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Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School
2009 A Study of Písn# z T#šínska of Petr Eben Matthew Markham
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COLLEGE OF MUSIC
A STUDY OF PÍSN Z T ŠÍNSKA OF PETR EBEN
By
MATTHEW MARKHAM
A Treatise submitted to the College of Music in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Music
Degree Awarded: Summer Semester, 2009
The members of the committee approve the treatise of Matthew Markham defended on May 28, 2009.
______Stanford Olsen Professor Directing Treatise
______Charles Brewer Outside Committee Member
______Lisa Ryoko Wakamiya Committee Member
______Timothy Hoekman Committee Member
The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members.
ii
Dedicated to Roy Delp
iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to acknowledge the following for their support and contribution towards the success of this project: Theodore Presser Foundation, Florida State University, Artistic and Administrative Staff of the Ameropa Solo and Chamber Music Festival, Jablunkov Folk Festival, librarians of the National Library of the Czech Republic and of the Prague Municipal Library, historians of the Czech Music Information Centre in Prague and of the Muzeum Těšínsko, Academy of Music in Prague, Dvo ák Society in London, Lisa Ryoko Wakamiya, Stanford Olsen, Timothy Hoekman, Charles Brewer, Jindrich Bajgar, Mojmír Sobotka, Adam Mohammad, Martina Bojdorá, Jakub Debef, Jan Víčár, Ivan Kusnjer, Iva Raková, Jonathan Pilkington, David Eben, Katerina Englichová, Jan Rokyta, Boleslav Slováček, Karel Janovicky, Timothy Cheek, Barbora Baronová, Graham Melville-Mason, Antonín Tučapský, Eva Vítová, Katerina Vondrovicová-Cervenková, Miloslová Fousková, Jesse Johnston, Zdenka Brodska, Dagmar Szturcová, Roman Grycz, Renata Utíkal, Marek Grycz, Halina Cymorek, Beata Suszka, Katharine Ball, Malcolm Shackelford, Edward and Kathryn Markham, Ralph Bentley, Randy Steinman, Kristin Ditlow, Dan Pardue, and the beautiful people of Těšín, especially Adam and Judith.
iv TABLE OF CONTENTS
List of Figures ...... vi
Abstract ...... vii
1. BIOGRAPHY ...... 1
2. EBEN’S T ŠÍN PERIOD ...... 11
3. THE T ŠÍN REGION ...... 18 3.1 Těšín History ...... 22 3.2 Těšín Folk Music and Culture...... 24 3.3 Těšín Dialect ...... 28
4. THE FOLKSONGS ...... 35 4.1 “Hej, koło Těšina” ...... 36 4.2 “Ten Těšinsky mostek” ...... 39 4.3 “Tam z tej strony jeźora” ...... 41 4.4 “V zelenym hajičku” ...... 43 4.5 “Dolina, dolina” ...... 47 4.6 “V neděli rano” ...... 50 4.7 “Ja věm o ptaškovi” ...... 53 4.8 “Litali, litali dva holubci mali” ...... 55 4.9 “Śvětě marny” ...... 57 4.10 “Za gorum, za vodum” ...... 60 4.11 “Paněnky se chłubjum” ...... 63
CONCLUSION ...... 67
APPENDICES
A. WORD-FOR-WORD TRANSLATIONS ...... 68
B. RECORDINGS OF NATIVE SPEAKERS SPEAKING THE FOLK TEXTS ...... 85
C. T ŠÍN FILM DOCUMENTARY ...... 87
D. A CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF EBEN’S WORKS FOR SOLO VOICE ...... 88
E. APPROVAL FORMS AND CONSENT LETTERS ...... 90
BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 98
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ...... 101
v LIST OF FIGURES
3.1: Map of the Czech Republic...... 19 3.2: Map of the Czech Republic, Poland, and Silesia...... 20 3.3: Map of Český Tĕšín/Cieszyn...... 21 4.1: “Hej, koło Těšina” unpublished piano introduction...... 38 4.2: “Ten Těšinsky mostek” measures 25-29...... 40 4.3: “Ten Těšinsky mostek” measures 42-44...... 40 4.4: “Tam z tej strony jeźora” measures 19-26...... 43 4.5: “V zelenym hajičku” measures 1-15...... 45 4.6: “V zelenym hajičku” measures 23-24...... 46 4.7: “Dolina, dolina” measures 6, 13, 18-20, 27-28, 33-34, and 37-38 ...... 49 4.8: “Dolina, dolina” measures 44-46...... 50 4.9: “V neděli rano” measures 9-11...... 51 4.10: “V neděli rano” measures 24-30...... 52 4.11: “Ja věm o ptaškovi” measures 1-4...... 54 4.12: “Ja věm o ptaškovi” measures 44-47...... 54 4.13: “Litali, litali dva holubci mali” measures 1-9...... 56 4.14: “Litali, litali dva holubci mali” measures 10-13...... 57 4:15: “Śvětě marny” measures 1-6, 16-20, 31-32, 35-37, and 43-45...... 59 4.16: “Za gorum, za vodum” measures 1-6...... 61 4.17: “Za gorum, za vodum” measures 33-42...... 62 4.18: “Paněnky se chłubjum” measures 52-75...... 65 4.19: “Paněnky se chłubjum” measures 76-99...... 66
vi ABSTRACT
In 1952 The State Institute for Folksong in Brno invited Czech-born composer Petr Eben (1929-2007) to collect and transcribe folksong in the original dialect from the Moravian-Silesian district around the town of Těšín, which straddles the Czech/Polish border. The resulting collection of 280 folksongs provides rich documentation of the spirit of the Těšín people, the regional landscape, folk culture, and Těšín’s unique regional dialect. This treatise is a study of the musical and cultural influences in the eleven songs known as Písně z Těšínska (Songs from Těšín) as arranged by Eben for voice and piano. The treatise contains biographical information about the composer, extant information about the method of the collection of the songs, historical and cultural background of the region, and detailed research into the dialect including firsthand interviews and a video diary of those interviews. The author also makes use of personal interviews with contemporaries and relatives of the composer, folklorists, music professors, school children, and teachers; as well as personal observations while on a two month journey through this region of the Czech Republic. The sections of the treatise include a general biography of Eben, a focus on Eben’s associations with the Těšín region (beginning with the 1952 study and the influence of this period in his subsequent compositions), an overview of the historic context through which the district Těšínské Slezsko (Těšín region) and its unique dialect came to be, and a specific exploration of Písně z Těšínska including consideration of text, music, and cultural references. Appendices in the electronic format will include a word-for-word translation of the texts, an audio recording of the readings of the texts by native speakers, a chronological listing of Eben’s works for solo voice and piano or chamber ensemble, and a 25-minute video documentary presenting highlights of the author’s two-month journey through the Czech Republic, supported by a grant from the Theodore Presser Foundation.
vii CHAPTER ONE
BIOGRAPHY
When Czech composer Petr Eben, born 22 January 1929, died in 2007 he had gone from being an obscure academic laboring in a second rate position to one of the Czech Republic’s leading and most revered composers. His compositions are universally admired, have been extensively recorded, and were performed by the composer himself and continue to be performed by others in the finest concert venues in the world. For one who began in modest circumstances, son of two schoolteachers, who then survived the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Nazi regime, incarceration at Buchenwald, and ostracism by the subsequent Communist Soviet regime in Czechoslovakia, this is an astonishing development. Petr Eben was born in Žamberk, a town to the east of Prague, the son of a Jewish father and a Catholic mother. His initial exposure to music was at home; his mother sang and played the guitar, while his father played the violin. Eben’s elder brother, who later became a doctor, was also a good musician. When Petr Eben was five years old, the family moved to the historic village Český Krumlov, a fairytale setting in southern Bohemia providing day-to-day exposure to the humanist art and architecture of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. As schoolteachers, Eben’s parents were anxious to procure a broad based education for their children. Eben learned both Czech and German. His parents spoke French, he was taught English and Greek at the grammar school, and Latin was a standard part of the curriculum. In spite of growing up in this environment, however, Eben describes the town as “an utter musical wilderness. It was a pretty provincial community; there were rarely concerts and we didn’t have a gramophone.”1 Among those rare musical occasions, he recalls a performance of the German tenor Julius Patzak singing Mozart and a performance by German dancer and
1 Janá Marhounová, “Czech Music in the Web of Life,” (Praha: Empatie, 1993), 221; quoted in James L. Evans, The Choral Music of Petr Eben (M.A. thesis, University College Cork, 1995), 35.