revellers, voiceband took the princi- was happiest when in 1933 he managed to get ambivalent, for on the one hand he was shifting ple of improvisation, syncopated rhythm and the his theatre company, since only then could he to musical populism (for example like Aaron exploitation of all the possibilities of the human make full use of his versatile talent. In addition Copland in the USA), to closer identification voice, such as whispers, sighs, calls, cries, hiss- to his own work he presented plays by other with national tradition, from the logic of his own ing, whistling, growling, shrill falsettos, glissan- authors (which he usually modified radically, development, but on the other hand the dos and naturally also articulated singing or the and to good effect) or dramatised novels and required grandiose spirit and pomposity was spoken word, and in addition various aids like tales by older and contemporary authors. He alien to him, and whenever he tried for it the megaphones, playing on combs and so on. For also wrote stage music for almost all the plays result was failure, if not a total fiasco. One can, instrumental accompaniment Burian liked to that he produced and personally directed. In however, identify some positive examples even choose all kinds of percussion, including the these productions music had an important posi- from this rather schizophrenic period, such as futuristic “intonarumori”, but also when the con- tion and more than once influenced the struc- the orchestral Předehra socialismu [Prelude to tent suggested it, a mouth organ, children’s tural arrangement of the other elements of the Socialism] (1950): this politically engaged work, trumpet etc. dramatic performance in accordance with its musically constructed on several variations of Burian also found inspiration in strictly classical internal principles (e.g. in accordance with the Soviet anthem, is distinguished for sponta- modern music. Examples included the “tied three-movement song form, tempo, rhythm, neous musicality and classical tightness of melodrama” of Arnold Schönberg’s Gurre- dynamics and so on). Music poeticised the the- form. In Czech music we can find a certain anal- Lieder (1900–11) and Pierrot lunaire (1912), atrical production, and this was considered one ogy in the prelude to Bedřich Smetana’s The Alois Hába’s experiments with quarter-tone and of the most remarkable marks of Burian’s dra- Bartered Bride. Music was not the field, howev- sixth-tone music, Janáček’s study of the matic art, and “poetic theatre” became an er, on which Burian had to tackle ideological melodies of speech and also his male choral established term among drama theorists. One and artistic disputes (often with himself). These pieces and the art of the Choral Association of original example of Burian’s exploitation of confronted him mainly as a theatre director and Moravian Teachers, who performed them to music is Věra Lukášová (1938) based on the public figure, and so at the turn of the forties / complete perfection. short story by Božena Benešová. Here Burian fifties music became a refuge in which Burian The basis of a voiceband piece is usually a used a string quartet, with each instrument rep- he could feel relatively free. poetic text that can be of various lengths (from resenting one of the four characters in the dra- In 1957 Burian found the courage to criticise a few verses to a large piece taking up an ma and the musicians being present on stage official cultural policy publicly and openly to entire evening performance). Burian treated the themselves. Another time, in his post-war ver- confess his own mistakes. The main idea of his poetic word entirely freely. The semantic func- sion of Eugene Onegin (1957), he improvised more than three-hour speech to representatives tion of a word was often left in the background, on the piano on motifs from Tchaikovsky’s of all the arts unions was the rehabilitation of yielding to its acoustic qualities (colour, rhythm, opera of the same name. He always managed the pre-war avant garde. For over a year before- melodic cadence etc), which could be treated to find an original approach that employed sim- hand he had realised that he by distancing him- on the basis of musical principles. Performance ple techniques to put the finishing touches on self from his own avant garde principles he had moved within an acoustic universe that mould- individual productions. brought on himself a crisis, from which the only ed it according to musical forms, with With these abilities, which he had honed and way out was to renew the integrity of his own metrorhythmic arrangement of the text material, tested long before setting up his own theatre creative identity. Burian genuinely took steps in determination of the proportions between soli (for example in plays for the National Theatre in this direction, but there was too little time for and tutti, leading and accompanying parts, the twenties), Burian was also of great use to this to become conspicuous in his work. He homophony and polyphony and so forth. film producers. The first film for which he wrote died unexpectedly on the 9th of August 1959. The first voiceband performance on the 22nd of the music was the very commercial Zlaté ptáče The period in which Burian lived was full of April 1927 in the Prague Dada Theatre involved [Golden Bird] (1931) with the jazz chansons Má upheavals and social cataclysms. In many only six performers (four men including Burian panna je v Panama sama [My love is alone in respects this is reflected in his work, and this is and two women). Burian recited, directed and Panama] and Kdybych se byl nenarodil [Hadnęt surely the fate of any artists who lives his own also played various instruments. The ensemble I been born]. For the next film Před maturitou time with intensity. Over his lifetime he experi- was then to grow until it had several dozen [Before the Leaving-exam] (1932) the ever- enced periods of crisis and periods of creative members. At the beginning Dadaist grotesques green Chlupatý kaktus [Hairy Cactus] was writ- upsurge. For all his contradictions, his deep and witty improvisation were the most success- ten. Burian continued to work for film in the responsibility, tenacity, creativity and extraordi- ful elements, but gradually longer and more postwar years as well, most successfully with nary talent mean that Burian’s is still a living serious compositions began to attract attention. his music for the socially critical film Siréna legacy, through its power to stimulate, and Among the most important were Křest sv. [The Siren] based on the novel by Marie through its beauty in the purely aesthetic sense. Vladimíra [The Baptism of St. Vladimir] by Karel Majerová, which was awarded the “Golden Lion” Havlíček Borovský (1928), the two-part Old at the Venice Film Festival in 1947 with explicit Testament Song of Songs (1928) and the cult reference to the music. His orchestral suite of poem Máj [May] by the great Czech Romantic the same name, outstanding for its expressive poet Karel Hynek Mácha, presented as a com- power and tightly constructed form, is one of plete evening production in itself. The first ver- Burian the composer’s most important works. sion of the latter (1929) involved eight soloists Burian’s stylistic development took a contradic- Photos (p. 13-15): E. F. B. - Kladivo na divadlo and a recitation choir a hundred strong. Voice- tory turn after 1948, when his hitherto leftist [Hammer on the Theatre]. band caused a real sensation at the ISCM Fes- avant garde aesthetic credo came into conflict A play about E. F. Burian by Jiří Pokorný pre- tival in Sienna in 1928, in North Italy on a tour a with the official cultural programme of the state. miered at Archa Theatre (Prague) in Autumn year later, and then in Switzerland and naturally To this day it is unclear whether he disowned 2004

16 | portrait | czech music 4 | 2004 e. f. burian and faith PETR KOFROŇ

When several events were held to mark the E. F. Burian into which forces and civilisations still concealed in the anniversary, I was puzzled by the way the living witnesses underground world will break through. And communism is of his era sometimes maintained a strange silence, or similar in its great faith in an absolutely “just society” gave ambiguous answers and contradictory accounts, where everyone will receive what he needs, making it while the speakers who had no personal experience of paradoxically akin to another breakthrough faith of the him insisted on sitting in judgment on his communist 20th century, satanism, with its slogan of “do what you “agression“. Paradoxically, on both sides the atmosphere will“. These three circles of ideas were paradoxically the seemed dominated by faith: on the one hand faith in a final wave of vision in the 20th century. No vision has objectively into the present, especially his musical and lit- legacy (and a mysterious legacy), and on the other faith in come after them. If for example we ask an American Pres- erary work, because the theatre work is temporal and has judgment after death (and a rather presumptuous identifi- ident about his vision today, we shall evidently get the historical significance (although in at the time Burian’s drama was in no way inferior in stature to that of his Ger- cation of that judgment with the speaker’s own opinion). answer “the war on terrorism” and “increasing the gross man fellow-traveler Bertold Brecht, for example, whom the Meanwhile, what was remarkable about Burian was pre- national product”. Yet few people today are capable of Germans elevated to the world theatrical pantheon). It is cisely his faith. When we look at the “history of faith” it is saying what that terrorism springs from, if they have a the sad lot of the theatre that what we most associate generally clear that the earlier faith (linked with Christiani- duty to “fight” it, how and why and in the name of what with Burian, i.e. his voiceband, is today a dead genre, ty), which believed in a “great cause” and was even strong vision, and why society ought to be rich and nor for exam- which awaits some – as yet unsuspected – resurrection in enough to change reality, declined in the course of time ple “happy” or “wise”. a new artistic context. into faith in mankind (the Renaissance) and progress (the From this perspective we can understand the embarrass- When I and the Agon Orchestra presented some of Buri- 19th century). Burian not only believed in a great idea ment of the living witnesses, who naturally in today’s an’s works for the first time in 2004, we discovered a (communism), but a kind of metaphysical faith saturated unbelieving age tend to keep their head down. But what remarkable thing. For example when playing the 1922 piece Šlapák, we were groping about as to where to place his entire life’s work. He himself believed he was capable we can’t understand is the fury with which contemporary it in the development of 20th-century music. It is slightly of doing world theatre, and capable of making Czech a people without faith want to stand in for the Christian God reminiscent of Frank Zappa in its strange mingling of world language. He simply had a hundred-percent belief and call E. F. Burian before “the eternal court”. These peo- musical idioms, recalls Mauricio Kagel in its peculiar treat- in everything he was doing and wanted to do, even when ple should instead be doing something else. They should ment of banality, and is influenced by jazz but with such a they turned out to be complete trifles. Yes, Burian had be humbly gathering Burian’s legacy, ensuring that it is strange, perhaps ironic, overview. It looks as if, confronted absolute faith in every kind of apparently secondary thing. presented and so trying to set Burian in the context of by a musical work that is not presented and does not So he believed both in communist ideals, and absolutely, 20th-century art. work in the context of the period, you cannot say anything but also in the idea that he could create revolutionarily For the moment, however, this field is left grievously – if it revived after a long interval – at all. We don’t know vertiginous theatre with two headlights that the actors unploughed. For example Burian’s musical work sits with what Burian meant by it; we don’t know how the lay and professional public perceived it, and so the piece is hard to would keep rejigging during the performance. And he gain his heirs unnoticed by any publisher, recordings of his fit into the picture of the 20th century… he had absolute faith in this banality. For us it is all rather work do not come out, and the existing recordings at the Of course, the only way forward then is to turn the whole ridiculous, but our sense of the ridiculous is based on our Czech Radio contains only 5% of his output. With the question around: to publish the whole work in note form completely different disposition and completely different exception of the admirable work by Bořivoj Srba nobody and in recordings and to make it into a new canon, against historical context. pays any attention to Burian’s theatre work and there is a which to measure up the whole development of music in I recall Burian’s speech to the company at the re-opening glaring absence of any comprehensive Burian biography, the Czech Lands and Europe in the 20th century. But that of his Theatre D after the Second World War. Rationally, which would look at Burian’s work in relation to all aspects of course is an impossible task for the small Czech nation. the only real content in the speech was that they would of his activities. Such a work would, for example, bring to And so we shall most likely just going on hearing drivel “be faithful to the legacy of dead comrades” and would be light that in the Fifties, when we have classified Burian as about his communist orientation, even though this reversal would be the only way of coming to terms with Burian’s “a communist avantgarde in every respect”, but Burian a decadent theatre director in a colonel’s uniform writing work, and avoiding the complete disorientation in values so nevertheless talked for maybe 40 minutes and the “Seedbed”, he actually wrote a series of very intimate and peculiar to Czechs with their tendency to alternate self- speech conceals several pieces of guile. On the objective we can even say deeply tragic string quartets, and so on, denigration and self-overestimation. level we simply can’t understand him today. We can’t and so forth. grasp the point of all this endless relating of the self to Today’s task in relation to E. F. Burian should then be to This inferiority / superiority complex obviously relates to history (this says something symptomatic about the way construct a kind of historical psychology that would the smallness of our nation and its disturbed history (an the post-1989 period has come to terms, or rather not attempt to grasp by empathy and then to explain what artificially hot-house forced nation with a history of faith has meant in the 20th century (in the Third Reich, in come to terms with our history). We can’t grasp what all defeats). The nation therefore absolutely lacks a kind of the Communist Empire, in the Absolutely Individualist this faith in an “absolutely perfect theatre” is about, when conscious core, as a basis for self-evaluation. This core Empire…), and that would explore the meaning of the most Czech theatres today could be nicknamed “U Nejdů” sudden fulfilment of this faith (which Burian lived to see in has to be gradually built out of fragments, and one of those (i.e. most things “nejde” – in English “don’t or won’t work”). some form immediately after the war and again after fragments must be the absolute rendering present of Buri- We don’t understand what faith in the “communist avant- 1948), and the meaning of doubts about that faith an’s work. This will mean we can stop going round and garde” is, since we ourselves don’t believe in anything, and (undoubtedly the case with Burian in the Fifties). Other- round in meaningless claims that Burian was either a local are only concerned with getting by in the profane day-to- wise we shall just be forever materialistically circling unimportant director, or on the other hand a visionary day world. We are incapable of seeing the meaning of around certain associated phenomena (how many people paving the way for the comprehensive theatre of the Burian’s speech, which is partly to the point, but partly fell in the 2nd World War as victims of the Nazis, how future. many nations Stalin deported and so on), without ever unprecedentedly (in expression) poetic and also often But how should we approach Burian’s life? Today we can understanding what it means to sacrifice anything for a escapes logic and “clear thinking” as if Burian was some- only gather information about the dead and create our vision. If I am not mistaken, the slogan “the end sanctifies times wrenching himself away into a curious world of pat- the means” comes from the Jesuits, i.e. from an environ- own picture, i.e. by individual interpretation. But by doing aphysics. We don’t understand why he goes on talking so ment of absolute faith convinced that any kind of sacrifice so we get nowhere near the issue of what Burian was like. long, when today we live in a world of photography and is justified to attain the goal. When we are aware of this, We would just be producing a new art work about E. F. short slogans that convey nothing. we can finally grasps why given the approach we have, Burian. We shall now never uncover E. F. Burian’s inner In the present period, which tends to be characterised by part of the Nazi elite sat silent through the Nuremberg tri- motivation, the social pressures upon him, and we shall absolute doubt about everything, nobody can understand als, sometimes with a mysterious smile, and why the living never know what sprang from his faith, what from his per- it. But this is of course the stumbling block of all histories witnesses to E. F. Burian behave in the same way. All of sonal life, what were covering manoeuvres and so on. them knew and still know something about faith and sac- of the 20th century that cannot comprehend how anyone Often E. F. Burian himself did not know. All the influences rifice, but nobody understands them. (When during the could have believed in the idea of national socialism or combined in him in a strange way and no one has the Nuremberg trials there was talk of the occult roots of communism. Yet national socialism actually represents Nazism, the materialist jury rapidly backed away from the right to judge. All that remains is to act a new play about one of the greatest onslaughts of faith: the idea of the theme and once again played at being “Last Judge”)In his life, which will tell us something about ourselves, but birth of the “Third Reich”, “the new man“, “the next world”, this unbelieving age another task is to bring Burian’s work not about E. F. Burian.

czech music 4 | 2004 | portrait | 17 How do you see the current relationship a few minutes with between the conservatories and HAMU, or what should it be ideally? an oboist The conservatory is something like the first stage, the take-off strip for a musical career, but it is only at HAMU that the process of maturing as a musician begins – as if you were starting again from the beginning but the rate of progress is much faster. And you could say that conservatory is a sort of luxury MAREK KOPELENT training and I very much dislike it that some disciplines start at 15 years, since this tends to make young people one-sided, if not to The oboist Vilém Veverka (1978) is er, but your personality. And I think my gen- lead to professional idiotism. emerging as one of the most striking eration is the first that can play these pieces Is it possible to get by with only conser- here freely and publicly. vatory training? performers of the coming generation. Finally, performing contemporary music I There are cases like that. Those people usual- He is all the more interesting as a have a virtually absolute degree of freedom, ly end up in orchestras or teaching at basic musician for the fact that he system- and I’m not bound by conventions and tradi- music schools. atically devotes much of his energies tions. In fact I can take this approach to But I believe HAMU graduates predomi- to the expert performance of contem- Baroque or any other music as well, but of nate in orchestras as solo instrumental- porary music, which is still far from course on the condition that I know and ists? usual even among young performers. respect the rules of style, of the time. Oh definitely. But I was thinking more of string In the following interview, V. Veverka The pianist Radoslav Kvapil says that players. And real life is different from what is talks with one of the most important through performing my Ballade he often proclaimed. In fact HAMU is not just a of living Czech composers, Marek reached a new understanding when training for a soloist career. interpreting the classics, and he found Let me come back to contemporary Kopelent (1932). This was not their that getting to know contemporary music. Can I then deduce that the con- first meeting – it was Veverka music opened up entirely new horizons servatory is not equipped to teach the appeared as soloist for the Czech pre- in terms of sound, technique and ideas. new techniques, and that if HAMU is not miere of Kopelent’s oboe concerto A I sometimes ask myself how musicians equipped either, then this kind of learn- Few Minutes with an Oboist (1972), who have no experience with the mod- ing will drop out of the educational and gave a marvellous performance. ern can be creative. Do you agree? process? It is typical of the Czech Republic, in Yes. But the fact is that some people find it In a way yes. It’s up to the student to provoke which the communist regime system- enough to know the alphabet up to the letter the teacher, and we can’t expect the teacher atically suppressed practically all T and don’t need to know what comes next, to take the initiative. I played Stockhausen’s In expressions of modern art, that two because ultimately they can get by even Freundschaft while still at the conservatory, but you go to HAMU and there nobody musicians apparently divided by a without higher musical education. Do you think HAMU [The Prague Music expects that from you. On the other hand, generational gulf can easily find a Faculty] provides sufficient training for when I was defending my diploma dissertation common language. This is because the performance of modern music, by on the new technical possibilities of the oboe I they share a continuing degree of which I mean from the 1950s-1960s was told that everyone knew what I was writing marginalisation. Not even in today’s onwards? about, that it was already known here in the free society is the place of contempo- For me personally HAMU did provide space 1960s, but since the public had no interest in rary music assured and automatic for performance of modern music, and not it, people stopped trying to do it… either in music schools or else- just at my final concert, where I presented They said everything had been played where… the Czech premiere of B. A. Zimmerman’s here? Berio’s Sequenza VII for Solo concerto. I appreciate that because on acad- Oboe is from the end of the 1960s. So emic soil there is an educated and critical what kind of answer was that? public. On the other hand, in trying to get to I was told it had just vanished. They said the know this area of music a student can some- public didn’t want to listen to this music and We were brought together when we times feel like an autodidact, with the we are no pioneers… met at the guest seminar given by teacher simply offering alternative approach- That’s unbelievable. To be hiding the Heinz Holliger at the Music Faculty of es to the piece, and acting as its first critic. fact that during the repressive “normali- the Academy of Performing Arts I was thinking of technical training – sation” period (1970s and 1980s) such (HAMU) in 2001. He recognised your whether Berio’s Sequenza VII and music was forbidden, and that it wasn’t great talent and you astonished me too suchlike were in the study plan? the public but the regime that didn’t with your performance of Baroque On the face of it not at all, but when you go want it. And this is the sort of thing music. But you are captivated by con- in for international competitions you obvious- teachers are supposed to say to young temporary music. Why? ly can’t avoid it. And by the way, the Wind musicians! There are several important factors at work Instrument Department is the best in terms Absurd. But still I could present my teacher with here. Above all, playing contemporary music of attitude to contemporary music. your concerto, for example, and meet with inter- is something related to my education and I have heard that a teacher had no idea est and support. Of course it could happen that profession, it is something I should get to what to do with the notation of multi- someone else would say – we’re not going to know. phonic sound in a part… play that… But that was more in other disci- Second, the music of the 1950s and 1960s I think it very much depends on how keen a plines. The pianists, for example – given the involved an extraordinary advance in tech- student is – whether he or she can manage amount of older repertoire they mostly never nique, and you have to get to grips with it. It to draw the teacher into the study of con- even get to modern music. They don’t even get develops not just your capabilities as a play- temporary pieces. up to the present at HAMU in the history of

18 | interview | czech music 4 | 2004 music. So how can you expect graduates to find their way in the music of the last fifty years? Tell me about your experiences working with the Berlin Philharmonic. The orchestra is absolutely top in the field, if I can just sit among members of an orchestra like that it is the best school I could have – the chance to take look into “the kitchen” and have direct contact with first-rate players. And what does it mean, exactly, being “top in the field”? The orchestra has unusually good work condi- tions, and top conductors. The players are rewarded accordingly and the main thing is they so much enjoy the work. In this country some musicians, mainly ensemble orchestral players, act as if they thought that working in an orchestra was not a real, proper career for musician. The truth is the opposite. Do you feel, for example, that Germans have less “musicality” than Czechs? They are educated so that each knows more about music individually, and perhaps that actually gives them more “musicality”… I can see you hesitating over that term – it’s bandied about a great deal in this country – what should we understand by What specifically? Vilém Veverka it? Recently I recorded Berio’s Sequenza for born on the 5th of February 1978 in Maybe being able to translate the record of Czech Radio, and now I’m going to record Prague. After studying at the Prague Con- the composer’s idea, the notation, into sound your concerto (A Few Minutes with an servatory he started studies in 1999 with as effectively and authentically as possible. Oboist). The young composer Martin Hybler Liběna Séquardtová at the Music Faculty of Here we think of it more as meaning a is writing a new concerto for me. I should be the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague higher level of spontaneity, emotionali- playing it in the spring of next year. These (HAMU), where he graduated this year. ty… are great projects that are worth coming Concurrently, from 2000, he has been Yes, people tugging at the heartstrings… back for. studing at the “Hanns Eisler” Hochschule …and at the same time it is emphasised Do you want to leave? für Musik in Berlin with Prof. Dominik Wol- as a symbol of Czechness – isn’t it that I’m not thinking about it for the moment. It lenweber. He has been solo oboist of the myth? will depend on circumstances and opportuni- Gustav Mahler Jugend Orchester, and in Most probably. ties. At the moment I don’t see many here. 2003 won a scholarship with the Orches- Have you had experience of music edu- Do you make excursions into other tral Academy of the Berlin Philharmonic cation in Germany? musical genres? Orchestra (“the Karajan Academy”). I studied my main field and associated subjects Not really. I must confess that in that respect His most important awards in competitions for four years in Berlin at the Hanns Eisler I’m conservative. include 2nd Prize in the international Con- Higher Music School. The kind of music that is Do you agree with some of your con- certino Praga competition (1995) and 1st a very exclusive thing here (for example the temporaries that music is one, just Prize in the 7th International Oboe Compe- music of Isang Yun), is normal in Germany, good or bad? tition of Tokyo (2003). even if this doesn’t mean that everybody plays That’s an over-simplification. What do we He has been responsible for a series of it there. There are a number of similarly good consider music? What the media presents Czech premieres of important pieces, pieces still waiting for their Czech premieres isn’t something I can’t take seriously, and in including Karlheinz Stockhausen’s In Fre- and unfortunately I’m not in a position to get any case the public thinks of modern music undschaft, Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s Con- them a hearing myself, while the people who as something quite different. And I myself certo for Oboe and Small Orchestra, Isang could have other cares or interests. don’t want to include everything under the Yun’s Rondel etc. He has been working How long will you be in Berlin? heading “music”. with Czech Radio, for which he has record- My scholarship with the Berlin Philharmonic You are probably talking about com- ed a series of important pieces of oboe ends in September 2005. mercial music, but there is also music repertoire. And what then? “between the opposite poles” – alter- I don’t yet know. I shall certainly try to get a native, jazz… place in an orchestra. You can’t make a living I accept jazz, certainly, especially when top with solo playing, as is clear from the careers musicians play it. of the leading European oboists. Good, so what about that “one music”? And at home? It depends on quality – yes, even if it isn’t At present there are no vacancies, and I don’t serious music but I can still judge it through even know whether there would be interest in the lens of serious music. me. Actually I have already tried several times… Even though, if you work hard, even in this country you could achieve high-level goals. The situation here is very complex – a very small market and an unprepared public. But some- Marek times interesting opportunities still turn up… Kopelent

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Contact address: Tel.: +420-251 556 642 or 251 550 609 Radlická 99 Fax: +420-251 553 982 150 00 Prague 5 e-mail: [email protected] Czech Republic internet: www.musicbase.cz Antonín Dvořák Bedřich Smetana Josef suk Leoš Janáček Jiří Šlitr Bohuslav Martinů czech music | 2004 Eva Olmerová An integral part of European culture Karel Kryl

A Czech Ministry of Culture project that aims to support important music In 2004, the Czech Republic celebrates more anniversaries in 2004, with a special focus on presentation of the Czech Republic than sixty anniversaries of outstanding Czech during the year of its accession to the European Union composers, some renowned performers as well as several music organisations. Traditionally, the musical public immediately recognize that Under the auspice of president of the Czech Republic, Mr. Václav Klaus, years ending in the numeral four are conside- and Mrs. Viviane Reding, an European Commission member responsible for red to be a “years of Czech music”. education and culture

SELECTIVE VIEW OF ANNIVERSARIES Patrons: Gabriela Beňačková – soprano František Václav MÍČA (1694 - 1744) Petr Eben – composer Bedřich SMETANA (1824 – 1884) Sir Charles Mackerras – conductor, GB Leoš JANÁČEK (1854 – 1928) Jiří Stivín – flautist Josef Suk – violinist Antonín DVOŘÁK (1841-1904) Miloš Štědroň – composer, musicologist Bohuslav MARTINŮ (1890 - 1959) Rafael KUBELÍK (1914 - 1996) Milada ŠUBRTOVÁ (1924) INFORMATION CENTRE Theatre Institute, Celetná 17, 110 00 Prague 1 Eva OLMEROVÁ (1934 - 1993) Phone: + 420 224 809 195, Fax: + 420 224 811 452 Prague Symphonic Orchestra FOK (1934) Internet: http://www.czechmusic.org Janáček Philharmonic Orchestra (1954)

Main partner: Medial partners: Partners: kryštof harant of polžice and bezdružice and pecka

1564 – 21st june 1621

Kryštof Harant of Polžice and Bezdružice and since after the defeat of the Estates rebellion To see is more than to tell Pecka ( 1564–21st June 1621) remains to he was captured, and together with other this day one of the best-known figures of the rebel leaders condemned and finally behead- “ Oh, my dear God, what lands I have travelled Bohemian Renaissance. A Czech aristocrat, ed on Old Town Square in Prague. through, in what perils have I been, seeing no he become famous in his own time for many A period portrait of Harant by the celebrated bread for days, sheltering myself once under actions that expressed his restless soul, but engraver Aegidius Sadeler has come down to sand, and out of all this my dear Lord God also for his many-sided gifts, pre-eminent us, and this portrait has inspired a series of brought me with his aid, and now in my own among them his talent as a composer. artists to various different variations. Of dear homeland I am to die, innocent. Lord God, His abilities were much encouraged and cul- Harant’s musical output, the only pieces to Forgive my enemies.” And at that they called tivated in the years 1576–1584, which he have survived in their entirety are the out- for him. And full of wrath we went close to see spent at the court of the Archduke Ferdinand standing five-part mass on motifs from a that grievous spectacle and noble antichrist. of the Tyrol in Innsbruck. The art-loving atmos- madrigal by L. Marenzio – Missa quinis phere of the court awoke in his an interest in vocibus super Dolorosi martir, the moving Pavel Skála ze Zhoře, The History of Bohemia, The painting, jousting, travel and also music. Dur- Latin motet Qui confidunt in Domino, which Capital Court and Execution on Old Town Square in ing his period at the chateau of Ambrass he he composed during his stay in Jerusalem, 1621, ed. K. Tieftrunk, Prague 1870, p. 110 also gained an excellent education, including and the German motet Maria Kron, printed in a knowledge of languages. an anthology of Marian pieces in 1604 in Preface to the Reader At the beginning of the 1590s he served in Dillingen. The other pieces have survived only the imperial army in the Hungarian Lands. in fragmentary form. The scrupulous observer of Czech society in After returning from the battlefield he made Harant was a typical uomo universale, a the pre-White-Mountain period and writer of the arduous journey to the Holy Land, which Renaissance man of wide interests, tastes remarkable memoirs Mikuláš Dačický of he carefully described in a travelogue that and abilities. His travelogue is written in a live- Heslov noted in 1608 that “Lord Kryštof was printed ten years later. In the summer of ly style in which the author’s humanist educa- Harant has published a book printed in the 1599 he made the personal acquaintance of tion is combined with a native practicality. The Czech tongue on his journey to the Holy Land the Emperor Rudolf, with whom he had many following text, which recalls important fea- and back again, which he has dedicated to common interests and who made him a court tures of Harant’s life and work, has been writ- His Grace the Emperor Rudolf.” The travel- chamberlain. On the emperor’s recommenda- ten in the spirit of Harant’s own literary idiom. ogue was printed at the Prague printing house tion Kryštof Harant was raised to the nobility of the heirs of Daniel Adam of Veleslavín, and in 1607. After the emperor’s death, which aroused the interest of a large public. Its grieved him greatly, Harant remained formally author – imperial counsellor, chamberlain and in the service of the ruling dynasty. He even musicus Kryštof Harant of Polžice and Bez- undertook a diplomatic mission to Spain, družice – described in it the journey to the although no written record of his travel expe- Holy Land, Judea and Egypt that he under- riences has survived in this case. took in 1598. In 1618 Harant took an active part in the anti- Habsburg Revolt of the Bohemian Estates as Chapter I the President of the Bohemian Chamber and In order that I should not forget my Commander of the Estates Artillery. At the fellow-countrymen in my silence. same time he converted from Catholicism to Utraquism. As commander of the artillery he “Travelling is a keen removal of ourselves to advanced as far as Vienna and bombarded places foreign, with purpose to see then, to the Hofburg, where the imperial family was in learn and achieve something good the which residence. This was ultimately to seal his fate, may be of special advantage to our country,

czech music 4 | 2004 | profiles | 5 our friends or ourselves”, writes Kryštof Chudenice during his second journey. He also the sixth time and dived down under the water Harant in the preface to his travelogue. These devotes space to relatively detailed descrip- in the middle, I could not reach the bottom.” reasons apart, the main motive for Harant’s tions of the places that they visit. In the spirit The first part ends with the six-part piece that long and in many ways dangerous journey laid of Renaissance humanism the text is sprin- Harant composed in Jerusalem “on the text of in his restless Renaissance soul. In his time kled with quotations from ancient and modern Psalm 124, which at that time came constant- the pre-White-Mountain society in Bohemia authors as a way of showing the author’s ly to my mind”. had already emerged from the period of “Hus- breadth and depth of learning. The narrative The second part is devoted to his journey to site” isolation and was opening to inspirations is illustrated by a series of woodcuts made by Egypt, and from there “further into desert Ara- and impulses from all over the world. For the Jan Willenberg on the basis of Harant’s draw- bia…to Mount Sinai, Oreb and the Holy Virgin higher ranks of the society of the time travel- ings. In the first part Harant describes the Katherine.” Returning from this mountain the ling therefore became an important aspect of journey from the Kingdom of Bohemia to travellers narrowly escaped with their lives self-education. In the preface to his Travels Jerusalem. The two friends embarked on their when attacked by “eight miscreants with Arab recalls his predecessors Martin Kabátník of travels “on Thursday morning on the third day spears, bows and Turkish knives.” By a miracle Litomyšl and Oldřich Prefát of Vlkanov, who of April” 1598 and covered the first section of they got away, although Harant was robbed of had made a similar journey in the earlier 16th the route, from Bohemia to Venice, on horse- everything and left “without a thread on my century, but he also considered his contem- back. On the way they visited a series of towns body”. They returned to Europe by ship, poraries Zdeněk Vojtěch Popel of Lobkovice in Bavaria, Austria and Northern Italy. From embarking from Alexandria on the 12th of and Vilém Slavata of Chlum as models. The Venice, where they purchased supplies “of November, and reaching Venice at the end of latter had not journeyed so far – Popel had good wine, almonds, figs, Parmesan cheese, 1598. travelled mainly through Southern Europe and smoked tongues and twice baked bread”, they Slavata had made a study trip through “Italy, continued by ship. On their voyage across the Chapter III Galicia, and gone through the lands of France, Mediterranean they visited the islands of Kan- You forgot neither music vocal nor England, the Low Countries, Denmark and the dia (Crete) and Cyprus. On the 31st of August music instrumental Empire”. Harant was, however, impressed with “after several dangerous episodes on the sea” the fact that “soon after their return to their they reached the Holy Land and by the 3rd of Thus the burgher of Prague Old Town Jonata homeland” they were appointed to high land September they were already in Jerusalem. In Bohutský praised Kryštof Harant in the dedi- offices. This was because they could use the a spirit of genuine piety they visited “all the cation to his treatise Politia historica. He was experience and contacts gained on their jour- holy places, both in the city itself and in its among those contemporaries who were neys in such posts. environs all the way to Jericho and Jordan”. aware of Harant’s unusual musical talent, Harant could not, however, suppress his uni- expressed not only in fondness for music, but Chapter II versal Renaissance temperament and inter- in active music-making and original composi- A Diary of My Adventures spersed his accounts of the holy places with tion. Unfortunately only a very few complete completely secular adventures, which often examples of Harant’s music have survived: the The travelogue is divided into two parts. The highlighted his sporting prowess, for example. Wroclav University Library has scroll contain- basis of the narrative is a chronological Recounting his expedition to Jordan he writes ing a transcription of his five-part mass. Two account of the adventures that Harant experi- that “At the time there was little water, but it of Harant’s motets were printed: the six-part enced with his companion Heřman Černín of was still deep, and so when I swam across for Qui confidunt in Domino is printed as a sup-

Dejž tobie Pán Bůh štěstí Fragment of the only Harant’s czech composi- tion which has been pre- served

6 | profiles | czech music 4 | 2004 plement to his Travels and the five-part Maria Kron appears in a collection of Marian pieces printed in 1604 in Dillingen. His other compo- sitions have survived only in fragmentary form. All the works reveal a very capable and skilled composer, who stood out from his Czech con- temporaries in all respects and bears com- parison with the masters of the High Renais- sance. In his music Harant undoubtedly made full use of the inspirations and influences to which he had been exposed in his adolescence, which he spent at the court of the art-loving Ferdi- nand II of the Tyrol in Innsbruck. He was con- nected to the Habsburg family by a number of other ties, as well. In the 1590s, shortly after his return from the Holy Land, he had won the favour of Rudolf II and become chamberlain at his Prague court. After the emperor’s death and the court’s move back to Vienna, he was entrusted with occasional tasks. In 1615, for example, he undertook an imperial diplomatic mission to Spain to convey to the Spanish monarch the Order of the Golden Fleece, of which Rudolf, as head of the Central Euro- pean branch of the Habsburgs, had been the bearer. He did not, however, use this journey as a basis for a travelogue. He was to end as an enemy to the Habsburgs, since at the lat- est in April 1619 he actively joined the Rebel- lion of the Estates. After its defeat he was captured, tried and found guilty.

Epilogue A Grievous Spectacle

dominated by the by the executioner Mydlář’s block on the Old Town Square… That was the place where one of the most remarkable phe- nomena of the Bohemian Renaissance, Kryštof Harant, ended his earthly life on the 21st of June 1621. There he was one of 27 Czech lords suffering exemplary punishment for their part in the rising against the Habs- burgs. The prosecution had found him guilty of accepting the position of supreme com- mander of artillery in the Estates army, and the position of President of the Bohemian Chamber under Frederick of the Palatinate. As he embarked on his last journey he was once again in the company of his old fellow traveller – Heřman Černín of Chudenice. But this time Černín, a zealous catholic, supporter of the Habsburg dynasty and imperial sheriff of the Old Town, was watching his execution from a raised platform nearby.

PETR DANĚK

Missa quinis vocibus super Dolorosi martir (bass part)

Next page: Rosetum Marianum (1604) Bassus partbook, title page. Anthology of Marian pieces which contains Harant’s German motet Maria Kron czech music 4 | 2004 | profiles | 7 8 | profiles | czech music 4 | 2004 czech music

4 | 2004 profiles

vítězslav novák

5th december 1870 – 18th july 1949

Life and Work In this process of reorientation Vítězslav Following the founding generation of com- Novák was in his way a central and (togeth- posers of new Czech music (Bedřich er with Josef Suk, 1874–1935) leading Smetana, 1824–1884; Antonín Dvořák, figure. It also, of course, involved the older 1841–1904) a group of other important com- composers Josef Bohuslav Foerster posers came to the fore in the last decade of (1859–1951), who joined the movement in a the 19th century and the beginning of the rather more traditionalist spirit, and Leoš cation was rather more complicated than that 20th century. Throughout Europe pro- Janáček (1854–1928), who at a late age of Suk or Foerster, whose own father was a grammes and individuals were emerging all (essentially not until after 1916) surprisingly musician and a composer. loosely linked by various concepts of moder- became a trailbreaker in 20th-century Czech Vítězslav Novák was born on the 5th if nity, involving reflection on all areas of life – music. (The younger Otakar Ostrčil December 1870 in Kamenice nad Lipou in politics, economics, technology, science, the (1879–1935) only matured in the years after South Bohemia. He was christened Viktor position of man, culture and art – and critical the 1st World War). Nonetheless, at the very (Augustin Rudolf), and only later adopted the reaction to change in the past century. In the least up to the end of the 1930s it was Novák name Vítězslav as a professional “pseudo- Czech Lands one aspect of the new wave was who fulfilled the special function of “axial per- nym”. He grew up in the not very affluent fam- a new philosophy among poets and writers sonality” of the Czech modern movement in ily of a small-town doctor (his father Jakub (known as the Manifesto of the Czech Modern music in the sense that it was he who was the Novák died in 1882). He attended academic Movement, 1895), who believed that the main meaningful epicentre of the polarisation of high school 1881–1889 in Jindřichův imperative of their art should be to overcome the Czech composers of the day. To put it in Hradec, and in 1882 his mother and two sib- traditional idyllism and narrow patriarchal simplified terms, we might say that Novák’s lings moved there as well. His first attempts at nationalism through freedom of creation, crit- friendly rivalry with J. Suk, “friendly antago- composing songs and piano pieces, more or ical thinking and stress on individualism: nism” with L. Janáček and persevering paral- less just sketches, probably date from 1886. “artist, give your work your blood, your brain, lel efforts in the field of vocal music with J. B. After he completed his schooling in 1889, the your whole self – you, your brain, your blood Foerstr etc. has deeper meaning for the three- family moved to Prague, where Novák was to will live and breath in it, and it will live through dimensional relief and dynamics of the music live in various places until his death. Novák them…” The idea of constant progress, of the time. By comparison, the Suk – Janáček studied first at the Law Faculty (1889), and expressing itself in the conquest of ever new – Foerster relationships are mutually tangen- then the Philosophical Faculty (1890–1893), areas of subject-matter and spirited innova- tial and tell us little. where he attended the lectures of O. Hostin- tion in technique, was also elevated to a prin- Novák’s biography is not particularly dra- ský in particular; he graduated without a doc- ciple by the aesthetician and musicologist matic in any way, and perhaps we can simply torate. At the same time, however, he was Otakar Hostinský (1894). note that his path to music and musical edu- allowed to enter the conservatory where he studied composition (1889–1892) and piano where he admired the architecture and art. eroticism, nature (in all aspects of the term) (1891–1896 with Josef Jiránek). Two years He travelled to all the European countries with and later the fateful moments in the history of of composition studies with very conservative the exception of Russia. his native land. theoreticians (K. Knittl, K. Stecker) left Novák From the beginning of the 20th century to his On the other hand, Novák’s creative approach an unsuccessful and disillusioned student, but death Novák was a generally known and is at the same time strikingly rational, as is Stecker seems to have noticed his talent and respected figure in Czech (later Czechoslo- very clear from an analysis of his melodics in the autumn of 1891 recommended him to vak) culture. In 1906 he was appointed a (treatment of themes that is akin to the the class of Antonín Dvořák. Dvořák under- member of the Czech Academy of Sciences “entwickelnde Variation” type, conscious stood and respected his new pupil, and Novák and Arts, and in 1907 a member of the jury in monothematism), the distinctive structuring soon became (alongside Josef Suk) one of its 4th Class. His works (especially his length- of pieces and intensive exploitation of his favourite students, although there were ier works) were regularly honoured with polyphony in a way that is not so much a mat- often clashes of opinion between teacher and awards and state prizes, and many were pub- ter of complex use of familiar forms (fugue, pupil, given their very different personal and lished by distinguished European publishing passacaglia), but often of virtually sponta- creative temperaments. After graduating in houses (from 1895 on Brahms’s recommen- neous methods of imitation and canonical composition (1892, Sonata in d minor for dation by Simrock, and from 1911 in the Vien- development. Novák’s harmony underwent Violin and Piano) and from the Philosophical na Universal Edition). In 1928 he was given important transformations, but in general his Faculty, Novák, who had been living on vari- an honorary doctorate by the Comenius pieces are anchored in tonality (in his later ous modest grants and scholarships, had to University in Bratislava, and in 1945 he was period expanded tonality or sometimes poly- support his whole family. He therefore gave awarded the title “National Artist” before tonality). private lessons in piano, and later in harmony, these titles of honour were profaned by the Given the autobiographical character of counterpoint and composition, and in time – communist regime. Vítězslav Novák died on Novák’s music, an outline of its development with his growing successes as a composer – the 18th of July 1949 in Skuteč in East over time is essential. In his earliest period became the leading teacher of composition in Bohemia, where he had often spent his sum- Novák in no way deviated from the stylistic Bohemia. He was appointed professor of a mer holidays in the last years of his life. He current of Late Romanticism. Romantic litera- master class at the Prague Conservatory in left several incomplete pieces on his desk… ture (e.g. Lord Byron) is the source of inspira- 1909 and worked there until his retirement in At this point the encyclopaedias usually start tion for his first student experiments (the 1940. (In the years 1920–1921, 1921–1922 on a catalogue of works. We could easily do Korzár [Corsair] Overture, the piano ballade and 1927–1928 he was rector of the conser- the same here, commenting that Novák made “Manfred” in e minor). His chamber pieces, vatory, which became a state institution in contributions to more or less all the musical piano music, and songs (the Pohádka srdce 1920) Novák, who had a thorough knowledge genres of his time. He composed four operas [Fairytale of the Heart] op. 8) are full of of all music written (at the least) from the 18th (e.g. Karlštejn, 1916), two ballet pantomimes weltschmerz and youthful exaltation, and the century, and of music theory, was famous as a (e.g. Signorina Gioventu` , 1930), two cantatas old adage cherchez la femme! applies every- strict teacher who was nonetheless tolerant (Bouře [The Tempest], 1910; Svatební košile where. Autobiographical inspiration is very of the different creative directions of his [The Wedding Shirt], 1913), two symphonies obvious in the piano cycle Vzpomínky [Recol- pupils. During his almost forty-year teaching (1934, 1943), twenty or so orchestral works, lections] op. 6. However strange it may be for career he taught roughly 100 musicians, and a dozen chamber works, a series of piano a twenty-four-year-old youth to be engaged most of them later occupied important posi- pieces and cycles, and several dozen choral in recollections, the cycle reflects Novák’s joy- tions in musical life. These included leading and song cycles… A list of this kind cannot, less childhood without comfort and the Czech composers (e.g. V. Štěpán, L. Vycpálek, however, capture the basic character and con- warmth of home (Triste), restless adoles- A. Hába, V. Kaprálová ) and after 1918 com- tinual stylistic transformations of his work cence (Inquieto) and a poetic evocation of posers from Slovakia (e.g. J. Cikker, E. over a half century. We shall try a different juvenile platonic love (Amoroso). Elsewhere Suchoň, A. Moyzes and others), the then approach in the following sections, which the composer on the contrary shows a lightly Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Rumania and the have rather metaphorical titles. sentimental diction on the borders of the Ukraine. Novák’s school also produced many salon production of the time (Serenade in F musicologists, music theorists, conductors Poetry in Tones major for small orchestra, the piano Sere- and pianists. In terms of creative temperament Novák was nades op. 9 and Barquerolles op. 10), From his youth, then, Novák’s life was mould- supremely the subjective romantic – with very although technically these are very accom- ed by “the rhythm of the school year” during few exceptions his compositions are pro- plished compositions, which make inventive which he systematically taught and then com- grammatic and practically all his major works use of the possibilities of chromatics in the posed every afternoon. In the time that are sui generis autobiographical. Of course, harmonies. remained he keenly followed the theatre, con- we are aware that at least from the beginning Chance opened up a path for Novák to devel- cert and opera season, made music himself of the 19th century (for example from op a more distinctive and individual style. In the (in the form of the then popular four-handed Beethoven’s Eroica) composers did not write summer of 1896 he was invited to a distant play with various partners, and more ambi- symphonies or quartets “by the dozen” to corner of Eastern Moravia, Velké Karlovice in tiously, from 1901 with discussion of the external order, but from impulses deriving Moravian Wallachia, and here the hitherto pieces played in a circle of close friends from their lives and internal reflections. On “urban man” was spellbound by nature, the rur- known as the “Podskalská Philharmonic”), the other hand, in Novák’s mature works this al people and their music and song. Back in studied music, languages and liked to read trend acquired “extreme” form in the sense Prague in the autumn he immediately fiction. (In 1912 he married his former stu- that what we find here are not inspirations embarked on a detailed study of collections of dent Marie Prášková, which seems to have broadly spread out on interesting literary Bohemian, Moravian and Slovak folksongs, been the reason why he refused a professor- themes (Liszt, R. Strauss), but most often a analysing them from every angle and undoubt- ship at the Academy of Music and Drama in kind of direct “musical arrangement of the edly exploring the “distinctive” and even “exot- Vienna. In 1914 his only child Jaroslav was self” in which the basic role is played by ic” features of their melody, rhythm and modal- born.) Summer vacations, right up to his last Novák’s personal and immediate relationship ity. (Let us not forget that at the same time years (up to the beginning of the 2nd World to the theme (the symphonic poem O věčné Debussy, Ravel Janáček and later Bartók were War) he would devote to intensive travel with touze [On Eternal Longing] op. 33 based on all finding a way out of cosmopolitan Romantic friends – from 1896 he would take regular Hans Christian Andersen) or a covert, and lat- musical thinking via such “exotic” folk music!) trips to Moravia and Slovakia, and gradually er sometimes explicit “personal programme” These studies and further trips to the Moravian extended his tourist adventures (and moun- (2nd String Quartet in D Major op. 35). It is in and Slovak regions enabled Novák to trans- tain climbing!) to the Tatras, Alps and this light that we have to understand Novák’s form his musical idiom. First he arranged Dolomites, and to the main cities of Europe response to his key sources of inspiration – songs, and then he tried to imitate them (Songs

2 | profiles | czech music 4 | 2004 on Words from Moravian Folk Poetry op. 16, 17, 21 dating to 1897–1898). The then influ- ential musicologist Zdeněk Nejedlý con- demned it as “faking folk songs“ but he failed to understand that the experiment was a cre- ative workshop in which the composer was bringing a new form of musical expression to birth. Novák soon found a deeper way of inte- grating elements of Moravian and Slovak song with his own melodics and (ever more individ- ual and audacious) harmonic imagination, directly quoting only rarely, and instead simply finding inspiration in particular melodic phras- ing, modality or rhythm. While initially his pieces “overtly and unashamedly” mirrored folk sources (twice in the Two Ballads on the Words of Moravian Folk Poetry op. 19, 23), in the years 1900–1911 his new style developed in the direction of new forms and subject mat- ter. Around 1900 he was using folk balladics to tackle his internal crises and disappointment in personal and love life – as if appeal to time- less national (!) poetry made it possible for him to objectivise these crises and carry out a kind of psychological auto-therapy through all these themes of ruin, pain, unhappy love and so forth… We still find pessimistic tones of despair in his song cycle Melancholy op. 25 (1901) and in the Balladic Piano Trio op. 27 (1902). The song texts here are taken not from the “classics” of Czech poetry but from Novák’s modern contemporaries, and some of their decadent features reflect – in a way that is unique for Czech music of the time – a fin de sie` cle atmosphere, although at the same time a new symbolist view of nature. In the Balladic Trio Novák tackles the problem of the monothematic four-movement cycle in one sonata movement in a highly individual man- ner. We can be certain, however, that not even in this period were the horizons of Novák’s music permanently clouded and gloomy. Already in 1900 a melodics close to his bal- ladic works provided the basis for his piano Sonata Eroica op. 24, in which he contem- plates the sufferings of the oppressed Slovak people and evokes their heroic resistance and future victory. The popular Slovácko Suite op. 32 (1903) represents characteristic episodes of a Sunday in a Moravian village. Nature played an ever more frequent major role in swan (H. Ch. Andersen). In the same way a When the latter works were premiered Novák’s music, whether in dramatic forms (the “folk” ballad by F. L. Čelakovský provided Novák’s music was very much in line with the symphonic poem V Tatrách [In the Tatras] op. Novák simply with the frame for a tragedy of mood of his time and was favourably, even 26, 1902) or lyrical forms – the 2nd String jealousy, betrayal and self-destructive pas- enthusiastically, received by the public. After Quartet in D Major op. 35 (1905) is an idyllic sion in his symphonic poem Toman a lesní 1912 the situation began to change. Novák summer meditation (in the form of a fugue), panna [Toman and the Wood Maiden] op. 40 suppressed the autobiographical element in interrupted for a moment by memories of the (1907). Nature here is not a self-sufficient his works and was perhaps seeking for a new sorrows and small joys of ordinary days, while “impressionistic” image, but an important ele- idiom based more on “Bohemian melodics” the song cycle Notturna op. 39 (1908) glows ment of the expressive drama: in the long can- (as opposed to those of Moravia and Slovakia) with all the shades of nocturnal moods in the tata (“sea fantasy”) Bouře [The Storm] op. 42 in his cantata Svatební košile [The Wedding texts of German Romantic poets… (1910) the stormy ocean finally swallows up all Shirt] op. 48, and first two operas. But in the In the culminating works of this period the actors with their pure devoted love and sex- period of the “fights over Dvořák”, whom Novák’s key inspirations are conjoined. Unful- ual obsessions, the boy at the mast and the defi- Novák then supported, these works were fillable erotic longing lights up the Symbolist ant sailors. The hymnic conclusion is transcen- ruthlessly and harshly rejected by Z. Nejedlý song cycle Údolí Nového Království [The Val- dent in its awareness of the fleetingness of life, and his anti-Dvořák “camp”. ley of the New Kingdom] op. 31 (1903) and but also of the eternal renewal of hope and the Later, in the post-war years, new stylistic prin- forms the main idea of the symphonic poem regeneration of nature. Novák’s declaration of ciples and movements that were in many O věčné touze [On Eternal Yearning] op. 33 faith in natural pantheism crowns the cyclical respects contrary to Novák’s musical tem- (1905), which – but only on the surface – is piano “poem in notes” Pan op. 43 (Prologue, perament were emerging all over Europe. the moon’s story about sea and an exhausted Mountains, Sea, Forest, Woman; 1910). (Perhaps in a somewhat autobiographical

czech music 4 | 2004 | profiles | 3 spirit he sought inspiration in the „world of number of poems in his vocal compositions – Vítězslav Novák – Selected Discography childhood“, which was the subtitle of his song in so many song cycles and dozens of male, cycle Jaro [Spring] op. 52, and also an impulse female and mixed choir compositions that I Eternal Longing, symph. poem op. 33 – In in the Six Sonatinas for Piano op. 54 and have not even mentioned. A vast range of the Tatras, symph. poem op. 26 – Moravian- minor piano piece Mládí [Youth] op. 55; these poets provided the impulse for Novák’s musi- Slovak Suite, op. 32 are all compositions in the utterly distinctive cal poetry, from the unknown authors of folk Czech Philharm. Orch., Brno State Philharm. Orch., Novákian style, but „moderated“ and shorn of texts to the older and in their time “classic” cond. Karel Šejna; Supraphon 1992 his former passionate combativeness.) Not Czech poets (Mácha, Neruda, Sládek, Čech, until 1930 is there a new creative surge in Vrchlický and others) to the German poets South Bohemian Suite, op. 64 – Lady Godi- Novák’s work, once again subjectively moti- (Lenau, Dehmel, Uhland and others) to the va, ouv. op. 41 – De profundis, symph. poem vated by his “farewell to Youth” (the ballet pan- Czech Modern movement (Sova, Machar, op. 67 tomime Signorina Gioventu` op. 58, 1928; the Březina). He did not simply passively clothe Brno State Philharm. Orch., cond. Jaroslav Vogel; vocal-orchestral Podzimní symfonie [Autumn this poetry in notes. On the contrary, it became Supraphon Symphony] op. 62, 1934 with original Mora- a life-giving element in his own original poet- vian-Slovácko “scherzo”; the 3rd String Quar- ic music. To appreciate the point, you must String Quartet no. 2 in D major op. 35. tet op. 66, 1938). In all these pieces Novák just listen to it. (+L. Janáček, String Quartet no. 1) was also in his way coming to terms with con- Janáček Quartet; Supraphon 2000 temporary music: once again we find the echoes of Moravian song and also plentiful JAROMÍR ČERNÝ The Storm, the Sea Fantasy… for Soloists, self-quoting, but these are treated on the Mixed Chorus and Orch. op. 42 basis of a rougher dissonant harmony and Czech Philharm. Orch., Czech Philharm. Chorus, complex polyphony. He returned to his native cond. Zdeněk Košler; Supraphon landscape in his South Bohemian Suite op. 64 (1937) and during the Nazi Occupation Slovak Songs – Piano Quintet in A minor reacted to the tragic situation of the Czech op. 12 – Songs of a Winter Night for piano nation with a symphonic poem De profundis solo op. 30 op. 67 (1941) and the organ St. Wenceslas M. Kožená (mezzo-soprano), Radoslav Kvapil Triptych, which he later instrumentated (piano), Kocian Quartet; ASV Ltd. London 1998 (1942). This glancing view of the world of poetry in Pan. A Poem in Tones, op. 43. Novák’s music (and its interior poeticism) is (+B. Smetana, B. Martinů) inevitably incomplete. He arranged a huge František Maxián (piano); Supraphon 1998

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