Political Dreams and Musical Themes in the 1848–1922 Formation of Czechoslovakia: Interaction of National and Global Forces 1666925195, 9781666925197

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Political Dreams and Musical Themes in the 1848–1922 Formation of Czechoslovakia

Political Dreams and Musical Themes in the 1848–1922 Formation of Czechoslovakia Interaction of National and Global Forces James W. Peterson and William J. Peterson

LEXINGTON BOOKS

Lanham • Boulder • New York • London

Published by Lexington Books An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www​.rowman​.com 86-90 Paul Street, London EC2A 4NE Copyright © 2024 by The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Available Names: Peterson, James W. (James Walter), 1945- author. | Peterson, William    J., 1948- author.   Title: Political dreams and musical themes in the 1848-1922 formation of Czechoslovakia : interaction of national and global forces / James W. Peterson and William J. Peterson. Description: Lanham : Lexington Books, 2023. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: "This book characterizes the 1918-22 formation of Czechoslovakia as an effect of political and musical expressions. The authors argue that while national factors were the most powerful in the period between the 1848 Revolution and the 1880s, global movements such as modernism and western support became predominant in the early twentieth century"-- Provided by publisher.   Identifiers: LCCN 2023045221 (print) | LCCN 2023045222 (ebook) | ISBN 9781666925197 (cloth) | ISBN 9781666925203 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Music--Political aspects--Czechoslovakia--History. | Music and state--Czechoslovakia--History. | Music--Czechoslovakia--History and criticism. | Czechoslovakia--Politics and government--History. Classification: LCC ML3917.C94 P47 2023  (print) | LCC ML3917.C94  (ebook) | DDC 780.9437--dc23/eng/20230926  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023045221 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023045222   The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

The authors dedicate this book to the memory of Walter Ludwig Peterson and Ellen Victoria Peterson

Contents

Acknowledgments ix A Note on Translation

xi

Introduction xiii Chapter One: Appearance of Czechoslovakia on the Global Stage in 1918: Realization of Nationalist Political and Musical Dreams



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Chapter Two: The Revolution of 1848 and the Intensification of Nationalist Sentiments in Politics and Music, 1848–1881

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Chapter Three: Emergence of a Global Framework: New Directions in Politics and New Horizons in Music, 1881–1901

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Chapter Four: Pressures from the Outside European World and the Czech Response in Politics and Music, 1901–1914

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Chapter Five: The War Years: Divided Political Loyalties and War Themes in Music, 1914–1918

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Chapter Six: New Directions for Czechoslovakia: Nationally Rooted Musical Commemorations of the War and Globally Inspired New Political Architecture, 1918–1922

149

Final Conclusion

173

References Index



177

189

About the Authors



191

vii

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Zusana Petraskova, David Beveridge, James Cassaro, Adam Rosenkranz, Andrea Ketterer, and Michael Baun for their help in this project. And the authors wish to thank Jasper Mislak for guiding the book to publication by Lexington Books.

ix

A Note on Translation

Co-author James W. Peterson gives his permission to use his translations in the book.

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Introduction

The driving idea of this book is the interpenetration of works of music and key events of political history in the Czech Lands, from the 1848 revolution to the 1920 passage of the Czechoslovak Constitution and beyond. Movement from a subordinate status in the Austrian Empire in 1848 to independence in 1918 was a remarkable development, to which many Czech, Slovak, and international leaders contributed. The authors explore the manifold ways in which musical compositions and performances reflected the larger political movements and trends in this 74-year period (1848–1922). Formation of late-nineteenth-century Czech political movements and parties with a nationalist thrust led to the writing of important musical works that celebrated the Czech language, history, and soul. At the time of World War I, nationalist aspirations in the global political world made the formation of Czechoslovakia a reality, and composers constructed musical works that celebrated that achievement and underlined the continuity to the great Bohemian art and literature of the past. The Czechoslovak case is an unusual one in the degree to which political changes were reflected in musical statements created by composers drawing on their own resources; the history and literature of the Bohemian, Moravian, and Slovak experiences; and global dynamics and inspiration. National forces were powerful in the entire era from 1848 through 1922. Their power was evident in the 1848–1881 period during which the Czechs shook their shoulders while still under the rule that Vienna had imposed after the 1620 Battle of White Mountain. They developed political parties devoted to Czech objectives and also inspired both poets and composers to celebrate Czech themes from both the distant past and immediate future. This transition to a new state of mind became evident in the last two decades of the nineteenth century. At the cusp of the two periods in 1881, Czechs opened their National Theater with a first-time performance of Smetana’s new opera Libuše, a work that linked their dreamed-of and mythical past to future hopes. After the turn of the century and prior to the outbreak of World War I, pure xiii

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Introduction

nationalism of the earlier periods yielded to concerns about fitting into other European political and cultural patterns. At the same time, Czech political party development continued apace, while composers settled into somewhat of a pattern of celebrating unique Czech cultural projects such as the role and symbolism of water goblins. The first World War delivered a forum in which Czech political and cultural figures provided glimpses and full pictures of their heroes and future national leaders. From poetry and music that depicted the challenges and suffering of soldiers on the front lines to a full set of meetings between political leaders and supportive figures from other states, nationalism was on the verge of the birth of and even explosion into an actual nation-state. In the years after the national founding in 1918, the basis for a true nation-state appeared in music that combined celebration of past traditions with present and future dreams. Global forces were also evident in all the periods between the 1848 revolution and the 1918 state founding and its immediate aftermath. Nationalism had become a strong and creative global force in the mid-nineteenth century with a particularly special impact on Italy and Germany, two states that needed to knit together a variety of ethnic groups and proud regional units into a synthetic but cohesive fabric of national cultural and political life. It was no surprise that this European force permeated Czech thinking and planning as well. As the excitement about Czech national prospects in the 1850s and 1860s gave way to a more nuanced blend of nationalism and emerging European patterns such as impressionism and futurism, many Czechs traveled into western centers such as Paris to study and absorb how regional and national cultural patterns must work together in the interests of all in the Czech Lands as well as in Slovakia. The unplanned and unanticipated emergence of total war on European soil in 1914 brought the Serbian assassination of the Austrian archduke into the territory that Czechs, Moravians, and Slovaks lived in and in which they tried to make their hopes concrete. As the global breakdown of four major empires suddenly transformed Eastern European possibilities, Czech national hopes for a state combined with global or, at least, regional patterns that were affecting other potential states. Finally, globalism played a predominant role through the post-war Paris Peace Accord in providing concrete support for the longstanding hopes for national selfdetermination that, of course, included both the Czechs and Slovaks.

Chapter One

Appearance of Czechoslovakia on the Global Stage in 1918 Realization of Nationalist Political and Musical Dreams

INTRODUCTION Both nationalism and globalism interacted to prepare the ground for the formation of Czechoslovakia in 1918. Nationalism had driven Czech and Slovak ambitions since the 1848 revolution, but, in many ways, they had not really anticipated the possibility of creating a nation-state or even two independent countries. Musical compositions in the late nineteenth century and creation of governing structures such as new political parties were a consequence of efforts to carve out more autonomy from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, while pressure on the empire to enhance a federalism that would permit a greater role for national forms continued apace. Globalism played a powerful role at the same time, for the empire itself was severely weakened by the experience of World War I and its damage to Vienna’s control. Allied powers from the West such as President Woodrow Wilson stepped in and outlined the framework for a future that celebrated national self-determination, a concept that merged global pressure with developing national forms and spirit. CULTURAL RICHNESS Beneath the Czechoslovakia that emerged in 1918 was a magnificent richness of cultural traditions and expressions. While none of them were predictive of the creation of a nation-state or were directly political, many of them were pointers toward a time when Czech distinctness and accomplishments would 1

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be the center point of celebrations. For many forward-thinking Czechs, the Hussite Period of the fifteenth century was one of the most important of those historical memories and one whose meaning transcended its religious origins and battles. A number of poets used the Hussite experience as one of the touchstones of their art, and among those was Joseph Vrchlický through “The Ballad of Blaník.” Our “good friend Jira” was somewhat despondent on a dark and rainy Good Friday, and he decided not to attend the mass that most everyone else thought to be the normal expectation on such a day. Instead, he wandered off in the direction of Blaník Mountain. According to legend, the Hussite warriors had sought sanctuary there after their final defeat, and for hundreds of years they had remained there in preparation for the call to go forth into battle one more time. The mountain opened up only on Good Friday, and Jira happened up on the now welcoming entrance on that special day. He was curious, did not hesitate, and went inside to take in the scene that had been awaiting him all those years. The Hussite warriors were still there with their weapons at their sides and their horses primed to head once more into a ferocious fight. Above the scene stretched the Banner of Svatý Václav, and it depicted the eagles of war with their wings tight at their sides in light of the upcoming conflict. Those who entered the mountain on this special day did so at a risk. It was imperative that they would need to stay in the mountain for 100 years. In spite of those consequences, the music from the church was by now far away, and it “reverberated weakly here in the rock.” Inevitably, after such a long and tormenting day, Jira fell asleep. A full century later the formerly weary wanderer did finally awaken, and he looked around at the scene within. Those Hussite warriors now held farm equipment instead of weapons of war, and their horses were primed to help plow the fields. On the banner the war eagles now spread their wings and were “fluttering with joy.” Jira freely walked out and looked in the stream to find an aged man with a very long beard looking back at him. Before him were unfamiliar persons tilling the fields, but “above the smiling country the joyful skylark sang.” Clearly, prospects were brighter than they had seemed 100 years before, and Jira himself smiled and took a certain pleasure in the scene (Vrchlický 2010, 210–13). Like Jira and the Hussite soldiers, the Czech people had smoldered for a very long time under Habsburg rule after the loss of the Battle of White Mountain in 1630. In a way they had suffered imprisonment in the mountain of Austria and Austria-Hungary for nearly three centuries. However, they eventually began to make that mountain shudder, at least by the time of the 1848 revolution. For the next 70 years they worked to develop and give life to Czech political formations with an eye mainly on the acquisition of increased autonomy for their people within the empire. However, the First World War

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was a powerful earthquake event “from above” that combined into a powerful and combustible mix with the cultural expressions that centered on a special sense of “Czechness” “from below.” Like Jira, at the end of that war, the Czech people walked out of their own Blaník, looked at their reflections in the stream of a new life, surveyed the new circumstances that surrounded them, and smiled! THE ROLE OF SYMBOLS IN THE EVOLUTION OF THE NEW NATION-STATE In the period that led up to the creation of Czechoslovakia on October 28, 1918, symbols figured prominently in the creation of a national consciousness that underpinned the work of the politicians. Memories of past historical figures and physical structures were among those symbols that inspired the work of the people and their leaders. For example, a historical event of emotional consequence for Czechs had taken place in May of 1868. After years of pressure on Vienna, the Czechs had finally won the right to build a National Theater that would be a center of productions in Czech, in addition to the normally presented plays and musical productions in the German language. Eventually, the theater was completed in 1881, burned soon thereafter, and was reconstructed in 1883. However, in the spring of 1868, there was a ceremony that accompanied the laying of the cornerstone of that theater. The stone itself came from that area of Bohemia into which the mythical figure “Praotec Czech” had supposedly first migrated. The distinguished historian František Palacký gave the main speech, and the equally prominent composer Bedřich Smetana was in the spotlight as well. Special trains brought in 60,000 persons from the small towns and environs of Prague, so this ceremony became a major nationalistic event. Czechs themselves would finance the building itself, and so it would not be a publicly or governmentally funded project. Smetana’s new opera Libuše would be the opening production at the theater later on, and it too evoked major memories and other legendary figures from the Bohemian past. Significantly, Czechs planned to commemorate the cornerstone event of 1868 on the occasion of its fiftieth anniversary on May 16–17, 1918 (Harna 2009, 388). The public demonstrations that accompanied that celebration were another signal that the days of the empire were numbered. During the war the Czech leaders Masaryk and Beneš also used symbolism as a device for building up support for the Czech cause. In spite of the sentiments of some political forces that the Czech path pointed toward the East in a renewed connectedness with the Slavic world, the Czech leadership painted a picture of a potential nation that both leaned to the West and would

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be a pillar of support for European stability. After nearly 300 years under the authoritarian rule of the Habsburgs, it would have been possible to conclude that Czechs were mainly familiar with that pattern of political rule. However, Masaryk and his advisors depicted the Czechs as being at heart part of a participatory political culture that would be very supportive of democratic norms (Orzoff 2009). Jan Hus, whose warriors lived forever in Vrchlický’s Blaník Mountain, himself became an important symbol of continuity with the greatness of the Czech past. As rector of Prague University in the fifteenth century, he had argued against what he perceived to be the excesses of the Catholic Church of the time. The Church responded by summoning him to a trial in Geneva, and they carried out the death sentence in 1415. He became a martyr whose troops fought on for the better part of the next three decades. For instance, under the Hussite general Jan Žižka they defeated the Hungarian Army that represented the forces in Rome at the Battle of Vitkov Hill in 1421. It was also in the camp of the one-eyed general Žižka that a soldier apparently wrote a hymn that carried them into battle and that inspiringly reverberated later in the music of Smetana, Janáček, and others. The hymn is entitled “Ye Who Are God’s Warriors.” The 500th anniversary of the immolation of Hus appeared on the calendar in 1915, in the middle of the war. Although the planning for a Hus statue had been going on for 25years, and although Czechs had laid the cornerstone in 1903, the actual anniversary was subsumed in political considerations. Too robust a celebration might alienate Vienna and lead to more retaliation by them against Czech freedoms and persons. Caution led the Czechs to change an open public ceremony into a private one at which only invited guests were welcome. And yet, many Sokols decided not to take the risk of attending the meeting. In public the foundation of the statue had been completed, and citizens came quietly to decorate it with red and white flowers and wreaths (Paces 2009, 74–79). The meeting that replaced the public event itself took place on July 6, in the Old Town Hall. Karel Boxa gave the keynote speech and promoted Hus as a figure who prodded Czechs in the direction of modernity. Later in the evening the National Theater staged the opera Libuše as it had on its opening day in 1881. From Geneva, Tomaš Masaryk paired the 1415 and 1915 events as reflecting the moral nature of two historic struggles. This latter speech became known as the Geneva Manifesto and angered Vienna (Paces 2009, 79–83). In this way, the emerging political leaders utilized the symbolism of Hus in an effective way to promote the cause of Czech nationalism and thereby cement the plans for a nation-state. Not all symbols evoked a positive reaction from Czech nationalists, and a number of those represented figures from the Catholic tradition that Hus had

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fought and that Vienna too much represented. For Catholics, Jan Nepomucký was a martyr with equal status to Hus in the minds of Czech Protestants. The monarch viewed Nepomucký as a traitor in the fourteenth century for taking a very personal confession from his consort, and the result was that the king had him thrown into and drowned in the icy waters of the Vltava in 1393. According to legend, the river was lit up with stars after his death in that location, and later his followers saw to it that a statue of him was affixed to the Charles Bridge across the Vltava. Many predominantly Catholic towns put up statues to him as well, and there was a prominent one in front of what later became known as the Charles-Ferdinand Faculty of Law. At the height of nationalist sentiment in 1918, mobs attacked a number of Catholic symbols such as his. In fact, they actually did destroy the statue in front of the Faculty of Law in Prague but met resistance in their efforts to destroy the statue on the Charles Bridge (Paces 2009, 97–99). Another Catholic symbol that met the destructive hand of the nationalists was the Marian Column in the Old Town Square. Even though that column celebrated the mother of Christ, it too had become a negative symbol to many because of its links to the Catholic culture of the Habsburg Monarchy. A combination of firemen from the town of Žižkov and factory workers pulled it down on November 3, just days t before the November 8 commemoration of the Czech defeat at the Battle of White Mountain in 1620. The main speaker, Sauer-Kysela, noted that the Marian Column had come to symbolize the Czech defeat at that battle, and so its removal was a necessary consequence of the collapse of the Habsburg Empire and creation of the Czechoslovak state, an event that had occurred during the previous week (Paces 2009, 87–92). Plans were for it to fall in the direction of the Hus Monument, but instead it fell toward the Church of our Lady of Týn. Perhaps that did not matter to the destructive crew, for it was in the Týn church that the Hussite warriors allegedly had prayed before marching into the Battle of Vitkov Hill. Thus, both the renewed memory of symbols with a positive meaning and attempted destruction of negative symbols accompanied the emergence of Czechoslovakia out of the ashes of the Austro-Hungarian Empire during the war, but especially in its last year. Of course, both types of actions alienated certain groups within the new state just as they heartened the Czech nationalists. Germans living in the Sudeten areas were not comfortable with such actions that were partly directed against them. Similarly, the heavily Catholic Slovak eastern part of the new nation was sensitive as well to the new duality of promotion of mainly Protestant personages and the simultaneous effort to eradicate Catholic reference points.

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A REVOLUTION FROM ABOVE AND FROM BELOW The founding of the Czechoslovak state in 1918 was a consequence of a revolution from above and from below. On the one hand, political forces from above had a great deal to do with creation of this new reality. Domestic political developments had been pointing toward a looser federation for many decades, and the political leaders switched in the last years before independence to a call for full autonomy and even independence. The Czech Lands played a significant role as well, for the victory of the allied powers during World War I resulted in the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire that included both the Czech Lands and Slovakia. On the other hand, cultural forces and expressions from below had been preparing the ground since the 1848 revolution for the day of independence. Powerfully, musical expressions during those seven decades often presented Czech themes and leaders as a counterpoint to the German influence of the Austrians. At the time of the founding of the nation-state, new musical expressions honored the birth of Czechoslovakia. Czechs engaged in discussions about the importance of institutions such as the Czech Philharmonic and the Conservatory. Musical compositions at the time included choral works, orchestral works, opera, and oratorio. An important musical selection from 1918 was The Czech Legion, a choral work by Janáček that celebrated their role on the battlefield in France. Significantly, the first concert performed by the Czech Philharmonic in the New Republic on October 30, 1918, included Suk’s Meditation On An Old Czech Hymn ‘St. Wenceslas,’ his new Zrání, and Praga from 1904. Finally, several important compositions by Suk, Jeremiáš, and Janáček were performed in the years immediately after independence (“Ballad of Blaník” and “The Excursion of Mr. Brouček to the 15th Century”). DOMESTIC POLITICAL STEPS TAKEN TO BUILD THE NEW NATION-STATE, 1914–1917 In one sense, Bohemia had never lost its total independence after the Battle of White Mountain, for the Austrian Emperor was never actually crowned King of Bohemia (Nosek 1926, 201). Astoundingly, the Slavs in the Austrian Empire outnumbered the German population by nearly three to one, with 27 million Slavs to 10 million Germans. As a result of the erection of the Dual Monarchy in 1867, the Magyars had fully 8 million citizens, while Romanians and Italians combined, constituted about 5 million persons (Nosek, 204). During the last half-century of the Empire’s existence, Czech politicians had mainly supported a transition to a looser federal system rather

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than the tightly centralized one that existed under the control of the emperor in Vienna. For example, they had eventually given support to the Habsburgs after the 1848 revolution and had been willing to work with Taafe on his proposals in 1879 (Taylor 1970, 256). Even by the time of the outbreak of the war, there was only one Czech political party that had gone on record in the immediate past as favoring the setting up of a separate Czech state. That was Antonín Klimas State’s Right Progressive Party, and they formalized their demands through a party manifesto in mid-May 1914 (Rees 1992, 8). For much of the time after 1867, the Czechs had mainly aspired to attain the kind of home rule that the Magyars had achieved upon creation of the Dual Monarchy. Most centrist Czechs talked about their hope for “Bohemian” self-government, and the esteemed Edward Beneš wrote a dissertation that concluded that ties among those within the empire were too strong for one group to separate (May 1951, 436–37). However, the advent of the war brought a change of heart, as “antidynastic demonstrations” broke out in Prague. These developments led to sharp retaliation by the emperor. After disturbances that attended the sixtieth anniversary of Franz Joseph’s accession to the throne, Vienna imposed twelve days of martial law in Prague (May 1951, 425). The emperor rationalized this decision by reference to Article 14 in the 1867 Constitution. Results of his decision to rule by decree included suspension of constitutional rights and creation of a War Supervisory Office (Rees 1992, 14–15). Eventually, Vienna shut down two publications of Czech political parties: the National Socialist České slovo and the State’s Right Progressive Party’s Samostatnost (Paces 2009, 76). Further, there were pressures placed on Czech publications, censorship of theater performances and books, trials, and even death sentences (Harna 2009, 383). Czech reactions to this new centralism were varied. Many in the army deserted and joined the Russian side, as was the case with 1,750 of 2,000 members of the 28th Prague Infantry Regiment (Rees 1992, 16). On the one hand, some saw acts like this as coupled with the philosophy of creating a Slavic empire as a replacement for the shells of empires that existed in 1914. This was the preference of Karel Kramář, the head of the National Liberal Party. On the other hand, others like Tomáš Masaryk thought that the answer was a separate Czechoslovak state as a defensive mechanism against the likelihood that Germans would take over the fallen Habsburg Empire (Harna 2009, 382). Domestically, Czech politicians created new political forms and breathed more life into existing ones. For example, Masaryk formed a Czech Mafia in 1915, and it consisted of the Young Czechs, Realists, States Rights Progressives, Social Democrats, and the Sokol Movement (Nosek 1926, 196; Paces 2009, 76). The organizing center was based outside the Czech Lands

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in Geneva, Switzerland, where Masaryk was based. The Mafia kept up a very important linkage to the émigré community, a principal though widespread center of support for the emergent nation-state (Rees 1992, 17–18). During the same year, independence-minded Czech leaders established a National Committee in Prague to help organize and plan for the eventual political transition (Harna 2009, 385). Most Czech political parties played a role on this committee. The Czech Union that included the Czech members of the last pre-war Austrian Reichsrat also became increasingly active (Agnew 2004, 165). For instance, in May 1917, 222 Czech intellectuals signed a Manifesto of Czech Writers that complained about Habsburg censorship, and they chose to address it to the Czech Union (Bažant et al. 2010e, 241). Finally, Czechs who had moved to Paris set up a Czech National Council in November 1916 that actually became an effective and trusted center of communications and activities. Taken together, these political formations offered an impressive informal system that made smoother the transition from centralized Habsburg control to management of affairs by a new nation-state. EXTERNAL PRESSURES THAT PLAYED A ROLE IN THE BUILDING OF CZECHOSLOVAKIA PRIOR TO 1918 The Czech National Council mentioned above did play a role in the domestic political equation, but its location in Paris changed it into an external factor of consequence. The founding figures behind the creation of the council were Masaryk and Beneš but also Rostislav Štefáník. The latter personage was a Slovak but actually possessed French citizenship, a characteristic that made him invaluable to the new organization (Bažant et al. 2010e, 241). As time passed and a nation-state appeared more likely, the leaders changed the name of the organization to Czecho-Slovak National Council (Harna 2009, 384). Similarly, the Mafia that included so many Czech persons and groups was actually based in Switzerland, for its founder Masaryk had moved there in December 1914 (Harna, 383). One significant decision that the leaders made in that location was to strengthen the new state economically by including the industrialized Sudeten German areas, a decision that would have an echoing effect on the new country especially during World War II (Bažant et al. 2010, 240). It was also in that location that Masaryk wrote a letter on March 15, 1915, in which he proclaimed officially at that point that political independence was their goal. In addition, they concentrated most of these Genevabased efforts on the objective of getting the word out about their hopes to Czechs living abroad (Nosek 1926, 196). An intriguing development in the Czech military transformed an internal organization into an external one that ended up acting with a great deal of

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force. It was shocking for Czechs to watch while Austria began to attack militarily fellow Slav nationalities such as Russia and Serbia. Consequently, many Czech soldiers began to defect and fight on the side of the Russians, who were still under tsarist rule (Bažant et al. 2010e, 239). As one prominent historian put it, these individual and group decisions flowed from “loyalty to Good Soldier Schweik rather than from any national ideal” (Taylor 1969, 90). In spite of that evaluation, the net result of their collective defection bore substantial political consequences. The breakaway inspired those who were battling the Central Powers and became a model for Czechs who were beginning to think that a political existence separate from the Habsburg was a realistic possibility. Russia also exploited the Czech desertions for their own political objectives during the war. For instance, they disseminated 170,000 copies of a manifesto within Prague that promised liberation of all Slavs if victory came to pass (Rees 1992, 13). Masaryk went to England later in 1915, and that naturally sympathetic ally provided an additional base for propagating the message about new possibilities. His discussions about the prospects for a new state based on legal norms and individual rights fit perfectly with British understandings of their own historical experience (Taylor 1970, 257). While in England, he wrote numerous articles that explained the Czech plight and objectives but that also presented a certain image about European events and the war. To his British audience and to others, he depicted the Germans as the primary enemy in Europe and portrayed Austria as a mere pawn in their grand plans. Assistance in the toppling of the Habsburg Empire would thus be an instrument in truncating the ability of Berlin to pursue its pan-German plans. Such comments helped to debunk allied tendencies to look at Austria as a relatively benign and basically harmless political force (Nosek 1926, 203). Masaryk’s travels included Russia and America as well. His trip to Russia was linked to the role of the Czech Legion in the conflict there, but he actually was trapped there between the first and second Russian revolutions of 1917. Evacuation was only possible east through Vladivostok and the United States. In America, he had a golden opportunity to talk to the many Czech émigrés who had moved there. Further, he also spoke with Slovaks and Little Russians (Ruthenians), nationalities that had been under Hungarian rule for a long time. When located in Central Europe, it had been difficult to convince them of their commonality with Czechs, but in America they could more easily understand the logic of joining a mainly Czech state (Taylor 1970, 265). Slovaks, a group that would become an important force in the emergent Czechoslovakia, had experienced a very different history under Magyar rule. More than the Czechs, they had been subject to strong assimilationist pressures. School administrators enforced the use of the Hungarian language through devices such as ensuring that by 1914 Magyar teachers outnumbered

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Slovak instructors by a 14:1 ratio. Therefore, many Slovaks perceived themselves as principally Hungarian, while it was mainly “intellectuals and clergymen” who possessed a clear sense of being Slovak or of having enough in common with Czechs to join them in a future nation-state (May 1951, 446–47). Incidents such as the before-mentioned destruction of the Marian statue in Prague in 1918 had the potential to push Slovaks farther away from any idea of knitting Bratislava and Prague into a new nation-state. Slovaks actually drafted an ominous resolution on October 29, 1918, one day after the nation’s founding. In this declaration, they demanded “an unlimited right of self-determination on the basis of complete independence.” Czech anticlericalism also offended the heavily Catholic Slovak population, and both confiscation by Czechs of Slovak parochial schools and removal of crucifixes from classroom walls was highly offensive. Further, the Constitution ratified on February 29, 1920, was heavy on the Czech interpretation of the meaning of the new nation-state. The overall view emphasized the conclusion that the new nation-state would be tolerant of minorities but would not be a state with several equal nations. The impact of such perceptions of Slovakia was one that would have continuing results throughout the remainder of the century (Nedelsky 2009, 66–73). DECISIONS AND EVENTS OF THE CRITICAL YEAR, 1918 During the year 1918, there was a constant parade of key dates and decisions that put the substructure in place under the new state declared on October 18. On April 18, key political party leaders met in Prague and actually swore an oath to persevere until the new state had become a reality (Nosek 1926, 207). During the same month Czechs and Slovaks issued a call for self-determination at a “Congress of Oppressed Nationalities” in Italy (Agnew 2004, 169). The month of May was a critical and historical month, as Masaryk signed the famous Pittsburgh Agreement on the thirteith that became a kind of legal foundation for the state. That agreement gave the National Committee in Prague the self-confidence to paralyze the economy of the empire by halting deliveries of coal and grain by train (Harna 2009, 390–91). Exactly two weeks earlier, Czechs had received a substantial vote of confidence and moral support when Southern Slavs, Poles, Romanians, and Italians traveled to Prague in a gesture of solidarity (Nosek 1926, 207). A few days earlier the Czech Legion in Russia had begun occupation of the Trans-Siberian Railroad, a move that led to an outpouring of Western support and partly inspired the Allied intervention (Agnew 2004, 169). Political party leaders in Prague in the middle of July upgraded the Czech National Committee into

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a Czecho-Slovak one, and this step firmed up the contours of the emerging nation-state (Nosek 1926, 207). During the fateful month of October, a number of key events preceded the major blessing of Czechoslovakia on the twenty-eighth. On October 2, Deputy Staněk stood up in the Austrian Reichsrat and announced that Austria would need to negotiate with the Czechs for peace, a pronouncement that would have been unthinkable four years earlier. Austria’s response came two days later through a message by Count Burian through Swedish intermediaries to the effect that they would negotiate with the American president Wilson about the terms of the Armistice. Wilson supported the Czech position by pointing Burian back in the direction of direct talks with the Czechs themselves (Nosek 1926, 107). Masaryk was in America in the middle of the month, and he issued the Washington Declaration on October 18. This document proclaimed the independence of the Czechoslovak nation (Harna 2009, 391). On October 27, Count Andrassy finally accepted Wilson’s earlier note, and the Czechoslovak National Committee proclaimed independence the next day (Nosek, 208). Soon, the same committee created a Revolutionary National Council that was responsible for electing a new president. There was virtually no surprise on the occasion of its election of Tomáš Masaryk on November 13. The designated prime minister, Karel Kramář, put together a working government the very next day (Agnew 2004, 169). With these critical events over a six-week period, the long-sought state finally came into existence. These results were not only the work of Czechs and their leaders. French support for Czech independence came as early as June 29, while the British chimed in on August 9 and the Americans on November 11 (Nosek 1926, 198–199). Official statements were mandatory from the other key groups that would make up the new nation. At a traditional center of patriotic sentiment, the Slovaks issued their Martin Declaration, and they both founded a Slovak National Council to work on the details of the merger and accepted the new state on October 29. Inclusion of Carpathian Ruthenia was not as major a decision as that about the Slovaks, but it bore geopolitical importance. The addition of that small territory would assure the new nation a common border with Romania and subsequently an ability to counteract any renewal of Hungarian ambition (Bažant et al. 2010e, 241). The single group discontented with the new political arrangements was the Germans. They had hoped for creation of a Germany-Austria and did not want to be subordinate to the Slavs in the new political formation (Taylor 1970, 269). In the end, the new state contained seven distinct groups: Czechs, Germans, Slovaks, Magyars, Ruthenians, Poles, and Jews (Taylor 1970, 274). Only the Czechs would over time be mainly satisfied with their experiences in the new federation. Sudeten Germans would be subject to Czech pressure

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and discrimination after World War II, and many of them would move into Germany itself. Slovaks would conclude periodically that Czechs never fulfilled the promises of 1918, and they would opt for their own separate state in 1993. For the Magyars, the experience differed in the sense that they were more distant from the Czechs but would chafe under Slovak domination and occasional discrimination. Czechoslovakia would actually lose Sub-Carpathian Ruthenia to the Soviet Union during World War II, while relation with the Poles in Těšin would always be prickly. Of course, Jews in the country would be subject to discrimination and death during the period of Nazi rule, and the concentration camp at Terezín would become notorious as a showcase with concerts and plays that only partly covered up the horror beneath. This is not to say that the decision of October 28 did not work out or was a failure. However, later developments do indicate that the creation of Czechoslovakia in 1918 did not permit an escape from later and unexpected historical currents. Importantly, there were fundamentally different perceptions of Czechs and Slovaks regarding their expectations about what they expected the new state to resemble and encapsulate. Czechs possessed genuine “state traditions” based on the existence of the Kingdom of Bohemia, while Slovaks had been subordinate to the Kingdom of Hungary and subject to Magyarization for many centuries. For Czechs there was a strong legal and historical basis for their historical lands of the Crown of St. Wenceslas. Since Slovaks did not have such a historical tradition, they relied on natural rights arguments about the legitimate role of their nationality in the new state (Agnew 2000, 621–23). They were lacking the state traditions that were simply axiomatic for the Czechs. A contrasting view about Slovak motivations centers on the social characteristics of the group rather than on nationalistic feeling. The national feeling had focused on resistance to Magyarization, but it was mainly a small group of Slovak intellectuals that had adopted those sentiments. In contrast, much of the Slovak elite took on the attitudes and lifestyle of the Magyar gentry to which they were technically subordinate. For most Slovaks, poverty combined with low educational attainments to create a sense of political powerlessness. Further, social attitudes in Slovakia bore the hallmark of traditionalism and were tinged with religious feeling. In contrast, Czech opinions were more likely to embrace rationalism and progressivism (Beneš 1973, 44–46). In ensuing decades, Slovak social attitudes no doubt merged with nationalistic feelings to create an even greater sense of unease within the somewhat artificial construct that was Czechoslovakia. Following consideration of all these earthshaking events, it is interesting to recollect how simple the actual turnover of power was from Vienna to Prague. The Austrian imperial governor asked the Czech National Committee

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to come to the castle where he had been staying. He simply turned over the seals and keys to them and left. Ironically, the civil servants who had been working there stayed put and continued to do their familiar work, albeit under new governance (Taylor 1969, 160). There was an echo of this event during the governmental transition on July 10, 2013. On that day the outgoing and grim prime minister Petr Nečas turned over the governmental administration to incoming premier Jiří Rusnok. Symbolically, he also gave him the keys to the crown jewels. However, Jiří Rusnok’s words were brief (iDnes 2013). MUSICAL EXPRESSIONS AT THE TIME OF THE EMERGENCE OF THE NATION-STATE What role did music play in the formation of the Czechoslovakian Republic? An investigation of this question might well involve a study of cultural institutions—the Czech Philharmonic, for one example—and it might well involve analysis of the works composed in the new Czechoslovak Republic, in the period 1918–1920. Any account of music during these years will almost certainly include some commentary on the sizeable number of publications of national, nationalistic, patriotic, and folk-based music, many of which appeared in the period 1918–1920. The “National Songbook” published in 1920, Nový národní zpěvnik (New National Songbook) (Třebič: Lorenz), is a remarkable collection of songs divided by the editor into 10 separate categories and requiring 682 pages. Within the post-war musical culture composers reconsidered—and repositioned—well-defined themes relating to national identity that had been explored by a number of composers in a wide variety of projects since the 1870s. Themes explored by composers in the period 1918– 1920 also included the experience of war, the commemoration of the dead, and, not surprisingly, the vision of a new future—not only a post-war future but one that would be defined within the structure of an independent state. The question of how national and nationalistic themes were explored in the post-war years will be introduced with brief commentary on two important projects: Bohuslav Martinů’s Czech Rhapsody (premiere performance in 1919, in Prague) and Vítěslav Novák’s project titled Slovenské spevy (Slovak Songs) (volumes 1 [1920] and 3 [1923]). And both of these works will be discussed in greater detail within the second part of the introductory section on musical developments in the period 1918–1922 within Chapter One. The Czech Philharmonic, conducted by L. V. Čelanský, included a new composition, Czech Rhapsody, by Bohuslav Martinů, on a concert presented on January 12, 1919. This composer provided information, in his diary, about the origins of the project: “It originated in May and June 1918 following the famous vow of the Czech nation and under this spell of the beautiful speech

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of the writer Alois Jirásek” (Bergmannová 2008, 8) and Martinů dedicated the score to Jirásek. An ambitious and lengthy work embracing Czech traditions and beliefs, Martinů’s Czech Rhapsody includes texts from three different sources: the Psalms (Psalm 23), Vrchlický’s poem “Bohemia,” and the “Wenceslas Chorale.” Melodic phrases drawn from the Wenceslas Chorale animate the various sections of the musical structure of the rhapsody in different ways. In his Czech Rhapsody Martinů succeeded in reinvigorating a number of themes that had become well established in Czech culture. Well known and highly regarded in the early decades of the twentieth century—and considered a founder of the modernist cause in the field of music—Novák had developed an active interest in Moravian and Slovakian culture in the 1890s. Elements from Moravian and Slovak culture and folklore influenced many of his compositions after 1896 (Miloš Schnierer 2023). He was appointed professor of composition at the Prague Conservatory in 1909. Compositional projects in the early years of the twentieth century included “In the Tatras” for orchestra (1902) the “Slovak Suite” for orchestra (1903), and “Eternal Longing” for orchestra (1903–1905). At the end of the war he composed “Three Czech Songs” / “3 české zpěvy,” settings of three poems by J. V. Sládek: “Dál!” (“Onwards!”), “Vlasti” (“Homelands”), and “V boj!” (“Into Battle!”) for male chorus and orchestra (published in 1918 and again in 1921). In 1920 Novák published Volume I of Slovenské spevy (Slovak Songs) in 1920 in Prague, and this volume included fifteen settings for voice and piano of Slovak folksongs: the title on the publication was, in fact, Slovenské spevy / Chansons slovaques / Slovak Songs / Slovakische Lieder. The project eventually included six volumes in all, published between 1920 and 1930, with settings for voice and piano of 80 folksongs. (The volume which appeared in 1920 had been originally published in Prague in 1901.) Volume III, published in 1923, appeared with the title Slovenské spevy / Slovak Songs and this volume included English translations of the texts by Rosa Newmarch. And Volume III was published in Prague, in London (J. W. Chester), and in Paris (Max Eschig). A study of the emerging Czechoslovak musical culture in the post-war period leads to a consideration of broader questions in this period about European stylistic directions and norms outside the Czech Lands. A study of the emerging Czechoslovak musical culture in the post-war period leads to a consideration of broader questions in this period about European stylistic directions and norms outside the Czech lands. Composers in the period from 1918 to 1922 explored a wide range of issues in their works and the musical culture in Czechoslovakia itself involved discussions of nationalist issues considered within a broader context. Analysis of the cultural history of this period necessarily includes a study of “Modernism.” And one of the most important documents relevant to this discussion is the document from the

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1890s generally known as the Czech Manifesto (1895). In an essay introducing the text of the Czech Manifesto (1895), Michal Kopeček explains that the group of authors for the Manifesto included individuals in the literary and critical fields and also individuals in politics and in journalism, noting that figures in the literary field played the leading role. In an essay introducing the text of the Czech Manifesto, Michal Kopeček explains that the group of authors for the manifesto included individuals in the literary and critical fields and also individuals in politics and in journalism, noting that figures in the literary field played the leading role. “For them, the main principle in artistic creation was that of ‘individualism,’ that is the freedom of expression and the right for personal opinion that was to be the only true precondition for the creation of genuine art” (Kopeček 2010, 261). A number of critical statements on the direction of Czech political and cultural values appeared in the 1890s, written by individuals in the artistic realm and by politicians (including, notably, Tomáš Masaryk, in The Czech Question [1894]). Important studies of the cultural history of the period from the 1880s to the 1920s have, not surprisingly, focused on the reevaluation of the longstanding emphasis on Czech traditions—especially in the arts—and on the exploration of issues relating to “individuality” and to issues relating to pan-European perspectives in emerging projects. In her article “Prague-Vienna, PragueBerlin: The Hidden Geography of Czech Modernism” (2000), Katherine David-Fox provides an insightful guide to the developments in this period, with reference to a perspective that draws together geographical and cultural concerns. The students, workers, artists, and literati of the 1890s were not content to see Czechdom as a world unto itself. The older nineteenth-century Czech intelligentsia focused on Prague as the central place of the Bohemian lands, stressing the relationship between the capital and the countryside. The younger generation shifted paradigms: taking for granted that the city constituted the central place of Bohemia, its members wished Prague to gain entrée into an international city “network.” In other words, they attempted to link Prague to other centers of European modernism through the flow of information and through personal ties. (David-Fox 2000, 740)

A brief comment on developments in the music world during this period will serve as an introduction to modernist tendencies associated at this time with Czech musical culture. Concert programs presented by the Czech Philharmonic and opera productions in this period included compositions by a variety of composers who were working in several different countries. At the opera (National Theater), the majority of works produced in this period

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were by Czech composers, but the full list included works by Charpentier, Strauss, Wagner, and Debussy between 1903 and 1923 (Wagner’s opera Parsifal in 1914, Debussy’s opera Pelléas et Mélisanda in 1921, and Strauss’s Salome in 1923) (Locke 2006, 349–51). And musicians learned about international repertoire, directly, while participating in ensembles. Bohuslav Martinů joined the violin section in the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra in 1913 and the first concert was devoted to the works of Richard Straus (Šafránek 1944, 12). Musicians in the Czech Philharmonic traveled to a number of different countries, in the tours arranged by the organization (Šafránek, 18). And Martinů accompanied the orchestra of the National Theater on a concert tour which included Geneva, Paris, and London (Šafránek, 18). The repertoire of the Czech Philharmonic at this time included works by Beethoven, Brahms, and Dvořák; French compositions by Debussy, Ravel, Dukas, and Roussel; and works by Stravinsky (Šafránek, 16). Finally, organizations were arranged by and for musicians with the aim of exploring a wide range of repertoire: the “Podskalská filharmonie” is an important example. The “Podskalská filharmonie,” in the years 1902 to 1917, was associated with Vítězslav Novák, and it provided participants with a direct connection to an international repertoire. Novák, a central figure in the Czech musical culture of this period, had traveled to a number of European countries and he had knowledge of several languages as well (Schnierer and Tyrell). (And Novák was a prominent figure from the 1890s.) The “Podskalská filharmonie” met regularly to study a wide range of repertoire: they depended on informal performances involving piano reductions of compositions and small chamber groups that could be arranged within the location (an apartment belonging to one of the participants) (Locke 2006, 68; Lébl 1968, 21). And Brian Locke described the “Podskalská filharmonie” as “a discussion group whose biweekly evenings were enhanced by live musical examples of recent compositions from all over the continent, including works by Reger, Debussy, Scriabin, and Schoenberg, well before their respective concert premieres in Prague” (Locke, 68n4). Concerts in 1918–1919 Introduction Notable concerts were presented in the early part of the post-war period. Important concerts were presented in 1918–1919 that carried out themes that were being explored in the broader cultural and political life of the new Czechoslovakian nation-state. Two concerts of music that unquestionably preserved and repositioned Czech traditions in the years 1918–1919 will be noted here. First, the concert of the Czech Philharmonic on October

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30, 1918, was, from a number of different perspectives, a significant event. Three works of the well-established composer Josef Suk (1874–1935) were conducted by Václav Talich on that evening: Praga (symphonic poem) (Op. 26) (1904), Meditace na staročeský chorál Svatý Václave (Meditation On an Old Czech Hymn ‘St. Wenceslas”) (Op. 35a) (string orchestra) (1914), and Zrání (Ripening) (Op. 34) (1912–1917). The newest composition on the program, Zrání (Ripening), was, by all accounts, an ambitious work. Based on a poem, Zrání, by Antonín Sova, the 40-minute composition was composed by Suk between 1912 and 1917. Critics explored the possibility that the theme of the work might by understood in relation to the emergence of a new nation, namely the Czechoslovak Republic (Locke 2006, 125–26). The program presented by the Czech Philharmonic on October 30, then, inspired a spirited discussion about how themes of national identity might be reinterpreted and repositioned in the context of the fall of 1918. The Czech Philharmonic, conducted by L. V.  Čelanský, included a new composition, Czech Rhapsody by Bohuslav Martinů, at a concert presented on January 12, 1919. The work was performed again on January 17 and on January 24, and the audience on that second occasion included the president of the republic T. G. Masaryk. The diary of the composer provides information about the origins of the project: “It originated in May and June 1918 following the famous vow of the Czech nation and under the spell of the beautiful speech of the writer Alois Jirásek” (Bergmannová 2008, 8). The composer dedicated the score to Jirásek. An ambitious and lengthy work embracing Czech traditions and beliefs, Martinů’s Czech Rhapsody includes texts from three different sources: the Psalms (Psalm 23), Vrchlický’s poem “Bohemia,” and the “Wenceslas Chorale.” Concert of the Czech Philharmonic on October 30, 1918 The concert of the Czech Philharmonic on October 30, 1918, conducted by Václav Talich, included three works of the well-established composer Josef Suk (1874–1935): Praga (symphonic poem) (Op. 26) (1904), Meditace na staročeský chorál‘Svatý Václave’ (Meditation On an Old Czech Hymn ‘St. Wenceslas’) (Op. 35a) (string orchestra) (1914), and Zrání (Ripening) (Op. 34) (1912–1917). Praga (Op. 26) (1904) Although Suk composed Praga a full decade before the outbreak of World War I, the work became an important part of the founding in October 1918. Described as a  “monument in sound” in the account published by Jiří Berkovec,  Praga  was inspired by a poem by Svatopluk Čech concerning the Hussite leader Jan Žižka in fifteenth-century Prague (Berkovec 1969,

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31). The most important theme is undoubtedly the “motto” theme which has most often been heard as relating to the Hussite chorale “Ye Who Are God’s Warriors” (“Kdoź jste Boźi-bojovníc”). In the opening portion of the 25-minute symphonic poem, Suk focuses, in fact, on two contrasting themes each of which generates additional subsidiary themes within the overall structure. In the overall design, while some of the thematic materials relate directly or indirectly to the two identified main themes, others are independent. Scholars agree that Suk demonstrated remarkable ingenuity in his handling of the orchestra in Praga. Meditation on an Old Czech Hymn “St. Wenceslas” (Meditace Na Staročeský chorál “Svatý Václave”) (Op. 35a) (1914) The Urbánek company published four versions of this composition in 1914: one for string quartet, one for string orchestra, one for piano, and one for organ. The Czech Quartet performed this “Meditation” in its original version during the war. The “Wenceslas Chorale”—“Svatý Václave”—was in use in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and it is considered by scholars to be one of the oldest Czech chants (Richter 2008, 41). At the head of the score, Suk wrote a portion of the melody, using an old four-line score format, accompanied by the words “Nedej zahynouti nám budoucím,” indicating that the designated portion of the chant—“O save us and future generations from perishing”—had great importance (this is the third line of text in the fourth stanza). These words then serve as the “motto” for the meditation (Berkovec 1969, 49). The historical record includes a number of different versions of the text and of the melody. One translation of the first stanza is, as follows: “Saint Wenceslas. Duke of Bohemia, Our Prince, pray for us / To God and the Holy Ghost! / Kyrie eleison!” (translation by Petra Richter). Suk composed what he called a “meditation” on the old chorale tune “Svatý Václave.” The composition he completed stands as a meditation on the chorale tune itself and also as a meditation on the first phrase of that chorale—a memorable but short arching phrase of only four pitches, A B C D C B A, bearing the words “Svatý Václave.” The structure of the composition includes three sections (mm. 1–40, mm. 40–64, and mm. 64–85). In the first section, Suk meditates on all four of the musical phrases that comprise the chorale—presenting them twice, in order, within a rich polyphonic texture: he explores ways of combining phrases, in different instrumental layers of the overall sound, creating thereby a web of chorale phrases in a broader framework. Suk provides in this meditation a method of binding together the old and the new: in one musical statement he demonstrates how a Czech composer could work imaginatively with musical material from earlier times.

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And the Meditation demonstrates how instrumental music could bring new meaning to the Czechs as they reflected on their past. Zrání (Op. 34) (1912–1917) The new composition on the program, Zrání (Ripening), was, by all accounts, an ambitious work. Based on a poem, Zrání, by Antonín Sova, the work falls into eight sections. Malcolm MacDonald noted that the composer had begun the project in 1912 at a critical point in his own life:  Suk began it in 1912, when he felt he had at last regained inner peace, and found in the poem ‘Ripening’ by Antonín Sova an expression of his own feelings about life’s trials and satisfactions. The score took him five years to complete, and he poured his soul into it; finally premiered in 1918, it is his most complex and profound work.” (MacDonald 2008, 4)

In a valuable commentary on the work, Brian S. Locke characterizes the poem with these words: “First encountered by the composer in 1912 during the beginning stages of his work on the tone poem, Sova’s Zrání merges a human being with his/her natural surroundings, likening his/her maturation to the cyclical process of a day” (Locke 2006, 157). The ripening of grain is central to Sova’s 64-line poem. In his essay, MacDonald summarizes the themes in this poem: “Sova’s poem speaks of the heat of summer when the grain is ripening: time for a man to take stock of his life. Experience has brought wisdom as he reviews his passionate, irrational youth, the joy of love, times of tragedy and trauma (here Suk again uses the ‘death motif’ from Asrael), the intrigues of enemies, the memory of those who have already died. But man has transcended his sorrows and retains the strength for a final struggle against fate” (MacDonald 2008, 4). The poem ends in the calm of night and incorporates the recollection of the ripening and of the day and of the sunlight. Critics have written extensively about the formal structure of this 40-minute orchestral work. Mark Audus, in his analytical summary, points to eight sections within the overall structure of the work (Audus 2013, 5). Jarmila Doubravová analyzes Suk’s method of working with identifiable themes throughout the various sections of the work, noting how the composer transforms themes within the form (Doubravová 1977, 73–87). The final section of Ripening, “Largamente,” is a passage with a number of distinctive features. And critics have discussed the character and mood of this section in their accounts. Audus notes that the final five-minute section follows an energetic, commanding, and at times explosive fugal section (of approximately 10 minutes) he describes the final section as a “serene coda signifying final acceptance and featuring a ‘cosmic’ wordless female chorus” (Audus 2013,

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5). Doubravová analyzes Suk’s method of working with themes that had been explored in earlier sections of the work, focusing on “lyrical themes 2 and 1,” and he suggests that the first theme has been transformed, within the context of the passage, into a “hymn” (Doubravová 1977, 79). Any analysis of this final section must focus on a number of textural issues. The texture of the last section is balanced in favor of the high register of the orchestra and the female chorus provides an aura to the texture that was not present in the previous sections within the work. And the rhythmic character of the passage is distinctive: the pacing is slow and the passage has a wayward quality. The passage could be described as ethereal and gives the impression of wandering in uncertain directions. The overall effect might be described as reaching beyond what had been defined, of reaching beyond the style of discourse that had been defined for the work, in the previous sections. It is perhaps not inappropriate to think, in this context, about the poem and its conclusion. The final passage in the poem seems to suggest that while we are dwelling in the night we are envisioning the day, the sunlight, and the attendant ripening of grain that is part of that recollection, that while we are dwelling in the night we are not confined by the night. Critics explored the possibility that the theme of the work might be understood in relation to the emergence of a new nation, namely the Czechoslovak Republic. One writer, Václav Štěpán, in an essay entitled “Open Letter to J. Suk,” wrote: Today it appears to be the greatest mark of fate that the first performance of your work occurred two days after we finally became free. Like a celebration of our national victory, full of pure, internal dignity, your poem of victory resounded, achieved through work, moral strength, and love. And the words “By this sign you shall be victorious” engraved your music into the minds of us all: this is the path that each person must travel, so that he can attain his own goal, which stands behind all the sufferings of life; this is the path that the nation also has to travel, so that it can fulfill its mission. (Locke 2006, 125n55)

How could a strictly instrumental work embody the “spirit” of one or another nation? After asserting that Suk established a position on what he called “high moral ground,” Vomáčka offered an explanation: “His works are similarly imbued with a national spirit, although they lack patriotic titles. Their national trait lies deeply within them” (Locke 2006, 126).

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Concert of the Czech Philharmonic on January 12, 1919 Czech Rhapsody (Česká rapsódie) by Bohuslav Martinů (1918) The Czech Rhapsody, a work celebrating the foundation of the Czechoslovak Republic,  was an important project for the 28-year-old Martinů. An ambitious and lengthy work—the performance lasts over 30 minutes—it calls for baritone soloist, chorus, and orchestra, and it includes texts from three different sources: the Psalms (Psalm 23), Vrchlický’s poem “Bohemia,” and the “Wenceslas Chorale.” The diary of the composer provides information about the origins of the project: “It originated in May and June 1918 following the famous vow of the Czech nation and under this spell of the beautiful speech of the writer Alois Jirásek” (Bergmannová 2008, 8). The composer dedicated this score to Jirásek. The Czech Philharmonic, conducted by L. V. Čelanský, performed the cantata on January 12, 1919. The work was performed again on January 17 and on January 24, and the audience on that second occasion included the president of the republic, T. G. Masaryk. Martinů had composed over a hundred works prior to the Czech Rhapsody, but few had been performed. The Czech Rhapsody helped to establish Martinů, at the end of the war, as a notable composer in the Czech musical world. Although steeped in Czech traditions—textual and musical—the score of the Czech Rhapsody shows the imprint of a “modern” spirit: it embraces a wide array of textural possibilities that spring out of the vast performing resources and a wide array of stylistic directions, as well. Formally, the work falls into three broad sections: first, the orchestral introduction and the choral presentation of verses from Psalm 23 (15 minutes in all); second, the central orchestral interlude (about 9 minutes); and third, the presentation, by the baritone soloist, of the poem “Bohemia” (“Čechy”) with orchestral accompaniment leading inevitably to the choral presentation of the lines from the Wenceslas Chorale (omitting the “Kyrie eleison” and “Christe eleison”) (about 12 minutes). The opening 10-minute orchestral passage is a preview of important stylistic directions found within the work as a whole. The opening musical idea is in a solemn chorale-like style and this is fundamental to the overall structure. The compositional strategy at work, soon revealed, involves interruptive techniques, providing challenges to the continuity of musical thought and this is a second significant development within the first orchestral passage. And finally, a third important feature revealed in the first orchestral section is the incorporation within the motivic design of a motive that has at least, on first hearing, some relation to the Wenceslas Chorale (to interior phrases of that chorale rather than to the opening phrase of the chorale). And these

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compositional ideas, revealed in the opening orchestral passage, are central to the strategy that guides the construction of the piece as a whole. The overall motivic and rhetorical design involves, at times, unpredictable changes in direction that make the composition seem dramatic and even tempestuous at times. Nevertheless, the opening solemn style heard at the beginning of the orchestral introduction and the quiet interludes and cadential passages, which provide stability, are very important to the overall design. And the musical style of the first section, rooted in what most would identify as a chorale style, almost certainly pays homage to Czech psalm-singing traditions, specifically the psalm presentations that the composer had heard in the Protestant church within the small town of nearby Borová, where Martinů had played the organ on occasion (Šafránek 1944, 16). The Wenceslas Chorale dominates the structure: it informs the structural coherence of the work. The composer provides a unifying thread in the second and third sections drawn from selected melodic phrases and motives from the Wenceslas Chorale which, in this portion of the work, are completely recognizable. Moreover, the composer creates a formal design which depends on a notable and even dramatic development of the elements in sections two and three (the last 15 minutes of the cantata) inspired, it seems, from the layout of ideas and themes in the poem—which focuses on the features of the Czech landscape, moves toward the “vision” of past glories, and concludes with a vow on the part of the living to uphold the “glory” of the Czech historical tradition, as they carry on the spirit of Charles, Hus, and Žižka. This development culminates in the invocation of Mount Blaník and a prayer to Saint Wenceslas, within the poem, to protect “us and those to come.” The soloist and chorus, working together in presenting the text lines from “Bohemia,” focusing on the historical tradition, inevitably advance to the text and melodic motives explicitly drawn from the Wenceslas Chorale to conclude the cantata. The work, when it was first heard in 1919, received both positive and negative reviews. A number of critics in the field at the end of the Great War were disinclined to look for signs of “modernism” in projects that were focused on national or nationalistic themes. And yet the formative elements in the Czech Rhapsody display innovative features in many significant ways. The composer seemed intent on exploring new directions in a work that is admittedly built on themes that were fundamentally “national.” And the character and the form of the composition show a determination on the part of the composer to work creatively to build a structure that makes dramatic use of the formidable performing forces at hand (orchestra, organ, chorus, and solo voice) and makes use of up-to-date compositional strategies, for example, the interruptive techniques, within the multi-sectional rhapsody. In The Czech Rhapsody the composer succeeded in reinvigorating a well-established cultural practice to mark the founding of Czechoslovakia.

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SLOVAK SONGS Historians and critics have considered Vítěslav Novák (1870–1949) an important figure in the Czechoslovak world throughout the twentieth century. In liner notes released with a recent CD, Ludmila Peřlinová pointed out that “Vítěslav Novák is often described as a Czechoslovak composer,” underlining his “love of Slovakia and its music folklore” and also his role as a professor at the Prague Conservatory, where he worked with many students in the early years of the twentieth century (including a number of twentieth-century Slovak composers) (Peřlinová, 2021, 7). In an essay published in 1946, Jozef Kresánek explained the important role played by Novák with reference to the history of Slovak music in the period that included the late nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth century: There were two trends in the first efforts of Slovak music after 1918. There was, of course, the effort to create a purely Slovak national art as a new and valuable contribution, just as the older generation of composers during the national revival had striven to do. But alongside this, the young generation was eagerly anxious to create music worthy of, and in line with, the developments of contemporary music in the musical world as a whole. The first tendency culminated in V. Figuš-Bystrý, who carried the folklore element so far that King Matthias, in his opera “Detvan,” becomes a figure that might well be straight out of a folk tale. The second tendency was heralded by Fric Kafenda; but, as a composer, he remained more of a prophet than a messiah. Mikuláš Moyzes and M. SchneiderTrnavský strove to achieve a synthesis; but before they had reached that point they were overtaken by the younger generation. Their finest works, reflecting this trend, are the “Malá vrchovská symfónia” of Mik. Moyzes and the symphonic poem “Pribinov sl’ub” of Schneider-Trnavský. (Kresánek 1946, 172)

‌‌ And the author then eetails the importance of Novák within this overall period: ‌‌ Smetana’s time these two tendencies—national and of a wider field—had In gone more or less hand in hand; but after 1918 they were already turbulently opposed. Finding a synthesis meant creative work in the true sense of the word; and it was here that the Czech composer, Vítězslav Novák, set such an invaluable example to the Slovaks. It sometimes seems to the uninitiated that Novák, simply by virtue of being the professor who taught almost all the young Slovak composers pursuing these new ideas, handed out to them ready-made formulas for dealing with the Slovak element in music. But such a conception of Novák’s school would be an insult to Novák himself as an artist. It was Prague, as a musical centre led by Novák, which gave these young composers what they most needed: a sense of musical structure and a new world orientation. And the

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author then mentions institutions of significance in the musical world of Prague (the Prague Conservatory, the Czech Philharmonic, and the National Theatre, for three examples). (Kresánek 1946, 172–73)

In the 1890s Novák had developed, as noted earlier, an active interest in Moravian and Slovakian culture. And critics have pointed out that stylistic elements from Moravian and Slovak culture and folklore influenced many of his compositions after 1896 (Miloš Schnierer 2023). He was appointed professor of composition at the Prague Conservatory in 1909. Compositional projects in the early years of the twentieth century included “In the Tatras” for orchestra (1902) the “Slovak Suite” for orchestra (1903), and “Eternal Longing” for orchestra (1903–1905). At the end of the war he composed “Three Czech Songs” / “3 české zpěvy,” settings of three poems by J. V. Sládek: “Dál!” (“Onwards!”), “Vlasti” (“Homelands”), and “V boj!” (“Into Battle!”) for male chorus and orchestra (published in 1918 and again in 1921). In 1920 Novák published Volume I of Slovenské spevy (Slovak Songs) in 1920 in Prague, and this volume included fifteen settings for voice and piano of Slovak folksongs: the title on the publication was, in fact, Slovenské spevy / Chansons slovaques / Slovak Songs / Slovakische Lieder. The project eventually included six volumes in all, published between 1920 and 1930, with settings for voice and piano of 80 folksongs. (The volume which appeared in 1920 had been originally published in Prague in 1901.) Volume III, published in 1923, appeared with the title Slovenské spevy / Slovak Songs and this volume included English translations of the texts by Rosa Newmarch. And Volume III was published in Prague, in London (J.W. Chester), and in Paris (Max Eschig). Table 1.1 +1920 volume Vítěslav Novák: Slovenské spevy / Chansons slovaques / Slovak Songs / Slovakische Lieder Sešit – 1 (1-15) Prague: Hudební Matice Umělecké Besedy, 1920 +1923 volume Vítěslav Novák: Slovenské spevy / Slovak Songs Translated by Rosa Newmarch Sešit –3 (26-40) Prague: Hudební Matice Umělecké Besedy, 1923 London: J.W. Chester Paris: Max Eschig

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In this collection the composer worked with 80 folksongs. In every example the composer began with a pre-existent melody with text (the folksong itself) and completed an arrangement of this pre-existent material for voice and piano accompaniment. In some cases the completed composition is basically the same length as the folksong. In other cases, the composition presents an elaborated version of the folksong, which might include preludes, interludes, or postludes for the piano alone. Ludmila Peřlinová points out that the composer made references to instruments associated with the folksong tradition: “Novák often allows himself to be inspired by the instruments popularly used in the folklore, imitating the fiddle figurations, bagpipe drones, crushed notes, trills and cymbalom textures” (Peřlinová, 2021, 7). Comments on the first and fourth examples from the 1920 volume will provide information about Novák’s compositional technique in this collection: No. 1 “I’ll die, but don’t know when” I’ll die, but don’t know when, When I’m dead I’ll be lying down, Singing tra la la . . . Lying down, still singing tra la la . . .

The first song in the 1920 collection is a presentation of the folksong text and melody and, at the same time, an arrangement by Novák for voice and piano of the folksong within a composition with broader dimensions. The first section is based on the opening lines of text and the melody associated with those lines, and the second section is based on the final lines of text and the melody associated with that text. The first section—based on the text “I’ll die, but don’t know when”—is set by the composer as a dramatic opening section within a slow-paced musical style and ends with a conclusive cadence. The second section, based on the text lines that refer to singing “tra la la,” is a fast-paced presentation with a solid concluding cadence. Novák then provides a piano postlude based on the melodic phrases in the second section: the postlude carries forward the rhythmic energy of the second section before bringing the composition to a close. Within a short musical composition Novák provides a range of “moods” from the thoughtful and drawn-out setting at the beginning to the more sprightly, concluding postlude. And the piano postlude of Novák’s arrangement of this folksong provides a musical confirmation of the resolve expressed in the second section of the folksong:

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No. 4 The clock in Nitra tolls III, My lover is taking another to the altar. May God help his marriage while I remain a virgin. I will not wish him ill fortune, nor will I curse him. let God help him in his marriage while I remain a virgin.

The fourth song in the 1920 collection is a presentation of the folksong text and melody, to be sure, and the setting by Novák is, at the same time, an imaginative work for voice and piano based on that folksong text and melody. Novák’s 28-measure setting includes the folksong presented in mm. 1–16 in an arrangement for voice and piano, followed by a postlude for piano of 12 measures, as the conclusion of the composition. The concluding passage in the piano postlude, at a low dynamic level, echoes the passage within the interior portion of the folksong setting (mm. 9–12) and not the passage at the end of the folksong. And the final cadence in the postlude of this composition recreates the cadence, on the dominant chord, found in m. 12. The delicate conclusion to the work in the final measures of the composition is—from the point of view of the fundamental harmonic plan—unresolved. The composition, as a whole, might be considered the composer’s reflection on the folksong, providing his vision of the original folksong material within his idiosyncratic compositional design. Comments on the first and seventh and ninth examples from the 1923 volume will provide information about Novák’s compositional technique in this collection: 1923 collection (English translation of the texts by Rosa Newmarch [1923]) No. 1 If thro’ all the wide, wide world you were to rove, You would find no lad so dear as him I love. Three long years he courted me, Promis’d me we should married be, Then his fickle heart grew cold, and would be free. [first of two stanzas]

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Novák creates an economical setting of this folksong: the composition includes the arrangement, the phrases of the song for voice and piano preceded by a two-measure piano introduction. And Novák experiments with a harmonic style which adds some chromatic coloring in some selected passages (for example, in the concluding passage): No. 7 Belehrad, Belehrad, Now thou art Turkish spoil! Belehrad, Belehrad, Now thou art Turkish spoil! Many a mother’s son, many a mother’s son, Sleeps there beneath the soil. Many a mother’s son, many a mother’s son, Sleeps there beneath the soil. [first stanza]

Novák presents an adventurous and imaginative setting of the text, marked “Tempo de marcia funebre” at the beginning of the score of this commemorative work. The texture is a dramatic combination of the melody, in treble register, as usual, and the piano accompaniment in the lower bass register throughout the 29-measure setting. The final piano cluster of pitches lies in the lowest range of the keyboard, and this provides a dramatic and, at the same time, soft conclusion to the setting of this folksong: No. 9 Our Mai went off to Malaciek For to thresh some barley, But he left his flail behind, So he got home early. Heigh! Maceiko, Mafeiko, ko, ko, ko, ko, Macek, play a tune-o, O-ho, ho, ho! Play upon your shrill top string, ting, ting-a-ling! Heigh, thrum a lively tune, Come, thrum, thrum, thrum, thrum!

The composer provides an exuberant and imaginative 50-measure setting of the folksong, marked “Allegro giocoso” at the beginning of the score: the composer creates an active and energetic piano accompaniment which helps to carry forward the high-spirited text at hand.

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CONCLUSION Nationalism was certainly the most evident and perhaps powerful factor during the days of the founding at the end of October 1918. Tomáš Masaryk stood tall as the obvious candidate to head the new nation-state, and his combination of intellectual and political accomplishments served as reassurance to outside victorious powers that the future nation-state would have a solid foundation and promising political prospects. The October 30 celebratory concert featured three works by Josef Suk that pulled together the emotions of nationalism into an inspiring whole. The first was “Praga,” a work composed a decade earlier and one that in part celebrated the centrality of Prague as a worthy national capital of the new state. The second composition reached back more than a millennium and brought forward the memory of Saint Wenceslaus in providing the Bohemian people with a sense of pride and hope for the future. His third composition looked to the future and bore the name “Zrání” or “Ripening.” It was unclear how the new state would develop or mature, but its progress was as inevitable as was the dependable growth, with attendant care, of a “grain.”

Chapter Two

The Revolution of 1848 and the Intensification of Nationalist Sentiments in Politics and Music, 1848–1881

INTRODUCTION Global strictures certainly governed life in Bohemia, Moravia, and Slovakia in the second half of the nineteenth century. The reality is that leaders in Vienna and Budapest had the last say on all political questions of significance. Habsburg officials made the decisions both to tighten up on post-1848 reforms in the 1850s and 1860s and to declare the Dual Monarchy with Hungary but, to the consternation of the Czechs, dual power was not offered to the Czechs and their pieces of territory. At the same time, nationalism continued to smolder after the raised hopes for more freedom for the Czechs that was ensconced in the revolutionary rhetoric and accomplishments. Musical composers, in particular, enunciated themes that were completely Czech and not tied to the imperial decrees and patterns. For example, soon after 1848 Smetana composed “Song of Freedom” as a way of encapsulating new hopes for the future. Adoption of a musical work entitled “Where Is My Home” as a potential anthem certainly indicated that looking south to Vienna for direction would not necessarily be the only future choice. Thus, differences between the perspectives of global/imperial forces and thinking in the Czech Lands and Slovakia became more pronounced, without indicating that a real split was at that time part of concrete expectations on either side.

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OUTLINE OF THEMES Questions pertaining to the role of authority were essential components of the 1848–1881 period in the Czech Lands. The arenas of politics and culture both interacted and collided through efforts to resolve the most difficult of those questions. In particular, the world of music served as a kind of mirror that reflected such struggles. Analysis of the poetry in four important Czech songs from the period opens the chapter and links tightly these cultural and political forces. The initial political section of this second chapter will emphasize five inter-related themes that all pertain to authoritarianism. First, attention will flow to a brief outline of the politically authoritarian structure of Habsburg rule in the time prior to the 1848 revolution. Second, the spotlight will then shift to the impact of the 1848 resistances in the Czech Lands on that existing Habsburg authority structure. Reintroduction of centralist political decisionmaking in the 1850s will constitute the third component of the chapter, while the fourth part will treat the somewhat more relaxed political rule of the 1860s and 1870s. Fifth, there will be an interpretation of the official opening of the National Theater as a political move and partial victory by Czechs within the empire. Finally, in this section, Slovak nationalism will also recieve some attention. Next, the chapter presents a discussion of cultural developments that accompanied in a general way the shifts in public policy between 1848 and 1881. Emphasis will be placed on the search for a definition of authority in Czech cultural matters in this period with the focus on music (opera, orchestral music, and choral music [Hlahol Society]). Opera will be examined in two phases: 1) up to the opening in 1862 of the Provisional Theater (Libuše’s Marriage by F. J. Škroup, for example) and 2) opera in the 1860s and 1870s (Dalibor by B. Smetana and St. John’s Rapids by J. R. Rozkošný). Finally, we examine the circumstances that made possible the building of the New Theater and the festivities that marked the 1881 opening and the 1883 reopening (both of which included Smetana’s Libuše). The chapter will include a brief analysis of Smetana’s Má vlast, composed over the decade of the 1870s, as a cultural vision of a potential new day for Czechs that would be free from the restraining hand of outside authority. The conclusion of the chapter will consist of observations about the intersection of the worlds of political authority and music with emphasis on the definition of authority within Czech culture in these challenging decades. In particular, the many references to past Bohemian heroic periods and figures bestow on them an authority that speaks to the later period under consideration in this chapter. The mythic queen Libuše, the powerful fourteenth-century

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king Charles IV, the Hussite political movement of the fifteenth century, and the Hussite general Jan Žižka all become collectively a kind of coherent authority structure in the world of culture. Their heroic deeds, actual and fictional, offer inspiration to mid-nineteenth-century Czechs in search of life apart from the strictures of Habsburg rule. In a sense, for Czechs they constitute a liberating counterpoint of authority in the world of music and culture and a political world in which distant Vienna-based leaders have for several centuries denied freedom to Bohemia. As such, they point to a day in which a transfer of authority takes place from uncaring Austrian outsiders to more familiar Bohemian insiders. A Taste of Freedom (see Table 2.1) A brief analysis of the poetry that four songs from the period utilize provides an initial chance to grasp the central dynamic of this interplay between the authority of Czech culture and the Habsburg political authority. First, Bedřich Smetana composed “Song of Freedom” with words based on a poem by Josef Jiří Kolár. He composed this chorus with piano accompaniment in the midst of the 1848 revolution, and as such it celebrates Czech glory in contrast to Habsburg repression. In the first stanza, the poet compares the “uproar throughout the land” to the chorus of Taborites (or Hussites) from the fourteenth century. In the second stanza, he offers the hope that “the nation is lord, a nation is king.” Insightfully, he observes that Czech happiness “will not be a gift from foreigners.” The third stanza spotlights the desire that “our Countryman” should be the force that summons “God and the devil.” This is a realistic prophecy that more freedom for Czechs would not necessarily mean a perfect world. The poet in the fourth stanza invokes both the “Hussite apparitions” and the “Czech lion.” Presumably, both would embolden Czechs to be firm and forceful in the “holy war” of the nineteenth century. Stanzas 5 through 10 all include or conclude with a call for a single “Czech voice” that emerges “in unison.” They also depict a battle in which Czechs are strong and firmly resist the enemy. The seventh stanza also suggests that “Hus and Žižka pay more” than the Habsburgs, so that is where the loyalty of a soldier should lie. It is fascinating that in stanza 9 the choice seems to be between “the pagan or the Russian.” However, there is a middle course, one more suited to the Czech needs, and that is “Master Hus.” Finally, in the tenth and last stanza, there is an invocation of God who “wishes (victory) for you (Czechs).” Overall, this song and its poetry depict the battle between Habsburg political authority and Czech cultural and military authority to be a modern-day Armageddon. A second song/chorus/cantata from the revolutionary year is “Now, You Brothers, Now Swain,” by Pavel Křížkovský, with the words by Anselm

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Rambousek. This poetry contains no direct references to the Czech struggle of 1848. However, it does depict a world in struggle and darkness. The poet calls upon the “brothers” to think about great acts and to pay attention to (Czech) rights. All social classes must unite around recognition “that the grey beast of prey plagues us.” The enemy may be attractive and even “golden-headed,” but it is necessary to recognize its deceitfulness. The counterpoint to the hell in the atmosphere is “our beloved community” and the simple matters of life such as “our farm, joke, beauty, strength.” What is needed is to keep alive the intellect and the vibrant colors of the flowers. In a sense, this song can be an allegory of the Czech plight in 1848 while it offers a subtle call for resistance to encompassing gloom. After Smetana returned from Sweden in 1862, he very early on created the vocal composition “Three Horsemen,” based on a ballad by J. V. Jahna. The story in this ballad is of three nobles who ride from village to village in order to announce the death of Jan Hus, burned at the stake in 1415 (Large, 1970, 122). They are in a rush and pronounce their news with a “voice like a moaning storm.” One has a handful of ashes, no doubt from the fire of the death itself. Revenge is in the air, but one of the riders “proudly smiles,” as if inspired for future great deeds. There are remarkable references to “wild game” at several points. Between the villages, only the “wild game” hears the voices of the riders. The “wild game” also provides the fire that will drive the process of revenge. Finally, the “wild game” sing as they guard the grave of the “prophet,” who is probably Hus. Evocation of the memory of the sacrifice of Jan Hus can be an important part of the process of evoking courageous acts by Czechs in the 1860s as they symbolically ride “back to Bohemia.” Several years later Karel Bendl composed “March of the Taborites,” with words by Šmilovský. He intended that a male chorus or Hlahol perform the work. Tábor was the main Hussite center and also the name attached to the radical branch of the fifteenth-century Hussites. There are many references to Žižka, the general who won the battle of Vitkov Hill in 1421. The poet makes the army appear to be very large and popular, as crowds follow it everywhere. Everyone in the region hears the “rattling of the wagons” and “the army song.” Behind their “Czech banners a proud spirit reigns.” While the Hussite warriors are heroes, they also terrorize the countryside and act with brutality as they extract the last drop of vengeance from their Austrian foes. Near the end, all these sounds of the army fade into the distance, and so it seems as if the observer has been standing in one place while this parade marched by them all. There is a sense that momentum is with them, and one wonders at the end if they will ever come to a halt, They have become an ever-moving part of the mythology that emboldened Czechs in the 1860s to anticipate a day of revenge but also fulfillment.

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KEY POLITICAL THEMES AND CHANGES The Politically Authoritarian Structure of Habsburg Rule in the Time Prior to the 1848 Revolution Prior to the 1848 revolution the specter of authoritarianism was in fact the reality that hinged upon the centralized controls of the Habsburg Monarchy. Descriptions of its political nature include an empire that focused on “order and stability” (Agnew 2004, 108) and an entity that was a “grotesque collection of odds and ends” (May 1951, 2). In fact, there had been some ebbs and flows in the degree of centralization during the 70 years before the revolution. Whereas Joseph II (1780–1790) had made the German language the official coin of the realm, his successor, Leopold II (1790–1792), had made some concessions to Czech language rights. He himself attended theatrical productions that used the Czech language. In addition, he permitted both the establishment of a chair in the Czech language at Charles University as well as Czech gymnasia in Prague. However, there was a return to a “bureaucratic and reactionary” approach under the next emperor, Francis I (1792–1835). Francis was apprehensive about the danger that radical ideas from the French Revolution might percolate into the empire. As nationalistic and participatory pressures impinged on Vienna, he responded by restricting media freedom and by utilizing police controls more frequently. His foreign minister, Metternich, was more than happy to reinforce these measures for centralization in his effort to construct a European balance of power system that would combat the disease of French Revolutionary ideas (May, 19–22). The new General Civil Code of 1811 specifically did not offer any hint of equality in terms of political rights and civic freedoms (Agnew 2004, 108). The last emperor prior to the revolution was Ferdinand (1835–1848), and he continued to give free rein to Metternich. During much of his rule, his spine was stiffened by the international linkage with Russia (Taylor 1970, 53–62). Thus, the period offered little in the way of encouragement to new cultural expressions and experimentation. The Impact of the 1848 Resistances in the Czech Lands on the Existing Authority Structure Sharp political leadership changes occurred rather suddenly at various points in the revolutionary year. Metternich disappeared into exile, while Emperor Ferdinand abdicated in favor of a very young Franz-Joseph, who would rule well into the twentieth century. A number of key political events took place that temporarily eroded the specter of authoritarianism. A principal event in the Czech Lands was the holding of a Pan-Slav Congress in the spring in

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Prague (May 25th). Its demands were radical in the sense that they applied the rhetoric of the French Revolution to nations as well as individuals (Agnew 2004, 119). The congress ended with the explosion of the Whitsuntide Riots. Students and the unemployed were protesting the presence of the Austrian commander Prince Windischgrätz in their own city. His military forces then crushed the protesters (Nosek 1926, 154–56). Soon a Constituent Assembly was set up, and it lasted from July 1848 until March 1849. There were major political concessions that impacted the Czech Lands. They included abolition of the tax called Robot, the ending of landlord hereditary rights in local management, and the grant to peasants of more security by controlling their land. Compensation payments to landlords had the unexpected consequence that they moved into smaller industries that became the heart of capitalist development in the region (Taylor 1970, 78–81). The writing of the Kroměříž Constitution was another significant political milestone of the revolutionary year. This Constitution was in effect until March 1849, and thus for a time it permitted the use of the Czech language in schools and in local administration (Taylor 1970, 87). Another key concession was permission for the Czechs to hold elections to the Bohemian Diet. Those elections resulted in selection of 284 delegates, among which 178 were Czechs and 106 Germans (Agnew 2004, 119). Examination of the events and results of 1848 reveals a pattern of political controls much different from what existed earlier and what would come later. Culturally, there was an echo from the political changes into the artistic world. Josef Kajetán Tyl, author of the famous anthem “Where Is My Home?,” presided as artistic director of the main Czech Theater and later the Estates Theater. In 1849, the first company of Czech Theater amateurs was formed. Soon thereafter, it spawned creation of many companies of puppeteers that disseminated patriotic ideas into many towns (Bažant et al. 2010c, 121–22). The historian František Palacký described special purposes that Czechs could play in regional affairs. He depicted Czechs as a potential bridge between the Germans and Slavs, East and West (Palacký 2010, 133–34). These initial signs of cultural experimentation sparked other innovations in fields such as musical expression and composition. Reintroduction of Centralist Political Decision-Making in the 1850s The period of reaction to the turmoil of 1848 is typically known as the Bach Era, and it lasted for a full decade from 1849 until 1859. Alexander Bach was minister of justice and later minister of the interior. For the first three years of the period, Felix Schwarzenberg was prime minister until the emperor himself took the job in 1852. Steps that pertained to the Czechs included

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suppression of the usage of their language, police observation of Palacký, and intense pressure on the journalist Havlíček (May 1951, 27–28). Havlíček was deported to Brixen in Tyrol, while his publications Slovan and Národně noviny were both suspended. The innovative Kremsier Reichstag was dissolved, signaling intent to rule from above. The process of tightening up applied in particular to all areas of public administration. The centralizing reforms included reliance on German as the official language, appointment of governors to replace the gubernium, strong controls by captains in the districts, supervision by the Bohemia/Moravia Circuit over the districts, reporting requirements by that circuit to the minister of the interior in Vienna, and refusal to allow the land diets to convene. Whereas Czech had been used in the middle schools for a brief period, German replaced it in 1853–1854 (Agnew 2004, 124–27). For the first time, really, the empire became “a fully unitary state.” Through the Kűbeck Patent issued on the last day of 1851, the emperor would govern the realm through an Imperial Council whose members he himself had appointed. Administrative, legal, and taxation systems would henceforth be totally unified under the controls of Vienna (Taylor 1970, 93–95). Accompanying press restrictions and censorship went hand in hand with the political changes to increase controls on thought and political expression as well (Bažant et al. 2010b, 147). In fact, the excessive centralization had a negative effect on the economy and produced a real crisis in that sector in 1857. The leadership had targeted spending on the military to preserve the controls, and industrial production had received too little attention (Taylor 1970, 97). During this period, Karel Jaromír Erben wrote an extended poem entitled “Water Sprite.” It offers a fascinating story of a young girl who drowned and ended up marrying the Water Sprite, with whom she had a child. However, she longed for life on land near her mother and finally got permission to do so from her husband. Of course, she then hoped to bring her own daughter and live again on land. Shockingly, the Water Sprite appears and hands over her dead child (Erben 2010, 157–64). Could this poem possibly be a symbol of the changes through which Czechs had recently passed? Perhaps the empire was their own personal Water Sprite who granted some freedom to return to their own ways but then brutally retracted it by killing the child of revolutionary hopes. Thus, the cultural world in its own way reacted to the political changes that were being enacted. The More Relaxed Political Rule of the 1860s and 1870s After the dismissal of Bach in 1859, Vienna introduced a number of key decisions and documents that pointed in a more flexible direction. They

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included the 1860 October Diploma, the February Patent of 1861, and the 1867 Constitution which greatly elevated the status of Hungary into a dual leader of the empire. No one of these decisions entailed a clear endorsement of nationalistic political goals of the Czechs and others, and the third decision was particularly unsettling. However, they collectively set a different tone than had decisions in the previous decade. As such, they created a changed mind-set about the specter of authoritarianism and thereby inspired the world of music and culture to embark on new paths. Symbolically, Smetana soon returned from his self-imposed exile in Sweden and resumed his work in the Czech Lands. Enactment of the October Diploma in 1860 put more political decisions in the hands of Czechs. For example, the decision permitted reestablishment of government at the county level. Legislatures in the provinces were able to choose delegates to the imperial legislative body in Vienna. Bohemia could also select local assemblies (diets) that had self-governing powers (Taylor 1970, 28). However, as the local diets filled up with local nobles, the “frivolity and shortsightedness” of Vienna was revealed (Taylor 1970, 110). Within a few months the empire introduced the February Patent of 1861, also known as the Schmerling Constitution. In general, this set of decisions resulted in a certain tightening up and centralization. Powers allocated to the local diets were carefully defined and measured out. On the one hand, the diets had control over policy areas such as agriculture, social welfare, public works, and land budgets. On the other hand, the local assemblies were merely implementers of Reichstag policies in areas such as education, religion, and communal administration. Delegates to the diets emerged from earlier elections by four colleges that included great landowners, chambers of commerce and industry, towns, and rural communes (Agnew 2004, 129). However, this feature of the reforms resulted in overrepresentation of Germans who lived mainly in towns and underrepresentation of Czechs who lived primarily in the countryside (Agnew 2004, 129; Taylor 1970, 28). Specifically, a German town deputy represented 10,000 citizens, while a Czech town deputy was accountable to 12,000 persons. Similarly, a German rural deputy was the mouthpiece for 40,000 individuals, while a Czech rural deputy represented 53,000 (Taylor, 115). Such results were not as favorable for Czechs as were those that occurred after the writing of the Kroměříž Constitution in 1848 (Taylor, 29). One writer (Taylor, 113) summarized the overall impact of the Patent as transforming the local diets into electoral committees for the Reichsrat. In the end, the legislature in Vienna moved from being a “Crown Council” to an “Imperial Parliament.” Any powers not specifically allocated to the land diets were retained by Vienna, a solution that is just the opposite of the Tenth Amendment to the American Constitution. The latter was passed seven decades before the Austrian February Patent.

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The situation for Czechs improved a few years later in 1865, for Count Richard Belcredi replaced Anton von Schmerling as minister of state. He immediately abolished the February Patent and replaced it with his own decrees. He supported use of federalism more extensively, and Czechs won the right to use their language in official court and administrative settings (Agnew 2004, 130). The world of culture correspondingly loosened up in the early 1860s, as new forms of activity emerged at that time. They included the first Sokol in 1862, the first Hlahol in 1861, the opening of the Provisional Theater in 1864, and the phenomenon of tábory or public demonstrations at Hussite shrines (Agnew 2004, 132–35). However, creation of the Dual Monarchy through the enactment of the December 1867 Constitution had a very negative impact on Czechs. Why were the Hungarians elevated into such a high status within the empire but not the Czechs? As a result, Czech leaders went to Moscow for consultations (Nosek 1926, 175), and this trip was a voluntary one in contrast to the trek made to the same place by Czech leaders one century later in 1968. One result of this trip was the holding of a Pan-Slav Congress that put pressure on Vienna to embrace federalism in a more meaningful way. The Czechs returned in a purposeful way and made more vigorous demands over the next few years. For example, they abstained from Reichsrat meetings for the next 12 years (Nosek 1926, 175). In addition, they boycotted Prague when the emperor came to dedicate a bridge in 1868. In contrast, they poured into the streets for the celebration of the birthday of Jan Hus in the same year. Boldly, the Bohemian Diet published a Declaration of Rights and Expectations at about the same time (May 1951, 50–51). Then, in 1871, Czechs demanded both autonomy on questions relating to land and the power of the Bohemian Diet to directly elect delegates to the Reichsrat. On both counts, they heard a distinct “No” from Vienna (Nosek, 176). For Czechs, the laying of the foundation stone for the National Theater in 1868 was a political as well as a cultural act in the midst of the turmoil over creation of the Dual Monarchy. By train mostly, 150,000 Czechs poured into Prague at Karlín, the building site of the National Theater. The foundation stone itself had come from Říp, the location to which the mythic figure Praotec Čech had first led members of the Czech tribe. The nationalistic tandem of Smetana and Palacký jointly put the legendary stone in place. The stonecutters had carved into it the words “In music is the life of the Czechs” (Bažant et al. 2010b, 154). The act was political, but the impact would be cultural. Taken together, they offered a counterpoint to the specter of authoritarianism and its constraints. In the midst of these critical decades, Smetana composed the famous and oft-performed opera Bartered Bride. His librettist was Karel Sabina, a figure who had earlier been imprisoned for his political views, and the opera

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was first performed in 1866. Both figures had themselves been involved in the 1848 revolution. The famous chorus from that opera is titled “Let Us Rejoice,” and its tone reflected a more upbeat view of life and its possibilities (Smetana and Sabina 2010, 182–85). The Official Opening of the National Theater as a Political Move and Partial Victory by Czechs The early 1880s entailed an extension of the more relaxed political controls that had occurred in the previous two decades. Prime Minister Taaffe had come into that position of political prominence in 1879 (Bažant et al. 2010d, 191). He permitted both Czech and German to be the official languages of the outer service, although German was the only one used in the inner service. Czechs themselves compromised by returning to the Reichsrat, but they insisted on stating at the start of each session that the legislature lacked legitimate control over Bohemia (Taylor 1970, 169–70). From henceforth, Charles University would include both Czech and German units. Further, an election reform reduced the tax qualification to five guldens with the result that Czechs made political gains at the expense of Germans (Agnew 2004, 137). The atmosphere was not exactly the same as it had been in 1848. However, the image of Vienna-based authority was softened from what it had been in the Bach Era and thus was a harbinger of the changes that would culminate in the founding of the nation-state in 1918. The opening of the National Theater in 1881 was a culmination of continuing Czech aspirations that had emerged in 1848 and fermented during the ensuing three decades. Even after it soon burned down, a new one was constructed by 1883. On both occasions, Smetana’s opera Libuše was the opening performance. In fact, he had composed it in the previous decade but held it back for this major symbolic moment. The opera itself was a central part of the process of creating a Czech national consciousness and sense of its own history, for it centered on one of the mythical founding figures of the Bohemian Kingdom (Bažant et al. 2010b, 154). Individual foundation stones came from places that had strong connections in the Czech historical and mythic memory. They included Vyšehrad, Blaník, and Říp. The foundation also contained a small casket with stones that perhaps had once been in the Konstanz jail cell of the martyr Jan Hus. There was also an invitation to young artists to add pictures of some of the Czech mythic figures of the past. The culmination was the addition above the stage of the provocative phrase “Národ sobě” (A nation for ourselves) (Sayer 1998, 142). Replete with all these emotional symbols, the National Theater became a central location in which cultural achievements could fuse with political aspirations.

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Slovak Nationalism In the late nineteenth century, the Slovak experience with nationalist sentiments was quite different than that of the Czechs. While Czech nationalists had to deal with the resistance of Vienna, Slovaks had essentially two masters. They could appeal with their hopes and demands to Vienna, but Budapest had the essential and final controls over their aspirations. It is also the case that Slovak leaders engaged in intense discussions about their language in the years leading up to the 1848 revolution. Whereas Czechs had settled on their language much earlier, Slovaks were working to establish a language that was separate from the church language for many decades (Kirschbaum 1995, 113). In 1834, Catholic and Protestant Slovaks united, and soon Ludovít Štúr pushed for the use of Slovak as their literary language (Nosek 1926, 302). Thus, they were finally successful but had sacrificed much time that they might have devoted to the battle for political rights. There were high points in their battle for national recognition such as creation of the Slovak National Council in 1848, and they also passed the Myjava Declaration that demanded separation from Hungary. Slovak peasants no longer needed to pay the tax called robot after the 1848 revolution. The small town of Turciansky Sväty Martin became a kind of soul of any future Slovak nation or other independent political entity (Kirschbaum 1995, 119–21). It was there that they wrote, in 1861, the Memorandum of the Slovak nation that called for many national rights. In 1863, in Banská Bystrica they opened the Matice slovenská that tied together many different Slovak groups. Permission to form this organization emanated from their meeting with “the” Emperor in 1861 (Nosek 1926, 306). To battle for Slovak positions at the elective level, they utilized their Slovak National Party in efforts to get their candidates elected to the Hungarian Diet (Kirschbaum 1995, 135–40). However, Slovaks met far more barriers than had Czechs in all these collective efforts to establish a governmental and administrative basis for Slovak self-government. In the early years after the 1848 revolution, they met resistance from the Hungarian nobility and were unable to obtain substantial rights for town and city dwellers. While the 1848 revolution awakened their own nationalist aspirations, it did so as well for their Budapest-based imperial overseers. Magyarization instead of Slovak autonomy became the official policy with teeth, and both Vienna and Budapest resisted Slovak aspirations to manage their own political and administrative affairs (Kirschbaum 1995, 114–15). Further, the Ausgleich signed between Austria and Hungary in 1867 created a new Dual Monarchy between them, but really it left out both Czechs and Slovaks (Kirschbaum 1995, 127–28). Czech leaders thought that they should have become an equal partner, while Slovaks quickly became aware

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that the agreement provided Budapest with more justifications to control smaller groups such as the Slovaks. For Slovaks, the 1867 Ausgleich led to a situation in which Magyar was their official state language (Nosek 1926, 307). On paper, it was the local diets that elected representatives to the larger imperial diets, but the results were varied (Agnew 2004, 131). While Czechs were able to win seats for their own local legislative body within Bohemia as well as in the Vienna-based diet, Slovaks were unable to win any seats in the Hungarian Diet in the 1865 elections (Kirschbaum 1995, 128). A key reason was passage of the Magyar Electoral Law, which resulted in a situation in which one Magyar vote equaled about 100 Slovak votes (Nosek 1926, 307). Their inability to progress in ensuing elections led them to total passivity in the diet elections of 1884. A final blockade was the 1895 Hungarian Diet Nationalities Congress which basically repressed demands from all minority groups under their sway (Kirschbaum 1995, 140). This effort was not too surprising in light of their tough tactics against such groups two decades earlier in 1874–1875. For Slovaks, those earlier Magyar decisions took away the access of their children to Slovak schools. Both a cutoff of funding for Matice slovenská and suppression of Slovak journals also took place. Budapest even denied Slovak college students at Masaryk University the right to speak to each other informally in their own language (Nosek 1926, 308)! As a result, many Slovak leaders traveled to Prague to obtain support for their own nationalist aspirations and dreams. For example, Slovak students at Prague University became followers of the Czech leader Masaryk and founded Hlas (1898–1905) (Nosek 1926, 311). However, overall Czechs seemed far less interested in working with them than Slovaks did in linking up with the Czechs (Kirschbaum 1995, 142–44). Slovaks also pushed for creation of a new Czecho-Slovak language that would acknowledge a co-equal relationship between them. As time passed, the Czech leader Tomáš Masaryk took a quite pragmatic approach toward the inclusion of Slovaks in a potential new Czechoslovak state. Without the Slovak involvement in it, the German minority would constitute one-third of the population and possess considerable veto power over important decisions. Further, Masaryk never envisioned the potential state as a tool for “Czechifying” the Slovak population. Pressures and interests from outside the region were significant as well, for two million Czech and Slovak emigrants were very supportive of such a new state. They lived primarily in the United States, Russia, France, and Great Britain, and the Masaryk travels to such countries during the war kept an open line of communication with them (Harna 2022, 422–24). Much later, the 1915 Cleveland Agreement was a kind of victory for Slovaks who outlined within it a substantial political role for themselves. However, much of that agreement remained secret, while the 1918 Pittsburgh Agreement

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was the one that led concretely to a state that recognized Czech controls in a new state in which Slovaks would take part but in a diminished way. In these ways, Slovak national ambitions were continuously frustrated, even at the time of the long-awaited birth of Czechoslovakia in October 1918. One Slovak leader, Milan Rastislav Štefáník, became a partner in the joint efforts at state creation. He was a Slovak in the French Air Force and, thereby, helped link the Czechoslovak cause to French capabilities. When the Czechoslovak National Council emerged in February 1916, he partnered with three prominent Czech leaders in forming a leadership team. Finally, as a follow-up to the foundation of the Czechoslovak state on October 28, 1918, Slovaks established a Slovak National Council two days later, and that body called for self-determination of Slovaks within the new state (Agnew 2004, 166–69). CULTURAL DEVELOPMENTS AND MUSIC Composers in the second half of the nineteenth century were developing a musical discourse that was related to folk traditions and they were, at the same time, developing a musical discourse that was intended to bring together both “national” and “heroic” stylistic elements. Smetana’s role in the history of music in this century has been widely discussed. The authors of the article “Czech Republic” in Oxford Music Online underline the importance of Smetana: Smetana’s decision to compose operas on historical and legendary subjects culminated in Dalibor (1868) and the epic festival opera Libuše, which was held in reserve until 11 June 1881, for the festive opening of the National Theatre. Within two months of the opening, the roof, auditorium and stage were destroyed by fire, but the theatre reopened in 1883. Smetana’s cycle of six symphonic poems Má vlast represents the continuation and completion of his aim to glorify the Czech nation in his creative work. (Clapham et al. 2023)

Smetana, then, demonstrated what might be considered an “epic” style in Dalibor, in Má vlast, and in Libuše. Scholar Richard Taruskin writes “Originally, however, it was Smetana’s monumental and progressive compositions, not his volkstűmlich ones, that appealed most to Czech national sentiment” (Taruskin 2005a, 463). But Smetana and other composers did not remain indifferent to the folk tunes and folk dances that had been collected and published in anthologies in the middle decades of the century (by Erben, Karel Pavel Křížkovský, and František Sušil). The authority of Czech culture depended, in part, on the recirculation of old tunes, texts, and dances that had grown up in the Czech Lands. In his monumental study of “Czechness,”

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Beckerman wrote “Thus, in the view of Czech nationalists, the shape of the Moravian hills, the sound of the Czech language in its many dialects, the burning of John Hus, the view of Prague from Hradčany, and all the folksongs and ancient chorales were not to be considered separate, unrelated entities, but as treasures belonging together” (Beckerman 1986, 66). And Beckerman, in the final portion of that article, delineates what characterizes “Czechness”: “‘Czechness’ itself comes about when, in the minds of composers and audiences, the Czech nation, in its many manifestations, becomes a sub-textual program for musical works, and as such, it is that which animates the musical style, allowing us to make connections between the narrow confines of a given piece and a larger, dynamic context” (Beckerman 1986, 73). Examples of choral works, symphonic works, operas, and instrumental works in a variety of categories will help to define important compositional projects in the nineteenth century. An introductory note—drawing on examples by both Czech and Slovak composers—will underline the significance of song in this period. Smetana worked with the text of the “Czech Song” (Česká píseň) (Text: J. J. Marek/Jan z Hvězdy) in the period from the 1860s to 1880, producing different versions of the composition with this title (the version for mixed chorus with orchestra dates from 1878 to 1880). The text consists of four seven-line stanzas published in 1840 (Plavec 1963, vii); the text is unified thematically with the first and last stanzas as particularly focused on the enduring power of Czech song. In the opening section of this version of the work Smetana explores a range of stylistic options, including a chorale-like style. The opening and closing sections provide a dramatic and compelling style designed to pay tribute to the power and beauty of “song” and specifically “Czech Song.” In a recent article titled “The ‘People’ in Czech and Slovak Music Criticism,” Kelly St. Pierre underlines the importance of the Slovakian composer Ján Levoslav Bella (1843–1936): “In Slovakia, nineteenth-century nationalist aesthetics were theorized by and modelled from the works of Ján Bella” (St. Pierre 2019, 445). After noting his 1873 article on national music in relation to Slovak song and after providing a number of titles of compositional projects, including the symphonic poem Osud a ideál (“Fate and the Ideal” [1874]), St. Pierre writes “Altogether, Bella’s compositional output moved unproblematically between differing and sometimes conflicting nationalist aesthetics” (St. Pierre 2019, 445). Bella composed a number of masses in the 1860s and 1870s and other works with sacred texts in that period. He composed two sets of variations for piano in the 1860s: one on “Pri Prešporku” (“In Pressburg”) in 1866 and one on “Letí, letí roj” (“The Swarm Is Flying”) in 1869. These works demonstrate a creative and imaginative treatment by the composer of pre-existent folk material: the composer appropriates the folksong material for musical

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statements that are rooted in a modern stylistic idiom, drawing on the full range of pianistic resources at hand, and demonstrating a wide range of stylistic approaches, even within the confines of musical structures that are modest (the variation sets are each about 5 minutes in length). In the opening section of the variations on “Letí, letí roj” Bella presents the folksong within a relatively simple musical texture, at a low dynamic level, holding up the melody, so to speak, for re-examination. He then provides a technically demanding and dramatic variation, using the full resources of the instrument to full advantage. The variation set becomes a reflection on the part of the composer on a well-established folksong from Slovak cultural history. Choral Works (see Table 2.1) Choral music provided a forum for discussion, in the years from 1848 to 1885, of both the textual and musical aspects of the Czech campaign for national identity within the broader cultural framework. Smetana in the 1840s and 1850s composed two Revolutionary songs, now lost (one concerning the death of Jan Hus), and “Song of Freedom” (Píseň svobody) (1848) on a text by Jan Kollár (“Rise up Czechs, for God is with us!”) for mixed choir. The text includes 10 six-line stanzas. The first introduces the theme focusing on the Czechs under attack (“War! War! . . . Protect the homeland and the glory of the Czechs . . . ”). Smetana’s design, in his setting of the text, places in prominence the last two lines of the stanza by melodic and harmonic means. The melody and harmony for lines three and four are slightly repetitive and weighted toward minor triads. For lines five and six Smetana creates a sweeping and energetic melodic line outfitted with striking and bold harmonies ending with a decisive and commanding cadential gesture. In stanza one these lines of poetry affirm that the uproar in the land resonates with the chorus of Taborites. In stanza two, the final lines work very well, indeed, in this musical setting: “Czech glory, Czech honor, / In Bohemia the Czech is the lord.” In stanza 10 Kollár returns to the sentiment and to the actual lines found in the first stanza. Smetana’s setting of the last two lines—which differ from those found in the first stanza—provide an effective conclusion to the song (“to the enemies show resistance. / in unison! [Svornost!] In unison! With a Czech voice!”). Smetana seems to have found inspiration in this poetry to develop, even in a short musical statement, an inventive musical language that stands at some distance from that employed in the two contemporary marches (“March of the Prague Student Legion” and “National Guard march”). Smetana seems to have found inspiration in this poetry to develop, even in a short musical statement, an inventive musical language that stands at some distance from that employed in the two contemporary marches (“March of the Prague Student Legion” and “National Guard March”).

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The 26-line text of “The Three Riders” (Tři jezdci) (four-voice male chorus), is a tribute to the memory of Jan Hus, describing three Czech noblemen who travel from Constance to Prague to bring news of the death of Hus (Large 1970, 122). Smetana’s setting of the text represents a new stage in his work: it is more technically demanding and more compositionally advanced than earlier pieces. The composer finds methods of translating into music the text’s focus on “voice” and on “song” within a formal structure that ranges from chordal declamation to solo passages accompanied by a four-voice harmonic support. In the first stanza, Smetana portrays the line “the wind carries the voice further” through repetition of an individual word within a passage which is punctuated by rests and which becomes very soft. He devises a texture that places in prominence the nobleman’s hope for the prospect of “future glory” in a stirring passage. For the setting of the last 6-line stanza and the final 2-line couplet, Smetana first reinstates the musical style initially heard in the opening portion of the piece (textual and musical portrayal of travel) in A minor and then presents the final two lines—“he himself however flies further anew / and with the horsemen hurries back to Bohemia”—in a bright and confident A-major world. The special emphasis placed on “he himself” through repeated utterances at the conclusion of the piece accentuates the importance with which this individual regards the role he will play in spreading the message through his own voice. “Czech Song” (Česká píseň) in the 1878–1879 version, a cantata for mixed chorus and orchestra, was performed in a concert which served as a fundraising effort for the Provisional Theater on November 24, 1878 [Plavec 1963, vii]). The text consists of four 7-line stanzas published in 1840 (Plavec 1963, vii) and unified thematically with the first and last stanzas as particularly focused on the enduring power of Czech song. Černý characterizes the stanzas as a “eulogy of the four forms and types of Czech song—sacred, love, social and patriotic” (Černý 1975, 3). The first stanza declares that Czech song rings out in the Lord’s temple while the final stanza declares that Czech song moves the hearth and that it rings out spreading love over the homeland. In Smetana’s cantata the text itself fits within a broad structure which includes an instrumental introduction, the first stanza sung by a mixed choir, the second stanza sung by a women’s choir, the third stanza sung by a men’s choir, and the fourth stanza sung by a mixed choir. The expansive orchestral introduction presents a musical topography that includes a number of stylistic directions, with the ominous opening passage giving way to a hymn-like affirmative passage and culminating with a memorable and exuberant cadential passage leading to a powerful conclusion (mm. 35–45). Smetana provides as the foundation for the first stanza a chorale-like style which temporarily

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gives way to imitative texture and ends with a hauntingly lyrical setting of the line “The Czech song rings gloriously when the people sing ‘holy, holy.’” Smetana creates in the second stanza a light and transparent—and assuredly treble-oriented sound in both voices and instruments—and energetic rhythmical musical style indebted to the polka (Černý 1975, 3). In the third stanza, the composer molds the musical presentation to the text itself, as he presents the opening line in imitative texture (one voice part entering at a time) and proceeds to a unified full ensemble for the lines “when we all sing together.” Smetana brings the almost surprisingly expansive passage, with many repetitions of the last two lines in the stanza, to a rousing conclusion portraying with even more forcefulness the resolve to “sing together.” If the text for stanza four recalls elements from stanza one, so too does the musical setting of stanza four incorporate elements first presented in the opening portion of the cantata. The most highly variegated section of the cantata—the last stanza (mm. 207–312)—returns initially to the ominous passage heard at the outset of the work and then glides into an instrumental and choral announcement of the first line of text which recalls the cadential theme heard at the conclusion of the opening introduction, displaying a persuasive method of unifying stanzas, sentiments, and choral and instrumental forces across the work as a whole. Smetana explores musical styles designed to depict the “thundering,” the “sweetness” tinged with “sorrow,” and the “chattering” found in the text before bringing the cantata to a conclusion within a brisk final passage—dedicated to the last two lines of text and to the idea of the Czech song spreading love over the homeland. If Smetana’s cantata may be considered a work in a heroic or even classic idiom (Černý finds a “classical purity” in the work [Černý 1975, 3]), still the composer weaves together a wide range of musical styles some of which are representative of specifically Czech traditions (Černý points to the polka-like style in the second stanza and to the “sousedka” style as the foundation of stanza three [Černý 1975, 3]). Smetana’s determination to compose between 1860 and 1879 three if not four distinct musical settings of this poem, which dates from 1840, succeeds in defining this text by J. J. Marek as a significant message within Czech culture in these decades. In his Hymnus, Dvořák creates, through an imaginative treatment of the text (“The Heirs of the White Mountain”) a strong and dramatic musical statement. He weaves together stanzas 1–4 into one unified structure, with great attention to the poetry’s form and to individual lies (“O Mother, let us shelter thy head so sacred”—the last line of stanza 4), all rooted in the key of E-flat major. The final large-scale section, bringing together stanzas 5–7, is rooted in the bright key of C major but returns “home” to the key of E-flat major for the final cadence and the last word of the last line of stanza 7 (“Mother”). The composer presents stanzas 5–7 in quick succession, without interludes.

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Dvořák creates a striking effect for the finale with the chorus singing as one, without instruments, and the instruments providing interludes for the last line “One Fatherland, and only one dear Mother!”. The composer devises a romantic style, drawing on both lyricism and drama, a style that might help to define Czech resolve in the 1870s. The 1873 performance (concert of the Prague “Hlahol” Choral Society, New Town Theater, in March of 1873) was a success for the composer (Burghauser 1966, vii). “The composer was accepted as a fighter for the Czech cause and was immediately integrated into the progressive faction of the Czech cultural front” (Burghauser 1996, 16). Karel Bendl, a composer, conductor, and editor (of the Hlahol collection of male choruses), composed "March of the Taborites” (Pochod Táborů) on a text by A. V. Šmilovský for male chorus in 1880. The text describes the Taborites riding, with Žižka at the head (emphasis placed on the “army song”). A musical march-like idiom, in G minor, demonstrates in musical terms the persistence of the Taborites. Midway through the poem the perspective broadens with a call for allegiance to the Czech banners . . . and with a call for resolve to take the measures needed to ensure success or victory (determination to take vengeance). Bendl, at the words “The sky is a Taborite cover,” moves from minor to major-mode writing, with a full-voice presentation (FF) by the singers in a lengthy passage that builds to a forceful climax (tenors at the top of their range and all singers at full strength [FFF]). Bendl then moves deftly to a reprise of the poetic lines and the musical march-like idiom of the opening of the piece. “March of the Taborites” is a remarkably unified setting of a long text with many inspired moments and artful gestures (the disappearing of the musical texture at the end mirrors the initial appearance of the musical texture in the opening measures). Opera in the Period 1848 to 1862 (see Table 2.1) In opera we find a reflection about how to define an appropriate Czech musical language, specifically about how such a language might draw on folk materials and how it might draw on “progressive” European styles under development in those decades. Libuše’s Marriage (Libušin sňatek), set to music by F. J. Škroup, provides an example of a large-scale, three-act opera focusing on the story of Libuše from the middle of the century. The composer gives the chorus an important role in the opera—and a haunting chorus and polka-like rhythmic figures may provide more than a hint of “local color” in the score. A strophic song—“I am finishing ploughing”—by Přemysl in Act III, provides an example of a strategically placed “simple song” in the overall structure (and it was published separately [Tyrell 1988, 66]).

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Selected Operas in the Period 1862 to 1871 (see Table 2.1) Four operas produced between 1866 and 1871 illustrate important traits that were significant in defining Czech opera as a “national” culture. The Bartered Bride (B. Smetana [and Sabina]), initially produced on May 30, 1866 (2 acts), was an important project not only for the composer but also for the development of Czech culture in those years. Smetana, who received the libretto in 1868—apparently as a one-act comic opera libretto—composed and revised the score until the latter part of 1870 when the definitive three-act version was performed on September 25, 1870. The early version took the form of a two-act comic opera that included an overture and 20 musical items linked by spoken dialogue: “In its earliest state The Bartered Bride was nearer operetta than comic opera” (Large 1970, 168). The three-act version, heard in 1869, included a number of dances—a polka, a “furiant,” and a “skočná"—and a drinking song as well. The final version, 1870, included newly composed recitatives replacing the spoken dialogue that linked the musical numbers of earlier versions (Tyrrell 2010). The final version, then, included an overture, Act I (with 5 scenes), Act II (with 6 scenes), and Act III (with 10 scenes). In the dances added to the score, Smetana experimented with a range of folkdance elements. In the case of the “furiant,” he composed a dance for the opera on a pre-existent folkdance tune published in Erben’s anthology (No. 588, “Sedlák, sedlák” (see Large 1970, 185–86 and Taruskin 2005a, 462–63). The original tune inspired the composer to build an idiosyncratic structure which includes an inventive variant—with chromatic harmonization—of the tune in the middle section (“expressivo”): the composer demonstrated that the original material was available both for quotation and manipulation. The polka and the skočná are newly composed examples of traditional dance genres. Brian Large writes “For the Polka and Skočná Smetana did not adapt traditional material: instead he created melodies that are fervently Czech in spirit and one of the remarkable qualities of these dances is the composer’s ability to write music which sounds authentically folk-like while springing from his own pen” (Large 1970, 186). And Large credits the composer with inventing a new genre of polka—not strictly conforming to the models he had already established—which may well reflect knowledge of actual dance practice in the countryside (Large 1970, 187). The sung numbers, as arias or songs, also demonstrate the composer’s imaginative approach to the composing of styles that are, or seem to be, Czech-like. John Tyrrell outlines a range of stylistic possibilities explored by Smetana in his operas that includes incorporated folksongs, “echoes” of folksongs, strophic songs of the sort that audiences might have expected to hear in a staged play (distinguished by “simplicity” of style [Tyrrell 1988, 223]), and songs “in a national

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style”—an intriguing category of composed songs that might be considered independent, in the operatic context, and evocative of a Czech-like style or idiom. (Smetana, in a letter to Adolf Čech, referred to “independent songs” and to a family of those songs that he described as having been composed “in a national style” [Tyrrell 1988, 225]). Acknowledging yet an additional category, Tyrrell describes Vásek’s song at the beginning of Act III as essentially a “set piece” rather than a song in a style meant to suggest some sort of folk-like quality (an admission of the difficulties faced by historians who are attempting to clarify folk-like and “national” style in Czech music of this period). The opera was successful during the composer’s lifetime and he was able to see the work performed 117 times (Large 1970, 187). Karel Šebor, in his opera The Hussite Bride (Nevěsta husitská) produced in 1868, incorporated the Hussite chorale “Kdož jste Boží Bojovníci” (“Ye Who Are God’s Warriors”) bringing into the musical world a melody that would resonate for several decades in Czech music of different sorts, (the hymn was available, in transcription, in 1861 [Tyrrell 1988, 135]). St. John’s Rapids (Svatojanské proudy) (Vltavská vila) (The Vltava Nymph) by J.R. Rozkošný, on a libretto by Rűffer as translated into Czech by Šubert, was first performed on October 3, 1871. The opera was successful and enjoyed performances even in the 1890s (Tyrrell 1988, 80); Janáček published an analytical study in the late 1880s (Tyrrell, 80). The story of this “romantic opera” (designation on the score) involves a water sprite—a Vltava water sprite—and the score includes not only hunting choruses but imaginative instrumental passages and trumpet fanfares, as well. The score, the composer’s only published score, appeared with both Czech and German text. The publication of a piano fantasy based on the opera (a genre often referred to as “potpourri”) provided additional access to the musical score. (Published piano fantasies based on Dalibor and The Templars in Moravia were also in circulation in these decades.) Dalibor, produced on May 16, 1868, was composed by Smetana between 1865 and 1867. It was designed to be part of the ceremony associated with the laying of the foundation stone of the National Theater (the dates on the full score indicate that the opera was composed between 1865 and the end of 1867 ([Tyrrell 1988, “Dalibor”]). Dalibor is a three-act opera—a drama and not a comic opera—on a story from Czech legend concerning a character who is imprisoned and who, in the last scene, dies. Smetana was working to create Czech grand opera on a Czech theme and creating a model of “continuous” opera in which the components—arias and choruses and duets— were integrated into a continuous musical whole (without stops at the ends of the components). Thus, the soldiers’ chorus near the beginning of Act II becomes part of a broader musical tableau: it dominates the opening portion but is integrated into something more complex and ultimately, after a reprise,

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gives way through a musical transition that is distinctively different in style to the next scene. In this opera Smetana places great emphasis on the love duet of Dalibor and Milada in Act II—noble music with expansiveness—and on the significant arias designed especially for Dalibor and Milada. But the score includes striking instrumental passages, often extended instrumental mini-compositions of great inventiveness used for different purposes. The ceremonial instrumental music designed to introduce the rule. Vladislav is particularly noteworthy: here the composer invents a new category of “Czech music”—stately music evocative of the regal world of a Czech ruler (see brief comment on this point by Tyrrell 1988, 8). Within this monumental framework may be found notable songs that prompt reflections on the composer’s commitment to the creation of a “national” style to express this national theme. Dalibor’s lament in Act I and the opening two scenes in Act II featuring the soldiers’ chorus and the duet sung by Jitka and Vitek (a scene complex) invite discussion of the stylistic range commanded by the composer in this operatic context (that of serious opera). In Dalibor’s lament in Act I (“Ničím je mi život”/“No meaning has my life”) Smetana sets the two 4-line stanzas in a G-major passage built over a drone (G) with a rather simple almost folk-like melody supported by a simple harmonization with the second stanza transforming the lament into G minor. The scene complex at the beginning of Act II demonstrates Smetana’s skill at weaving set pieces into a continuously flowing operatic whole. The orchestra begins with three brisk motives that give way to a transformation of the “fate” motive (from the opening of Act I) and eventually to a rousing orchestral introduction to the chorus of soldiers that frames scenes 1 and 2. The scenes are, then, dominated by the men’s folk-like chorus and the love duet sung by Jitka and Vitek—an appealing style marked by simplicity of melody and harmony which, after an explanatory passage delivered by Jitka, gives way to a second duet, in a more adventurous style, in which they vow to assist Milada in the attempt to rescue Dalibor. The second scene focuses on the soldiers singing along with Jitka and concludes with an instrumental postlude based on the thematic material of the soldiers’ earlier chorus (scenes 1 and 2 comprise over 400 measures of music). If no genuine folksong-type numbers were to be found in Dalibor, still within the wide range of styles found in the score notable pieces might well be considered within the realm of “national song.” This chorus held appeal for the earliest audience, but the opera as a whole was not judged to be successful (Tyrrell, “Dalibor”). If the soldiers’ chorus met with enthusiasm, critics in 1868 had an unfavorable reaction and pointed to what they called a Wagnerian—and not sufficiently Czech—style in order to explain their disapproval. Scholars in our day have found it useful to analyze the opera in relation to its Wagnerian and Lisztian qualities (pointing to a compositional technique that focuses on the transformation of motives or of

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motivic networks). Smetana unquestionably explored a compositional technique akin to that refined by Wagner, in an operatic context, which depends on recurring motives which surface and resurface throughout an act or indeed an entire operatic score. While scholars have made what appear to be exaggerated claims about the method—even suggesting that most of the scores can be traced to significant motives found in the opening passage—they are right to stress that Smetana works with a technique that Wagner explored again and again. Tyrrell observes that contemporaries very likely pulled away from the “harmonic idiom” and missed the short strophic numbers that they had heard in earlier Smetanian comic operas (Tyrrell 1988, 229). Although the composer made revisions and presented the opera in 1870, it did not prove to be any more successful. In the 1880s, when the opera was presented at the National Theater, it was indeed a successful Czech opera. Instrumental Music from 1870 to 1881 (see Table 2.1) Smetana’s Má vlast (c. 1872–1879), one of the most important works in the period under consideration, is a cycle of six symphonic poems that explore a range of Czech-related themes. The titles of the movements are: 1) “Vyšehrad,” 2) “Vltava” (The Moldau), 3) “Šárka,” 4) “Z českých luhů a hájů” (From Bohemia’s Woods and Fields), 5) “Tábor,” and 6) “Blaník.” The wide range of topics found in Má vlast, in the view of Brian Large, may be reduced to three categories 1) works based primarily on legend and on literary sources (“Vyšehrad” and “Šárka”) 2) works based primarily on the history of the Czechs (“Tábor” and “Blaník”) and 3) works that present Czech countryside scenes (“Vltava” [The Moldau] and “From Bohemia’s Woods and Fields” [Large 1970, 269]). In the middle of the 1870s, the composer evidently regarded the four-movement cycle—comprising the first four movements—as a completed work (a tetralogy). When the composer added the last two works, “Tábor” and “Blaník,” to the whole, he rebalanced the cycle and he brought Má vlast to a conclusion with obvious emphasis on the historical aspect of the panoramic program. Smetana, then, devised a programmatic and compositional method of exploring the meaning of the Hussites in Czech history, which had as its focus not only the Hussites but also the potential the Hussites provided Smetana and his contemporaries for envisioning a new revitalized Czech community and nation. The composer placed alongside the title of “Tábor” a motto: “Ye Who Are God’s Warriors” (“Kdož jste Boží bojovnici”). And he wrote as the opening sentence in the program note: “The whole composition is based on this majestic chorale” (Large, 282). In that note, the composer ties the chorale to the town of Tábor, the seat of the Hussites, that this stirring hymn resounded most powerfully and most frequently, and he encourages the

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listener to contemplate the meaning of the chorale first in reference to the will or character the Hussites demonstrated in battle and second to the historical “glory and renown” that is firmly associated with the Hussite movement (“the Hussite struggle”). In his lengthy program note for the final movement, “Blaník,” Smetana develops the theme announced in the program for “Tábor” and turns it, significantly, in a new direction. The final movement, Smetana explains in the first sentence, provides a continuation of “Tábor.” Next, bringing together history and legend, the composer notably acknowledges the failure of the Hussites to win victory: “Following their eventual defeat, the Hussite heroes took refuge in Blaník where, in heavy slumber, they wait for the moment when they will be called to the aid of their country.” In the following three sentences Smetana focuses his attention on the chorale “Ye Who Are God’s Warriors” noting that it serves as the foundation for “Blaník” and, more importantly, asserting that the chorale points to the “resurrection of the Czech nation” associated with “future happiness” and “glory.” He explains that the movement—and the cycle—ends with “this victorious hymn, written in the form of a march” (Smetana 1914). In the second half of “Blaník,” Smetana creates a kind of sonic spectacle inspired by the entire chorale (phrases A, B, and C). He works out the musical material so that it leads decisively to a climactic passage which begins to proclaim the entire chorale: he announces with full-orchestral force the A and B phrases before he transforms the proclamation into something both new and old as he unveils the “Vyšehrad” theme from movements I and II of the cycle. The climax of the movement, and of the cycle as a whole, features the combination of the “Vyšehrad” theme and a brisk motive obviously derived from the C phrase of the chorale, bringing to a conclusion the sixth movement, “Blaník,” and the panoramic cycle as a whole. (In her important recent book,  Bedřich Smetana: Myth, Music, and Propaganda,  Kelly St. Pierre provides a comprehensive reevaluation of critical commentary on Smetana’s Má vlast—and also Libuše—not only in the late nineteenth century but also in the twentieth century [including the World War I era].) Dances at the End of the 1870s (see Table 2.1) In a letter to Urbánek, Smetana wrote: I suggest publishing folkdances under the title Czech Dances. Every dance under its own name, e.g., “Furian,” “Skočná,” “Rejdovák and Rejdováčka,” “Sousedská,” “Hulán”  .  .  . etc. .  .  .  Whereas Dvořák gives his pieces just a general name “Slawische Tänze” with people not knowing which they are, and

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whether they exist at all, we would show which dances with real names we Czechs have. (Ottlová)

The composer had earlier undertaken projects that involved Czech folksong, notably in Charakteristische variationen (Karakteristické variance) (1846) and in Fantasie concertante sur des chansons nationales tchèques (Koncertní fantasie na české národní písně) (1862). As noted above, Smetana worked with a folksong from the Erben collection in The Bartered Bride (as well as a range of folksong-related styles). (Tyrrell reports that Otakar Zich, in a 1909 study, found evidence that Smetana had relied on authentic folksongs in two additional operas, The Kiss and The Secret [Tyrrell 1988, 218–29].) In the two piano works, Smetana almost certainly depended on the editions of Erben’s anthology, which included 2,200 texts and 811 melodies, published in 1842–1843 and in 1862 (see Myers 1988). In the case of the “Czech Dances,” the composer relied, as well, on an 80-year-old teacher named Suchý, a violinist who gave the composer information about Bohemian and Moravian dances (and he apparently gave demonstrations, as well, of the dance steps [see Large, 340]). Smetana provides footnotes in the score to indicate his reliance on Erben melodies for five of the dances (Nos. 3, 4, 5, 7, and 8). Scholar Brian Large proposed that Nos. 1 and 6 may also be tied to individual melodies in the anthology (Large 1970, 341–46, Large admits that in some cases musical connections between the melodies and the dances are less than clear). In the fourth dance, “Medvěd,” Smetana composes a 247-measure piano fantasy based on a 16-measure tune (of four phrases) published in Erben’s anthology (the composer provides a footnote on the score to identify the relevant tune, No. 118, in the anthology). The composer finds inspiration in the first two phrases of the tune, presenting them, aggressively, in compact form in the opening passage. This announcement of the primary material gives way to the secondary theme of the fantasy which paraphrases the two opening phrases of the original tune but transforms the material into a plastic and almost genial style (employing imitative textures). Smetana works imaginatively with these themes in the first 103 measures of the piece and then transitions to an expressive and sweet “inner movement” marked “Dudácká” in the score (referring to a song associated with bagpipe accompaniment). Always ready to transform material at hand, Smetana then provides a reinterpretation of this soft and expressive 18-measure thematic unit before returning to the original material which itself becomes once again retransformed in mm. 168–247 (the form is A B A). In No. 7, “Hulán,” the composer finds great inspiration in the identified melody—No. 379 in the anthology—that is strikingly expansive and lyrical, providing it, at least in the opening section, with an appropriately restrained harmonization. In later variations of the melody,

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Smetana devises inventive harmonic support and remarkably imaginative keyboard textures in which the melody might be embedded. With the playful and beautiful ending, Smetana once again demonstrates his determination to provide within the context of extended pianistic essays his personal reflection on the old melodies that had grown up in his native land. INTERSECTION OF THE WORLDS OF POLITICAL AUTHORITY AND MUSIC: FOUR CULTURAL AUTHORITY FIGURES CELEBRATED IN MUSIC Mythic Queen Libuše Libuše is tied up with the mythical founding of both Prague and the Czech nation. As mentioned above, the Smetana opera that bears her name was first performed at the opening of the National Theater and then again two years later after its reconstruction following the destructive fire. In the twelfth century, Cosmas deemphasizes her role and stresses the fact that her husband and the eventual ruler Přemysl actually set in motion the building of the city of Prague. In the fourteenth century the emphasis in the Dalimil Chronicle is on her Czechness, in contrast to the pressure from outsiders and foreigners. Then again, in the sixteenth century, the Czech Chronicle aligns her with the Hussite rebels of the previous century. In the eighteenth century, she and her female followers come to symbolize the perpetual struggle against Habsburg rule. By the early nineteenth century, with the creation of two forgeries in 1817 and 1818, she had become “the heroic embodiment of the Czech nation.” She was co-opted to become part of Czech lore about its people’s own love of democracy and inclination toward martyrdom (Thomas 2010, 15–38). Bohemian King Charles IV Near the end of the opera Libuše, the revered mythic figure Libuše extends her arm over the valley in which Prague arised. She prophesies certain events that will be critical in its development. One is the appearance of a builder king who will give a face of permanence to the Czech people and Prague itself. In fact, this is a nineteenth century reference by Smetana to the fourteenth century Bohemian king and holy Roman emperor who was responsible for the founding of the second oldest university in Europe that now bears his name, the building of the famous Charles Bridge, and the early work on the famous castle that overlooks Prague.

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Hussite Movement The wars of the Hussite Period lasted from 1420 to 1434, but the seminal event of the period was the martyrdom of Jan Hus in 1415. He had challenged the Catholic Church in ways that Martin Luther also would a century later. For instance, he thought that laity should receive the communion wine as well as the bread, and therefore, the chalice became connected with him as a symbol. He also entered myth as a hero of later nationalists, for as rector he had overseen the transformation of Prague University into a Czech university. After a period of war and ferment, Czechs elected the Hussite Jiří of Poděbrady as Bohemian king (Bažant et al. 2010a, 47–50). Hus himself had chosen martyrdom, and that choice is revealed in a letter in which he told fellow Czechs why he refused to recant at Konstanz (Hus 2010, 51–53). This short period played a critical role in later centuries and is evoked in countless works of Czech music in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. General Jan Žižka The general was a critical figure in the Hussite period, as he commanded the army that fought against the enemies mobilized by Rome at the center of Catholicism. It was in his camp that a famous hymn was composed in the period between the martyrdom of Hus in 1415 and the victorious battle of Vitkov Hill in 1421. The title is “Ye Who Are God’s Warriors” (“Kdož jste Boží bojovníci”) and Hussite soldiers apparently sang it as they marched into a battle such as the one in 1421. In the song they assert that God will give them the victory (Anonymous 2010, 54–55). Žižka himself became a mythic figure, as he had lost one eye in an earlier battle and the second at Vitkov Hill. His victories were in fact in the name of religion and religious values, but in later periods his name conjured up nationalist strivings as well. In the nineteenth century, the memory of his victory against Zikmund, the Hungarian Catholic leader, could inspire both unification of the Czech nation and victories elsewhere (Kosatík 2010, 111–14). Interestingly, that famous Hussite hymn became a key melody in the works of a number of musical compositions. One can hear its strains at the end of Smetana’s opera Libuše, in the last two sections of Smetana’s Má vlast, in the middle of Janáček’s opera The Excursion of Mr. Brouček to the Fifteenth Century, in Fibich’s Blaník, and even in the late-twentieth-century work of Karel Husa (Beckerman traces composers’ uses of the chorale his 1986 study). No doubt the earlier cited ballad “Three Horsemen” was a depiction of the Žižka-led army carrying the word of Hus’s death to the Bohemian and Moravian countryside.

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SUMMARY OF MUSICAL THEMES Impact of Czech Cultural Authority Figures in Undermining Habsburg Political Authority Structures A number of the musical works analyzed above collectively served to chip away at Habsburg definitions and replace them with glimpses of an emerging Czech cultural consciousness. For example, in Smetana’s “The Song of Freedom” there is an exhortation to guard the Bohemian homeland where the Czech is lord against outside threats that were present during the 1848 revolution. Similarly, his “Czech Song” specifically refers to the way in which a reliance on Czech traditions can warm the heart and spread across their homeland. In addition, the composer in this work incorporates a number of musical styles that emerged from Czech traditions. Dvořák in his Hymnus utilizes a poem that is based on a memory of the Battle of White Mountain in 1620. By reminding his audience of that struggle that resulted in the submission of Czechs to the Austrian Empire, he calls for people to protect their homeland against the outsiders in the same way that they would shelter the sacred head of their “Mother.” Other musical works continued to separate Czech culture from the Habsburg authorities. In The Bartered Bride Smetana utilized both melodies and dances that were Czech in an effort to offer an alternative to German-based traditions and composers. Rokošný’s St. John’s Rapids conjures up the central image of a water sprite whose life takes place in the Vltava, the powerful river that flows through Prague. Finally, Smetana composed “Czech Dances” in part as a counterpoint to the much more generic title that Dvořák used in his “Slavonic Dances.” Smetana based his work on the remarkable Erben anthology of over 3,000 collected Czech texts and melodies. The work that Erben had done in the early 1840s in collecting those important items in countless Czech villages was surely also a kind of declaration of independence from the dominant imperial cultural pressures. Contribution of Czech Cultural Authority Figures to the Dream of Creating Non-authoritarian Czech Political Structures In a powerful way several major musical projects pointed to a day in which Czech cultural and political authorities would replace those of the Habsburgs. For instance, in “The Three Riders” Smetana depicts Czech noblemen who raced back to Bohemia to report on the martyrdom of Jan Hus in Constance. Hus had stood up to the Roman Church and thereby became a reminder of

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what Czechs could do in modern times in their struggle with an outside, imposed authority structure. In a parallel way, in Bendl’s “March of the Taborites” General Žižka himself leads the Hussite Army from their base in Tábor with an appeal that persons be loyal now to the Czech banners. The general had been the victorious hero of a great Bohemian victory, and his example could also suggest the need for more purposeful political action in the late nineteenth century. Perhaps some of the larger-scale and better-known works of Smetana became the most important symbols of new political directions and aspirations. The composer completed Dalibor in time for the laying of the foundation stone for the National Theater in 1868. The opera celebrates a Czech ruler and his kingdom, and so the work stands as a reminder of what life can look like when outsiders are no longer in charge. His creation of a new category of Czech music also contributes to this picture of a much more independent cultural life. Politically, the event itself was laden with overtones of the emergent reliance on Czech themes, for the foundation stone itself came from Říp, the town to which the mythical first Czech (Praotec) first set foot on Bohemian soil. Smetana’s opera Libuše was one he composed in the 1870s in preparation for the actual opening of the National Theater in 1881, and it was also performed at the reopening in 1883 after the destructive fire. It is significant that one of the key events in the opera is the queen’s successful resolution of a conflict over property between two brothers. Even though she will eventually accept a husband and King Přemysl to help guide the people in future struggles, the overall picture is one in which Czechs solve problems with their own ingenuity. In the late nineteenth century, that could have been instructive for those who had to rely on bureaucrats in Vienna for all political solutions. The culminating prophecy scene creates a cascade of great historical events that celebrated Czechness. Could Czechs in the 1880s hope to replicate what Charles IV had done in the fourteenth century or the Hussites in the fifteenth? If those earlier political figures had stood for so much and accomplished such great tasks, why could their descendants not do the same? Perhaps political independence could be both a realistic possibility and an inspiring dream at the same time. CONCLUSION In the end, reference to the great symphonic poem Má vlast by Smetana is a fitting final reminder of what Czech dreams could accomplish in the political world. The famous Hussite hymn composed just before the Battle of Vitkov Hill in 1421 permeates the last two movements. “Tábor,” the fifth poem, was

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a Hussite town that could be a model for independent, self-managing future communities in Bohemia and Moravia. “Blaník,” the sixth and last poem, was the mythical mountain to which the Hussite Army had retreated after defeat and from which they presumably planned to march out into future glory. Their symbolic escape from the mountain’s confines offered a taste of what was in store for the Czech people politically, if they could only throw off the despised Habsburg chains. Such nationalistic themes in the cultural arena reinforced the political tactics and goals of Czech, Moravian, and Slovak leaders during the same period. The October Diploma of 1860 contained provisions that provided those in the Czech Lands with more political autonomy at the local level as well as in their elective capabilities to the legislature. Even the decision to build a Czech National Theater bore important political messages about the need to separate Czech and German cultures into independent categories rather than perpetually trying to combine them into some sort of future harmony. Table 2.1

Musical compositions from the 1848–1871 Period 1.  Choral works B. Smetana: “The Song of Freedom” (Píseň svobody) (Spring 1848) (text by Jan Kollár) (mixed chorus) Smetana: “The Three Riders” (Tři jezdici) (text by Jiljí Jahn) (for Hlahol in 1862 [performed February 27, 1863 in Hlahol concert]) (male chorus) Smetana: “Czech Song” (Česká píseň) (text by J.J. Marek) (male chorus) (revision for mixed chorus with piano accompaniment May 16, 1870) Smetana: “Czech Song” (Česká píseň) (text by J.J. Marek) (definitive form in 1878/1878-79 (cantata for mixed chorus and orchestra) A. Dvořák: “Hymn: The heirs of the White Mountain” (Hymnus: Dědicové bilé hory) (text by V. Hálek) (1872, 1873. 1880, 1884, 1885) (chorus and orchestra) K. Bendl “March of the Taborites” (Pochod Táborů) (text by A.V. Šmilovský) (1880) (male chorus) 2.  Opera in the period 1848 to 1862 Libuše’s Marriage (Libušin sňatek) (F.J. Škroup [and Chmelenský] Rev. 1849 Produced April 11, 1850 (originally composed 1835)

3.  Selected operas in the period 1862 to 1871 The Templars in Moravia (K. Šebor [and Sabina])) Produced October 19, 1865 The Brandenburgers in Bohemia (B. Smetana [and Sabina]) Produced January 5, 1866 The Bartered Bride (Prodaná nevěsta) (B. Smetana [and Sabina]) Produced May 30, 1866 (2 acts) Produced September 25, 1870 (definitive version) The Swedes in Prague (J.N. Skroup [and J. Pečirka) Produced April 22, 1857 (complete) (Act 1 / 1845) In the Well (V. Blodek [and Sabina]) Produced November 17, 1867 Dalibor (B. Smetana [and Wenzig trans. Špindler]) Produced May 16, 1868 The Hussite Bride (K. Šebor [and Rűffer]) Produced September 27, 1868 Blanka (K. Šebor [and Rűffer]) Produced March 8, 1870 Břetislav (K. Bendl [and Krásnohorská]) Produced September 18, 1870 St. John’s Rapids / (The Vltava Nymph) (J.R. Rozkošný [and Rűffer trans. Šubert]) Produced October 3, 1871 4.  The opening of the National theater (1881) Libuše (B. Smetana [and Wenzig trans. Špindler]) Produced June 11, 1881 5.  Instrumental music from 1870 to 1881 Má vlast: Symphonic Poem by B. Smetana (c. 1872-79) a.  “Vyšehrad” b.  “Vltava” (“The Moldau”) c.  “Šárka” d.  “Z českých luhů a hájů” (“From Bohemia’s Woods and Fields”) e.  Tábor f.  Blaník

6.  Dances 1878-1881 A. Dvořák: “Slavonic Dances” (first set; 1878 [Nos. 1-8]) (“Slovanské Tance”) (Op. 46) B. Smetana: “Czech Dances” (2nd Series; 1879) (“České tance,” II. Rada) for piano (Furiant Slepička, Oves, Medvěd, Cibulička, Dupák, Hulán, Obkročák, Sousedská,, Skoná) Dvořák: “Czech Suite” (“Česká suita”) (1881) (Op. 39) (Preludiem [Pastorale], Polka, Sousedská ]Minuetto], Romance (Romanza) Finale (Furiant])

Significant Texts Hussite Chorale – “Ye who are God’s warriors” (Kdož jste Boží bojovnicí”) Kdož jste Boží bojovníci a zákona jeho, Prostež od Boha pomoci a doufejtež v něho, Ye who are God’s warriors and subject to His law, Pray for God’s help and put your trust in Him, Translation by John Clapham (1972) “Czech Song” (Česká píseň”) (J.J. Marek / Jan z Hvězdy) StAnzas 3 and 4 Our Czech song is fresh and pleasing When we all sing together. Translation by Joy Turner (Supraphon, 1976)

Important Songs from the 1848-1871 Period “Song of Freedom,” B. Smetana, 1848, Words by Josef Jiří Kolar, Chorus with Piano Accompaniment 1.  War! War! Does the banner wave? Upwards, Czechs, God wishes it for you. Stand firmly for your right, Protect the homeland and the glory of Czechs! Now there is an uproar throughout the land, The chorus of Taborites and sound. 2.  A nation is the lord, a nation is king, In your right hand it stands boundlessly Above our happiness, above our frustration, From foreigners it will not be a gift Czech glory, Czech honor, In Bohemia the Czech is the lord.

3.  Yes, in Bohemia is our paradise, Our songs, our myths, Our maidens, our roses, Our castles, our meadows, our beds, In Bohemia God and the devil Should be summoned by our countryman. 4.  Who is a Czech, grasp the sword The cruel cut comes upon us Horrors of the Hussite apparitions, Set up, arm yourself, Czech lion! God invites us to a holy war! 5.  Now, look, see – thanks to the homeland, Fighters who do not retreat, The banner flies, the tubas sound, A thousand mouths sing: To the enemies show resistance: In unison! In unison! with a Czech voice. 6.  It is agreed that in unison will be our motto, It is agreed that in unison will be our motto, In this storm, in this fight, In the bitter confusion under both: To the enemies show resistance. In unison! In unison! With a Czech voice! 7.  Who is a Czech, a heart, a soul, Not only a mouth, or an ear, Whom do Hus and Žižka pay More than all the holy ones pay. Protect that – defiance to the hell, In unison! In unison! With a Czech voice! 8.  Brothers! Let us now be known through the homeland, Let us not be pushed into strange habits, To the destroyers let us stand in resistance, In unison with one voice, One body, one fist, That is our task, our honor.

9.  In unity the brothers commune Their blessing thrives in us, In unison only, above the upheavals Finish off our hangmen, Now it is the pagan or the Russian, We, Master Hus has blessed. 10.  In unison! In unison! The banner waves! Upwards, Czechs, God wishes it for you Stand firmly for your right, Protect the homeland and the glory of Czechs. To the enemies show resistance. In unison! In unison! With a Czech voice! “Now, You Brothers, Now Swain,” Pavel Křížkovský, 1848, words by Anselm Rambousek [“Compositions of Song, Chorus, and Cantata”] Now, you brothers, now swain, Do you see how the world staggers, To the light it staggers for the gloom, In which the nightmares of hell have it. Each, recognize the right, Care about the corresponding feats. Each, recognize the right, Care about the corresponding feats. Now, you ladies, beautiful children, See the radiance of our salvation. Watch, kid so that you grow up, Which, from the diaper you smile at us – Each, recognize the right, Care about the corresponding feats. The rich know, even the poor know, From whence comes all our grief. Know that the care of everything grows pale That the grey beast of prey plagues us. Each, recognize the right, Care about the corresponding feats.

World, see, that the golden headed Deceitful ones are leeches. They the leeches of all happiness, World, recognize your murderer. Each, recognize the right, Care about corresponding feats. Each according to God’s advice Let us bankrupt the sickening defect; With our farm, joke, beauty, strength Let us support our beloved community. Each, recognize the right, Care about corresponding feats. Only that the devil not pull us down, That many souls do not get drunk, That intellect does not fall into the gloom, That many flowers do not fade away. Therefore, each, know the right, In time, care about the splendid feats. “Three Horsemen,” Bedřich Smetana, 1863, Ballad by J.V. Jahna, Vocal Composition Three horsemen drop in from Kostnice, How the furies pursue them, And their haste and their fury Wipe out the lonely scream of Ryn. Back to Bohemia the men ride to you, Back with the fearfully vengeful fortune teller. Their voice like a moaning storm – Only at night does the wild game hear him – Now timidly – now unrestrained again The wind carries further the voice. “Oh, Jen, the linden tree is cut down, where do you the faithful bee flee?” “Thus, future glory is held in store for you, and you wish to be quiet, my homeland?”

“Now I have only a handful of ashes, In it I carry the tool of the avenger. From it lashes out the fire of wild game And to the fight chases the slaves.” – So, the third of them proudly smiles And with lightening races further into the undertaking. And rivers of tears and winds acknowledged Were awakened through his voice. Only through their song the wild game Now guard there the grave of the prophet. He himself however flies further anew And with the horsemen hurries back to Bohemia. “March of the Taborites,” Karel Bendl, 1867, Words by Šmilovský [Hlahol] They ride, they ride, they ride, Through the field at nightfall ride the Taborite brothers, At the front the brother Žižka himself, Behind him the crowd, behind him the crowd, Through the field at nightfall ride the Taborite brothers, At the front the brother Žižka himself, Behind him the crowd, behind him the crowd; And through the rattling of the wagons the army song sounds, It resounds through the countryside, whose darkness covers up the Field. Through the field at nightfall ride the Taborite brothers, At the front the brother Žižka himself, at the front the brother Žižka himself, Behind him the crowd, behind him the crowd, And through the rattling of the wagosn the army song sounds, It resounds through the countryside, whose darkness covers up the Field; And through the constant rattling of the wagons the army song sounds Here,

It powerfully resounds through the countryside, whose darkness Already covers up the field, And the army song, and the army song, look how it resounds Throught the countryside: The sky is a Taborite cover, bed is the hard ground And in the shadow of the Czech banners a proud spirit reigns, In no time for you Taborites tug death and glory, The spirit soars to the sky, God gives it a booth. Upwards the mace, the halberd, let’s set up into rows, From the smoke, from the smoke a tough brawl, the sky offers A sign of advice; With us God tugs on vengeance, listen to his law, And each of us takes his own kind of vengeance, write – a knife In the skull to murderers, Write – in the skull to murderers, write – in the skull to Murderers. Through the field at nightfall ride the Taborite brothers, At the front the brother Žižka himself, at the front the brother Žižka himself, Behind him the crowd, behind him the crowd, Through the field at nightfall ride the Taborite brothers, At the front the brother Žižka himself, at the front the brother Žižka himself, Behind him the crowd, behind him the crowd; The rattling of the wagon is lost the army song fades away, And the countryside, paralyzed with terrot, into the sheer Darkness is hidden. Through the field at nightfall ride the Taborite brothers, At the front the brother Žižka himself, at the front the brother Žižka himself, Behind him the crowd, behind him the crowd, The rattling of the wagon is lost the army song fades away, And the countryside, paralyzed with terror, into the sheer Darkness is hidden. (Translation by James W. Peterson)

Chapter Three

Emergence of a Global Framework New Directions in Politics and New Horizons in Music, 1881–1901

INTRODUCTION Nationalism centered on creation of a special feeling “Czechness” among people within the Czech Lands, and the last two decades of the nineteenth century were replete with illustrations of that theme. In 1881, Smetana’s Libuše was a powerful opera replete with emotional references to the Czech past. In 1898, The Dogheads” commemorated the battle of the Chods against the imposed taxation restrictions of the Habsburgs as well as diminution of their working rights. In politics the remarkable addition of six new political parties in the 1897–2001 period set the stage for creation of a working democracy several decades later. However, globalism entered the scene even more than it had in the recent past, as Czechs such as Mucha returned from travels outside the empire with commitment to modernist principles that clashed with the excessive emphasis on nationalism. Thus, the worlds of music and politics became more complex, as both nationalism and globalism captured the minds and future dreams of many leaders within the region. CROSSING THE BOUNDARIES INTO THE NEW CENTURY Czech music and politics were intertwined in the decades prior to the outbreak of World War I, as they had been in an intense way in the period after the 1848 revolutions and would be again throughout the duration of World War I. In several ways, these prewar years evoke a picture of the crossing of a number of overlapping boundaries. First and foremost, the Czech people 65

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crossed the boundary from the music and politics of the nineteenth century into the milieu of the twentieth century. While the preoccupation in the second half of the nineteenth century had been a romantic sense of nationalism that centered on imagining what a nation might look like as a mingling of past historical achievements, the emphasis in the early twentieth century centered both on merging Czech and European cultural traditions and on figuring out the political contours of their own state. Politically, the Czechs lived within the political boundary of the Habsburg Empire, a reality that existed between their defeat in the Battle of White Mountain in 1620, through the entire period under review here, and the end of World War I in 1918. As such, the imperial, German leadership in Vienna set the framework for Czech political activities. Those administrators determined the nature of Czech representation in the Habsburg Diet, and they also made the key decisions about the parameters and powers of the Bohemian Diet. Austrian foreign ministers issued decrees that determined the extent to which the Czech language could be used in the public arena and when German must be used. With the approach of World War I, Czech political aspirations became a sharp and principal challenge to imperial leadership. In 1867, the Czechs had resented the fact that Budapest and the Hungarian Empire achieved equal status with the Habsburgs. In fact, the Czechs were the most powerful force for the destruction of the empire, an outcome that would enable them to cross a political boundary from dependence and subjugation to independence and national self-creation. In the realm of culture and music, the generation that built the National Theater in 1881 lived within a boundary that focused on “Czechness,” in opposition to the longstanding Germanic pressure from the Habsburgs. Poets such as Svatopluk Czech and composers such as Bedřich Smetana reached into the Bohemian and Moravian traditions to create images and inspiration that would revive Czech ambitions and hopes. It was this Czech- and Prague-focused community of cultural and political leaders that pulled together financial resources from average people that resulted in the construction of the National Theater in 1881. Historian František Palacký had been in the center of the symbolic laying of the cornerstone of that theater in 1868, while historian and eventual Czechoslovak president Tomáš Masaryk offered political blessings to this cultural effort in the second half of the nineteenth century. However, by the early part of the twentieth century, the boundary within which that early community of Czech-focused cultural and political leaders lived and worked began to undergo transformation. Czech artists such as Mucha had traveled west into other parts of Europe, and they returned with an international emphasis. Impressionism and symbolism in painting both began to matter and pulled many cultural and political figures across the

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border that confined the list of their concerns to “Czechness” and into a world that beckoned toward a more European or international outlook. Combining the worlds of music and politics, it is possible to identify yet another boundary that separated the greatness of the pre-1620 Czech past with the much more restricted reality of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Both musical composers and political figures began to remind the Czech audience of the heroic figures and accomplishments of the Czech past. These events all had taken place on the other side of a boundary that the 1620 defeat at White Mountain represented. Key historical giants included the mythical Libuše, the real Svatý Václav (St. Wenceslaus), the fourteenthcentury giant Charles IV, the catalytic fifteenth-century Hussite religious rebel and martyr Jan Hus, and the Hussite general Jan Žižka, who won the Battle of Vitkov Hill. Political leaders after the 1848 revolution evoked the names of these leaders and their heroic accomplishments to stir the fires of Czech nationalism at a dismal time. Further, Smetana composed his opera Libuše to be the first production in the National Theater in 1881. Josef Suk composed his Meditation on an Old Czech Hymn “St. Wenceslas” in the year of the outbreak of the Great War. Charles IV occupies a special place in Libuše’s vision at the end of the opera with the same name, while Smetana’s Má vlast commemorates the Hussite achievements and victories in its last two sections. Thus, the memory of events that occurred on the other side of the boundary of 1620 served to create enthusiasm and energy on the newer side of the boundary. ANALYSIS OF KEY HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL EVENTS Preparing to Cross the Boundary, 1881–1895 In the period immediately following the construction of the National Theater, Czech concerns focused on creation of separate institutions and rights for their ethnic group, often as a balance to primarily German entities. For example, in 1882 Charles-Ferdinand University was split into two units, one Czech and one German. This paralleled the earlier separation into two units of Prague Technical University (1868–1869). As the Young Czechs, formed in 1874, emerged with more nationalistic demands than the Old Czechs, they took the decisive step, in 1888, of founding a separate club in the Reichsrat for their deputies. They went even further in 1891, with their request that Vienna accord them the same kind of special status that Hungary had enjoyed since 1867. Their demand centered on creation of a “special constitutional unit” (Cibulka et al. 2009, 339–44).

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Parallel to these developments was an increasingly strong Czech role in the Bohemian Diet. The reforms of 1885 enabled creation of a permanent Czech majority in the legislature. By lowering the tax qualification in towns and rural curiae to five gulden more Czechs were able to vote. Since the German proportion of the Bohemian population at that time was only 37 percent and its percentage of the Moravian population was just 29 percent, Czechs after that reform had a natural advantage. After that decision, the key question became what the balance in the diet would be between Old Czechs and Young Czechs. For example, there was a sharp difference in that ratio between the elections of 1889 and 1891. In the former year, Young Czechs won 39 seats to 58 for the Old Czechs. However, a bare two years later the table turned, and Young Czechs won 37 to only 2 for the Old Czechs. Changes in the language laws reinforced this picture of steady gains for the Czechs in their homeland areas. Prior to 1880 German had been both the external and internal service language in Bohemia and Moravia. As the internal service language, persons communicating within their own office and with other offices exclusively utilized the German language. However, the Streymayer language decrees of 1880 elevated Czech into the official external service language. In the face of German resistance, a decade later official talks took place in Vienna about modifications to the earlier decrees. As a result, German had to be used in both internal and external communications within communities in which the population was primarily German. Obviously, the pendulum was swinging back and forth in a period in which both ethnic groups were jockeying for position. In addition, symbolic, new, primarily Czech-based organizations and institutions emerged in the period and fleshed out the picture of increasing Czech power and self-consciousness. The Workers’ Cooperative organizations that had been formed in the late 1860s finally had an impact in a series of reforms in 1885–1887. Prime Minister Taafe sponsored legislation that reduced the hours of the workday, declared Sunday to be a day of rest, and ruled that children under 12 years of age were not eligible to work. During the second half of the 1880s, Czechs built their National Museum in Prague, and this became a second symbol of national pride, as had the erection of the National Theater a decade earlier. The blossoming of the Progressive Movement in 1887, a group that splintered off from the Young Czechs, led to creation of two new non-Germanic institutions. In 1891–1892, that movement set up the Moravian People’s Party, and the party in turn founded a newspaper, Lidové noviny. Both of these offered microphones that could articulate nationalist projects and goals (Agnew 2004, 137–47). In addition to the explosion of political expressions that offered Czechs opportunities to increase their political leverage, cultural manifestations of Czechness expanded considerably during this period. Because so many

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Czechs had lived in rural areas at the time, compositions of Dvořák, Smetana, and Janáček often included folksongs and folk dances. Janáček went a step further by incorporating the “melody of the Czech language” into his music and thereby linked the rhythm of the Czech language to musical melodies (Sayer 1998, 122). In at least one illustration, architecture contributed to the forging of a Czech national consciousness. In 1881, the city of Žižkov became an independent city, and Vitkov Mountain was within its borders. That was the location of the famous victory of the Hussites in 1421 under General Jan Žižka. The city planners named many of the streets after great figures from the Czech past, and thus the urban areas became a “storehouse of symbols of collective history” (Sayer 1998, 133). Further, famous battlefields also served as a fountain of reminders to nineteenth-century Czechs of what might give them an extra ingredient of pride. The battles that received the most attention in that respect included Moravian Field (1278), at which Přemysl II died; Lipany (1434), which was the last of the great Hussite battles; and White Mountain (1620), which led to nearly three centuries of Austrian rule (Kosatík 2010, 99–100). Construction of monuments also contributed to the strengthening of Czech national feeling. In 1889, the initial proposal for a monument to fifteenthcentury martyr Jan Hus created controversy over location. Early plans were to locate a plaque dedicated to Hus near the entrance to the National Museum. While German leaders condemned the Hussites as bandits, Young Czechs maneuvered to build the monument anyway. For the latter, the current battle against their Catholic overlord in Vienna approximated the much earlier struggle of the Hussites against the Catholics in Rome. Eventually, Czechs formed a club that built a full monument to Hus at a different location in Prague (Paces 2009, 17–25). Interestingly, the poet Jaroslav Vrchlický wrote The Ballad of Blaník in 1885. He incorporated the old Czech legend in which the Hussite Army slept in the famous mountain with Saint Wenceslas at its head. In his poem the Czech soldiers would sleep forever, and eventually their swords would turn into plowshares. Smetana’s early use of the legend for his music, and Fibich’s use in a composition as well, depict the warriors as awakening and then marching into battle (Bažant et al. 2010e, 210). Thus, the heroic Czech tradition offered two opposite pictures and sources of inspiration. The one pointed to the basic requisites for building the economic basis of the nation, while the second suggested that force and energy would be necessities as well. Behind both images loomed the massive mountain with two heroic figures from the Czech past lodged within. As the music celebrates their mighty role in the past, Czechs could imagine crossing a number of borders into a new century and possibly into a transformed political condition.

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Crossing the Boundary, 1895–1901 During this later period, use of the Czech language again became a touchstone of conflict. Badeni became prime minister in Vienna in 1895, and two years later, in April 1897, the storm clouds began to circle. He issued his famous Badeni Decrees to assuage Czech nationalist ambitions. Those reforms extended the Streymayer changes of 1880 in a significant way. Whereas the former had permitted Czech to be used as an external service language, the new policies permitted it to be used in internal office dealings as well. That would mean a significant change in the job requirements of German bureaucrats and judges. Even those working in primarily German ethnic areas would need to learn Czech to continue on in their positions (Cibulka et al., 2009 345). The impact on the cabinet-level bureaucracies was enormous, as the new requirements expanded the dual language rule to three more ministries. The target date for the conversion was also not a remote one but actually only four years away, for employees would need to be prepared to work in both languages by July 1, 1901. Reactions by Germans were again principally negative, and the new reforms came to an abrupt halt with the resignation of Badeni at the end of the year (Agnew 2004, 149). Cultural developments paralleled those in the political sphere. For example, Masaryk published Česká otázka in 1895. Whereas mid-nineteenthcentury studies of history had linked the Czech revival to its Catholic roots, Masaryk sought to anchor it in a “non-Catholic conception of Czech history.” In the book he endeavored to anchor Czech nationalism in a “humanistic tradition” based on the contributions of Jan Hus and Protestantism (Bažant et. al. 2010d, 197–98). Another symbolic step toward celebration of uniquely Czech traditions took place in 1903 with the festivities connected with the laying of the foundation stone for a Jan Hus monument in Old Town Square. In connection with that event, there were several indicative theatrical performances. At the National Theater Jirásek premiered his play Jan Žižka, a testimonial to the Hussite general who led troops to victory in 1421 (Sayer 1998, 139). Table 3.1 Czech Political Party Formation, 1897–1906 (Agnew, 150–151) Political Party Radical Progressive Party Czech National Socialist Party State Rights Radical Party Christian Social Party Agrarian Party Czech People’s Party Czech Progressive Party

           Year of Formation 1897 1898 1899 1899 1899–1905 1900 1900–1906

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In addition, there was a recitation in the same location of Svatopluk Czech’s “Hus.” While in earlier decades of the century there was unanimity in such celebrations, by 1903 there existed “differing constituencies” that possessed contrasting viewpoints about the meaning of Hus in Czech history (Paces 2009, 31–36). The unity that existed at the time of the laying of the cornerstone for the National Theater in 1868 was glaringly absent. Within the decade a number of musical compositions, in addition to the ones formally analyzed below, reinforced the deepened and more settled sense of Czechness that characterized those years. For example, Karel Kovařovic composed the opera Dogheads to commemorate the Chods who had protected the western Bohemian border in early centuries. The opera commemorates their 1692–1693 uprising when German overlords imposed new taxes that they had previously not required, in deference to the contribution made by the Czech Chods to border security (Sayer 1998, 131–32). Since the Habsburgs had basically taken away their special privileges after the Battle of White Mountain in 1620, the opera was one more reminder of Czech resistance to rule by outsiders and willingness to stand up for their own people and traditions. ANALYSIS OF KEY MUSICAL WORKS Orchestral music and operas by Czech composers in the period 1881 to 1901—including not only symphonies and symphonic poems but also orchestral overtures—can help us delineate a Czech national style, or discourse, in the period from 1881 to 1901. Influential examples cannot be overlooked in the broader history, especially with respect to compositions from the period 1870–1881: for example, Smetana’s monumental six-movement work Má vlast (the 1870s [one extended work composed of six symphonic poems]) and even some important projects in the 1860s. Smetana’s opera Dalibor—a three-act drama from the 1860s—includes striking instrumental passages, often extended instrumental mini-compositions of great inventiveness used for different purposes. The ceremonial instrumental music designed to introduce the rule, Vladislav is particularly noteworthy: here the composer invents a new category of “Czech music”—stately music evocative of the regal world of a Czech ruler. Any study of this broader history leads inevitably to Bedřich Smetana, a pivotal figure who brings us face-to-face with a central issue in the period 1870–1900: how to translate Czech national stylistic elements into music that would have broad appeal. Scholar Jim Samson places Smetana in the context of nineteenth-century debates about nationalist art:

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It was the aim of Bedřich Smetana (1824–84) to create a modern Czech music— and both adjectives here are of equal importance. Significantly it was in the 1860s, when he finally settled in Prague following extended exposure to the radical ideas of the Liszt circle in Weimar, that this aim was fully realized. Like Chopin, Liszt and Balakirev, Smetana committed himself to an alliance between national images and symbols on the one hand and progressive European music on the other. (Samson 1991, 229)

A brief consideration of orchestral works will help delineate approaches taken by composers to the construction of a “national” style within Czech culture between 1881 and 1901. Hussite Overture (Husitská dramaticá ouvertura), by Antonín Dvořák, 1883 Even a brief consideration of Dvořák’s Hussite Overture of 1883 sheds light on important features of this work which brings together old and new themes and compositional techniques. While Dvořák works, as did Smetana, creatively with the Hussite Chorale, he devises a compositional strategy which moves in a number of different directions and which highlights but does not focus so intensively on the venerable chorale. It is not difficult to understand why the composer would turn to the Hussite chorale. František Adolf Šubert asked the composer to write music for a theatrical project based on the history of the Hussite period, intended for the opening of the National Theater in Prague. Dvořák composed the score between August 9 and September 9, 1883, and the overture, titled Husitská, was first performed at the National Theater in November of that year (but not in conjunction with the play, which remained unfinished). If the Hussite chorale appears, and appears prominently, within the 14-minute overture, it nevertheless plays a role within a structure that depends on a network of important themes which includes not only the Hussite chorale but also the St. Wenceslas chorale—another pre-existent theme—together with notable themes marked with the Dvořák stamp (Kurt Honolka delineates the positions articulated by listeners and critics concerning Dvořák’s decision to employ both of the chorales in one composition [54–55]). If the form of the overture pays homage to the principles of sonata form (that is, as comprising, in the view of numerous critics, a 4-minute slow introduction and a 10-minute sonata-form unit), the structure readily suggests, through the extensive use of thematic transformation, something that might aptly be called a fantasy. Within the slow introduction the composer concentrates his attention on an opening noble chorale-like theme and on motives taken from the Hussite chorale (opening phrases) and the St. Wenceslas chorale (interior phrases), giving pride of place to a majestic

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transformation of the noble chorale-like theme at the close. In the allegro con brio unit (the last ten minutes of the overture), the composer weaves motives from an expanded thematic statement of the Hussite chorale into a rich thematic tapestry that includes phrases of the St. Wenceslas chorale and new themes, as well. In the allegro con brio, the composer reveals new aspects of the wide range of materials in play—even exploring a dance-like version of the Hussite chorale—before rearticulating the long-lost noble chorale-like theme near the conclusion of the overture as a triumphant moment within the overall fantasy. Thus, the overture stands as a broad and ambitious musical structure capitalizing on but not limiting itself to pre-existent chorale tunes— a structure which presents a rich and varied picture of the Czech national character (one critic, Paul Stefan, described the opening noble chorale-like theme, which is, in essence, a broad four-phrase hymn, as a “National Hymn,” in his commentary [Stefan 1941, 123]). It is appropriate to underline the inventiveness that distinguishes this movement that brings new definition, so to speak, to the category of Czech national music. Indeed, Šourek, in his notes to the critical edition, provides a reliable summary of the composer’s project and achievement: “Dvořák conceived this overture, from the point of view of both content and structure, entirely according to his own ideas” (Šourek 1957). Libuše, Opera by Smetana Smetana’s opera, Libuše composed in the early 1870s, was performed for the first time on the occasion of the opening of the National Theater in 1881. Frequently described as a companion piece to Má vlast, the opera was, of course, completed prior to the cycle of symphonic poems. When completed, Libuše stood as the most complex statement on national culture that the composer had yet devised. Libuše, as a work, stretched the definition of opera that Smetana had developed up to that point. The text, in German, was prepared in 1866, and the Czech translation was completed in 1868. Smetana finished the full score in November of 1872. One critic described the libretto as “distinguished by an unusual monumentality, by a special degree of rather archaic pathos” (Očadlík 1983, 4). The composer regarded Libuše as manifestly Czech art: “They [critics] consider Libuše to be ordinary, commonplace, even tedious; but I believe it to be the highest peak in the expression of Czech music” (Large 1970, 215 [statement dating from 1880]). For Smetana the opera was, in fact, his second project based on the story of Libuše. He had composed an orchestral work, Libušin soud (Libuše’s Judgement), for a benefit concert held in the spring of 1869—an event to help raise funds for the completion of St. Vitus’s Cathedral (Large 1970, 211). Celebration of the mythic ninth-century queen Libuše was part of the overall cultural awakening

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of the late nineteenth century. Her marriage to the plowman Přemysl was a key event that brought stability and a new dynasty to the Czech kingdom. While the achievement of Smetana’s Libuše unquestionably rests on the foundation of the story and the dramatic treatment of the story proposed in the 1860s by librettist Josef Wenzig, it rests no less securely on the foundation of the music Smetana composed for this drama. His score goes to great lengths to depict “monumentality” in musical terms—notably Přemysl and Libuše—and to delineate states of mind, as well. Thus, Smetana composed a score that demonstrates not only “monumentality” but a determination to bring to the story of Libuše a broad range of styles that make imaginative use of the performing forces at hand. It is difficult to imagine a more expansive or stately fanfare than the one that opens Act I and that reappears during the course of the opera. Although many aspects of the score may be revealed, as critics have found, through references to individual motives, for example, that associated with Libuše, still the composer’s versatility can be more fully appreciated through study of the scene complexes he fashions. In Act II, the composer demonstrates expert control over a number of stylistic direction, in scenes 3 and 4 that focus initially on Přemysl and the workers (prior to the arrival of the entourage sent by Libuše). In scene 3 Smetana brings to life, in musical terms, the countryside dwelling-place of Přemysl (Stadic): instrumental introduction—chorus of harvesters—Přemysl’s aria—chorus; chorus—Přemysl’s aria (the notable aria beginning with “So I remain” [“Já ale zůstanu”]). Hunting horns, present but not dominant in the musical introduction, recede into the background as two clarinets provide a pastoral and folk-like musical idea which serves as the fabric out of which the chorus— admittedly ambitious in its technical facets—is woven (“Heya! Heya!”). In Přemysl’s aria Smetana follows the character’s train of thought concerning his life up to that point and his link with Libuše and hope for a union with her, all of which ultimately gives way to a reprise of the harvester’s chorus, creating a highly lyrical yet passionate musical setting. Scene 4 begins with a chorus—“the work is finished”—which clearly evokes a Czech folk-dance idiom (Tyrrell 2010 refers to the chorus as a “polka-like chorus”). Then Přemysl, “deep in thought,” sings a notable aria reflecting his contentment within the shade provided by the lime trees, conscious of the role played by his forefathers who had planted them and conscious of the powerful image that the lime trees have for his “people.” Within the confines of a gentle musical style, Smetana provides a pulsating quasi-animated musical accompaniment to Přemysl’s reflection and the composer purposefully repeats the line “Ó vy lípy, ó vy lípy” to help provide a musical counterpart to the character’s frame of mind. The structure of the libretto provided Smetana with the opportunity of delineating the character of Libuše, at least in Acts I and III. Challenged as

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she makes a ruling in Act I, Libuše resolves, in consultation with the people, to join forces with Přemysl both in ruling and in marriage. Act II focuses first on the parties who earlier challenged her ruling and second on Přemysl in his native environment (Stadice). In Act III, Libuše finds a resolution to the issues that arose in Act I: she presides over a peaceful settlement in the brothers’ conflict (“Peace is made again between the two brothers”) and she welcomes her husband when he arrives at court in Vyšehrad. Smetana brings Libuše to life in the opening scene with music that is stylistically adventurous, romantic, ardently lyrical, and progressive. Prior to the arrival of her husband, Libuše reflects, in a 14-line passage, on her own situation and on her place in history, most notably in lines 5 through 8 and 9 through 14: “Behold, venerable Krok / Who once from Vyšehrad in glory ruled / And now no longer abides in this world - / Now comes my life’s decisive moment!” O, grant me your protection, your blessing give, /May it bring happiness /To me and to my people/ For centuries, - / That no ill fate may overtake the people/Nor extinguish the light of our lucky stars!” Smetana sets lines 9 through 14 in a stable 25-measure section, rooted in C major; emphasizing, in this musical context, the tradition from which she springs; highlighting the danger imagined with a modulation to E major, and providing a solid resolution to this soliloquy with a reprise of lines 5 (referring a second time to Krok, her father), 9, 10, 11, and 12 (with added repetition of the words “for centuries . . .”). For this section, the composer settles on a hymn-like restrained musical style that complements the entreaty or prayer (lines 5–14 with emphasis on lines 9–14), offering a musical counterpart to the stability of rule that she resolves to demonstrate. The prophecy scene, scene 5, provides the climactic moment in the opera when Libuše uses her prophetic powers to point to the continued strength of the Czechs through the ages. In Kosmas’ text, Libuše revealed her prophetic powers when she provided directions to a spot in the forest which would become the future site “Praha”: “Standing on a rock on Vyšehrad in the presence of her husband and the elders of the people, and incite by the spirit of prophecy, Libuše uttered this prediction: ‘I see a town, the glory of which will reach the stars’” (Large 1970, 213). The prophecy included in Wenzig’s libretto was a revelation of the history of the Czech people in the coming centuries. In the final scene of Act III, Libuše looks outward over Prague and prophesies some of the future great periods in the city’s coming history; the prophecy contains “pictures” of six future historical epochs. All reminded late nineteenth-century Czechs of historical figures that evoked pride in the emerging social commonwealth. Picture III is particularly interesting, as it conjures up the image of the great fourteenth century king Charles IV. Since he was also the old Roman emperor, the libretto describes him as the “lord who rules from sea to sea.” Additional descriptions of him include “townbuilder,”

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“friend of the people,” and a “father.” Picture IV—Žižka, Prokop Veliký (Prokop the Great), and the Hussites—is totally different in tone as it is filled with thunder and lightning. The passage celebrates the Hussites who filled the land with “trembling and shaking” (Smetana, Libuše, 1881) with reference to three related ideas. First, the Hussites, despite all threats and all “trembling,” remain “firm.” Second, they succeed in defeating the people’s enemies. Third, they provide an inspirational model: “In them the flame of sacred vengeance burns, / Both life and death they bring to the whole world!” Pictures V and VI, although separate tableaux vivants, work closely together to underscore the final message of the opera. Picture V, in the initial six lines of the text, celebrates George of Poděbrady. Text lines 7 through 11 focus on Libuše reporting, for the moment, on the prophecy process and the possibility of “curses” or threats that might arise before delivering the well-known lines: “this much I feel and know in the depths of my heart: / My dear Czech people shall never perish, /They all hell’s horrors will ever resist!” Picture VI—“The royal castle in Prague in a magic illumination”—consists of the assembled forces repeating the last two lines delivered by Libuše culminating in the final utterance “Sláva! Sláva!” or “Glory! Glory!” In the preamble, or transition, Libuše invokes the gods, explaining that the gods themselves seem to lead her to speak to the Czech people of the future and, in particular, of the “lovely days” to be found ahead, guiding the harmonic motion to the ultimate key of resolution of the opera, D major, on the line that includes the words “lovely days in the future.” The composer devises both highly stable musical styles and highly unstable, generally chromatic styles to carry out the literary motives found in the pictures (with maximum instability in Pictures II and IV). The stylistic arc includes the “antique” possibly folk-like idiom found in Picture I, on the one hand, and the blatantly triumphant style that brings the series of pictures and prophecies to a close, on the other hand. Smetana relies on a pre-composed chorale tune, “Kdož jste Boží bojovníci” (the “Hussite Chorale”), in Picture IV and he recomposes that chorale in the course of Pictures V and VI. Surely, all in the audience in the premier performance heard in the background to Picture IV the famous Hussite hymn “Ye Who Are God’s Warriors.” In fact, Smetana presents hints and previews of the opening phrase of that chorale in association with lines one through seven of the text in the context of a passage that is full of vigor and fortitude before presenting, in an orchestral interlude, the entire chorale—all three phrases—prior to the text lines [8 through 11] which celebrate the Hussites as successful combatants and as an inspirational model. Smetana presents a second complete version of the chorale during the singing of those five lines of text bringing to a close the remembrance found in Picture VI of the Hussites as a force within Czech history. In the final picture, Libuše, together with the chorus, delivers some of the most stirring and memorable

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words in the opera: “Czech people shall never perish, they all hell’s horrors will ever resist! Glory! Glory!” Smetana in Pictures V and VI transforms the Hussite chorale into a more modern march-like “song,” so to speak, all rooted in the key of D major. Šárka, Opera by Fibich (1897) A noted composer in the period 1870 to 1900, Fibich completed 10 operas and three melodramas in the final 30 years of his life. In one obituary notice, Fibich was coupled with Dvořák as “the most eminent of our contemporary composers” (Smaczny 1982–1983, 119 [quoting text published in 1900]). Although he had become known as a “Wagnerian” composer, Fibich had, in fact, created an opera titled Blaník (1874–1877). If the composer made an oblique reference in that opera to the St. Wenceslas Chorale, he remained at some distance from what might be called “national” musical material. “As a composer of opera Fibich stood aside from his Czech contemporaries in his deliberate avoidance of folk-oriented material and his compulsive interest in theatrical experiment” (Smaczny 1982–1983, 119). For Fibich, the Šárka project was of great importance; by one account he intended, he declared, to compose “a true national opera, which will consolidate my place as a Czech composer” (Sayer 1998, 290 [quoting text published by L. Šíp in 1883]). Spurred on by the announcement by the National Theater Association for a competition that would result in a Czech work—“materials must be taken from Czech life” (Kopecký 2009, 40)—Fibich and his librettist Schulzová created the opera Šárka, which was, at its first performance, considered a success. (The first prize in that competition went to Kovařovic for his work in Psohlavci [The Dogheads].) Appearing almost two decades after Libuše, the Fibich opera focuses on a battle for the right to rule in the years during which Přemysl functions as the ruler (after the death of his wife, Libuše). Přemysl has decided to split in half the political role for women symbolized in the role of his wife, Libuše. In Šárka’s account, when the signal was given after the death of Libuše, by horns, for the council to assemble, men “barred the entrance” to women. Šárka decides to organize the women to regain their rights, and a monumental battle ensues. Her love for Ctirad ends up placing her in the middle of the battle, and a former ally, Vlasta, eventually calls for the death of both lovers. Ironically, it is Šárka who, in the final act of the opera, signals the men to enter the battle. Unable to reconcile, in the ensuing battle, the conflict between her love for Ctirad and her solidarity with her female warrior colleagues, she jumps to her death from the rocks (Fibich, Šárka, 1897). Central to the drama are sets of competing claims: rival claims about the right to rule and competing claims—among the women—about how to regain their rights.

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Thus, when Šárka declares, in Act I, that Ctirad will pay with his “life,” for what she interprets as an insult, Vlasta instantly proclaims that only through combat—and not through murder—will the women regain their rights. The opera, to most critics, was Czech by virtue of its dramatic material. And yet, the overall effect owes a great deal to the music. The composer designs a musical score characterized by networks of motivic, thematic, and motivic/harmonic ideas that can be transformed and combined to underline developments in the drama: he presents a score full of imaginative musical ideas that might be allied with individual characters or with groups (for example, the women’s choruses in Act I, scene 1). As Fibich devises a malleable musical language with variegated stylistic tendencies (march-like themes, hymn-like themes, “operatic” themes, set pieces as ABA arias, the inclusion of one folksong from the sixteenth century), he demonstrates a convincing way of blending Czech and internationalist styles within a fairly unified musical discourse. The Dogheads, Opera by Kovařovic Alois Jirásek wrote this story about the Chod rebellion in 1883–1884, and it celebrated the peasant uprising in Domažlice in 1692–1693. The Chods had special rights and privileges that various Czech kings granted to them. They had earned these rights through their protection of the border leading to Bavaria and through their military service to the kings. After the Battle of White Mountain in 1620, the imperial commissioner took away many of those rights, and the result was a rebellion by the Chods at the end of the century. Jirásek wrote the novel only after conducting research on the site and on the “customs, costumes, and dialect” so that he would be in a strong position to relate the historical incident with “greater realism and fidelity” (Sayer 1998, 132). The novel found a devoted readership and by 1921 it was in its twentieth edition (Sayer 1998, 133). The Chod people possessed documents that spelled out their rights, and, consequently, the dramatic structure of the opera, a reflection of the social contract, actually focuses on legal rights. The Kovařovic opera The Dogheads is based upon the novel. It premiered in 1898, after it had won a National Theater competition (Sayer 1998, 131– 32). The opera, although judged old-fashioned by the critic Nejedlý, found favor with operagoers. Kovařovic, whose works showed influences from both Czech musical traditions and French operatic traditions, composed a score which displayed obvious traits of Czechness (for example, the opening song in Act I) and obvious traits of French style, as well (and he highlighted the French-style-oriented aristocratic component with the use of the period keyboard instrument in the seventeenth century, the harpsichord, at the beginning of Act II).

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Komenský (Op. 34 [overture {incorporates a hymn from the Komenský Kancionál}]), by Zdeněk Fibich In 1892 Prague celebrated the three hundredth anniversary of the birth of John Amos Comenius—Jan Ámos Komenský (1592–1670): “Although Comenius, as a member of the Bohemian Brethren, was expelled in permanent exile (in Poland, Germany, England, Hungary, Sweden, and the Netherlands), he was and is still today celebrated in the Czech lands, alongside Jan Hus, as one of the towering figures of the nation’s history” (Bradford Robinson 2005, preface). Comenius’s many publications included a number of volumes of hymns—in German or in Czech—published around 1660. A new edition of the hymnal of the Bohemian Brethren, earlier issued in 1618, appeared in 1659 (Amsterdam): Kancionál, to jest kniha žalmů a písní duchovních (606 texts and 406 tunes) (Kouba, “Komenský”). Fibich composed a musical structure that incorporates one of the chorales printed in 1659 within a broader framework. Both the chorale itself and the function of that chorale within the overture deserve comment here. The chorale used by Fibich, as found in the 1992 edition of the collection, is “Studně ne převážená všech božských milostí  .  .  .” (“K Bohu duchu svatému o tři hlavní ctnosti”) as found on pages 138–139 of the 1992 print. The musical phrase structure of the chorale in the hymnal might be described as “a b a b c d e f” (Fibich’s version might be described as “a b c d e f” [6 phrases in all]). In his preface to the 2005 edition of the overture, Bradford Robinson states that the chorale found in the overture is the introductory chorale from the 1659 print. In his commentary on the overture, Robinson makes reference to statements by John Tyrrell on the role played by the chorale in the structure of the overture which, in the quoted lines, identifies the chorale in question as the “introductory” chorale in the collection. In fact, the opening three pitches in the chorale theme found in Fibich’s work bear some relation to the opening three pitches in the introductory chorale; still the chorale theme itself does not resemble the introductory chorale. All pitches—within the six-phrase unit—in Fibich’s chorale reproduce the pitches found in the chorale printed on pages 138 and 139. John Tyrrell and Judith Mabary draw our attention to the inventive opening portion of the overture in which Fibich presents the chorale phrases in the context of orchestral decorative phrases—in mm. 14–27—providing important material (in both layers of the texture) that will be developed and transformed in the remainder of the compositions (mm. 27–435) (Tyrrell, “Zdeněk Fibich [Zdenko]”). But more could be said to account for the expansive structure that Fibich builds in this overture:

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• 1–48: D minor: introduction of important thematic materials—including the chorale phrases in order • 49–131: exposition of the overture’s two primary themes (indebted to sonata form exposition principles) • 131–235: development of materials already presented together with a prominent brass fanfare theme (144) and featuring a transformation of the chorale in mm. 165–212 • 235–313: recapitulation (roughly parallel to the exposition found in mm. 49–131) which presents the second theme in the parallel major (D major) • 313–435: final statement (D major) in which the brass fanfare theme grows in intensity and importance (the culmination found at m. 402) and in which Fibich presents for the last time, the chorale now transformed into D major (mm. 330–370) which gives way to the powerful transformation of the closing theme and the brass fanfare which together guide the overture to its triumphant conclusion The Water Goblin (Vodník) [Symphonic Poem After Erben]], by Antonín Dvořák, 1896 When Dvořák returned from New York to Prague, he designed a project that involved the composition of four symphonic poems based on the famous collection of folk ballads published by Karel Jaromír Erben, initially in 1853, titled Kytice. These compositions—The Water Goblin, The Noon Day Witch, The Golden Spinning Wheel, and The Wild Dove—he completed in 1896. (He went on to compose a fifth symphonic poem, Heroic Song, not based on an Erben ballad, in 1897.) The Erben works, often identified as “folk-tales” and occasionally as “reproductions of folk poetry” (Honolka 2004, 95), had obviously been of interest to the composer prior to 1896: in 1884 he composed “The Spectre’s Bride” to an Erben text. In Stefan’s view, the Erben ballads “take us into a world of fantasy rather than that of folk-tale” (Stefan 1941, 252). Kurt Honolka states “It is strange that Dvořák wanted to set to music the horrific and bloody stories on which these three symphonic poems are based (Honolka has in mind The Water Goblin, The Noon Day Witch, and The Golden Spinning Wheel) (Honolka 2004, 96). All critics and historians are in agreement that Dvořák succeeded in composing musical textures characterized by compelling motives. Stefan writes “He writes music with motives of a penetrating intensity and dramatic logic” (Stefan 1941, 252). But the connection between the musical motives and the text by Erben is not at all abstract. Dvořák unquestionably set about to compose musical motives that corresponded directly to individual lines in Erben’s ballad. Two important sources of information provide us with the composer’s plan for devising these

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motives. First, Dvořák, in the autograph manuscript of “The Water Goblin,” himself wrote words between clarinet and bassoon parts in mm. 127–141 from the ballad: “Ráno, raníčko panna vstala, / prádlo si v uzel zavázala” . . . (four lines in all) (“Early at dawn a maiden arose, / in a bundle she tied her clothes” . . . ). (And the composer indicated in at least one other point in the autograph manuscript a correspondence between musical phrase and Erben textual line.) Second, Dvořák revealed in a letter to Robert Hirschfeld, of Vienna, that there were many themes that should be understood in relation to aspects of the text (the first of 11 cases: “The main theme, dominating the whole symphonic poem, is that of the water goblin” [and the composer provides a four-measure musical example]) (Clapham 1975, 279). In his preface to the edited score, Jarmil Burghauser explains the compositional method in these words: “The employment of this method gave rise in ‘The Water Goblin’ to melodic phrases for a list of which see Czech preface. In all these passages, the original Czech text could be sung without almost the smallest change to the corresponding melody of Dvořák’s wonderfully expressive themes” (Burghauser 1966, xvii). Knowledgeable critics at the time saw in this compositional method—at work in instrumental music (and not vocal music)—an important and fundamentally Czech mode of expression. Honolka refers to a commentary by the composer Janáček, who heard the first performance in Brno. In this commentary Janáček discerned a connection between Dvořák’s method of devising motives and his own theory of “spoken melody” (nápěvky). “They grow freely out of the same atmosphere as folk songs” (Honolka 2004, 96). To Janáček these compositions by the older composer were the “most Czech of Dvořák’s works” (Honolka 2004, 96). Critics agree that Dvořák, following closely Erben’s stanzaic structure, cast the symphonic poem in a rondo form, with the main “A” sections focusing on the Water Goblin (the central portion of the form concerns the Water Goblin’s discussion with the maiden about her desire to leave the watery realm to visit her mother on land): A B A C A B A. The composer masterfully transforms motives to suit changing situations within the story of the ballad (a notable transformation takes place in the final A section with the storm and the catastrophe involving the Water Goblin’s visit to the cottage on land). The resulting form, closely coordinated with the balladic structure provided by Erben, provides a dramatic and highly varied set of episodes drawing away from the Water Goblin and inevitably returning to his presence and his horrific determination to bend developments to his own purposes.

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FINAL SOCIAL CONTRACT THEME In this period of the last two decades of the nineteenth century, the social contract looms large as an explanatory factor in assessing the interpenetration of the worlds of music and politics. Musical works that depicted and even celebrated mythic figures such as Libuše, Šárka, and Přemysl underlined that Bohemian authority figures had once negotiated the political arrangements that shaped the lives of the population. Celebration of the Chods’ revolt in The Dogheads emphasizes the regrettable change in that contract under the Habsburgs, who had taken over the region more than half a century earlier. Special monetary arrangements that benefited and properly rewarded the Chods for keeping watch on the border were watered down, and a revolt by them was the consequence. In the late nineteenth century major political changes took place with the emergence of a variety of Czech political parties and interest groups that pushed for more rights within the Habsburg political framework. Some of the debate centered as well on new rights that would have permitted Czechs to use their own native language in dealings with those who administered their lives. Few were dreaming of the independence that would establish a new social contract, but there were signs and tremors that forced Austrian leaders into a perpetual process of renegotiating the heavy-handed social contract that had been in evidence since 1620. Both musical expressions and political formations kept those wheels turning. CONCLUSION Nationalism still overpowered globalism in this brief two-decade conclusion to the old century, and the magnificent opening of Libuše in 1881 set the stage for glorification of “Czechness” in the immediate future. In the political world there was also evidence of this shift, particularly in the sharp decline of the Old Czechs in elective positions held and the rise of the Young Czechs in the brief two-year period between 1889 and 1991. Further, the Badeni Decrees of 1887 reinforced and extended the usage of the Czech language as an equal to German in many administrative settings of the governmental bureaucracy. All of these changes gave body to a nationalism that had inspired many leaders and citizens after the 1848 revolution, and perhaps these more concrete manifestations of it paved the way to the possibility of statehood in the next few decades. However, global forces with a power to move events in different directions were growing as well. It was not just western-based modernism that infiltrated the minds of many in Bohemia and Moravia. War clouds were developing to the east, and the 1905 Russo-Japanese War was one eventual

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result. At the same time, the Dual Monarchy was weakening its hold on many of the subject peoples, and Czechs held more power economically and politically than the other minorities in the empire. Thus, the global weakening of empires in the region heartened the budding nationalist dreams to create a positive mix for Czechs and Slovaks.

Chapter Four

Pressures from the Outside European World and the Czech Response in Politics and Music, 1901–1914

INTRODUCTION Globalism was a powerful force in the early years of the twentieth century that led up to the outbreak of World War I. Writers such as Rilke and Kafka were located in the Czech Lands but chose to write in German. Further, the “Manifesto of Czech Modernism” stressed the rights of workers which was a powerful theme of socialist movements throughout Europe. Musical works such as Toman and the Wood Nymph pulled in European influences that utilized Czech themes but anchored them in broader cultural patterns. At the same time, nationalist expressions continued to resonate through Janáček’s Moravian Folk Poetry, construction of the Wenceslaus Statue and Palacký Memorial, and maturation of political party organization. These forces kept alive the sense of Czechness that had germinated for many decades after 1848. Such a blend of nationalism and globalism prepared the leaders and people for the surprising outcomes that would emerge in the next few years. LIVING ACROSS THE BOUNDARY The boundary that separates two centuries can have psychological results that affect politics and culture together. In that sense, for Czechs the move into the twentieth century entailed retention of previous patterns and goals but modification of them and new themes as well. There had been intense nationalism in 85

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both arenas in the second half of the nineteenth century. Political parties had formed that were modern in composition, and politicians presented demands to Vienna for more autonomy and looser political controls. In music there was the blossoming of themes that reflected the glories of the Czech past and pointed to a more opportune future. During the first decade of the twentieth century, those themes did not disappear. However, articulation of political objectives became more refined in terms of achieving a balance between Czech and German political forces and representatives. Musical expression began to fuse with outside themes such as the modernism that circulated within Paris. Underpinning both the political and musical accomplishments was a profound transformation of culture from a preoccupation with Czech nationalism and toward broader European modern themes. As a result, Czech themes often yielded to more cosmopolitan ones. In the background was the prospect of a major war, and that animated both worlds with both gloom and uncertainty. LIVING ACROSS THE BOUNDARY IN POLITICS, 1901–1914 There were countless social, economic, and political changes in the Czech Lands in the first decade of the new century. The balance of industrial and agricultural sectors of the economy shifted sharply to the benefit of the former. The agricultural portion of the population was 52 percent in 1900 but only 42.5 percent in 1910. Correspondingly the industrial share rose from 33 percent to 38.4 percent. Prague benefited as more persons flowed into its environs in search of better paying jobs in the industries located there. As a consequence, there was a major wave of new building in the city. During the period 1893–1908, there was also a transformation of the face of the city through a significant series of urban renewal projects. The overall population in the region increased from 8.7 million to 10.1 million between 1890 and 1910. In Bohemia, the Czech proportion of the population was 60 percent, in Moravia 70 percent, and in Silesia 24 percent. The economic symbols of modernity also became evident in the traditional area labeled as the Czech Lands. With the advent of automobiles, the government wrote the first traffic regulations in 1905, and by 1911 there were 2,000 cars and 4,000 motorcycles in that geographic space. Further, by 1914 the area included 290 electrical generating plants as well as 200 telephone exchanges. Another matter of note was the proportion of schools in which Czech was the official language of teaching and discourse, and that percentage approximated the Czech proportion of the population by 2012 (Agnew 2004, 155–59). All these socio-economic changes benefited and strengthened the position of Czechs

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within the Czech Lands and prepared them for the deeper transitions to come during and after the war. In the political universe, party formation was an important indicator of political development as well as responsiveness to changes that would characterize the twentieth century. After 1891, the Young Czechs put together an informal coalition to capitalize on the growing earlier gains made in the direction of nationalist feeling and solidarity. Some of those groups included defectors from the Old Czechs, Realists who became part of the Masaryk effort to make the 1860s and 1870s national feeling more practical and programmatic, petty bourgeois elements that had flowered with the industrial progress made, workers who had accepted jobs in the new industrial settings, and students who had acquired radical ideas as Marxist philosophy flowered. However, the coalition was unsteady and unraveled during the next 15 years. Progressive elements broke away and joined the new Social Democratic Movement that possessed a more coherent and ideological framework. The occurrence of the 1905 revolution in Russia may have had the result of radicalizing some of these movements. Very importantly, by 1905 a broad-based agrarian party that included representatives from Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia emerged. It bore the name Agrarian Party of the Bohemian Crownlands, was much broader than its narrower Czech forerunner, and benefited from the leadership of Antonín Švehla (Agnew 2004, 147–53). The Czechs made political progress as well in terms of becoming a counterbalance to German groups. During the 1901 elections to the Reichsrat, results justified the addition of two Young Czechs who served in succession as ministers for Czech affairs within Austrian prime minister Ernst von Koerber’s cabinet (Agnew 2004, 152). It was of critical importance in Moravia that a Moravian pact or compromise was signed in 1905, and that agreement was both accepted by the Moravian Diet and instrumental in clarifying political conditions to a greater degree. Czechs and Germans each received a fixed number of seats in that diet, and the result was that 73 Czechs and 40 Germans became members in that official representative body. Further, for Czech and German majority districts, the official language that held sway depended on the majority of the population within the district (Taylor 1948, 214). The significance of this agreement lay in the fact that national identity became the key determinant of representation within the legislature. An important reform passed the Reichsrat in January 1907, and its impact was great on the Czech Lands. There were 516 seats in the new legislature, and all males over the age of 24 had the right to vote. There were 194 of those seats reserved for Czechs, and 108 of those were in Czech majority districts. In terms of geographic breakdown, 130 seats were in Bohemia, 49 in Moravia, and 15 in Silesia. Additional goals that would have multiplied Czech influence included creation of a Czech university for Moravia and

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streamlining more Czech influence into the bureaucracies of the Bohemian Crownlands (Agnew 2004, 153). Elections for the Reichsrat in 1907 and 1911 were significant in advancing Czech aspirations for a stronger role in the Austrian superstructure. In both years the Czech Agrarians won the most seats, with 28 out of 108 in 1907 and 40 out of 108 in 1911 (Nosek 1926, 181). However, the popular vote for the Social Democrats was much higher in both years, at 38.1 percent for Social Democrats to 19.65 percent for the Agrarians in 1907, and then 35.3 percent for the Social Democrats to 24 percent for the Agrarians in 1911 (Agnew 2004, 154; Cibulka et al. 2009, 347). Obviously, considerable gerrymandering had taken place, based on the fact that agriculture had been the main anchor of Czech economic strength but was yielding rapidly to the reality that the region had advanced considerably into the Industrial Age. The 1907 elections were the first ones in which universal suffrage was characteristic of the voting process, and they also were the ones in which the decline of the Young Czechs was most obvious, as they won only 11.3 percent of the vote (Sayer 1998, 160). It was a sharp change from their popularity in the late 1880s and early 1890s, but their loss also reflected the deeper societal changes that had taken place since the explosion of nationalism right after the 1848 revolutions. In the year 1908, a significant event marked the transition into the new century. First, there was a proposal that misfired but indicated Austrian willingness to work with Czech demands and nationalism. Austro-Hungarian prime minister Bienerth proposed to protect both Czech and German interests by setting up ministers without portfolio for both ethnic groups. This was an important symbol of determination to extend the principle of representativeness, but it collapsed in the fear that Bohemian Czechs would receive too much protection (Taylor 1970, 238). The Bohemian Diet itself held elections in 1908, and the result was that Czechs moved into a position of dominance. Unsurprisingly, the Germans were very resistant, and they generated the St. Anne’s Patents in 1912 that ended up dissolving the Bohemian Diet (Agnew 2004, 153–54). Clearly, as the immediate pre-war era ended, Czechs were putting pressure on Vienna, but the empire was irresolute and resolved on digging its heels into preserving the heritage and political controls of the past. Politics intruded into some decisions regarding the building of significant historical monuments. For example, in 1911, the effort to construct a Jan Hus statue on Old Town Square met resistance from the State’s Rights Progressive Party. The occasion for their resistance was the emplacement of an initial plaster model on that location in that year. Their leaders argued that location on that square was justified merely by the presence of the Marian Column on the same square. Establishing a balance or even revenge for that Catholic-based memorial was the overriding rationale for erection of the

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Protestant-based Jan Hus replica. In the view of that party, revenge was not a good reason for the decision on location of another important historical replica (Paces 2009, 52–53). There were also political motivations behind the planning of the Wenceslas statue on the square that also bore his name, in the 1891–1912 time frame. Artists debated whether to use a traditional historicist approach as opposed to utilization of the newer secessionist approach. While the former was in tune with the nationalist pride of earlier decades, the latter was part of the modernist movement that pointed toward contrasting perceptions and depictions in the new century that was being born. Importantly, the statue was to be a “symbol for the legitimacy of a Bohemian nation,” within which the memory of tenth-century Wenceslas would be a prominent starting point. Planners of the monument chose Josef Václav Myslbek as the sculptor, and he opted for the more traditional historicist approach (Paces 2004, 57–62). Thereby, the dream of creating a nation out of the Czech Lands took precedence over the drives connected with the modernist movement that was sweeping Europe at the time. THE BOUNDARY AND CULTURAL EVENTS Czech literature underwent a significant transformation in the late nineteenth century. Younger writers accomplished a “literary revolution” that commenced in the core years of 1894–1896. The writers emphasized a “faith in the future” rather than the heavy emphasis on tradition of the previous three decades. There was openness to literary movements and traditions flowing in from other countries rather than the exclusive focus on Czech traditions and nationalism. In addition, there was a common understanding that literature should serve “current goals of social reform and political rebirth” rather than the more restricted focus of the Realist School (Novák 1986, 255–57). Outstanding representatives of the new movement included such renowned writers as Franz Kafka and Rainer Maria Rilke, both of whom wrote in the German language, although Prague culture was their social base (Agnew 2004, 158). For example, Kafka’s uncompleted story “Description of a Struggle” (1904–1909) manifested the author’s transition from a narrow Prague author to a “universal modernist.” Unlike the earlier nationalist authors, he portrayed the golden city as a location of continuing struggle rather than a glorious illustration of Czech identity. The city, for him, was no longer a “recognizable setting” but a “space of alienation and difference” (Thomas 2010, 85–87). Such perceptions and conclusions offered a clear departure from the effort of earlier writers to pave the way to Czech identity through exclusive glorification of the distant past of the Czech Lands.

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Other writers such as Karel Hlaváček de-emphasized the laudatory nationalism of the recent past. In his “Late towards Morning,” he gave expression to the new Czech decadence movement and stressed the “harmonies of the deepest minor chords” rather than major chords that trumpeted the high achievements of earlier Czech figures and leaders. In contrast to writers such as Svatopluk Czech, who wrote about the rising sun that led to remembrance of earlier accomplishments, Hlaváček described how the “moon came up against its will.” The atmosphere was somber, while the expression of moods came through the vehicle of “glass flutes,” “the inherited viola,” and the “deepest tones of the French horn” (Hlaváček 2010, 214–15). The future was clearly a troubling question rather than a clear answer. Some literary figures such as Alois Jirásek emphasized groups such as the Jews that the earlier nationalist movement had ignored. In his “Golem,” he portrayed Rabbi Lőw, who invited King Rudolf II to his home in a successful effort to prevent the deportation of Jews. The rabbi created a servant, Golem, who worked hard all week with a plug in his mouth but who became a statute on the Sabbath when his master took the plug out. After causing damage with the plug still in and unaccountably left at home alone, the rabbi stored his clay statue in the attic (Jirásek 2010, 219–22). However, the Jewish cemetery remained, and thus Golem and his Jewish brothers and sisters became a permanent part of the Czech imagination. The base of the Czech nation was broader and more prepared for the modernist movements that characterized the early twentieth century. At the turn of the century, Art Nouveau was capturing more followers in the Czech Lands, and this pattern affected the construction of several key buildings in Prague to include the new railway station and the Municipal House (Agnew 2004, 159). Exhibitions of new types of art both affected Czech perceptions and developed the Czech consciousness to a greater degree. For example, the Edvard Munch exhibition opened in Prague in 1905, and Czechs were fascinated to see what the avant-garde world of painting now looked like (Cibulka et al., 367). Three years earlier, the Rodin exhibition had a similar impact. Then, in 1907 a group of painters called “The Eight” set up an exhibition in Prague. This resulted in “the eruption of the modern international currents of fauvism, expressionism, and cubism into Czech cultural life” (Sayer 1998, 157). The two organizers of “The Eight” were Bohumil Kubišta and Emil Filla, and the 1905 Munch retrospective had been their inspiration. The focus of the group was to portray “psychologically charged subjects” as a part of the modernist thrust (Czech Modernism 1989, 42). To a certain extent, this awareness pulled Czechs away from a narrow preoccupation with Czech self-assertion, as many were tempted to link up instead with cultural currents circulating in parts of Europe farther west.

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After 1910, these modernist patterns became even more pronounced. They added content and flavor to the 1913 Skupina exhibition in Prague as well as the 1914 Survey of Modern Art. The Czech Futurist Manifesto of 1913 was appropriately entitled “Opened Windows,” and through them citizens could view many of the new works of art and themes. In no uncertain terms, the manifesto called for death to folklore and Moravian-Slovak embroidery, hallmarks of the earlier celebration of nationalism. Even earlier, the first Prague international auto excursion of 1904 was connected with these emerging topics, and for some it constituted a departure from the “Generation of the National Theater” (Sayer 1998, 158). It was also significant that the artist Alfons Mucha returned to Prague in 1910. In that year he painted a ceiling entitled “Slavonic Concord” for the newly opened Obecní dům (Sayer 1998, 150). In a sense, he tried to merge the traditional and modern cultural patterns. This is revealed in the fact that ten of the paintings in 1910 were on Czech themes and 10 on wider Slavic themes. His earlier work had also incorporated both themes. For instance, in 1902, he and Jan Dědina completed illustrations for a book by PoggioBraccolini entitled Jan Hus Before the Council of Konstanz. This work was in keeping with the Czech nationalist themes of earlier decades. In the same year, he drew posters for agricultural-industrial exhibitions. Like earlier painters, he included peasant girls in national costumes as well as halos on a Moravian eagle and also on a Czech lion. However, his 1907 poster for the Slavia Insurance Company incorporated a different style. Slavia symbolized the broader Slavic world, and the ring that he painted on her finger may have stood for Slav unity (Sayer 1998, 148–53). International conferences reflected similar themes of depicting the broader Slavic world and the role of Czechs within it. For example, in 1908 there was a significant Neo-Slavic congress held in Prague that consisted of a major economic exhibition. Two years later there would be another such meeting in Sofia, Bulgaria. In the years just prior to the outbreak of war, Czech monuments again received attention. In the year 1912, the replacement monument for the Wenceslas statue was completed and the Palacký memorial finished as well. As mentioned above, the former was done in the traditional style. However, the second bore the hallmarks of modernism. The sculptor was Stanislav Sucharda, who was president of the Mánes Association, whose artists used newer ahistorical symbols in imaginative ways to represent nationalist figures. In that way, he was able to present his interpretation of the “innermost essence” of the great Czech historical figure. Utilizing the modern secessionist approach, he attempted to connect the people who were viewing the statue with previous eras of Czech history (Paces 2009, 62–65). In 1913, Czechs held a competition for a Žižkov statue, a project that would not be completed

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for another four decades. Although no decision emerged about the identity of the sculptor, many of the submissions expressed radical, Cubist, and French styles (Paces 2009, 70–72). Clearly, those who created these monuments were wrestling with the challenge of how to make such hallowed figures from the Czech past come alive to an early twentieth-century audience. Sculptors also made an effort to include figures that may not have had central roles in the great eras of the Czech past. For example, in 1908–1911, they included in the New Town Hall a statue to the aforementioned Rabbi Lőw. In a sense, they accorded him the kind of respect that they had traditionally given to mythical Czech figures such as Libuše and her consort, Přemysl (Thomas 2010, 48–49). Such attempts at inclusion would probably not have occurred several decades earlier but were part of the pre-war efforts to broaden the base of the Czech experience and deepen the meaning of Czechness. Eventually, war itself began to tug on Czech consciousness even before the commencement of World War I. Warm-up conflicts took place in the Balkan Wars of 1912–1913. Interestingly, graduates from the Czech medical school volunteered to go to the region to assist the wounded (Cibulka et al., 369). There was a political interest in supporting Serbs in this conflict, for the Austrians aimed to restrict any Serbian gains that might accrue if they were successful in driving out the Turks (Agnew 2004, 163). Thereby, Czechs moved beyond their more narrow and nationalistic historical base, an effort that would receive considerable magnification during the experience of World War I. Ideology began to play a role after 1900 in a way that had not really been true earlier, and it dovetailed with broader European movements. In 1895, a number of figures drafted a “Manifesto of Czech Modernism.” Its emphasis was on the rights of workers and women rather than Czechness and folksongs. One achievement of the authors was the requirement that universal suffrage become the basis for voting, and this became the formula for the 1907 and 1911 elections. In tune with this movement, there was a demonstration of 200,000 persons on Old Town Square in 1905, and it put a lot of pressure on political leaders to enact universal suffrage. They were successful in this. Also, Masaryk wrote his book entitled The Czech Question also in 1895, and this book reflected an appreciation of the earlier nationalism but also called for a more future-oriented appreciation of modern-day realism (Sayer 1998, 153). In a sense, he interpreted the earlier heroic Czech leaders in up-to-date terms, for he described them as important both for their “opposition to clerical obscurantism” and for the manner in which they helped build a path toward “modern humanism” (Sayer 1998, 155). Absorption of Czech traditions within the framework of modernity paved the way toward appreciation and use of traditional nationalism under the pressures of the upcoming World War I.

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A number of writers pulled modernism into their writings in the same time period. In 1900, Antonín Sava wrote “The Valley of the New Kingdom,” and in that story he focused on the vital interests of Czechs in working toward human solidarity and a more just world rather than the more narrow interests of the Czech Lands. Then, in 1901, Otakar Březina wrote “Hands,” in which he described the budding socialist revolution as a product of many invisible hands. Further, František Šalda a bit later used Czech ideas but also those from France in battling for a “continual struggle against formalism.” His key essays included the 1905 “Battle for Tomorrow” and the 1913 “Souls and Creation” (Novák 1986, 259–65). Both were aimed at intertwining the Czech experience with then current dynamics flowing from the European drive to express what was the meaning of modernism. In general, this period combined a swirl of Czech nationalism, broader European cosmopolitanism, connections to the wider Slavic world, gains in political representation, and fear for the coming war. Obviously, living on the other side of the boundary of the new century possessed confusion and risk as well as growing Czech self-confidence. MUSICAL WORKS ACROSS THE BOUNDARY Compositions by Suk, Novák, Janáček, and Dvořák bring into view significant themes in the musical world at the turn of the century. Josef Suk succeeded in providing a profile, so to speak, of Prague in his symphonic work Praga, the primary theme of which is commonly viewed as derived from a phrase found in “Ye Who Are God’s Warriors” (Kdož jste Boží bojovníci). Toman a lesní panna (Toman and the Wood Nymph), a symphonic poem by Vitězslav Novák, reinterprets a tale by František Čelakovský (1839). The symphonic poem In the Tatras (V Tatrách), by Novák, presents a musical portrait of a mountainous geographical site withstanding a ferocious storm. Moravian Folk Poetry in Song (Moravská lidová poesie v písních), by Leoš Janáček, includes 53 arrangements for voice and piano illustrating the composer’s approach to the creation of works that grow out of the folk materials that he had been studying for many years. The opera Rusalka, by Antonín Dvořák (Prague, 1901 [libretto by Jaroslav Kvapil]), is a momentous work representing the composer’s late style, and drawing on a wealth of experience which, notably, included the composition of four symphonic poems in the 1890s on Czech subjects.      

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List of compositions: • Symphonic Works by Suk and Novák • Praga (symphonic poem) (Op. 26), by Josef Suk (1904) • Toman and the Wood Nymph (Toman a lesní panna) (Op. 40) (symphonic poem by Vitězslav Novák [1906–1907]) • In the Tatras (V Tatrách), by Novák (1902, 1905, 1907) • Arrangements of Folk Material • Moravian Folk Poetry in Song (Moravská lidová poesie v písních) by Leoš Janáček (c. 1908) • Opera • Rusalka by Antonín Dvořák (Prague, 1901) Suk, in a letter, wrote about the composition he titled Praga: “It originated out of enthusiasm and is composed with enthusiasm to its very end, in which I wished to express the superiority of Prague above everything else” (Suk Praga, 1953). Suk rightly pointed to the powerful, even overwhelming, concluding passage to the 25-minute symphonic poem as worthy of note. The celebration of Prague, in fact, includes a rich array of materials and thematic styles which cover the extremes of the dynamic range commanded by a large orchestra. In his book, Jiří Berkovec characterizes the work as a “monument in sound” and he reports that Suk was inspired by a poem by Svatopluk Čech concerning the Hussite leader Jan Žižka in fifteenth-century Prague (Berkovec 1968/1969, 31). In that poem Jan of Rokycany delivers a “fervent and fiery eulogy to Prague” (Berkovec 1968/1969, 31). If Suk’s composition is not entirely fiery, it is challenging as a musical form, in part because of the diversity of materials he explores. Scholars agree that Suk demonstrated remarkable ingenuity in his handling of the orchestra in Praga. In the opening portion of the work, Suk focuses his attention on two primary and contrasting themes each of which generates additional subsidiary themes within the overall web of sound. The most important theme is undoubtedly the “motto” theme which has universally been heard as relating to, even inseparable from, the Hussite chorale “Ye Who Are God’s Warriors.” This chorale—an emblem of Czech history—subdivides into three broad melodic phrases (A [a1 and a2], B [b1 and b2], and C [c1 and c2]) which correspond to the three lines of text: “Ye Who Are God’s warriors and subject to His law, / Pray for God’s help and put your trust in Him, / So that finally with Him you will still be victorious” (Clapham 1972, 83). Suk had no intention of presenting the opening phrase of this famous melody. The motto theme, announced in the opening measures of the work, is a Sukian revision of the third melodic phrase heard in the tune: he appropriates eight pitches from that phrase within a broader thematic unit which

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begins with an introductory note not found in the actual chorale phrase. Šourek cannily states that the main theme of the work is “spontaneously connected with the theme of the Hussite chorale ‘You Who Are God’s Fighters’” (Suk 1953). And Michael Beckerman reports that Suk once claimed that any resemblance shown by his “Prague” theme to the Hussite chorale was “coincidental” (Beckerman 1986, 68). Suk arranges for his idiosyncratic Hussitechorale-inspired theme to undergo almost endless transformations within the overall form. The secondary theme heard within the opening portion of the work is strikingly lyrical; this theme, the “love” theme, was drawn by the composer from an earlier work, Radúz and Mahulena (1898). Suk clearly searched for a way of developing a fairly complex web of thematic materials some of which related directly or indirectly to the two identified main themes and some of which are seemingly independent. The composer succeeds in transforming—even twisting—all of the themes including the lyrical “love” theme itself during the course of the 25-minute symphonic poem. Suk draws the listener toward a central climactic passage before turning in the opposite direction (rehearsal 37), which provides new vistas of ferocity, of lyricism (a chorale-like unit heard earlier) and the lyrical theme, all of which finally give way to a recovery, so to speak, of heroism and vision exemplified by the final full-orchestra climax in the home key of the work (the “apotheosis”). Toman and the Wood Nymph (Toman a lesní panna) (Op. 40), by Vitězslav Novák Novák was an experienced composer of symphonic poems when he began work on Toman and the Wood Nymph. Both In the Tatras (1902) and Eternal Longing (1903–1905), highly regarded works, had helped to establish him as a notable and progressive composer. Both Eternal Longing and Toman and the Wood Nymph were heard together in a performance conducted by Karel Kovařovic in 1908, and he provided a title of “Desire and Passion” for that performance (and he conducted the two again in 1910) (Lébl 1968, 27). According to Lébl, the work—in its 1908 performance—was greeted with enthusiasm by all: “It provoked a sense of amazement at his daring and ruthlessness; his contemporaries felt that here the composer had reached not only the extreme limit of his development, but the limits of music altogether (Lébl 1968, 28). The work, then, came across as a ‘modern’ retelling of a Czech tale. Critical discussion of ‘modernist’ music in the first decade of the century involved the consideration of that music in reference to Moravian and Slovak folk music, to the ‘Impressionist” style, and to the music of Richard Strauss” (Locke 2009, 72–73). (Strauss’ opera Salome was first heard in Prague in May of 1906 (Locke 2006, 73).)

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The question of impressionism was not unimportant at this time: “Toman and the Wood Nymph” was necessarily involved in that discussion. In their 1965 essay, Racek, Vysloužil, and Kocmanová state that Novák “was one of the first composers who created—we may say with some slight exaggeration—the conditions for the development of Czech musical impressionism” (Racek et al. 1965, 192). The authors then characterize Czech Impressionism: “This, unlike the impressionism of Debussy, was distinguished by an exceptional feeling for melody and rhythm not infrequently of fold origin” (Racek et al. 1965, 192). Novák and his colleagues actively explored music of non-Czech composers in the “Podskalí Philharmonic” discussion group which managed to produce live musical examples of compositions by Reger, Debussy, Scriabin, and others in the context of their meetings (Locke 2006, 68). In the score, Novák provided a short summary of the tale by František Čelakovský (1839): “Impelled by secret anxiety, Toman decided, on the eve of St. John’s Day, to visit his beloved. His concerns did not deceive him, for she had deserted him for another. He entered the forest to die there in the embraces of a Wood Nymph” (Novák 1919/2002). Not mentioned in this short summary is the framing device employed by Čelakovský: the tale begins and ends with Toman’s sister who, at the beginning of the story, warns him against the trip and who, at the end of the story, receives word of his death when his horse returns without her brother. Also not mentioned in the short summary is the passage describing the power of the Wood Nymph and of her “song”: she insists that he fly home with her and then kissed and embraced Toman, whose heart was confounded at the time of his death. In his description of the challenging musical style of this work, Schlűren writes of a “tempestuous urgency,” of a “complex polyphonic texture with precipitate dissonant thrusts in the individual voices, with continuous shocks and tremors of the sonic masses, with the swirl of wild passions thrusting forward in inexorable haste” (Novák 1919/2002). All critics agree, it seems, on the extreme passion found in this score. More could be said about the novel and enigmatic musical form of this symphonic poem. Although it pays tribute to time-honored devices of form, for example, in its basic subdivision into three major sections all of which begin with the same “introductory” thematic unit (which brings the music of Debussy to mind), it sets out to redefine the power of combining vastly dissimilar sonic materials within the musical discourse. Transformation of theme and of thematic materials impels the work, at least in the first of the three sections (capitalizing on recognizable x, A, recast A, and B themes found in this section). Novák designs the three sections to be of unequal lengths: the second is about twice the length of the first, and the third is about twice the length of the second. If Novák begins the second section as a reprise of

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material heard at the outset of the work, he explores new territory within this broad and expansive unit. After he reconsiders aspects of the A theme and the B theme, he moves ahead to novel textural blocks of music with new ideas and with ferocity of tone (in the midst of which recollections of the A and A recast themes might be heard). It would be fair to say that Novák, in the second section, transforms the style and discourse presented in the first section. In the third section, the composer replaces the discourse established in the earlier sections with a new kind of music that provides only faint echoes of earlier themes (only the B theme might be recognized in this section). Unity within the third section is provided by the recall and transformation of motives explored for the first time in the third section (which includes an insistent theme and a poignant “mystery” motive heard again and again in different guises). If the work depicts passion throughout its many sections, it manages to transform the idea of musical passion within the final section. In the Tatras (V Tatrách), by Vitězslav Novák (1902, 1905, 1907) In the Tatras belongs to a large group of symphonic works composed in the years around the beginning of the century, between 1898 and 1910. Both the title—In the Tatras—and the program note focus on a geographical site, to be sure. And the program places great emphasis on the landscape in changing weather patterns dominated by a storm. Novák’s program, published in the score, consists of nine sentences: A gloomy atmosphere before a menacing storm. Grey-white mist swirls over the steep, craggy mountain slopes. The sun however manages to break through the clouds and for a brief moment illuminates the sublime, melancholy landscape. But soon new, more menacing clouds appear; they become more dense, broken by blinding flashes of lightning. The storm erupts. It crashes into the unyielding granite walls of the Tatras. . . . After a wild struggle, silence reigns again. The setting sun gilds the gigantic mountain peaks and the evening church-bells are heard in the distance. Above the Tatra range, night descends in a pearl-strewn veil. (Novák 1910)

In the program supplied by the composer the focus is on the “atmosphere”— on the mountain slopes in a shifting weather environment which is dominated by a storm (identifying the site as the Tatras in the program note toward the end of the statement [in the sixth sentence]). The vision initially centers on patterns of clouds, and rays of sun, in a landscape which will be changing in a variety of ways during, and after, the storm. In both the programmatic and formal design the ferocious storm comes to dominate the central portion

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of the work. And the final two sentences of the program bring into view yet another cycle, that of time and light (day and night, lightness and darkness) for the “setting sun” is, at this point, visible as the churchbells are sounding. The final sentences, then, bring in aspects of the human community (churches and church bells) as part of the natural landscape. (The prefaces to the scores are valuable: the preface to the 1910 score provides the composer’s program in the context of a biographical profile of Novák, and the preface by Karel Šrom provides an analytical account of the composition with references to the program.) Novák’s composition, considered as a formal structure, unrolls a lengthy musical counterpart to the program which preserves—in musical terms—the different images of the Tatras in which the storm emerges as the climactic event. The composer designs the work to mirror the endurance of the mountain range, through his determination to define, redefine, and transform a small set of thematic materials. The thematic materials undergo almost constant reevaluation in the 359-measure composition. The outline of this musical form follows: Opening Section/Exposition of Fundamental Materials: Part I: opening soundscape and first theme arriving in m. 4 (extended “A” motive considered the first theme, and a “B” motive which expands this first theme); second theme beginning at m. 15 (“C” motive considered in the order of important thematic units) all reaching an arrival point (cadence); Part II: all themes elaborated and reexamined and recombined within the given structural framework; this section does not reach an arrival point but is deflected as a new soundscape,then begins. New section or interlude: the musical soundscape is both familiar and novel (with a prominent role given to the harp, in the opening). The exploration of the two fundamental themes (employing contrapuntal procedures) leads to a dramatic buildup which then yields to a quiet passage. Familiar materials undergo transformation, providing new images, so to speak, of what had been presented earlier. Central section focusing on the storm (mm. 76–277): the dramatic and extended central section or passage for full orchestra reexamines the fundamental thematic materials in yet new and adventurous ways. We have reason to link this passage to the sentences from the program: But soon new, more menacing clouds appear; they become more dense, broken by blinding flashes of lightning. The storm erupts. It crashes into the unyielding granite walls of the Tatras. . . . After a wild struggle, silence reigns again.

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The storm represents power—even threatening power—and provides a musical evocation of disorder. The pacing is variable and the storm brings waves of climactic musical effects emerging and pulling back, in sequences. At the same time the composer designs the form so that it presents a dramatic transformation of all the previously defined thematic elements, providing fragmented but recognizable motives at one point and combinations of themes or motives at other points (and employing imitative treatment of motives in many passages). The storm episodes include, not surprisingly, heroic or militant transformations of the familiar motives along the way. Striking new motives—melodic bursts in the high register of the flute (mm. 243 and 246) that might reasonably be inspired by the reference to “flashes of lightning”—embellish the lengthy passage. The central portion as a whole emerges and later disappears with comparable passages in a hushed mood, presenting musical ideas conveyed in a very spare musical texture emphasizing low brass motives (at a low dynamic level). These passages might be heard to communicate with one another across the expansive stormy passage. Finally, the unraveling of the storm provides a glimpse of new territory, within the musical landscape. Closing portion embracing two broad subsections (mm. 277–316 and mm. 316–359): the closing portion is dominated by new images of the two fundamental themes under development—which are expansive and expressive (most often presented by solo instruments or paired instruments). This represents a striking transformation of the character of the themes in the context of the concluding portion of the work. It is tempting to regard this closing passage as the musical counterpart to the final sentences in the program: “The setting sun gilds the gigantic mountain peaks and the evening churchbells are heard in the distance. Above the Tatra range, night descends in a pearl-strewn veil.” The opening passage of the first subsection ushers in a familiar theme in its most expansive version—the second theme (or “C”) heard in imitative texture (violins, on the one hand, and the flutes with clarinets, on the other hand) with accompanying harp in a rapturously melodic passage (heard not once but twice in sequence). The first sub-section as a whole, though, does include a remembrance of the storm-like musical style which builds, once again, into a full-orchestral passage featuring a combination of the first (A) and second (C) themes in a climactic high point and a recollection of the transformative techniques heard in the central portion of the work. The recollection of the storm fades. At this point we enter a new musical territory—andante sostenuto (and the second subsection)—which is distinguished by a striking, delicate, and spare musical texture, which presents the first theme, in the solo viola against which are heard bells. This final passage, reaching through to the final arrival point of the composition, is itself

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cyclical—the first theme (just described) followed by the second theme (just as it was heard in the opening passage of the composition) and extended by the solo cello and finally the first theme, as a kind of epilogue. The closing portion stands as a meditation on the theme of the work (according to the program, the Tatra mountains at night, after the storm, solid and majestic as always). Beauty and restraint are of paramount importance in a musical passage characterized by long-breathed melodic utterances, which disappear, finally, in an almost inaudible recollection of the primary pitch, G, which persists at the end of the composition (an echo of the long journey from G minor to G major in this work [only within the final seven measures does the arrival confirm the key of G major, the ultimate goal of the process, as a whole, and the arrival of serenity]). Conclusion In the Tatras, in view of the program note and the compositional form, focuses on cyclical phenomena. The thematic material—considered as bringing together melodic, rhythmic, harmonic, and textural elements—mirrors the programmatic and formal principles. Michael Beckerman, in his note written for the American Symphony Orchestra performance in 2017, explores the question of how the thematic material itself models the programmatic themes of the landscape (“vast”) and the human community (as a contrast to the landscape). Novák’s score “conjures up images of the sublime: a vast, jagged, and open space which dwarfs a human scale and produces wonder and terror,” Beckerman writes (Beckerman 2017). Beckerman finds this image of the “sublime” mirrored in the opening theme of the work, “with its unison ascent followed by a leap” (Beckerman 2017). More could be said about the opening thematic material, in mm. 1–23. The first motive, or “A” motive, of the opening theme reveals a determined drive to ascend, as noted, in a stepwise climb up the scale, and it includes a final push—the leap (of a fourth) to reach the goal (the fundamental tone, but an octave higher). Then, the thematic gesture repeats and climbs higher to expand into a new motive (the B motive) which is a descending motive, also expanded through repetition and made more insistent (in the opening 14 measures). The composer, then, explores cyclical patterns in this thematic material within a work which itself depends on cyclical patterns (in the program note and in the overall structure). The concluding section of the symphonic poem, with its emphasis on the main theme heard against the vesper bells, is one of the most striking passages in the work. The above analysis points to the remarkable and transparent texture in the closing passage which combines the all-important first theme (“A”) with the bells providing a haunting counterpart and bringing a call to the evening service, or vespers, that signals the life rhythms of those who

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live near the Tatras. Many storm pieces in the second half of the nineteenth century include a religious statement after the storm traditionally signaling the solidarity of the community after experiencing a formidable challenge (J. N. Lemmen’s “The Storm,” an organ piece, includes a “Prayer” or hymnlike musical passage after the storm episode [Peterson 2009, 25–26]). Novák designs a compositional strategy which depends on a small set of thematic materials as the basis for the structure of the work. The thematic materials will be transformed and reenvisioned and reinvented throughout a 360-measure work. He sets up a compositional problem, so to speak, that will be solved in the unfolding of the work, which, on the surface, appears to be highly changeable and mercurial to the listener, and, of course, overflowing with passion and drama. The material itself remains identifiable even when transformed, providing a compositional strategy that serves as a counterpart to the enduring Tatras. Finally, Vladimír Lébl (1968) considers In the Tatras in relation to other nature-inspired Czech compositions: Novák’s symphonic poem The Tatras is not simply a depiction in music of a struggle between the elements. Here, as in Smetana’s My Country, the picture of nature is linked up with the entire organism of national life and the national ethos: Novák’s Tatras, defiant and victorious, are a symbol of the rebellious, Janošík-like strength of the Slovak people. (Lébl 1968, 24)

Moravian Folk Poetry in Song (Moravská lidová poesie v písních) by Leoš Janáček (c. 1908) Scholarly discussion of these pieces has focused on the composer’s concept of style—in the composer’s notion of how the folk poetry and folk tunes should be presented in the context of published works for voice and piano. The challenge, to judge by Janacek’s statements, was how to preserve the original material, as developed over time by Moravian singers and instrumentalists, in arrangements that he prepared for his contemporaries, for single voice and piano. The melodies were obviously preserved with great care. The piano score was “composed” by Janacek to work harmoniously with the given melody and with the specified instrumental ensemble that would have been heard with these melodies. The “style” of the piano score would vary, according to the composer’s own notions of how these materials could be interpreted in his own publication project (there is a variety of styles to be found in the 53 compositions in this collection). This project, spanning the turn of the century, is but one of a large number of projects concerning folk music—both melodies and dances—that the composer carried out between the 1880s and 1914. In the early part of this period Janácek collaborated with

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František Bartoš (1837–1906), a Moravian ethnomusicologist or folklorist: they co-authored an introduction for an 1889 publication titled “Folk Songs of Moravia Newly Collected” (Národní písně moravské nové nasbírané). And in 1890 they brought out a collection titled “A Bouquet of Folk Songs” (Kytice z národních písní moravských) (with 195 items). The publication discussed here is the new edition of this collection under the title Moravská lidová poezie v písních, (Moravian Folk Poetry in Songs) (1908) (with 53 items), which presents Janacek’s arrangements in a score for voice and piano (Tyrrell 1988, 244–45 and Vogel 1962, 113). The composer’s observations in the 1908 edition of this work, Moravian Folk Poetry in Songs, unquestionably includes relevant points concerning his thinking about the project that he had designed. The editorial preface to the edition of “Moravian Folk Poetry in Songs” (1947) includes this statement by Bohumír Štědron: He approached the accompaniments to the Moravian folk poetry in song with the firm intention of preserving the integrity and inherent qualities of the songs. He himself wrote the following remarkable words of the piano accompaniments to these songs in the edition of about 1908: “The dance-songs are typical: one can therefore not exclude from their accompaniments those sčasovka (translator’s note: small, characteristic motives, rhythmic interjections) through which they are bound to dance rhythms. In long-drawn-out songs, the performers also hold on to sustained notes and intensify the manner of singing with tiny notes.” There are songs to which only the wind serves as orchestral accompaniment, with all the living voices of the tree-tops and the tangled bushes, the denuded stubble-fields and lush meadows . . . , there are songs to which no bagpiper is called, no cymbals brought in, and to whose voices no fiddler is interwoven . . . What a rich source of accompanying motives. The song accompaniments are even more beautiful if they are also true. (Janáček in Liedern 1947)

The composer points out that some Moravian melodies could be heard, in the traditional context, without any accompaniment and that some could be heard with instruments (he mentions the “fiddler” as one example). In fact, one of the poems included in this collection does specifically name instruments that were traditionally heard along with the melodies:“Muzikanti” (“Musicians”). “Muzikanti” (“Musicians”) Musicians now, what’s up with you, not a sound heard from your fiddle. Come play for me on the cimbalom,

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so my sweetheart leaps with joy. Come play for me on the fiddle, to cheer up all these maidens. Come play for me on the bass, to cheer up all in this place. Come play for me all together, then see me off to my home’s door. (Janáček 2015, English translation by Andrew Fisher)

The composer states, in the observations included in the preface, that he has in mind these instruments as he works out issues concerning musical style in relation to the texture of the piano accompaniment in these works (the fiddle, the cimbalom, and the bass). Not all of the Moravian songs were accompanied—Janácek reports that some were heard as simple melodies (with only the “wind” as accompaniment). The “Muzikanti” belongs to a group of dance-related songs that do involve stylistic elements that come from the playing techniques associated with the full ensemble (see quotation above). The musical setting provides repetition of poetic lines of both lines in a given stanza (“a” “a” and “b” “b”). Janáček provides a rhythmically defined piano accompaniment, joining together a variant of the melody with supporting chords above a bass line for the opening line. The variant of the melody, in the piano score, features melodic bursts to ornament the melody itself (at least in the opening “a” phrase, where they serve as ornaments to the individual pitches in the melody). Later he provides a series of chords to support new phrases in the melody (with no ornaments in the upper part of the piano score). In fact, the series of chords allied with a bass part may be found throughout the 14-measure score (and the bass part in this score could be inspired by the instrumentalist in the ensemble who would have played the string bass). He provides a very brief postlude based on the melodic bursts heard at the outset. If the harmonic plan is severely simple—basically involving just three different chords—still the melody itself provides great emphasis on the lowered seventh degree highlighted by harmonic support and by a stress on that melodic note, at the end of the first poetic line (m. 3), and this broadens the harmonic spectrum of the short song. In his discussion of Janáček’s work in the area of folksong and folklore, John Tyrrell points to the importance of the composer’s study of techniques associated with the Moravian ensembles:

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Janáček’s notations are some of the earliest made of Moravian ensemble folk music, with its distinctive texture involving a band of at least three instruments: the hudec (a word meaning a folk musician, but here specifically the first violinist), a kontráš (a second violinist often playing an accompanying, contrasting, even contrapuntal part), and a cello or double-bass part, with occasional extras such as another violin, a clarinet or a cimbalom. (Tyrrell 2006, 343)

According to Tyrrell, scholars have reason to believe that Janáček worked with a list of approximately 300 items in all (Tyrrell 2006, 343–46). Three Representative Works from the Collection All in all, a wide variety of styles may be found in the collection of 53 works. Scholars have pointed to specific aspects of Moravian folk music as inspiration to the composer as he worked out methods suitable for his collection of arrangements, and found that these materials were important to the development of Janacek’s thinking, in his career as a composer. Tyrrell’s commentary in Czech Opera focuses on significant aspects of Moravian folk music: Moravian folk music, with its echoes of older musical traditions predating Baroque tonality and Classical symmetries, was able to offer Janáček a much more diverse and interesting musical fare than that which Czech composers, acting on Harrach’s advice, would have obtained from Bohemian folk music. The close association of words and music in Moravian folksong had much to interest Janáček as a dramatic composer. His studies of the material planted the seeds of his theories of speech melody. (Tyrrell 1988, 246)

Three representative songs will help us develop an understanding of the techniques at work: “Dobrá rada” (“Sound Advice” [No. 48]), “Láska” (“Love” [No. 1]), and “Bolavá hlava” (“Headache” [No. 47]). The majority of arrangements in the collection involve the presentation of the text with piano accompaniment, with the printed text from the opening stanza of the poetry (the typical song is one page in length). In “Dobrá rada,” the first line of the text may be heard in mm. 1–5 and the second line of text may be heard in mm. 6–10 (with internal repetitions of portions of those lines preserved in the arrangement): “Dobrá rada” (“Sound Advice” [No. 48]) One bird complained to another, Sparrowhawk to goshawk brother.

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And subsequent stanzas will be sung to the music provided in this 11-measure work. In “Bolavá hlava” the structure involves two musical sections for the four lines of poetry in a given stanza, so that the first two lines may be heard with mm. 1–3 of the song, with repetition indicated, and the third and fourth lines of text will be heard with mm. 4–8 of the song (no repetition indicated). And the second and third stanzas will be sung to these 8 measures of music. “Bolavá hlava” (“Headache” [No. 47]) On the meadow, meadow green near by the well’s stone rim, there stands a horse sorrel and black, a lad all slashed up sits on its back.

In “Láska” the composer provides a slightly different format. In this 18-measure arrangement, Janáček provides the text of stanza one in mm. 1–9 (indicating a repetition of each line of text) and the text of stanza two as mm. 10–18 (indicating a repetition of each line in this section, as well). The form in this arrangement, then, might be described as A A B B A A B B (with a measure of introduction and a measure of conclusion), with the understanding that the 18-measure arrangement itself includes the second stanza as a variant of the first. The composer provides a two-voice piano part, in which the piano initially doubles the vocal melody and later provides a countermelody (mm. 6–9), against which is heard the falling octave motive (which, because it appears in every measure, serves as a unifying device). In mm. 10–18, he provides a countermelody for the first line and then repeats the material created for mm. 6–9 in mm. 14–17 (with that countermelody intact). The composer succeeded in creating a very spare piano accompaniment highly coordinated with the vocal melody, and yet providing a delicate countermelody to enhance that melody. The composer’s stated intention to write arrangements that were both “beautiful” and “true” may be found in the styles of these three examples. A very spare piano accompaniment, highly coordinated with the vocal melody, is one way of describing the style of “Láska” (“Love”) “Bolavá hlava” (“Headache”) and “Dobrá rada” (“Sound Advice”) illustrate the composer’s inclination to allow portions of the melody to be heard without any accompanying sounds. In “Headache” the voice presents the opening line alone and the piano provides a cimbalom-inspired motive as a counterpart (or emphasis to selected syllables). And he expands this cimbalom-like motive along with other complementary motives in the majority of measures within the score.

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The work will sound to modern listeners as a song in A minor and the melody features a distinctive short-long rhythmic motive that provides emphasis to the poignant text (a note of urgency, so it seems, in the utterance of the text). The bass line becomes more important as the piece progresses. Janáček supplies a genuine cadence at the end of the poem, concluding the song with persistent A-minor chords and low-bass notes as support (the lowest bass notes found in the arrangement help to emphasize the gravity of the message in the text). The harmonic style of “Sound Advice” deserves mention, for the melody features a striking set of pitches that place great emphasis on the lowered seventh degree of the fundamental scale which might may well sound like an example of the “Mixolydian mode” to theorists of our day (a major scale with a lowered seventh degree) but exemplifies a stylistic trait that has been discussed as “Moravian modulation” by scholars who work with this material. And the composer preserves the emphasis that comes initially from the melody itself by dwelling on that pitch, in his arrangement, in mm. 5–8 of the 11-measure work, finally turning upward to the raised seventh degree in m. 9 which then deftly allows a traditional cadence and arrival point to mark the conclusion of the song. Three Poems “Dobrá rada” (“Sound Advice” [No. 48]) One bird complained to another, sparrowhawk to goshawk brother. (Janáček 2015, English translation by Andrew Fisher) “Bolavá hlava” (“Headache” [Edition: No. 47]) My poor head it aches oh so bad, It won’t heal, will never mend. (Janáček 2015, English translation by Andrew Fisher) “Láska” (“Love” [Edition No. 1]) Oh, love, love, so fickle you are, (Janáček 2015, English translation by Andrew Fisher)

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Final Example from the Collection: “Pohřeb zbojníkův” (“Brigand’s Burial”) (No. 52) This song, which is near the end of the collection, has a number of notable features. The title could be translated, with the help of the Czech dictionary, as “The Burial of an Outlaw (or Forest Robber).” The text includes 5 stanzas. The four-line stanza, as presented in the arrangement for voice and piano, provides for repetition of the second line of a couplet. The structure of the song initially consists of 8 measures of music for the four lines in a given stanza: • • • • • •

A = line 1 (mm. 1–3) B = line 2 (mm. 4–5) B = line 2 (repetition; mm. 6–8) A = line 3 (mm. 1–3) B = line 4 (mm. 4–5) B = line 4 (mm. 6–8)

Thus, poetic lines 3 and 4 are set to the music provided for lines 1 and 2, yielding a song that is highly consistent and unified. The melody itself includes just six pitches and this melody displays economy of materials in that 3 pitches—G, B flat, and D—define the melody (making up 13 of the 19 pitches found in the melody). The piano accompaniment to this brisk song is also economical: repeated chords in the bass region can be heard in every measure, and 22 of the 32 chords present the 3 pitches that define the melody. The harmonic plan, in fact, includes just three different chords, in all. Scholar Judita Kučerová classifies this song as a ballad of a “dance nature” “from the Horňácko region” (Kučerová 2015, 9). The 8-measure structure of the song itself is only a part of the arrangement published by Janáček. The piece, as a whole, is 29 measures in length because the composer includes a 21-measure instrumental postlude. If he carries forward the pulsating bass chords found in mm. 1–8 into the 21-measure postlude, he creates a new texture and a new harmonic plan that draws away from the style found in mm. 1–8. Prominent in this style is the distinctive treble melody—probably inspired by the fiddle line found in the texture defined by many Moravian ensembles—which, in the context of the more adventurous harmonic style, takes the listener into new musical territory. The postlude subdivides into two sections, mm. 9–16 and mm. 17–29, inspired by the passage in mm. 8–17 and yet reaching into higher range, to provide a stunning climactic finish. This song represents the composer’s imaginative treatment of a rather austere melody, demonstrating that he was prepared, on

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occasion, to compose in the style of the Moravian folk material that he had come to know so well. “Pohřeb zbojníkův” (“Brigand’s Burial” [Edition No. 52]) There’s one hasn’t made it, and he was a friend of mine. (Janáček: Moravian Folk Songs [CD], 2015, English Translation by Andrew Fisher)

Conclusion Scholar John Tyrrell proposed that Janáček’s work with the folk materials had a decisive influence on his development as a composer. Tyrrell wrote: Seeing piano accompaniments as re-creations of folk-instrumental practice liberated Janáček. No longer did they need to be continuous. Unaccompanied voices were acceptable, as were solo voices with heterophonic accompaniments; * accompaniments could be unobtrusive, though occasionally kontráš-like counter-melodies were offered. (Tyrrell 2006, 396).

And Tyrrell described the composer’s techniques of working with the materials (with reference to the second volume of A Bouquet of Moravian Folksongs), in some detail: And in the second volume (published in 1901) there is a distinctive difference from the outset, with folkish techniques now rubbing shoulders with more conventional types of accompaniment, sometimes within the same song. In other words, the folk-imitation technique had now been thoroughly absorbed. What is astonishing is the variation from song to song. Each one is different, each one a little masterpiece. Though Janáček would go on to write extraordinary operas and all the other works of his old age, these arrangements as much as any of his own pieces show the fertile imagination of a truly creative spirit. (Tyrrell, 2006, 396)

In his opera Jenufa, first performed in 1904, in Brno, Janáček created an important work that has been described as “a truly Moravian national opera” (Vogel 1962, 137). Scholars and critics have debated the question of how the composer depended on folk materials and traditions in this project: evidence suggests that he relied on the melody known as “Far and Wide,” using it as a model for one song included within the opera score (Vogel 1962, 130, 131, and 140).

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John Tyrrell, in a separate essay, explored the question of how Janáček’s music could be considered “modern”: There are certain areas where Janáček’s new thinking is most apparent, areas that are not generally discussed in Modernist terms. What is attractive about Janáček to many listeners is that he was able to employ many traditional aspects of music (nineteenth-century melody, harmony, tonality) while at the same time refashioning them into something distinctively new. (Tyrrell 2007, 720)

Tyrrell goes on to explore the development of a compositional ideal that brought together Janáček’s concept of “speech melody” and economy of expression—with reference to both texted and textless pieces (Tyrrell 2007, 720–21). He concludes, finally, that Janáček—in his compositions and in his writings about music—was developing an idiosyncratic modernist language. The composer explored once again Moravian folk materials in a collection of piano pieces titled Moravské lidové písně (Fifteen Moravian Folksongs) completed in 1922 and edited in 1950; he provided, in the second composition in that collection, a striking example of the economical and expressive style that he had developed earlier. The short five-measure setting for piano alone of a folk tune, in fact, is a distinctive combination of a tune in Lydian mode and a harmonic style that is thoroughly modern and which demonstrates other compositional strategies, as well, in the withholding of a solid and dependable bass note, in the final cadence, until the very last second (Janáček, 1950, No. 2 [“Grave”]). Rusalka, by Antonín Dvořák (Prague, 1901) The opera Rusalka by Antonín Dvořák (Prague, 1901 [libretto by Jaroslav Kvapil]) is a momentous work representing the composer’s late style. Kvapil created a libretto which draws on themes found in a number of works, including Friedrich de la Motte-Fouqué’s Undine (1811), Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid (1836), and Gerhart Hauptmann’s Die versunkene Glocke (1897). Libretto The libretto by Kvapil obviously held appeal for Dvořák, for the composer made the decision to set the drama to music. Scholars have discussed the sources of the libretto and Kvapil’s treatment of these sources in developing the libretto that served as the foundation for the opera. Markéta Hallová comments on the importance of Kvapil’s vision of the story, as it developed in this project. “But it is not so important to determine the provenance of Kvapil’s inspiration for his themes, or the models. The valuable contribution

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of Rusalka as such lies in the actual treatment. In keeping with the most modern artistic trends, the work makes an approach from the fin-de siècle style toward impressionism. An immense dramatic conception is reflected in the structure of the work as a whole, and above all this conception has endowed the theme with the imprint of a profound philosophical content” (and she goes on to compare the libretto for Rusalka with another of his works from the 1890s) (Hallová 1996, 111–12). And scholars have discussed the Czech aspects of the libretto, as well. Jan Smaczny writes: “In language of great delicacy and poetry, Kvapil transformed the characters of the original story to archetypes of Czech folklore familiar to Dvořák from the ballads of Erben and the tales and surroundings of his own childhood” (Smaczny 1993, 128). Much depends on Kvapil’s delineation of individual characters, among which Ježibaba (the witch) and Vodník (the Water Goblin) are of great importance. Michael Beckerman, in his program note, explains some of the important aspects of Kvapil’s delineation of the character known as the “water gnome” (in the context of comments concerning Rusalka in relation to the two primary male characters in the story [the water gnome and the Prince]): In other versions of the legend the water gnome is either a disagreeable character or merely benign. In Rusalka he is a fascinating personality; teased by the sprites as a kind of “dirty old man,” he is nonetheless deeply sympathetic to the woes of Rusalka, and at least part of the time functions as a Greek chorus, intoning “Běda, Rusalka, běda” (“Alas, Rusalka, alas”), reminding the heroine and the audience of her cruel fate. (Beckerman 2017, 36)

A central theme in Kvapil’s libretto is unquestionably love. The drama hinges on the visions of love developed by the characters and complexities that must inevitably result from the circumstances in which the destinies of a water nymph—become human—and an earthly prince become intertwined. Both characters might be understood to be working out answers to some basic issues or questions: • A vision of what love might ideally be • Strategies formulated to find love • Changing circumstances which affect the strategies adopted for finding love • Reevaluating the earlier vision of what love might be • Acceptance of the circumstances that cannot be changed, in the final scene (the consequences of the kiss [Rusalka and the Prince]) The summary of the final scene provided in the “Preface/Synopsis” published in the 2006 score includes the following passage;

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Rusalka warns him against the mortal power of her kiss, but the prince is determined to pay for his guilt with his life. He takes Rusalka into his arms, kisses her, and dies. Her lover’s death can no longer prevent her own doom. And yet, his last kiss has one more time reawakened within her the feeling of bliss that she was seeking in the human world. Embracing the prince’s lifeless body, Rusalka returns his kiss for one last time, before returning to the deep of her underwater home, reconciled (74–97). (Dvořák 2006, viii)

The English translation of the libretto (final lines) follows, concluding with Rusalka’s final words to the Prince: Rusalka: For your love, for your beauty, / May God have mercy on you! (Dvořák 1998, English translation of libretto by Paula Kennedy)

Thus, in the final scene of the opera both characters indicate acceptance of the circumstances that cannot be changed, circumstances inevitably tied to their visions of love. Musical Setting of the Libretto A study of Dvořák’s late style involves a study of how the composer succeeded in coordinating compositional techniques developed in his later career (1890–1901). Scholars have pointed to the importance of the symphonic writing—in the 1890s—in the years following his period spent in the United States. The list of symphonic poems completed in the 1890s includes Vodník (The Water Goblin), Polednice (The Noon Witch), Zlatý kolovrat (The Golden Spinning-Wheel), Holoubek (The Wild Dove), and Píseň bohatýrská (A Hero’s Son). The first four works are based on texts by K. J. Erben (Kytice), and the fifth is not based on a text. The composer’s exploration of methods of composing instrumental works in relation to texts was important in his late style. In The Water Goblin, for example, Dvořák found ways of molding the symphonic poems to the foundational text in two important ways. First, he explored methods of composing a musical form, growing out of a network of motives, that paid tribute to the poetic form at hand. Critics agree that Dvořák, following closely Erben’s stanzaic structure, cast the symphonic poem in a rondo form, with the main “A” sections focusing on the Water Goblin (the central portion of the form concerns the Water Goblin’s discussion with the maiden about her desire to leave the watery realm to visit her mother on land): A B A C A B A. The composer masterfully transforms motives to suit changing situations within the story of the ballad (a notable transformation takes place in the final A

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section with the storm and the catastrophe involving the Water Goblin’s visit to the cottage on land). The resulting form, closely coordinated with the balladic structure provided by Erben, provides a dramatic and highly varied set of episodes drawing away from the Water Goblin and inevitably returning to his presence and his horrific determination to bend developments to his own purposes. Second, he conducted a study of words and music that led him to create musical motives that were directly related to specific lines from the Erben text. Scholars have discussed in great detail significant aspects of Dvořák’s musical setting of the drama, in Rusalka, with emphasis on the powerful role played by the orchestra in the opera score and with emphasis on musical characterizations—combining carefully constructed motives or themes with other orchestral and vocal textural lines in a given passage—that the composer develops in accordance with the forward motion of the drama.  And they have discussed the unity of vision that lies behind the ongoing transformations of motives and textural units throughout the three-act opera. If the composer succeeds in bringing the all-important characters to life—Rusalka and the Prince—he also succeeds in providing contrasting musical characterizations, as well. Jan Smaczny writes: “The Water Goblin and the witch Ježibaba are allowed to go beyond their more jocular demeanors to become threatening demiurges with consummate ease; both aspects of their characters are rich and convincing. The comic characters, the Gamekeeper and Turnspit, whose music rattles along to a credible imitation of a bagpipe song, are effective both in setting the scene for the appearance of Rusalka and the Prince in the second act and as a way of initially reducing, then precipitating, tension in the third” (Smaczny 1993, 128–29). Critics have explored in great detail the system of musical motives that animates the score from beginning to end. Michael Beckerman writes at length about how Dvořák underlines the potent combination of the lyricism and conflict. “The musical conception of the opera reflects this interaction between conflict and evocation. At its core is a series of flexible leitmotifs, standing for both specific and highly general states” (Beckerman 2017, 36). Not surprisingly, Beckerman goes on to outline several of the motives, as they first appear in the overture to Act I: “We hear many of them in the overture, which opens with a figure that introduces us to the enchanted world. Next we hear the central theme of the work, Rusalka’s motive, which appears in dozens of permutations. In the second act, for example, it is the basis for a ballet, while in the last act it becomes a funeral march for the prince” (Beckerman, Program note for Dvořák: Rusalka, 2013–2014, 36). Rusalka’s theme is unquestionably of great significance in the structure of the opera. The passage in question, the first definition of the theme as found within the overture, is the first coherent theme or motive in the sonic

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landscape and it consists of a four-measure defined unit with a four-measure extension followed by a pause. The four-measure unit itself appeared, with the composer’s handwritten signature, in Meziaktí  (No. 220 [1901] [“Aporismy a motivy”]) (reprinted in “Dvořák in the Czech Press: Unpublished Reviews and Criticism” [translated by Tatiana Firkušný] in Dvořák and His World, edited by Michael Beckerman [1993]). This version of the Rusalka motive is a single melodic line, without any accompaniment or harmonic support. The composer will transform the motive in conjunction with developments in the drama, throughout the opera (as Beckerman explains), providing the motive with a wide array of textural possibilities (and with a wide array of harmonic support structures). The final gentle transformation takes place at the end of the third act, as Rusalka kisses the Prince “for the last time,” and here it is combined with the mysterious motive that opens the overture and leads, in that overture, to the first appearance of Rusalka’s theme. A full account of the compositional techniques employed by Dvořák in Rusalka must also include reference to the set pieces, as well, notably arias and choral sections. Michael Beckerman explains how these set pieces are intertwined with the ongoing development of individual motives, in the overall structure: There are two scenes with the wood sprites in the first and last acts; the water gnome’s devastating aria in Act II; Rusalka’s three songs; memorable arias and ariettas by the prince, Ježibaba, and the princess; and, of course, instrumental marches and dances. In many cases these set pieces are punctuated, interrupted, or subtly accompanied by the range of motives. It is this combination of ongoing orchestral texture and individual “numbers” of great charm that is a distinguishing characteristic of the opera. (Beckerman 2017, 37)

Among the arias, the “Song to the Moon,” presented by Rusalka in Act I, is one of the most widely known pieces from the opera. Rusalka has, at this point in the drama, told the Water Goblin that she is sad and wishes to “become human” and she acknowledges that her wish is tied to her observance of the Prince who swims in the water. Entranced by the Prince, Rusalka has had only the contact that she could have had, under the circumstances (he would not have recognized her as anything but a wave while he was swimming in the lake). The Water Goblin, disapproving of the plan, recommends that she talk with the witch, Ježibaba, about strategies to become a human being. Rusalka’s aria is an extended 123-measure set piece, a reflection on love. “Song to the Moon” (Opening Lines) O moon, stay a while, Tell me where my beloved is!

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(Dvořák 1998, English translation of libretto by Paula Kennedy)

The form of the “Song to the Moon,” in fact, includes a prelude, an introduction followed by the first stanza (471–514), an interlude and pause, a reprise of the introduction with the second stanza (520–561), an interlude, and a conclusion to the aria which breaks apart as the moon disappears (566–578). The form embraces a number of musical styles brought together to emphasize Rusalka’s reflection on love and on the idea of finding love with the Prince, who has entranced her. The final scene in Act III brings Rusalka and the Prince together for the last time. In the middle of the act the Gamekeeper and Turnspit reveal that the Prince is languishing and they report that the court seems to be under a spell. The final portion of Act III involves a number of important characters—and a number of distinct stylistic markers—within the drama, including the wood nymphs (in chorus), the Water Goblin, and finally the Prince and Rusalka. The chorus of the wood nymphs breaks apart when the Water Goblin appears and delivers his sobering message concerning Rusalka—“doomed in the troubled waters”—and his impassioned cry “Woe, woe, woe!” The Prince initially is somewhat confused as he appears in the meadow, searching for Rusalka. When he recognizes the site of his first view of Rusalka he regains clarity of mind and makes clear his hope: “By all that lives on in my dead heart, / speak to me, tell me where you are!” The interlude which follows his cry brings the Rusalka theme as Rusalka herself appears. After she explains, in an impassioned passage, that if she embraces him he will die, the Prince responds that the embrace and the kiss would bring him peace. The composer arranges that this declaration will bring into the overall structure the final key of the opera, D-flat major, which will be the fundamental key for the final portion of the opera (the final 113 measures). Rusalka, when she reminds him that their embrace will mean his death, guides the tonal structure to a rival key which gives way, at the kiss, to the return of D-flat major. Dvořák then explores new harmonic terrain in the final 70 measures of the act as he arranges a final cadence for the Prince’s last line, and his death, that goes beyond the traditional harmonic system in place. At the same time the composer demonstrates his expertise in setting the text by Kvapil. Jan Smaczny provides this scene as a particularly noteworthy example of Dvořák’s late style: “Many examples of Dvořák’s superb word setting in the work may be cited, but none is finer, in terms of the ability to marry realistic declamation to the lyrical requirements of the style Dvořák had built by the time of Rusalka, than the death of the prince in the third act” (Smaczny 1993, 129). Scholar Jarmila Gabrielová, in the preface to the 2006 edition, points to important musical and dramatic aspects of Rusalka that help us to understand the significance of this opera in historical context:

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The relatively tradition-bound dramatic substance and musical idiom embraced by the sixty-year-old composer, and the opera’s lasting success with audiences should not lead one to assume that this is just another naïve, folklore-inspired fairy tale. Rather on the contrary, the existential gist of its story and its hopeless, deeply pessimistic message—mellowed and smoothed out though it may be by Dvořák’s moving music, offering compassion and reconciliation—have ranked this opera alongside the modernistic output of the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries represented in the field of music drama by such operas as Claude Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande (composed 1893–1895 and 1901–1902, premiered in Paris 1902), or Béla Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle (composed in 1911, premiered in Budapest 1918). (Dvořák 2006, vi–vii)

CONCLUSION In the first decade and a half of the twentieth century, Czech nationalism that intensified after the 1848 revolutions became intertwined with the global modernism that was sweeping Europe in the latter decades of the nineteenth century. It was possible to detect these interactions in the political, cultural, and musical worlds. At times, observers could locate one of these themes clearly in an event in one of the above three worlds, but at other times they were fused together and nearly impossible to separate. Nationalism or historicism had instilled new hopes and dreams in the Czech Lands in the 1860s and 1870s, and perhaps the opening of the National Theater in 1861 was the most significant symbol of that powerful movement. It would not be possible to conclude that many of those who wrapped themselves in Czech nationalism consciously were anticipating creation of the nation-state that was hatched in 1918. However, they all envisioned a situation in which the aspirations and accomplishments of those in the Czech Lands received more respect and attention. While this theme crossed the boundary into the new century, a competitor caught the attention and loyalty of many Czech figures, and its foundation was more broadly European. Bearing such labels as art nouveau, avant garde, modernism, secessionism, or even decadence, its apostles pushed away from narrow nationalistic patterns to broader trans-border ones. In the political world, formation of the Young Czechs was a step toward channeling nationalistic themes towards workable goals that would further the agenda of greater participation in the Habsburg governmental process. They were successors to the similar-minded Old Czechs but tried to broaden the coalitional base of the earlier movement. The Agrarian Party attracted much support and essentially replaced the Old Czechs in terms of legislative prominence a few years after the “crossing of the border.” Of course, it was

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very strong in the overrepresented countryside of the past and would later yield to political parties more connected with the rapidly growing industrial sphere. Similarly, there were efforts to increase the number of Czechs in key political bodies such as the Austro-Hungarian Reichsrat and the Bohemian Diet. Over time, Czech nationalists made progress in gaining more representation in both legislatures. Art also maintained some traditional, nationalistic themes. Half of the ceilings that Mucha painted reflected nationalism themes, as did the statue to King Wenceslas on the square that bore his name. In music, the story “Toman” was a traditional Czech tale that many hearers would have recognized. Rusalka also adopted themes that were inflected with nationalism. In addition, Janáček’s Moravian Folk Poetry in Songs had very traditional roots, as he had gone into villages in the region to ask people about their folksongs, and these became the basis for his project. Celebration of folk traditions was very much in tune with the efforts of nationalists to extract relics from the past that would have an emotional impact in the present. All of these political and cultural symbols of the Czech and Moravian past were carry-over themes from the nineteenth century that impacted developments in the early part of the twentieth century. Modernist patterns were very prominent in all areas of life after the turn of the century. In politics, the Social Democratic Party began to play an important role in the new century and was in tune with the Marxist philosophy that had recently been developing, and its appeal was in an industrial sector that included many injustices toward the workers. Interestingly, in both the elections of 1907 and 1911, the Social Democrats won the highest proportion of the vote while the Agrarians acquired the greatest number of legislative seats. Artists also utilized modernist themes in the Hus and Palacký monuments, while writers such as Hlaváček and Kafka made no attempt to incorporate the narrower nationalistic perspective in their work. Both adopted a pessimistic tone that was totally out of touch with the inherent optimism of those Czechs for whom the 1848 revolution was a rejuvenating act. Czech music was replete with modernist themes of a globalist nature, and even the more nationalistic composers were compelled to make modifications that fitted the newer themes. For example, Suk in Praga made use of the traditional Hussite chorale but framed it in ways that gave entirely different complexions to its sound and direction. Similarly, Janáček’s folksongs included Baroque and Classical themes, with an emphasis on a “true” style that contrasted somewhat with other efforts to trumpet forth only the pure beauty of nationalist melodies. Further, “Toman” included a purposeful effort by the composer to utilize themes of impressionism that had its origins outside the Czech Lands. In the Tatras also entails supra-nationalist themes such as the atmosphere on mountain slopes and unexpected weather explosions. The music celebrates gloom and struggle rather than one-directional and

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upbeat aspirations. Such efforts reinforced the twentieth-century thrusts that were evident in the political and cultural universes. There is no need to debate whether the nationalist or modernist thrusts won out in the first decade and a half of the new century. Nationalist themes ebbed under the pressure of global modernism. However, the Great War made a difference in reemphasizing the power of nationalist forces to create new political space, but in a very changing and up-to-date framework.

Chapter Five

The War Years Divided Political Loyalties and War Themes in Music, 1914–1918

INTRODUCTION World War I brought an explosion of globalism to Czechs, Moravians, and Slovaks. Although the war started with an attack on the Austrian royal family by the Serbian terrorist Princeps, the multitude of ensuing battles struck deeply into the spiritual Czech heartland. Czechs were drafted into the army of their overlords based in Vienna. Nearly 100,000 of those soldiers defected and formed the Czech Legion, a battle group that worked with the Russian military prior to the Bolshevik Revolution and eventually made their way from one side of Russia to the other through Siberia. Others fought in France and Italy, and that set of global experiences affected the persons and families involved for a long time. Those same soldiers contributed to the victory of the allies at the historic battle of Zborov, a location that was in reality in western Ukraine. At the same time, the war awakened nationalist aspirations that had been growing like a grain in the field for nearly 70 years. Sadly, it took the war itself for that germinating grain to flower into a full life. Czech political leaders made countless trips into allied countries in a search for support for Czechoslovak statehood. That nationalistic dream had seemed unrealizable until the war exploded and unfolded, but its end in 1918 launched the breakaway of the new nation-state from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. KEY WARTIME THEMES IN CZECH LITERATURE That the Czechs had reached agreement about their ideals in 1918, the last year of the war, is beyond any doubt. And that this agreement was widely 119

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communicated can easily be substantiated from a number of sources dating from that momentous year. A notable document, a statement read by Alois Jirásek on April 3, 1918, includes these statements: To the Czechoslovak people! The unending battle approaches its culmination. Filled with pain and terror stand immense masses of Czechoslovak men and women. Rivers of Czechoslovak blood flowed and still flow over the battlefield. . . . Unbent and tempered by misfortune, our people believed and still believe that, from the storms of the world war, for them too will finally blossom a new, better life. . . . We have demanded and continue to demand nothing other t­­­­han to be allowed to lead a free and independent life, to direct our fates ourselves under our own sovereignty and to shape our lives freely and without fetters, just as self-confident peoples strive throughout the civilized world. That is our sacred right, the national and international right, the right of a people who have enriched the world’s culture and who, through their development, through their moral strength and their economic progress, have, with pride and through their own work, moved into the first row of democratic peoples of the world. This is the united and unanimous will of the people. (. . .) And with firm, unshakable confidence in the ultimate triumph of our sacred rights, with confidence in the triumph of justice, in the triumph of right over force, of freedom over bondage, of democracy over privilege and of truth over lies in great historical events, we raise our hands and solemnly vow on the cherished memories of our ancestors, in the presence of the revived people and over the graves of the fallen, in a mighty accord with the souls of all of them for today and all the future: We remain where we stand! Faithful in work, faithful in battles, faithful in misfortune, faithful until the grave! We will endure to the end, until we triumph. We will endure until we hail the freedom of our people . . . free in their own homeland. (Rees 1992, 102–3)

The statement was read before an assembly of more than 3,000 people in the Prague Municipal House in response to a speech on April 2 by Foreign Minister Czernin that was interpreted as an attack on Czech leaders who were at the time out of the country and on Czech politicians who were at home. The statement was read by the 67-year old Jirásek, a national figure and an “epic” figure in the field of literature. The strengths of the Czechs, as outlined in this statement, included those associated with Czech culture over the centuries. These ideals were defined, in part, in the war years by a number of authors, artists, and composers. Scholarly work in recent decades has included a number of studies of Czech culture, and of European culture considered broadly, which delineated relevant themes—in literature, art, and film, especially—that concern us today. It would undoubtedly make sense to develop a discussion of wartime musical contributions with reference to the scholarly work carried out in the field of literature. The English-language critical commentary published between 1920 and the present day, in fact,

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includes a number of works that focus on Czech wartime literature. Of immediate interest to us, in this study of music, is the critical commentary on Czech poetry from the period 1914 to 1920. First, poetry associated with the Great War has almost certainly inspired the largest share of the critical commentary on war culture, in general, and as we have just lived through the centenary of the beginning of World War I, we have a well-developed discourse on the war as mirrored by poetry. And second, some Czech poems were set to music by composers in this period. In his essay “Czech Literature During and After the War,” Arne Novák comments on the poetry, of “heroic spirit,” written by certain Czech authors who were in the Czechoslovak Legionary forces—combatants who were fighting against the Habsburg forces for the liberation of the Czech people. “The heroic spirit which the nation had desired for nearly half a century, was now born. Not in its midst so much, as far away in the east and also upon the venerated soil of France where the Czechs had their army, for the first time since the Thirty Years’ War” (Novák 1923, 123). Novák quotes lines from Rudolf Medek’s “The Lion’s Heart”: In the name of grievous suffering, In the name of ancient wrongs and woes, In the name of the tormented nation, We advance to a fight from which there is no return. For the Czechoslovak people, For our land that is nailed to the Cross, Shall be our battle. Our battle shall be For the glory and freedom of our land; We shall give no quarter, None shall we spare, with none shall we parley, but with all our strength We shall speed forward and conquer, And gloriously die. (Novák 1923, 124)

Medek writes, at least in part as a Legionnaire, of the fierce resolve that animates individuals who feel solidarity with the Czech cause during the last part of the war. He writes of a cause that is so worthy that it might require death in battle. Nationalistic poetry, as this poetry might be called, brings the reader face-to-face with a central issue in Czech wartime culture. For Medek the Czechoslovak people are united in their determination but they are caught in a “tormented nation.” Novák states, with no equivocation, that the Czech wartime poetry must be separated from a good deal of European poetry by

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nations fighting for their own cause. The dilemma of the nation which was obliged to fight against Russia and Serbia, although it showered blessings upon them, was tragically ironical (Novák and Selver 1923, 117). Not all Czech poets endeavored to write what many believe is best described as “political” poetry. Otakar Theer, in Novák’s view, represents a different tradition in Czech wartime poetry. “Otakar Theer arrived at a mystical nationalism which, in his case, went hand in hand with a mystical religious idea achieved after arduous stages of a complex development” (Novák and Selver 1923, 121 and 271). A poem by Petr Křička, “Medynia Glogowska,” inspired by the Galician front, provides a notable example of a theme that was pivotal in the war years: Above their heads the first, the second whistled densely, Now they soar thickly. Crouched, with dry and awkward jests, The soldiers greet them. (. . .) In my thoughts I kiss my father’s letter, and your tresses, Distant maiden; And a grievous tear, a terrible tide of love Floods my heart, For those who suffer. The dull pangs Of the tortured heart are soothed in it, And anguish, anguish, at the too bitter cup Of my nation. (. . .) (Novák and Selver 1923, 118)

A lyrical poet who, in Novák’s words, “raised his anxious, pure voice from the battlefield” (Novák 1986, 315), Petr Křička wrote of suffering and of anguish not only in the fullness of battle but in the minds of those who were ordered to fight for a nation that was not, strictly speaking, their nation and against enemies that were not, strictly speaking, their enemies. Writers who were either fighting with the Austrian forces or writing about the experience were standing at some distance from the purity of thought that Medek, as a Legionnaire, achieved. Czech ambivalence about the early war effort was clear even in 1914. An Austrian official described, with obvious disapproval, the departure of Czech troops from Prague in September of 1914: “Yesterday their behavior was still worse . . . they carried three large white, red and blue flags, and a red flag with the inscription: We are marching against the

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Russians and we do not know why” (Rees 1992, 12). Claire Nolte, in her essay on wartime culture “Ambivalent Patriots: Czech Culture in the Great War” (1999), explains the attitude of an ambivalence succinctly: “On the one hand, they wanted to support their soldiers at the front, but on the other, they nursed long-standing political grievances against the empire which had sent them there” (Nolte 1999, 162). While Czech resistance took many forms, it had to be taken cautiously. In one account, Orzoff also writes of “ambivalence” in Czech culture: “Prague newspapers and Czech soldiers supported, and marched with, the Austrian forces; those who did not had to step carefully” (Orzoff 2009, 38). Czech poetry, taken as a whole, while it undoubtedly showed the imprint of the Czech frame of mind, nevertheless exhibited some features that compare readily with those found in poetry from other contemporary national traditions. A brief comment on at least one of these features may help us to come to terms with the Czech work. The opening line in the excerpt from Medek— to “grievous suffering” (in “The Lion’s Heart”)—points to a theme that we might expect to find in all war literature. Writers and critics have approached the idea of suffering as well as the assessment of suffering, by individuals and by society, from a wide variety of standpoints. Not surprisingly, discussions of suffering lead writers to a consideration of the experience of war and to the attempts combatants and noncombatants have made to describe that experience. Wilfred Owen's comment on the “pity of War” has been discussed by a number of literary critics in the last nine decades—the comment evidently attempts to capture the reality of the war experience and stands at some distance from the contemporary notions of heroism. In a preface to a collection of poetry 1918, Owen wrote: This book is not about heroes. English poetry is not yet fit to speak of them. Nor is it about deeds, or lands, not anything about glory, honour, might, majesty, dominion, or power, except War. Above all I am not concerned with Poetry. My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity. (. . .) (Giddings 1988, 162)

Elizabeth Marsland’s discussion of Owen’s text in The Nation’s Cause (1991), leads her to a consideration of how this notion of pity might be related to compassion and to protest in English, French, and German poetry: “Although the terms ‘pity’ and ‘compassion’ are often interchanged, in

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Owen’s usage pity is less an emotion experienced by the poet or reader than an impersonal and abstract quality, a ‘fact’ to which the poet’s expression gives permanence” (Marsland 1991, 221). And she presents a statement by the French writer Georges Duhamel, from his Vie des Martyrs, as an example of an attempt to expose the truth: “I wish to ensure that all the suffering is not merely lost in the abyss. And that is why I give an exact account of it” (Marsland 1991, 221). Suffering was obviously not restricted to one side in a battle or in a war. Austrian writer Arthur Schnitzler gave his assessment of war with this statement: “Here is the meaning of war. Everything else can be forgotten—diplomacy, world history, fame, enthusiasm, even death. The only thing that counts is suffering. And I am seeing only the millionth of it” (Beller 1999, 141). The attempt to come to terms with suffering brought all sides, it seems, together. The terms of communication among those working in the arts in the new nation of Czechoslovakia were to change after the war. Most critics agree that the “searches” of poets—carried out both in the pre-war culture and the wartime culture—gave way to new modes of communication at the end of the war. In a thoughtful summary, Nolte initiates a discussion of these issues with this statement: “The search for meaning, for absolutes, that the war had engendered in Czech literature faded rapidly once the war had ended” (Nolte 1999, 168). René Wellek, in his 1939 essay, sheds light on the spirit that swept over poets just after the war: The dogged determination of the war years was replaced by the almost miraculous fulfillment of a centuries-old dream. A stream of self-confidence and buoyant optimism flooded the country. The former frequently cramped nationalism of a nation fighting for its very existence was, with the temporary removal of external danger, replaced by enthusiastic hopes in a new and juster society. Though the social question could never have been entirely absent from the mind of a people whose national struggle has necessarily been also a social conflict, it came to the fore in literature only after the war, when everywhere inside and around Czechoslovakia great social changes were taking place. (Wellek 1939, 330)

Alfred French in The Poets of Prague explores in some detail the issues in these post-war years (he delineates the themes developed in the 1920s in chapter, “The Proletarian Phase”). It was probably inevitable that writers would be inclined to explore notions of life that might, for once, be described as normal (in sharp contrast with notions of life associated with battle or struggle). A. Novák, in his book Czech Literature, writes: “The end of the War and the onset of peace was greeted by many poets with a sudden surge of optimism; grateful that the world had been saved from ruin, with humility

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and childlike naivete they rejoiced in the simple, natural beauty of ordinary life” (Novák 1986, 315). Taking into consideration that Czech wartime culture mirrored the political themes and the war themes, we will present two lenses through which composers viewed the conflict between 1915 and 1920. The first lens is one that depicts the experience of the war itself, the horror of the war, and the dilemmas that Czechs understood to be unavoidable in what came to be known as the Great War. Axman’s Z Vojny (From the Army): II. Raport (1916, for male chorus) and Vomáčka’s cycle of five songs for voice and piano, 1914, illustrate in different ways the vexing challenges set up by this particular war. Composers worked with poetry written by a variety of authors including Dyk, Medek, Šrámek, Theer, Sládek, and others (all of the works in the first category are settings of texts). Composers demonstrated, then, that questions about how to assess conflicting claims of authority could inform artistic expression. A second lens is one that reflects themes relating to national identity and sacrifice, focusing on the commemoration of those who died in the war. Janáček’s 1918 setting of Horák’s Česká legie (The Czech Legion, for male chorus) focuses on a message sent by battle-scarred Legionnaires in France to their comrades in their homeland asking for perseverance in the just cause. Suk’s Legend of the Dead Victors, a commemorative piece for orchestra, celebrates the Czech Legionnaires who gave their lives in a battle for national independence. Janáček’s Taras Bulba is a symphonic poem that provides an example of how a wartime sacrifice for a Russian national cause could inspire the Czechs. Thus, composers demonstrated how commemoration of the war dead could be given a specifically Czech interpretation. FIRST LENS: THE EXPERIENCE OF THE WAR ITSELF AND IDENTITY In the musical culture related to the Great War, composers readily found opportunities to formulate statements that examined the experience of the war itself, the horror of the war, and the dilemmas that Czechs understood to be unavoidable in the conflict as it was defined. The repertory includes, not surprisingly, a large number of songs for chorus, for male chorus, and for voice with accompaniment (typically piano accompaniment). Composers essentially built a war-related song culture that took as its inspiration the contemporary poetic culture. It might be useful to arrange the songs into categories based on the categories of poems already discussed. First, the repertory includes songs that demonstrate resolve: the lines “In battle for the native land” heard five times in Novák’s song “V boj!” in his collection of Moravian folk poems provides an apt example (see discussion below). Second, the

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song repertory includes a number of works that reflect an unsettled frame of mind, that express ambivalence about the prospects of war for the Czechs (the repertoire includes important examples by Vomáčka and Novák). Third, the musical output includes works that register protest both overt and sardonic and that might show traces of humor or even of resignation. Fourth, a certain number of songs might be said to portray the contemplation of last moments, in battle or in consciousness. These works may show traces of the suffering that war and battle require and they may show traces of the search for meaning in a situation that is nothing short of catastrophic. The final category includes works that might be considered reflections on themes that pertain to wartime culture. Musical settings of poems are not all destined to fit into one or another of these categories, for the categories are not absolutely distinct. A review of nine songs in reference to these five categories will surely help us come to terms with the songs composed by Czech composers in the years 1914 to 1920. Songs That Depict Resolve, in a Wartime Setting Vítězslav Novák’s "Tři české zpěvy" (“Three Czech Songs”) Well known and highly regarded in the early decades of the twentieth century—and considered a founder of the modernist cause in the field of music— Novák had developed an active interest in Moravian and Slovakian culture in the 1890s (Tyrrell, “Novák” ). In one composition, from the late 1890s, he provided his own inventive melodies and piano accompaniments to a set of authentic folk texts (“Songs on Moravian Folk Poetry”) (Tyrrell, “Novák”). Part of his reputation rested on his many large works composed between about 1900 and 1910 (including the symphonic poem In the Tatras, 1902). Novák’s “Three Czech Songs” (mixed chorus) are settings of three poems by J. V. Sládek: “Dál!” (“Onwards!”), “Vlasti” (“Homelands”), and “V boj!” (“Into Battle!”). Novák dedicated his “Three Czech Songs” to the Czechoslovak Legion, as indicated on the title page and on the initial page of music in the score. The collection was first published in 1918 and again in 1921). III. V boj! 1. From Czech mountains hear the darkly clattering weapons: The hostile battle drives on through the Czech earth. Now into battle, now into battle, now into battle! How the resistance storms through the wooded mountain pine grove. Now into battle, now into battle, now for the native land into battle! 2. See through the cloud

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How red whips the glow: And that, with them goes death And shackles and frustration. Now into battle, now into battle, now into battle! Here the native soil They want to rip into rags. Now into battle, now for the native land into battle! 3. To the front lines Already everyone is at their guard post, The sacred Czech countryside up to now has been ours, is ours. Now into battle, now into battle, now into battle! Who has blood in his veins And do you have in your bosom a heart? Now into battle, now for the native land into battle! 4. For the dust of the fathers, For freedom, speech, and bread, For every inch of land, For every ear of grain and fruit tree Now into battle, now into battle, now into battle! Only the landless lowers his skull. Now into battle, now for the native land into battle! 5. And he who is a man, Pay with blood the debt to the homeland And better to be dead, Than to wear a ring of shackles. Now into battle, now into battle, now into battle! Not slaves, God created only man. Now into battle, now for the native land into battle! (Translated by James W. Peterson)

The five-stanza text of “V boj!” is powerful, providing a clear inspiration to move into the battle in reference to a clear set of goals that justify whatever sacrifice might be required (the text echoes some of the themes developed in Medek’s poem “The Lion’s Heart”). Novák provides a spare— even functional—musical framework for these three texts (in the 1921 score for soprano alto, tenor, and bass vocal forces). “V boj!,” consists of a 12-measure musical structure to which all five stanzas are meant to be sung. Novák contrives to highlight the related lines in the text—“Now into battle!” and “Now into battle, now for the native land into battle!”—in the musical structure by moving from the minor mode (for the opening lines of a given

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stanza) to the major mode, which remains the foundation of the last lines of the stanza. And he brings added emphasis to the latter of the two quoted lines by supplying the crucial phrase, namely “Teď v boj!,” with a chord containing more than the usual number of parts (an eight-note sonority) marked FF and reaching the highest note, for the soprano voice, found in the melody within the 12 measures. We might well find in the setting of this text a motivational intent—for we hear the related lines, quoted above, five times within the complete song. Much is at stake, after all. There are soldiers full of resolve in this particular fight, as protection of Czech soil and all that it has nourished is the matter at hand. Reflections on War Vycpálek’s V boží dlani (In the Palm of God), a setting of Slovak poems by Valerije Brusová, translated into Czech by Petr Křička, includes four songs (first published for voice and piano in 1917 and published again in 1923). The title page of V boží dlani (In the Palm of God) indicates that the work, op. 14, was composed in 1916. (The score also includes a German translation of the text, printed throughout the text, made by Friedrich Adler.) The first two poems set by Vycpálek—“Sentry” and “Age After Age”—provide a thoughtful reflection on life in the shadow of war. II. Age after age Hej they area plowing Happy plows in the springtime, through the moss-covered clumps of earth In the autumn the quieting snow would again fall on empty meadows. Look, treacherously the buckwheat blushes And panicked only turns blue. Again it is white, quiet; the meadow darkens, Only the wolves stalk like a dream, like a dream Now low it waves in the noise, The battle rages, the battle rages and the meadow quivers, Quivers the meadow. And in silence again into the clod of the woodsy hill our Mikula digs the meadow. And above the diligent toil of the family The searching morning light wakes the great-grandfathers, There through the drooping willows to the ford, Here through the crawling fog from the mountains. And further, and further To the ages faithful

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Year after year, In the scorching heat of suffering, The inheritable gift Hard toil Again tenaciously, again tenaciously drags ahead (Translated by James W. Peterson).

Sentry duty and the distant rumble of war connect these two poems, framed in a bucolic setting of fields, forests, and land dedicated to crops, to the reality of war. In the first song, the sentry follows his thoughts and recollections and observations (the birch trees, the peal of bells from nearby villages, Christmas trees, and the winter’s frost). In the second song, “Age After Age,” the rural setting is the main protagonist. The springtime plows are endowed with happiness, while the fields are beautiful when whitened with snow. However, the tone in nature becomes very quickly ominous. As the meadow darkens, wolves prowl about and even the buckwheat turns blue. The only reference to war appears in the middle of the poem (a reference to the “battle”). The focus continues to be on nature, for it is the fields that waver from the apparent gunfire. People then resume their farming tasks in a faithful way, as indeed their great-grandfathers had done. In a sense, there is a more accepting tone in these songs about the fact of war and its duties. Sentry duty or the distant echo of battle may be understood in a larger framework. The poetry brings together a celebration of life, a reverence for nature, an appreciation of past memories, and a determination to look for beauty in what lies ahead. The performance marking at the beginning of “Age After Age”—andante con moto, quasi allegretto/(intermezzo)—sets the tone for the musical statement. Following the structure of the poem, the composer builds a two-section structure with the second section beginning with the line “And in silence again into the clod of the woodsy hill.” Both musical sections are unified through the piano texture dominated by a running melodic line, supported by an ascending and often chromatic four-note motive, which provides an animating energy that propels the work while providing stability. The climactic passage in the first half is clearly the composer’s setting of the lines that pertain to wolves and to raging battle, a passage characterized by great force and urgency and by great sonority. In the second section Vycpálek provides the most powerful moment in the song as he sets the lines beginning with “And further, and further” and creates in the last portion of the piece a vocally and harmonically dramatic utterance that signifies not only fortitude but triumph emanating from “the inheritable gift.”

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SECOND LENS: IDENTITY, SACRIFICE, AND COMMEMORATION Heroic combat and heroic death were established wartime themes well before 1914. We find reference in a number of recent essays focused on the commemoration of soldiers who died in battle to the short and arresting epitaphs of Simonides first on the monument of the fallen Spartans at the battle of Thermopylae (480 BC)—“Go stranger, tell the Spartans that/ Here, obedient to their laws, we lie”—and second on the monument at Platea commemorating Spartans (a year later)—“Having died, they are not dead;/ For their valour, by the glory which it brings,/ Raises them from above out of the house of Hades” (Smith 2003, 219 [see also Hynes 1990, 270]). Such statements, inscribed in durable and visible sculptural sites, invite those who encounter them—and those who read about them centuries later—to consider individuals who died in battle. The monument is designed to keep alive the memory of those who died in a specific conflict: the statements would reactivate the memories in some individuals and they would enter into the minds of others who have had no connection to the fallen soldiers or to the battlefield in question. Commemorative practice and monuments to the dead (to use the term as it is known in France [“monuments au morts”]) have been the focus of a large number of scholarly books and articles in the last 20 years. Hynes, writing about monuments, states: “A monument records the dead, and so gives dignity to their undignified deaths” (Hynes 1990, 270). Paintings and musical compositions created at the time of World War I might be understood to be functioning as “monuments” in this sense and Hynes structures his discussion to include sculpted monuments, paintings, musical compositions, and anthologies of war poetry. If monuments to the dead appeared early in the War, they continued to appear long after the conflict itself had ended (in the 1920s and even in the 1930s). In France, poetic lines written by Charles Péguy in 1913, in his monumental work eve, were impossible for the French to overlook in the context of the Great War. Blessed are those who died for they have returned Into primeval clay and primeval earth.

These lines written, by a French poet who died in action at the battle of the Marne in early September 1914, were set to music by Henry Févier and heard in a number of performances in 1915 and 1916 (Peterson 2007, 29). In many countries, France included, artistic statements were still being formulated after the war had ended. Marc Delmas, a young French musician who was a prisoner of war for a number of years, completed his Messe de Requiem for

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men’s voices and orchestra (published in an arrangement for men’s voices and organ) in 1924 and he dedicated the work—the monument—“To the Heroes—Unrecognized—who fell before the Victory” (Peterson 2007, 31). Death, then, was a topic that could not be cast aside by wartime cultural figures and it inspired a staggering number of artistic treatments by those involved in the war as well as those who lived with and through the war. At the end of the Great War, the Czechs—having fought on both sides of the conflict—ostensibly faced vexing questions about how to remember the dead. All of the Czechs, according to the official interpretation, had been working on behalf of a “modern democratic mission” in conjunction with the Allies (Cornwall 2002, 90). Mark Cornwall states “For all, the nationalist idea offered relief for the four-year period of sacrifice,” taking note of groups who were not explicitly included (in particular, German and Hungarian minorities) (Cornwall 2002, 90). In a broader historical context—wartime and post-war cultural context— the theme of sacrifice as related to national ideals was explored in different ways revealing a range of competing perspectives. A widely quoted French poem by René Arcos (1920), “The Dead,” ends with two stanzas beginning with “Divided sons, fight on, fight on, / You lacerate humanity / And tear the earth apart in vain, / The dead are all on the same side”; and this stanza together with the final stanza offers an inherently destabilizing view—one that threatens to neutralize the rationale for war (as that rationale engenders national ideals). Jay Winter quotes the penultimate stanza, noting that “the dead were beyond nation and beyond class” (Winter 1995, 208). Writing in September of 1914, Romain Rolland paid tribute to the warriors—“Young men of all nations, brought into conflict by a common ideal, making enemies of those who should be brothers,”—voicing the fear that they were almost certainly destined for death (Rolland 1914, 17). Let us return to the case of the Czechs and to Cornwall’s summary: “For all, the nationalist idea offered relief for the four-year period of sacrifice” (Cornwall 2002, 90). For the Czechs, then, the official stance offered a resolution to the four-year ordeal marked by divided allegiances, ambivalence, and, more importantly, the sacrifice made by Czech soldiers for national and political ideals that had transformed them from citizens to warriors.

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CZECH MUSICAL MEMORIALS Compositions by Janáček, Foerster, Suk, Vomáčka, and Vycpálek In the war years and in the post-war years composers found opportunities, for a variety of reasons, to write musical memorials. Composers, including Leoš Janáček, Josef Suk, Boleslav Vomáčka, Ladislav Vycpálek, and Josef Bohuslav Foerster helped to define the cultural work of commemorating the dead between 1918 and 1924. The repertoire on the list of compositions (see below) includes two categories. Compositions in the first category include those which commemorate the dead and those which commemorate sacrifice made by individuals and by groups for freedom. These works—these cultural statements—are rooted in the historical circumstances of the Great War (1914–1918). Category II includes a broader range of compositions relating to commemoration: the statements under study here may be considered to reflect themes of death and of rebirth and they may commemorate individual accomplishment. List of Compositions • Category I: Compositions in the first category include those that commemorate the dead and those that remember sacrifices made by individual and by groups for freedom. These works are rooted in the historical circumstances of the Great War (1914–18). • 1918 Janáček, Leoš: Česká legie (“The Czech Legion”) (male chorus) (poetry of Antonín Horák) (first performance February 26, 1920, Moravian Teachers’ Choral Society, Kroměříž) • 1919–1920 Suk, Josef: Legenda o mrtvých vítězích (Legend of the Dead Victors), Op. 35b (orchestra) (performance October 27, 1924 [6-year anniversary of the founding of the Republic]) • 1923 Vomáčka, Boleslav: 1914. Cyklus pěti písní s orchestrem (“Cycle of Five Songs”) (1919–1920) • • • • •

I. “1914” (Poet: R. Medek) II. “Voják v poli” (“A Soldier in the Field”) (Poet: Fr. Šrámek) III. “Raněný” (“Wounded”) (Poet: S. Hanuš) IV. “Kmotra smrt” (“Godmother Death”) (Poet: O. Theer) V. “Za Mrtvými” (“The Dead”) (Poet: O. Theer)

• Category II. Category II includes a broader range of compositions relating to commemoration: the statements under study here may be considered to reflect themes of death and of rebirth, and they may

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commemorate individual accomplishment. Striving—in a national sense—for worthy goals in the face of death is a possible theme in this category. This category includes both statements conceived in a postwar cultural context and statements composed earlier which might be reconsidered in that post-war context. 1918 Foerster, Josef Bohuslav: Mrtvým bratřím (“To the Dead Brothers”), Op. 108 (Bible, Gehrok, J. Vrchický, Pujman, Zich, Merhaut, R. Tagore) (soloists, chorus, orchestra, organ) (dedicated to the memory of his brother Viktor Foerster [1867–1915]) 1920-1922 Vycpálek, Ladislav: Kantáta o posledních věcech člověka (“Cantata of the Last Things of Man”), Op. 16 (Performance, Prague, December 9, 1922) Parallel: 1918 Janáček, Leoš: Taras Bulba (symphonic poem) (Novella by N.V. Gogol [1824]) (first performance on October 9, 1921, in Brno [František Neumann conducting]; performance in Prague on November 9, 1924 [Czech Philharmonic Orchestra with Václav Talich conducting]) (dedication—1924—“To Our Czechoslovak Armed Forces”) Parallel: 1914 Suk, Josef: Meditace na staročeský choral "Svatý Václave" (Meditation on an Old Czech Hymn "St. Wenceslas"), Op. 35a (strong orchestra/string quartet) (at the head of the score Suk wrote a portion of the melody, using an old four-line score format, accompanied by the words “Nedej zahynouti nám budoucím” [“O, save us and future generations from perishing” {the third line of text in the fourth stanza}])

The works included in this study—by Czech composers—reflect themes that relate to national identity and sacrifice. These composers set texts by Vrhlický, Tagore, Křička, Šrámek, Theer, Antonín Horák, Dyk, and Medek. Janáček’s setting of Horák’s poem Česká legie (The Czech Legion), for male chorus, focuses on a message sent by battle-scarred Legionnaires in France to their comrades in their homeland asking for perseverance in the just cause (the poem ends with a message from those survivors who are speaking for the dead). Suk’s Legend of the Dead Victors, a commemoration piece for orchestra, celebrates all those who gave their lives in a battle for national independence. In his work entitled 1914, Vomáčka arranges the cycle of five poems—by Medek, Šrámek, Hanuš, and Theer—to move from a text that is rooted in the political world to a final point, his setting of Theer’s “The Dead” (“Za mrtvými”), a poetic-musical reflection on death. In these works, Czech composers demonstrated how musical works could commemorate those who died in the war. The period from 1918 to 1924 might be considered in a broader historical framework—1918 to 1928—a decade that included several commemorative works in a wider geographical context including both Europe and North

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America. And memorials were, of course, completed after 1928, as well. Within Czech cultural history both Otakar Jeremiáš and Rudolf Karel composed settings of Medek’s “Zborov” from 1927 to 1928 (10 years after the end of the Great War and approximately 10 years after the Battle of Zborov). In the period 1925 to 1930 important compositions by Arthur Bliss (Morning Heroes, 1930 [texts by Whitman, Li-Tai-Po, Owen, Nichols, and the Iliad]) and Kurt Weill (Berlin Requiem, 1929 [text by Brecht]) should be mentioned. Marc Delmas’ Requiem (1924), J. H. Fould’s World Requiem (“In Memory of the War Dead of All Nations,” 1918–1921), and Horatio Parker’s A. D. 1919 (text by Brian Hooker, in memory of the 221 “Yale Men” who died in the war) all were completed in the first five-year period after the end of the Great War. Category I Identity, Sacrifice, and Commemoration 1923 Vomáčka, Boleslav: 1914. Cyklus pěti písní s orchestrem (“Cycle of Five Songs”) (1919–1920) I.  “1914” (Poet: R. Medek) II.  “Voják v poli” (“A Soldier in the Field”) (Poet: Fr. Šrámek) III.  “Raněný” (“Wounded”) (Poet: S. Hanuš) IV.   “Kmotra smrt” (“Godmother Death”) (Poet: O. Theer) V.   “Za Mrtvými” (“The Dead”) Boleslav Vomáčka (1887–1965) studied music at the Prague Conservatory and composed a number of vocal and instrumental works. He received a doctorate in law prior to the war and his career included work with the Ministry of Education, Science and Arts and with the Ministry of Culture. Both the Op. 11 songs, titled 1914, and the Op. 15 piano pieces Z války (From the War), document his interest in composing war-related music. After the war he was associated with Czech avant-garde music. His opera The Water Sprite, was performed in Prague in the 1930s. Vomáčka was active as a music critic and wrote essays for a number of Czech journals. First Example from the Collection 1914 by Vomáčka: No. 1: 1914 (Poetry by Rudolf Medek) Op. 11, 1914, a cycle of five songs for voice and piano on poetry by Medek, Šrámek, Hanuš, and Theer, was composed by Vomáčka in 1919–1920 and published in 1923. The opening song in the collection is a setting of the text

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“1914” by Rudolf Medek, a poet and a Legionnaire. The first poem intertwines the experience of a single soldier with the Czech nation. I. 1914 In bloody pandemonium the world is suffocated, the world is suffocated, A roar is made, the step of the army sounds darkly . . . You are quiet . . . You are not permitted to speak . . . You are not permitted to breathe . . . You are not permitted to live . . . Youthful blossom of Your Nation, youthful blossom of Your Nation Goes in the service of foreigners to die dishonorably, Goes to die dishonorably, goes to die dishonorably . . . How is it with you, Czech land?

The opening hushed passage, for piano alone, sets the stage with a mournful fanfare—in the lower register (one thinks of a horn)—coupled with slowly shifting harmonies. When the text enters, the composer then ushers in a richly chromatic and restless passage dominated by the soft though urgent descending motives presented by the singer: the descending motives in association with a highly chromatic harmonic style convey the meaning of the text. At the word “war” the composer turns to a texture saturated with unsettling tritone intervals, confirming dissonance on several levels. Vomáčka provides an extremely grave musical setting of the final question in a passage which gives way to a forlorn muffled drum-roll effect in the bass register of the piano, which is the final sound one hears. Second Example from the Collection: Vomáčka’s 1914: No. 3 “Raněný” (“Wounded”) The poetry for No. 3 “Raněný” (“Wounded”) of the collection title 1914 was written by Stanislav Hanuš: III. Wounded No, not that, my god, today I am very much sorry, When my young blood flows in foreign lands, And tortures my mornings, that I will never hear more, As the earth sings from spring, that it will not invite me, A glow in the eyes, has for you the old, And love is not pleasing, however, therefore, therefore everything, That blossoms does not bloom, what people wanted to warm up And give them light, I have a serious, serious regret, I have a serious regret, not that it will not arrive here for me, Only that it's [the] burning heart, it's [my] heart does not beat,

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I die in sorrow.

The poem is a lament and a reflection on, and presumably in, the last moments of a soldier’s life. Death—and death in a foreign land—turns his thoughts to the recollection of all that was known and will be missed. That his death is likely to take place away from home intensifies his remembrances of mornings, of the earth “singing” in the spring, and leads to his conviction that what is destined to blossom has been or is in the course of being erased. Hearts that have been full of ardent hopes can cease to function: he has, after the contemplation of these things, come to an understanding of what makes death, for him, sorrowful. The composer has no interest in creating a dramatic setting of this poem: he creates a pensive musical monologue—rooted in the realization found in the last lines of the poem—that is remarkably cohesive and unified (the indication at the beginning is “Larghetto—triste” [sad]). The melodic line is, for the most part, of modest dimensions and the piano accompaniment explores searchingly the richness of the bass register. At two points first, in the passage devoted to the line “I have a serious regret,” and second, in the passage devoted to the line referring to the “burning heart.” Vomáčka intensifies the otherwise solemn character of the song (the intensity owes a great deal to the rise in the melodic line and the ambitious nature of the accompaniment). The song opens with an extremely spare texture in which the piano provides one tone above which the initial poignant vocal melody may be heard and the piano accompaniment soon introduces a four-note descending motive that recurs again and again throughout the song, providing an appropriate unifying motive. Chromatic touches and wayward gestures animate the musical terrain, but the striking dissonance that results, at a soft dynamic level, sounds distant. The final passage is the climactic one for both the poem and the song. The composer returns to the opening melodic motive, bringing the cycle of sorrow to a close. While the vocal line reaches its expected goal—the axial A flat that brings resolution—the piano accompaniment continues its brief postlude that provides a lovely commentary that lands on a note that clouds the final stable sonority, allowing the final musical emblem of grief to hang in the air. The Czech Legion (Česká Legie), by Leoš Janáček (Poetry of Antonín Horák) (1918) Janáček completed his setting for male chorus of the poem Česká legie by Antonín Horák in November 1918 (by November 18, 1918 [Vogel 1981, 247]). The poem itself, as part of the published book Osvoboditelům, bears an inscription with reference to the date October 28, 1918 (Horák, Osvoboditelům [1918]). While the structure of the text for the song follows the structure of

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the published poem in a general way, Janáček’s text is considerably shorter as he set just 70 out of the 262 lines found in the print. If the poem might reasonably be described as a story endowed with a fantastic element, still the setting “on the Chemin des Dames,” is a real geographical location in eastern France and, not surprisingly, the site of a number of bloody battles throughout the war years. Moreover, the history of the Czechoslovak Legion preserves ample evidence that organizations of Czechoslovak soldiers were functioning as part of the French forces from the fall of 1914 until the fall of 1918. If accounts of the extraordinary efforts and achievements of the Legion in Russia have been widely discussed in recent decades, the work carried out by the Legion in other locations has not been reported with comparable detail. In The Czech Legion 1914–20, David Bullock provides information about the Czech Legion in France that had not been widely available. The movements of the Czechoslovak Brigade in 1918 help us understand the story that Horák outlines in his poem. Bullock writes: The Czechoslovak Brigade, commanded by French Col. A.C. Phillippe, was incorporated into the 53rd Infantry Division in July 1918 and moved to Alsace, where minor engagements occurred over the next several weeks. In October the division concentrated at Vouziers in the Argonne hills; here, in the central sector of the Allied line, the Czechoslovaks would experience heavy fighting during the battles of Vouziers, Chestres and Terron from October 18 to 30. (Bullock 2009, 12)

Czechoslovak units were certainly engaged in fighting, then, in the area known as the “Chemin des Dames” in 1918, for Vouziers is located about an hour’s drive from Rheims. On most maps of WWI battles, the “Chemin des Dames” is the portion of the battlefront, on the Aisne River, in the vicinity of Soissons and Rheims. Janáček’s 70-line text preserves the basic layout of Horak’s long poem within a musical structure that includes a first section, a setting of lines 1–62 (mm. 1–108), and a shorter second section, a setting of lines 63–70 (mm. 109–141). In the composer’s work, then, the two sections compare readily to those found in the print, and the short final section is a faithful setting of Horák’s six-line “Epitaf padlým” (the concluding lines in his long epic poem). The opening line—“Na Chemin des Dames” (“On the Chemin des Dames”)—confirms the location of the soldiers, on the battlefield in France. The composer, taking inspiration from the poet, treats the opening line as a recurring refrain (it will be heard eight times in the first section of Janáček’s piece), inserting it in a number of places as a kind of reminder to the soldiers of their exotic and dangerous position at the battlefront in France. The composer shapes a text in the first section of his piece that defines, in a sharply

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focused way, Czech resolve at the battlefront. At the battle site there are Czechs from a number of towns in the homeland (Mount Říp, Šumava, the Brdy foothills, Písek, Prague, and Hradec). Importantly, inspiration for the battle comes from memories of the Battle of White Mountain (in 1620) and the early Battle of Marchfield (in 1278). And resolve for the mission comes from recollections of “century-old wrongs” and from the struggle to preserve their language: the remembrances of historical battles and the recollections of historical injustices flow together, with no actual dates provided, in this poetic reflection on the Czech cause. The Czech troops, strong as they may be, die in great numbers. At a crucial point the French battalions arrive to join forces, so to speak, with the Czechs. In Horák’s tale, as set by the composer, the French battalions come to relieve the battered Czech forces. Evidence supports the notion that battlefront operations could involve the relief of Czech units by French units (or vice versa) as well as the reinforcement of one unit by another in battles fought in eastern France in 1918 (Bullock 2009, 12). The concluding lines of the first section of the poem as set by the composer focus on the thunderous tribute to the surviving Czech soldiers. Finally, the Czechs sing their message to family and friends in their homeland in the second and final section of the composition. Janáček’s composition subdivides into 10 sections, each defined by musical features in combination with the appropriate poetic lines: 1) the setting on the “Chemin des Dames”; 2) profile of the groups represented in the Czech strength in the battle and Czech losses in the battle; 3) preparation for battle; 4) Czech strength in the battle and Czech losses in the battle; 5) prayer; 6) the appearance of the French battalions; 7) the appearance of the French marshall; 8) the French marshall’s order and the audible signs of a tribute to the surviving Czechs; 9) the Parisian tribute; and, finally, 10) “Epitaph” (mm. 109–141). Janáček sets the opening line, “Na Chemin des Dames” (“On the Chemin des Dames”) as a disembodied single-line melodic figure, in what amounts to a musical approximation of a questioning mode of thought. And this melodic fragment, because it recurs again and again (it appears eight times in the first 108 measures), has a haunting effect. In the opening sixteen-measure sub-section, the setting on the “Chemin des Dames,” the composer builds the textural web out of three elements: 1) the opening single-line questioning figure (presented twice in the opening passage) 2) the monolithic four-voice choral phrases describing the setting (which might be considered the dominant element); and 3) the animated and disruptive downward tumbling—and disruptive—motive associated with the line concerning the raging war (heard six times in the second bass voice). In the course of the first 108 measures, he designs animated textures, with voices operating independently and with characteristic vigor at appropriate places, notably in the portion of the work

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depicting battle and struggle (sections 3 and 4, as described above). He sets the two prayer-like poetic passages in memorable ways. The first prayer (section 5), a four-voice choral passage, brings to mind the thematic design of the first section in the piece, providing thereby a unifying element in this sectional work. In sections 6 and 7, the composer explores another unifying device, for he creates a motive base on the line “Vystřídat legii!” (“to relieve the Legion”) which occurs 15 times as part of a variegated texture in those sections. One final example of how Janáček creates imaginative methods of presenting, and often combining, text lines occurs in sections 8 and 9 When the French marshall signals the tribute—and when the audible signs of a celebration are heard (bells and so forth)—the composer creates an 11-measure unit based on a pedal point in which three of the voices sing long-held tones for the “bells” and in combination with are heard other voices (carrying independent melodic lines), providing not only the proclamation but the jubilant confirmation that these miraculous forces can be heard by all. Janáček sets the final seven lines, the “Epitaf padlým,” as a somber and determined chorus within a chorus—as an almost free-standing section that delivers both a message about sacrifice and a charge, as well: “In the certain hope that the world will not let them [others] die, that it will not let us die, or those who come in the future.” The poetic-musical statement depicts, notably and eloquently and with great sensitivity on the part of the composer, a powerful combination of Czech and French troops working together for victory, and ultimately, for freedom. Text for the “Epitaphe" (“Epitaf padlým”): Go pilgrim, carry our greetings / To our beloved home on the Vltava’s banks, / Tell our brethren / That forty thousand of us lie here, slain, / Having gladly given our lives for freedom, / In the certain hope that the world will not let them [others] die, / Or those who come in the future. (lines 63–70) (Translation from liner notes by Peter Quinn (2001) accompanying CD with revisions by JWP)

Legend of the Dead Victors, Op. 35b, Symphonic Poem by Josef Suk Legenda o mrtvých vítězích (Legend of the Dead Victors) is a commemorative piece for orchestra composed by Josef Suk in 1919–1920. In fact, the music was the middle piece of a triptych that included Meditation on the Old Czech Chorale Saint Wenceslas (1914) and Towards a New Life (1919). The “Old Czech Hymn ‘St. Wenceslas,’” the foundation for the Meditation, had been a symbol of the Bohemian people for many centuries and the Czech Quartet performed this Meditation in its original version during the war. The

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Legend commemorates “those who gave their lives in the battle for national independence” (Šourek 1937, 1). In fact, the defense minister of the new Czechoslovakia had asked Suk to compose a memorial on the first anniversary of the founding of the state in 1919. The composer responded that he did not have enough time but went to work on it in October of that year. He completed it by the end of the year, and it was performed for the first time in 1924, on the sixth anniversary of the historic founding of the state in 1919. Later, in 1937, it was again performed to commemorate the death of President Masaryk (Šourek 1937, 1). One critic observed that the tone of the Legend is that of “resolve” and heroism (Vitek 1993, 3). The presentation of the A theme, heard at the outset in its tonic (F minor), defines a heroic style of gravity and seriousness carried to the full extent of orchestral—and brass—power and marked by an adventurous, even searching, harmonic idiom. At the same time, the structure of the work grows out of highly varied sections, some of overwhelming sonic force and some of gently consoling power. If the second section, unveiling a consoling B theme, provides a contrast with the opening thematic unit, it also carries out its mission with a slightly ominous repetitive drumbeat as its foundation. A section marked “calm” and “misterioso” gives way to a highly animated and energized section which leads to a grandiose variant of the A theme, again in the tonic (F minor) with overwhelming force and gravity. A chorale-like section opens up in the aftermath of the climactic moment which leads, once again, to yet another variant of the A theme which communicates, in this instance, resolve and purposefulness, above a drumbeat foundation. When the music gathers force—pushing beyond what might have been expected—the Legend comes to a full stop (a grand pause/fermata). The last section, marked “calm” and “misterioso,” maintains the character of a march, now in F major, but opens into a shimmering treble-register textural moment with harp and solo violin commentary. In this memorable final passage, Suk brings the Legend to a delicate and ethereal close which features a gentle transformation of the main theme combined with a muffled drumbeat figure. If this concluding passage comes across as compelling and even, despite its delicacy, dramatic, it is, in part, because the composer has structured the 8 1/2 minute work to resolve the sonic tension and power with, at long last, an arrival point. The final cadence, confirming F major, provides a resolution to the great tension found in the work. The Legend unquestionably places the victors in peace. Taras Bulba, Symphonic Poem by Janáček (1915–1918) The symphonic poem Taras Bulba, composed by Janáček between 1915 and 1918, is based on a novella by N. V. Gogol—set in fifteenth-century Russia— from 1824. Bulba is a vigorous Cossack warrior and the novella celebrates

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the strength of Russia and of the Orthodox faith. In commentary about the three-movement symphonic poem, the composer made it clear that the third movement, “The Prophecy and Death of Taras Bulba,” was of central importance as he defined and carried out the project: Not because he killed his own son for betraying his people (Part I . . . ), not for the martyr’s death of his second son (Part II . . . ), but because “in the whole world there are not to be found neither fires nor tortures strong enough to destroy the vitality of the Russian nation.” For these words which fell into the searing sparks and flames of the stake to which died the famous Hetman of the Cossacks Taras Bulba (Part III and close) did I compose this rhapsody based on the legend written by N. V. Gogol. (Šourek 1967, iv)

Although Janáček completed the score on March 19, 1918, the work’s premiere performance in Prague took place six years later in November of 1924, at which time the composer added at the head of the work the dedication “To Our Czechoslovak Armed Forces.” Critical reception throws into relief relevant—and vexing—issues concerning the meaning of the work and its programmatic aspect. Vogel wrote “More deeply felt and more authentically national music than this can scarcely be imagined. Janáček maintains the feeling of constant suspense throughout its 25-minutes’ duration, and only at the very end comes the sensation of liberation” (Vogel 1981, 243). MacDonald, writing at a later time, declared that the work could not be considered “authentically national” music (“But Taras Bulba is not by any stretch of the imagination ‘authentically national’ music,” citing, for one thing, that there can be found no hint of Russian music—a Russian musical style—in the work [MacDonald 1999, 47]). MacDonald points out that the composer formulated his style with careful attention to the features of the Czech language. He also suggests that the music depicts Russian strength, and he acknowledges that Bulba, in the original story, represents a “defiant Russian spirit” (MacDonald 1999, 47). It is perhaps not surprising that this third movement, with its complex and varied musical materials and its broad final four-minute “apotheosis” conclusion, should trigger a range of critical responses. In truth, the story behind the third movement, with its almost dizzying array of details pertaining to Taras Bulba and his attempt to guide his comrades to safety in the face of peril, depicts the “defiant Russian spirit” in a specific set of circumstances. As he prepares for death at the hands of the Polish forces, Taras Bulba gives orders to his comrades on how to elude the enemy forces, and moreover, he hears that those comrades are succeeding in the escape (this takes place with great speed in the last two pages of the story). There are two important points here about this story of the death of a warrior at the hands of the enemy. First, Taras Bulba dies a martyr to the

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cause, and second, he dies with the conviction that the cause, so to speak, will prevail by means of commitment on the part of others (the cause is Russian vitality and strength). Naturally, the lesson or theme of this compositional project possessed broader meaning both to listeners who had been engaged in the war and to listeners who knew directly of other struggles for freedom. In a discussion of the Coda of the third movement (mm. 166–230), Derek Katz provides an analytical description of music that displays “a general sense of nobility and triumph” (Katz 2009, 41), and he points to a number of devices of orchestration and harmony that help us understand the function and the meaning of the Coda. One might even supplement his striking analytical comments with the observation that the “nobility” of the music is achieved, in part, by a lengthy coda which unfolds as a series of interrelated subsections and that the “hymn-like” motive signals, it seems, a “breakthrough” moment characterized by an urgent expressivity (the violin parts at m. 196 are marked “expressive”). The final cadence itself, which hinges on a final and meaningful recall of the low brass heroic motive which was so prominent and restless in the early part of the Coda (mm. 166–196), preserves the nobility of the passage and also the clarity of texture that the composer defined and maintained throughout the Coda. Janáček, in building this musical monument to the death of Taras Bulba, manages to inscribe a message that brings together directness, clarity, and expressivity. Category II Category II includes a broader range of compositions relating to commemoration: the statements under study here may be considered to reflect themes of death and of rebirth and they may commemorate individual accomplishment. Striving—in a national sense—for worthy goals in the face of death is a possible theme in this category. Brief comments on a cantata composed by J. B. Foerster and a cantata composed by L. Vycpálek will provide at least an introduction to this category of compositions. Mrtvým bratřím (“To the Dead Brothers”), Op. 108, by Josef Bohuslav Foerster (1918) (Bible, Gehrok, J. Vrchlický, Pujman, Zich, Merhaut, R. Tagore) (soloists, chorus, orchestra, organ) Born in Prague, Josef Foerster (1859–1951) and his wife, Berta FoersterováLauterová, spent many years in Hamburg and Vienna before returning to Prague in 1918, where he was named a professor of composition at the conservatory (in 1919). Foerster’s first four symphonies were heard in the 1921–1922 season of the Czech Philharmonic (conducted by Václav Talich,

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who became the chief conductor in 1919) (Landová 2009, 98). In The Music of Czechoslovakia, Rosa Newmarch wrote at some length of Foerster’s long career and about themes that emerged from his compositional output. “His admirers dwell frequently on the spirit of ‘humility and love’ expressed in his music,” she wrote in conjunction with an account of his family background and of his religious spirit (Newmarch 1942, 183). And Newmarch comments on Foerster’s dedication to memorializing family members in his music, focusing on the Second Symphony in F Major, Op. 29 (1892–1893, dedicated to the memory of his sister); the Op. 108 cantata (dedicated to the memory of his brother); and the Pianoforte Trio in A minor, Op. 105 (1919–1921, dedicated to the memory of his son, who died in 1921). J. Bartoš wrote, Newmarch reports in her book, that “Foerster’s work emerges from the dusky sea of his sorrow” (Newmarch 1942, 188). Josef Foerster dedicated the cantata “To the Dead Brothers” to the memory of his brother Viktor Foerster (1867–1915), a painter and mosaic artist who died in December of 1915. Composed in 1918, the cantata was published in Prague 11 years later, in 1929. Scholar Jana Fojtíková proposed that the cantata be considered as a part of wartime culture: “Dedicated to the memory of a brother who died prematurely and in a figurative sense to all the victims of the first World War” (Fojtíková 2012). The slow opening instrumental prelude presents a searching yet very soft passage which builds in intensity to a more dissonant climactic passage which then settles into a soft and yet unresolved chord left hanging in the air. The next section, which features a tenor soloist presenting the texts of Gehrok, Pujman, and Zich, explores a wide range of stylistic possibilities and moods (some reflective and some dramatic). At the end of this portion of the cantata Foerster turns to a solemn hymn-like musical texture within a calm and very soft passage which provides great tonal stability and a decisive cadential conclusion. Foerster provides a restless chromatic language for the presentation of the lines, by the tenor soloist, by Tagore, coming to a dramatic and unsettling end which yields to the choral declaration of the first line of the 23rd Psalm: “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” An instrumental introductory passage then leads to a massive 90-measure concluding section dedicated to a choral presentation of the 23rd Psalm. In this majestic section Foerster places emphasis, in the final pages, on the line of text, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me,” as part of a heroic final passage with full orchestra and chorus.

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Kantáta o posledních věcech člověka (“Cantata of the Last Things of Man”), Op. 16, by Ladislav Vycpálek (1920–1922) Ladislav Vycpálek (1862–1969), a prominent figure in Czech music from the war years until 1948, had a background in literature: he studied Czech and German at Prague University and wrote a dissertation in that field in 1906. Within a year Vycpálek had a position at the Prague University Library (1907) and one year later he began lessons, in music, with Novák. Between 1915 and 1918 he composed a number of vocal works—for two voices, for single voice and piano, and for male chorus—among which were some arrangements of folksongs. Soon after the war he composed a series of works for strings and, in 1922, he published an important cantata, Kantáta o posledních věcech člověka (“Cantata of the Last Things of Man”), considered by scholar John Tyrrell the composer’s “greatest work” (Tyrrell 2010). The piano-vocal score presented the text from beginning to end in both Czech and German and it included, after the title page, versions of the text in Czech, German, French, English, and Slovak (Hudební Matice Umělecké Besedy v Praze, 1922). Vycpálek dedicated the cantata to the memory of his sister, Marie (Havlík 2004). The premiere performance of the cantata took place on December 9, 1922, with the Hlahol Choir (of Prague) and the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra (conducted by Jaromír Herle [1872–1945]). In an article published in 1934, Hans Holländer and Theodore Baker characterized Vycpálek as “first and foremost a choral composer of great technical ability and compelling power of expression,” noting that this cantata could be considered, in their view, his “chief work” (Holländer and Baker 1934, 309). In The Music of Czechoslovakia, Rosa Newmarch reported that the composer discovered the poems in 1915 and that he began to work on the cantata in December of 1920. She provides an account of the project that draws on commentary from the composer: “I must say” he wrote himself of the work, “that it did not seem to chime with the hour. In the year, in which I came to reflect upon it, I saw that the work was directly evoked by the times, and that I could not have written anything different. In that year, all the seeds of war were still putting out strong growths: the greed of humanity for money, the inconsiderate impatience for the fulfillment of individual interests, all the brutal materialism born of war, still threatened to smother everything higher and less aggressive. The Cantata originated like a secret thing, but came forth as a glowing and poignant protest against materialism. It is meant to give a glimpse of death and nothingness and to emphasize only the spiritual side of man. (Newmarch 1942, 231–32)

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For his “Cantata of the Last Things of Man,” Vycpálek chose texts from Moravian folksongs. Texts for the opening portion of the cantata were taken from song No. 13 from the Sušil collection (beginning with “Who on Friday falleth ill him avails no human skill”); and the text for the closing portion is taken from a song (“Tell me, what is man?”) from the Bartoš collection. The final portion of the cantata introduces the last text (Bartoš II, č. 973), “Tell me, what is man?,” which consists of three seven-line stanzas (1922 score and Havlík 2004). Vycpálek brings the first stanza to musical life with adventurous and innovative writing (pp. 54–65 of the piano/vocal score). The musical language of the second stanza (which includes the phrase “taste of death”) is rich and dissonant, forte in dynamics, and insistent. The third stanza presents the hope that we, as sinners—of the “earth”—might contemplate the face of the Lord: Though dust of earth I be, Yet, Lord, I am thine image: (Translation by Paul Selver [Supraphon liner notes 2004])

The third stanza (beginning with the line “Though dust of earth I be”) settles in a stable D-minor area (FF dynamics) in the opening line and features a declamatory hymn-like texture—growing in intensity—that ultimately leads to a resolution of the tension by means of a novel and resplendent cadence settling on D major (“Pane”) (“Lord”). And this momentous passage places in prominence a variant of the opening motive of the cantata. Rosa Newmarch provided an assessment of this cantata: Its originality, simplicity and seriousness of purpose and the interior piety which it reflects, seem to affiliate it to the fifteenth century and the spirit which inspired the Unity of the Bohemian Brethren. Only in its insistence on the ultimate equality of all humanity, and the futility of all values but those of the spirit, it is manifestly in keeping with the democratic ideals of the new social order of the republic of Czechoslovakia. (Newmarch 1942, 231–32)

IMPORTANCE OF THE TWO LENSES The second lens brought us face-to-face with a Czech view of the commemoration of the dead in the war years. The scholar Van Ypersele suggested that the period between the two world wars can be broken down into three identifiable European subperiods, characterizing the 1918–1924 period, the first period, as one in which “the survivors were both trying to come to terms with the enormous casualties of the recent war and making efforts to keep

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their memories alive” (Van Ypersele 2010, 578). Our study of Czech works included projects that were conceived as “monuments” and also works that were conceived as modest tributes to the dead, in the context of war. Three of the songs included by Vomáčka in his collection titled 1914 fall into this category “The Dead,” “Godmother Death,” and “A Soldier in the Field” and they are the songs at the end of the collection. A brief comment on “A Soldier in the Field,” set to a poem by Šrámek, will be helpful. The opening lines of the poem are: If I return home, I will go through our streets, Slowly and quietly,

The poem, as a whole, presents a view of a soldier, in the midst of fighting, in his last moments . . . a soldier “having fallen in the grass.” The vision centers on a beautiful woman who meets him when and if he might be in a position to return home. The vision first focuses on the room that he and his wife share, on her presence, and even on flowers in the window within the room. His vision includes activities that he remembers but that he has not been able to carry on while in war: reading, working as a farmer. Ultimately, he sees the mechanism that permits a new life—that permits release from the life he knows. The possibility of returning home means giving up his role as a soldier: “I will not be a soldier, that will be beautiful . . . that will be beautiful!” In the extraordinary final passage—when the soldier discovers the key to the release—the composer devises a beautiful and idiosyncratic harmonic pattern as the key to the arrival point in the musical structure (focusing on an A major chord invoking D minor and the ultimate F major chord as the arrival point in the final cadence). The powerful combination of poetry and music in this hushed passage stands as an eloquent tribute to a soldier’s last vision. The two lenses provide us with a view of important developments in Czech wartime culture. Czech composers in the years 1914 to 1918 left a substantial body of works that preserved their own reflections on life and death during the Great War. These works may provide inspiration to us as we attempt to understand not only an historical event but our own world, as well. CONCLUSION Both lenses reinforce the totality of the Czech experiences and sacrifices during the total war in which they participated. However, the first lens reflects in part global themes of war that many other countries had undergone in the past. The experience of individual soldiers and their families in states to the West was parallel to what Czechs and Slovaks were going through after

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1914. Novak’s “Three Czech Songs” are replete with symbols that all the nations engaged in the war had endured. At the same time, the second lens centers on the complexity of creating a sense of identity, for all the wartime sacrifices and post-war commemorations are linked to establishing an identity among all the key groups in the state that can position the political leaders to announce formation of a state that had deep cultural and social roots. In the end, both lenses combine to portray the general ways in which global and national pressures combined in a catalytic mix to make the new state a reality and persuasive phenomenon.

Chapter Six

New Directions for Czechoslovakia Nationally Rooted Musical Commemorations of the War and Globally Inspired New Political Architecture, 1918–1922

INTRODUCTION The political and musical worlds, after the end of the war and the beginning of state creation, contained global and national characteristics. In the political world, the culmination of the nationalist expressions after 1848 resulted in formation of official state-based political parties and a 1920 Constitution of their own. At the same time, global forces were prevalent as well in the support from many western countries and even the Pittsburgh Agreement that settled the question of whether there would be a new state and what characteristics it would bear. In the world of music, the Janáček composition “The Battle of Blaník” brought to the fore an ancient image of the mountain in which the Hussite Army had sought refuge in a mythical way. This image had become a point of national pride in which the Czechs had been immersed for centuries. The publication of “National Songbooks” brought in music from other states in the West as potential models for possible Czech and Slovak national anthems. Further, Suk’s “Towards a New Life” drew on Czech and Slovak aspirations to share a positive future similar to the one in which other western democracies had thrived for decades. Such compositions shared in the global thrust that had partially affected the political world as well.

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OVERARCHING THEMES Political dreams at the time of state creation in 1918 were an outgrowth of Czech national developments in the late Austro-Hungarian Empire. The nationalist movement of the second half of the nineteenth century culminated both in political party creation and in challenges to Vienna-based directives and rule. After the creation of the state in 1918, political issues with a nationalist bent included the drawing of state borders, ratification of the Czechoslovak Constitution of 1920, continued development of political parties, and four governmental changes under the leadership of President Masaryk between 1918 and 1921. However, global forces were also strong. In the early twentieth century cultural temptations from outside the empire from centers such as Paris pulled younger Czechs to link up with broader western patterns. At the end of World War I, outside global pressures from expatriate Czechs and Slovaks combined with western political models such as federalism to generate enormous impact. Also, Czech and Slovak leaders traveled into western nations with an eye on locating political ideas and institutions that might be valuable to them. Czech composers in the period 1918–1922 explored a wide range of issues relating to national themes and values in their works. The discussion will include Josef Suk’s “Towards a New Life” (1919–1920), designated as the Festive March of the Sokol organization, and Leoš Janáček’s “Excursions of Mr. Brouček. Janáček,” in “Ballad of Blaník” (1919–1920), a symphonic poem based on the poem by Vrchlický, works with multi-layered thematic units rather than with well-defined themes, recontextualizing the poem within a post-war notion of harmony and peace. The publication in Czechoslovakia of national songs from a variety of countries (including Great Britain, France, and the United States) after 1918 defined well-established ­national themes within a broader international post-war context; our discussion will include the 1921 collection Od Šumavy-k Tatrám! as well as Charles Atherton’s Favorite Songs of the Čecho-Slovak Army in Russia (New York, 1921), a collection of 45 songs which includes the Hussite chorale and “The Star-Spangled Banner.” NATIONAL POLITICAL FORCES Late Nineteenth-Century Nationalist Movement Czech nationalism was grounded in a rich culture that laid the foundation for the independence movement and its accomplishment in 1918. While still under Austrian rule, the Czech composer Bedřich Smetana, a composer

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who had taken part in the 1848 revolution in Prague, presented The Bartered Bride in 1866. In it he celebrated individual hopes for a better future rooted in the traditions of the Czech past. For example, his dreams for the Bohemian people included the call: Let’s rejoice and be merry while the Lord grants us good health! Only he is truly happy who enjoys life while he lives! (Bažant 2010, 182–183)

The composer Leoš Janáček, based on the writings of Jaroslav Vrchlický and on an ancient Czech tradition, went even further in his actual hopes for an outburst of Czech nationalism that would have a creative impact on the eventual desired political formation. In “The Ballad of Blaník,” he describes the situation in the mountain, as reported by the itinerant Jira, as one in which the soldiers of St. Václav still held on to their banner with eagles but who also had replaced their weapons from an earlier age with agricultural implements. They were ready to begin work to restore dignity to the Czech and Moravian peoples with an emphasis on building a renewed home rather than fighting in perpetual resistance against Vienna (Bažant 2010, 210–12). Slovaks too shared in the hope for a national rejuvenation and membership in an eventual nation-state. They listed 14 points, under the authorship of Jozef Hurban, during the 1848 revolution. Its nationalist expressions that could undercut Hungarian dominance included recognition of a distinct Slovak national identity, transformation of Hungary into a state that consisted of equal nations with separate parliaments, extensive use of Slovak in various public settings, the end of serfdom, and restoration of land to peasants. However, Hungarian authorities extinguished these proposals as well as the later concept of a Slovak National Council (Kirschbaum 1995, 117–19). These collective Slovak hopes helped fire the nationalism that would result in the joint Czechoslovak state in 1918. However, they were also a double-edged sword that would eventually challenge their new state for a full 75 years. During the late nineteenth century, political party formation, reformation, and political activity gave concreteness to the more emotional forms of Czech nationalism just described. The Habsburgs had permitted limited parliamentary participation to early Czech political parties in the 1870s, and even this restricted activity provided an important basis for later “political institutionalization” (Leff 1997, 33–34). Prior to 1891, the Old Czech political party maintained some influence in the Austrian Reichsrat, and after that they played a role in the Bohemian Land Diet. After 1899, the Agrarian Party

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emerged, while Catholic activists put together the Christian Social Party (Agnew 2004, 150–51). Young Czechs picked up some of the slack left in the wake of the decline of the Old Czechs. From 1891 until 1906, the Young Czechs dominated their elections within the empire. Very quickly other parties formed, and the list in the early twentieth century grew to include Progressives, Social Democrats, Christian Democrats, Radical Progressives, People’s Party, and the National Socialist Party (Agnew 2004, 146–50). Formation of the National Socialist Party in 1898 was a method for opposing the policies of the Social Democrats (Nosek 1926, 181). Nationalism was at the heart of all this political party business, as many leaders looked beyond the Habsburg-permitted Czech political organizations to a day when they would all compete to govern an actual nation-state. If political party formation generated limited pluralism and democracy within a burgeoning framework of nationalism, expansion of Czech public administrative structures provided an important counterpart of governing capabilities that could serve the Czech people. For instance, after the 1848 Revolution, the Bohemian Diet grew to a larger size while the Czech language became an equal counterpart with German. Austria’s more autocratic policymaking of the 1850s removed some of these gains, as did their decisions in 1871. However, public management at the local level took on a decidedly Czech posture in the ensuing decades. Czech towns and villages regained their local authority after passage of key legislation in 1863 and 1864. Czech municipal committees took on the responsibilities to choose their own mayors and town councils. At the regional level, Czechs obtained the power to set up district representation after 1864. As a response to the Austro-Hungarian Ausgleich of 1867, Czechs endeavored to earn the same benefits that Hungary did within the new imperial unit. Czechs and Moravians together declared that Czech land diets had the exclusive power to decide financial questions. Some of these new powers disappeared temporarily after the 1871 Vienna decisions, but more victories for Czechs occurred in the 1880s. In 1880, the Czech language became an important tool in the bureaucratic offices that they managed. Subsequently, in 1885, reforms set up the probability that Czechs would have a permanent majority in their Bohemian Diet (Agnew 2004, 118–37). Obviously, these gains enabled Czechs to make the transition to genuine democracy after the nationalist victory of statehood in 1918 (Pounds 1969, 393). However, Slovaks did not obtain the same democratic and public administrative gains and tools within the framework of rule by Budapest. Their Magyarization penned them in with regard to political development, and that difference from the Czechs became a handicap after the winning of their joint independence and ability to self-govern (Pounds 1969, 394). Slovaks did not win the right to education in their own language except in church-run schools.

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At the management level, they could only use Slovak at the lower rungs of the public administrative sector. Whereas Czechs and Moravians made a serious effort to financially manage their districts, the Slovaks had to yield to the Hungarian land-owning nobility and let them control the tax codes (Kirschbaum 1995, 127–28; Wolchik 2008, 192). As a result, a “mass-based nationalist movement” never emerged in the Slovak inhabited areas of the Hungarian Empire (Wolchik 2008, 192). Early Twentieth-Century National Political Developments The Pittsburgh Agreement, signed on June 30, 1918, prefigured the creation of the state that would take place several months later. That early agreement contained a vision of an equal role for both Czechs and Slovaks in the forthcoming state. For example, its signers included clauses that promised the Slovaks a diet, autonomous administration, court freedom, and the use of Slovak as the official language both in schools and in public affairs (Seton-Watson 1967, 174). Later, in the middle of October, allies recognized the already operational and Paris-based Czech National Council as the provisional government for the new state. Then, on October 28, 1918, the Praguebased Czech National Committee officially declared independence for the new state to consist of Bohemia and Moravia. Slovaks met at Turčiansky Svätý Martin and endorsed a unified Czechoslovak nation (Seton-Watson 1967, 171). Leadership constituted a team that consisted of three Czechs and one Slovak. Czech members were President Tomáš Masaryk, Prime Minister Karel Kramář, and Minister of Foreign Affairs Edvard Beneš. Milan Štefánik was the Slovak representative, and his job was that of minister of war (Agnew 2004, 171). In these ways, the first official national decisions presented a picture of one state with two co-equal nationalities. A Slovak National Council was one concrete achievement of their October 30 meeting at Svätý Martin, and their leaders envisioned operating with force within a common state of Czechs and Slovaks. At the same time, they signed a Declaration of the Slovak nation (Kirschbaum 1995, 151). Near the end of this critical year, state leaders set up a Ministry for Slovakia, but a telling point was their failure to consult Slovaks about its design. Further, Slovaks did not learn about the historic Pittsburgh Agreement with its portrayal of co-equal nationalities until 1919 (Kirschbaum 1995, 163). Czech failure to carry through fully on promises to Slovaks infused the ideas and actions of the Slovak People’s Party under Hlinka, and they pressed Czech bureaucrats to carry through on the earlier promises of autonomy (Seton-Watson 1967, 176–77). Thus, early evidence suggested that a clash of two nationalisms

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would characterize the developing state rather than a common Czechoslovak nationalism. This nationality complexity certainly applied as well to the smaller nationalities that had to dream of a state for themselves but had been torn between larger states and empires for centuries. Which of those nationalities and what portion of each should become part of the new Czechoslovak state? Ruthenia, in the extreme eastern part of the new national entity, ended up in the state inclusion process as part of Czechoslovakia. It was their counterparts in the United States who lobbied for this result, and it was a bit unusual due to their background as Ukrainians who had been part of the Hungarian Empire for a long time. Hungarians themselves were added to the Slovak section of the new country, and thus they became a 750,000 minority who mainly populated agricultural towns. Bohemia and Moravia became the heart of the new state, and their “ancient boundaries” remained intact. However, that section included two million Sudeten Germans whose presence caused such hostility that the Czechs in a violent way pushed most of them back into West Germany proper. Hlučin was a Slavic area in the former German state, and its inclusion in the new Czechoslovakia was less controversial than that of the Sudeten Germans. Czechoslovakia also gained a number of territories from Poland, and the disputes were many over that process. Těšín was important with its coal, steel, and iron resources, and Czechoslovakia gained most of that territory. Most of Orava and Spíš fell as well under the control of Prague, but these were less controversial (Pounds 1969, 393–96). In the end, Czechoslovakia won “its territorial maximum” but also inherited complex and sometimes hostile minority populations. How would it be possible to fit all these nationalities into a new “national bargain?” For the most part, the answer was a centralist Prague-dominated answer and a definite “no” to the Slovak request/demand for a hyphenated name for the new state. Regional self-government for all these minorities was not granted, and Czechoslovak leaders did all they could to limit the power and autonomy of the Hungarian and German minorities. If all the minorities had been able to unite against Prague, their chances for genuine autonomy and freedom might have been enhanced. However, they had their own past traditions of hostility towards one another, and so that opportunity did not exist. Czech leaders did not perceive themselves as one of several national groups but as the dominant force within the state (Leff 1997, 22–28). As a result, subnationalism severely weakened a new federative state that itself expected to be a united national force in both regional and global politics. Global factors did play a role in these developments, and they tended to exacerbate the minority group conflicts. For example, a Ruthenian Congress held in Scranton, Pennsylvania, supported a proposal for special autonomy for that group within the emerging Czechoslovak state. In April 1919, the

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Paris Peace Conference added its imprimatur of agreement to the complex new state, and that legitimized the partial suppression of subnational rights. The Treaty of Trianon with Hungary forced the movement of Slovakia with its substantial Hungarian minority into the broad new state, while the Minorities Treaty that was part of the Treaty of St. Germaine empowered the newly arrived League of Nations to protect minority rights (Agnew 2004, 176–78). However, this blend of global forces did not have the power to protect all the minorities or to send clear messages of future needs and plans to the authorities in Prague. A little more than a year after the formation of the new state, emergence of the official Constitution took place on February 29, 1920. Importantly, the authors changed the name from Czecho-Slovakia to Czechoslovakia, a subtle adjustment but one that set the stage for moving away from the promised total equality of the two main nationalities in the country (Kirschbaum 1995, 165). Technical features included establishment of a bicameral legislature with a lower house that consisted of 300 seats and an upper house with 150, proportional representation and fixed party lists as the basis for the elections to those seats, and power granted to that lower house of the legislature to elect the President of the nation. Minority rights were a significant consideration within the new system, and they did at the official level receive protection. For example, language rights for Slovaks included substantial respect if the local population in a district consisted of at least a 20 percent Slovak minority. Under those circumstances, Slovaks possessed the right to use their language on a day-to-day basis, to use the language in official contacts with the state, and to permit their children to receive their education in Slovak (Agnew 2004, 178–80). In sum, subnationalism received protection in several ways in which leaders sought to establish a balance that would serve the broader interests of the nation-state. After determination of the new national borders and acceptance of the Constitution, leaders turned their attention to the development of the political party system and its operation in elections. Given the ethnic diversity and history of parties that developed under the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the multiplicity of parties generated a series of “fractionalized parliaments” (Leff 1997, 29–31). There were even two Ruthene parties called the Agrarian Opposition and the Fenzig Party (Seton-Watson 1967, 182). The first elections occurred in April 1919, and a full 14 parties were successful in winning representation in the lower house. The Agrarian Party was a key player in all elections for the next two decades, but the Social Democrats also had strong support. The National Socialists received support from President Masaryk and Minister of Foreign Affairs Beneš, while many Catholics gravitated to the People’s Party. The Young Czechs had provided a spark of leadership at the turn of the century, but many of their followers joined the National Democratic People’s

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Party. There were five different parties that represented the German minority, and the Czechoslovak Communist Party was very active in the entire period prior to World War II (Agnew 2004, 180–81). Slovaks had unique experiences in party development as well. Their Agrarian Party united with Czech Agrarians to form the Czechoslovak Republican Party (Seton-Watson 1967, 173). The range of Slovak parties included the National Party, People’s Party, a popular Social Democratic Party that linked up with their Czech colleagues before the end of 1918, and the National Socialist Party. Their People’s Party was a vital one for Slovaks, for it stood out with its support of the concept of Czechoslovakism. However, the Social Democratic Party was the most dominant one in the 1920 elections, for it obtained 38 percent of the Slovak vote and 23 parliamentary seats (Kirschbaum 1995, 165–76). In the end, the distinctively Slovak parties inevitably represented desires to keep Slovak nationalism alive, while those who merged with their Czech counterparts began development of a larger cross-cultural national identity that hinted at the possibility of a unified state in both domestic and global politics. Between spring of 1919 and fall of 1922, there were four official governments that emerged to serve the needs of the new nation-state. The first was an All-National Coalition that endeavored in a somewhat neutral way to pull all the parties together and get the state off to a solid start. In that sense it bears a similarity to the broad coalition that replaced communist rule at the end of 1989 before actual post-communist elections were held. However, a new coalition headed by Vlastimil Tusar replaced that government a few months later in July 1919. Its staying power lasted a little more than a year, and party squabbling led President Masaryk to replace it with a “nonparty government of experts.” His inner circle, known as the Pětka, provided stability, and the strong Agrarian Party contributed to the steady motion forward of the political system. There was a parallel much later in the early twentieth century, for political party disconnects led to another government of non-political experts who handled things until the party system settled down. Finally, in fall of 1922, another all-National Coalition emerged under the leadership of the Agrarians in tune again with the Pětka (Agnew 2004, 183–85). What does this complicated picture of a political transition of overwhelming importance for Czechoslovakia tell us about the force of nationalism that lay in wait at the threshold? First, nationalism justified the breakout of the state from the rule of Vienna after nearly three centuries. Second, nationalism of political forces such as the Czechoslovak Legion empowered political leaders as well as the people to stand forth on the stage of world politics with a new and impressive political and national entity. Third, President Masaryk and his inner circle were somewhat blind to the forces of subnationalism that simmered beneath the surface of this exercise in national power. Eventually, the

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state would lose the Ruthenians, most of the Sudeten Germans, the Slovaks, and the Hungarian minority residing in Slovakia. How did the national leaders of October 1918 fail to come up with a formula that would have prevented that? Was it a failure of leadership, or was the power of nationalism so strong that it was impossible to predict its energy, direction, and impact? GLOBAL POLITICAL FORCES External Cultural Factors What global forces pushed Czechs beyond the narrower preoccupation with nationalism to incorporate broader international dynamics in their understanding of what their new state would look like and entail? Both key leaders of the dominant ethnic groups, Masaryk and Štefánik were in exile during the war and obviously acquired concepts about political development from established nation-states (Wolchik 2008, 192). Masaryk’s trips included ones to Holland, Rome, Geneva, Paris, London, and Russia. Geneva became a key center of operations, and other leaders like Beneš came to work with him there (Nosek 1918, 196). Nosek states on that Beneš and Masaryk went from Geneva to Paris and London “to organize the Czechoslovak revolutionary action” (Nosek 1916, 196). Masaryk was based in London from the end of September 1915 until the end of April 1917, and with help Masaryk got an appointment at King’s College, London. The Beneš trip from Switzerland to Paris occurred in fall of 1915. Another intriguing outside force from the cultural world that impacted Czech nationalism was the early 1890s visit of composer Antonín Dvořák to the United States. In his “Letter from the New World in 1892” he gave “Requiem” as a concert, in part because he was able to give it, as well, the prior day to persons who earned no more than $18 per week. This exercise in American democracy was a legacy of his trip that would undergird the growing social and economic democracy in the Czech Lands and become somewhat of a model at the point they created a nation-state. He also took an interest in compositions done in America and observed that many were of German origin. However, “at times, another spirit, other thoughts, another colouring flashes forth, in short, something Indian” (Dvořák 2010, 216–18). This appreciation of the indigenous peoples of America might have translated into a cultural statement about the importance of giving recognition to some of the non-Czech minorities that would become part of the new state nearly three decades later. Dvořák thus may have contributed a little to the dialogue about valuing non-Czech peoples and ethnic groups. These experiences of

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key political and cultural leaders helped to broaden the discussion beyond the narrower nationalism that dominated state creation. Political Pressures from the Outside World The presence of Czechs and Slovak immigrants in other countries such as the United States also became a real set of pressures in the new Czechoslovak state. As early as fall 1915, the Cleveland Agreement established parameters for the new state that would emerge at the end of the war. This agreement anticipated that a federal state with two co-equal nations would be the product of eventual statehood negotiations. Slovak political institutions would be separate from their Czech counterparts, and the Slovak language would possess official status. The Pittsburgh Pact of 1918 was quite different in that it anticipated only partial linguistic and administrative autonomy for Slovaks. However, the promise of Slovak institutions and Slovak as an official language were the same (Kirschbaum 1995, 150–51). A Ruthenian congress in Scranton, Pennsylvania, held in November 1918, supported autonomy within Czechoslovakia for that ethnic group that was now part of Slovakia (Agnew 2004, 177). Ruthenians anticipated obtaining autonomy but eventually were disappointed that it never occurred in a satisfactory way (Seton-Watson 1967, 177). There were additional outside pressures that impinged on the eventual state-making process of 1918. Key leaders traveled to other countries to establish military units that could add force to the new state. For example, in 1917, Štefáník endeavored during a trip to America, fruitlessly it turned out, to set up Slovak military units. Masaryk had more success in his trip to Russia to help organize the Czecho-Slovak Legion that included a full 40,000 soldiers by the end of 1917. Overall, there were approximately 100,000 Legion soldiers spread throughout Russia, France, and Italy. The Legionnaires heroically fought in Russia during its 1917 Revolution, captured the Trans-Siberian railroad for a time to keep it out of the hands of the Bolsheviks, and pressed all the way through Siberia to the Pacific Ocean. They then returned to Europe via a trip to and through the United States. This was a very important development, for the return of the Legionnaires after the war added a strong dose of pride and nationalism to the new state. In 1916, the National Council in Paris emerged in France, and it became an important force in the global setting that impinged on the eventual creation of the Czechoslovak state in 1918. In February of that year, Masaryk of the Realist Party and Dürich of the Agrarian Party both moved to Paris to provide the leadership for the council. Beneš joined the team as secretary-general, and soon Sychrava, after his expulsion from Switzerland, also became part of the team. The group downplayed the Slovak connection in the hoped-for

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nation-state, for they did not want to create undue political pressure or complexity in the new equation. However, they did include the Slovak Štefánik in the leadership team. Following the Bolshevik Revolution of November 2017, the group removed Masaryk’s rival Dürich from the council, and so it remained active as a triumvirate of Masaryk, Beneš, and Štefáník for several years prior to the state founding (Heimann 2009, 29–31). Interestingly, that same triumvirate provided the key leaders who managed the Czechoslovak state just after its founding in October 1918. The National Council in Paris also set objectives that served, in a way, as its policies. One goal was the organization of Czech colonies and prisoners of war for military and other actions. A second objective was broad presentations about Bohemia in order to firm up international support for its eventual independence. A third policy position highlighted Czech resistance to Vienna in order to inspire widespread support among the Allied Powers for their aspirations for independence (Nosek 1926, 197). The Paris-based council also won management control over the Czechoslovak Legion forces in Russia and later in France (Agnew 2004, 167). Through each of these objectives, the Council leaders utilized forces in the immediate regional or global environment to strengthen the growing pressures for the founding of the eventual nation-state. Finally, upon the establishment of the League of Nations, both Masaryk and Štefáník traveled outside their own territory to justify international support for creation of the new state. Overall, such intermixing of global forces with Czech and Slovak leadership and political dreams contributed to state-making in very effective ways. Western Democratic and Federalist Models It is important to begin this part of the discussion with analysis of the role and ideas of the American president Woodrow Wilson. For the new states such as Czechoslovakia, he portrayed a world in which the new states would be set up as democracies, with ethnic boundaries as their new frontiers. Considering the autocratic dominance of ancient monarchies, nationalism should explode and not be suffused. At the root of the Czech and Slovak nationalist movement was a strong desire for popular sovereignty, and democratic political forms would serve that need. This Wilsonian image for Eastern Europe fit the needs of Czechs and Slovaks perfectly, for they had come to the stage of statism with a strong desire for a far better future for their respective peoples (Smith 2005, 65–68). Whereas many leaders and analysts had stressed the primacy of geopolitics in such a regional transformation, Wilson announced a focus on idealism that drove future policy. If each state in the region developed a strong component of self-government, then a commonality would

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exist among them that would enable the bonds of collective security to become operational (Hook 2014, 42). Of course, the fear of a reemergent Germany created anxiety in the hearts of all the peoples of the region, and therefore the new democratic forms in the geographic area that had been freed would serve that purpose. However, the League of Nations, a hope of America that became realized without their participation, could deter future aggressors such as Germany and provide a protective tent for the new states. Hopefully, that collective body could firmly anchor concepts of American exceptionalism in a “community of power” that would contribute to global collective security. If the United States had gone to war in 1917 to make the world “safe for democracy,” then the League could utilize the concept of self-determination as a powerful tool to provide a breathing space for Czechs and Slovaks (Jentleson 2007, 64–71). In fact, the League of Nations was the fourteenth of Wilson’s famous Fourteen Points for the post-war peace structure. In his view, the renewed world order would depend much more on values rather than the balance of power. More openness would serve the Czechs, Slovaks, and others in ways that would promote genuine collective security (McCormick 2010, 26). Clearly, the concept of self-determination would promote enhanced security for Eastern European minorities and move the region sharply away from the imperial controls of the past (Paterson et al. 2005, 87–92). The end of the war treaties also served to provide international pressures and configurations for the new Czechoslovak state. The Treaty of Versailles defined their border with Poland and Germany, while the Treaty of St. Germaine set up their frontiers with Austria. In terms of exclusively Slovak geography, the Treaty of Trianon established the lines that separated them from Hungary. State-making was thereby territorially dependent on the efforts of older European states to preserve a balance of power that would prevent future aggression by a larger power from within their midst. This perspective clearly differed from the nationalistic motivations of the states themselves. However, it also enhanced international support for Masaryk and his Czech agenda as a tool to ensure stability (Kirschbaum 1995, 156). Conclusion on the Interacting Politics of Nationalism and Globalism The roots of nationalism in the birth of Czechoslovakia lay in the political history of the late nineteenth century, a time when neither Czechs nor Slovaks anticipated creation or possession of a state of their own. Czechs were able to carve out institutions and political parties within the framework of the Habsburg Empire. These achievements within the imperial framework provided a rich source of ideas and practices for those who built the independent

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nation both during the war and in 1918. Leaders were able to draw up a nation that included a varied and wide array of ethnic groups that would, at least temporarily for some, finally inhabit a national home. Constitutional and political party developments fed the set-up of working governments that rotated in regular fashion. However, pressures of globalism reinforced the basic nationalism to solidify outside support for the new territorial entity. Visits to the United States by key leaders such as Masaryk, Štefáník, and Dvořák reinforced their understanding of American achievements in establishing workable democratic institutions for Bohemia, Moravia, and Slovakia. An array of expatriates living in other countries had strong views about what they hoped their old lands would resemble as an independent state, and the presence of many of them in the United States justified the writing of the Cleveland and Pittsburgh Agreements in the American setting. Finally, the sweeping and absorbing idealism of President Woodrow Wilson combined with European pragmatism, as reflected in three end-of-the-war treaties, to settle the outcome of a Czechoslovak state would be forthcoming. MUSICAL THEMES Introduction to Themes Compositional history in this period, 1918–1922, will be considered in light of cultural developments in the Czech Lands within the period from about 1900 to 1922, with reference not only to war-related themes but also to the exploration, within the field of music, of issues relating to “modernism.” Czech composers in this period unquestionably explored and repositioned a number of issues relating to national themes and values in their works. Bohuslav Martinů’s Czech Rhapsody was first performed, as noted in an earlier chapter, in January of 1919 and this work, embracing a wide array of stylistic directions, shows the imprint of a “modern” spirit. Leoš Janáček’s setting of Horák’s poem The Czech Legion (1918), as noted in an earlier chapter, depicts Czech and French troops working together for victory, and ultimately, for freedom. At least one composition for piano might be mentioned in this context: “Ukolébavka” (“Lullaby”) by Ladislav Vycpálek, which appeared in the Album of Modern Bohemian Composers for the Pianoforte (published in London in 1918 and in Prague in 1923). This haunting “Lullaby” preserves many of the features of other works in the broader repertoire: the 50-measure piece includes a first theme and second theme and it depends on a balanced structural framework with a memorable final section that recaptures and reframes the components of the opening section and the motivic elements of the first theme. The dynamic level remains low

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throughout the entire “Lullaby” and the final passage is the softest passage within the lullaby (ending “pp possible”). The composer demonstrated how compositional elements of an ABA structure could be explored in a haunting and gentle musical expression with the title of “Lullaby.” The discussion will include a notable and innovative opera composed by Janáček titled The Excursion of Mr. Brouček to the 15th Century (Výlety pane Broučkovy [“Excursions of Mr. Brouček”] Part II [libretto: F. S. Procházka]). Based on the novel, The Epoch-making Excursion of Mr. Brouček to the 15th Century by Svatopluk Cech (1888), the opera was composed in 1917 and the first performance was given in 1920. Both composer and librettist agreed that the piece, in general, could be considered a “burlesque.” In this work Janáček is concerned with developing his own operatic style, a style that involves quick changes (in motives, for one example) as well as interruptive techniques that relate to the drama. The discussion will also include compositions and publications which pointed to new directions in the post-war world. Josef Suk’s “Towards a New Life” (1919–1920), designated as the Festive March of the Sokol organization, is an important example of this repertoire. Janáček, in the “Ballad of Blaník” (1919–1920), a symphonic poem based on the poem by Vrchlický, works with multi-layered thematic units rather than with well-defined themes, recontextualizing the poem within a post-war notion of harmony and peace. The publication in Czechoslovakia of national songs from a variety of countries (including Great Britain, France, and the United States) after 1918 defined well-established national themes within a broader international post-war context. Our discussion will include the 1921 collection Od Šumavy-k Tatrám! as well as Charles Atherton’s Favorite Songs of the ČechoSlovak Army in Russia (New York, 1921), a collection of 45 songs which includes the Hussite chorale and “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Janáček: Výlety pane Broučkovy (“Excursions of Mr. Brouček”) Part II. “The Excursion of Mr. Brouček to the 15th Century”) [Libretto: F.S. Procházka] Based on the novel Nový epochální výlet pana Broučka, tentokráte do XV. Století [The Epoch-making Excursion of Mr. Brouček to the 15th Century] by Svatopluk Cech [1888] (composed 1917) [first performance, Prague, April 23, 1920] The composer found this project challenging. Near the end of 1917 he observed “But even the musical composition was hard, not easy: to bend every emotional fibre—in order to penetrate a deep truth; to sharpen it at all times with sarcasm! I am glad that I am out of it” (Tyrrell 1992, 222). The weight of Czech history was considerable, to judge from one of his most frequently quoted remarks: “I wanted to make us disgusted by such a person,

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so that on coming across him we would destroy him, stifle him—above all, however, destroy the Brouček in ourselves; so that we would revive in heavenly purity the thought of our national martyrs” (Tyrrell 2007, 192). Both composer and librettist agreed that the piece, in general, could be considered a “burlesque” and they agreed that the opera as a whole subdivided into the opening portion—overture/Brouček and Würfl voices as Brouček finds himself in the subterranean passages outside the jewel chamber/his descent into sub-basement corridors (time travel episode) before seeing, through a way out, the Prague Old Town Square (Act I/ scene 1)—and the “burlesque” or the actual story of Brouček‘s time in the fifteenth century (Act I/ scene 2, and Act II/ scenes 1, 2, and 3). Concern about the past, and about old styles and practices, manifested itself in a few ways. Composer and librettist discussed plans for the musical score itself (Tyrrell 1992, 216). Janáček with the librettist’s help verified that bagpipes could be included, as could the organ, in a score which sought some degree of authenticity. Texts of Hussite hymns, found in the novel, are preserved in the libretto and in the opera (Tyrrell 1992, 212). Historians and critics have found in the musical score abundant evidence of Janáček’s inventiveness and his agile demonstration of a command of musical styles that embraces wit, satire, perhaps sarcasm, possibly irony, not to mention gravity, and historians and critics have, at the same time, found it difficult to explain or characterize the composer’s attitude. To some extent, the composer was testing the waters as he explored resources appropriate for comic opera in the “Excursions” project, and Derek Katz provides a timely reminder that opera composers have much to gain from tying their new scores to well-established traditions: “The end of the first act, in which bagpipes and warriors approach, leading to a glorious, organ-soaked final chorale, is an exemplary operatic finale” (Katz 2003, 161–62). Historians, Katz included, are agreed that the composer’s command of the particular resources in this opera is impressive in many ways.1 But Janáček is centrally concerned with developing his own operatic style in a project that revolves around the issues brought forth in Čech’s fantastical novel of the 1880s. Janáček’s musical style involves quick changes (in motives, in orchestral forces), interruptive techniques (dizzying at times) to mirror shifts in action or in attitude, cajoling motives, earnestly lyrical passages, an almost “sacred” grandeur reserved for climactic moments, and, at times, almost overwhelming effects as he proves how musical resources can effectively bring the drama-fantasy to life. The conclusion to Act I is an extraordinary achievement: the composer designs a mosaic-like textural block that incorporates a wealth of individual components—the most notable of which is probably the old chorale—that succeeds in demonstrating how the age-old foundations of Czech culture and history can be turned to new account in a “modern” treatment.

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“Towards a New Life” (“V nový život”), by Josef Suk (1919) “Towards a New Life,” the third composition in Op. 35 of Josef Suk, took shape over a number of years. The first version was composed by Suk in April 1919, as a march in three sections, and the most well-known version, titled “Towards a New Life,” emerged in the early 1930s when the expanded version won first prize in the competition held during the Olympic Games in Los Angeles (in 1932). The first version was composed in the shadow of the Great War, as Otakar Šourek reports in his notes for the 1948 edition: The first sketch of this march was composed by Suk in the second half of April 1919, when the young Czechoslovak Army had to go to battle to protect the endangered southern districts of Slovakia. After the “Meditation upon the Choral of St. Venceslaus” and the “Legend of the Victorious Dead” it was at that time already the third small work that had spontaneously sprung forth from his moods of patriotic enthusiasm during World War No. 1, and so Suk later joined all of these compositions under one opus number, giving “Meditation” as No. 35a, “A Legend” as no. 35b, and “New Life” as No. 35c.

The earliest version, a piano score, from April of 1919, consisted of a March with a Trio (a facsimile may be found in a 1948 edition [V PRAZE ROKU, 1948]). The work, at this point, included an A section, a B section (“Trio”), and a repeat of the A section (supplied with a second ending). The opening passage in this version presents the main theme of the work, a melody-dominated textural unit with a phrase structure that could be described as ABB. Suk adds many accent marks to the spirited melody line and to the other lines within the texture, as well. And the title on the early 1919 manuscript made reference to the Sokol movement. The first revision was completed in the second half of 1919. Suk expanded the original march as he considered entering it in a contest. The revised version of the work, as a piano duet score, included an introduction or “fanfare” (based on material in the B section), an expanded A section, a B section (“Trio”), and an expanded A section (as the conclusion to the march). The title on this score was V nový život and the score also included the designation “Slavnostní pochod sokolský.” The march, entitled “New Life,” was named the winner of the contest. Šourek provides information about the earliest arrangements for this version of the piece: the composer arranged the work for symphonic orchestra and Prokop Oberthor arranged it for brass band. The first performance took place on June 27, 1920 at Letná, Prague. Šourek wrote “There ‘New Life,’” which the composer dedicated to the Sokol Organization. It was proclaimed the Festive March of the Sokol and became an indispensable part of the “impressive entry of the men upon the

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drill grounds at every Sokol Festival.” And an orchestral arrangement with a text by Petr Křička was included in the 1948 score (Musical Guild of the Arts Club of Prague [Hudební Matice Umělecké Besedy v Praze]). The work that was completed in 1919–1920, a tuneful and spirited march dedicated to the Sokol organization, had its origins—Šourek reported in his editorial notes—in the spring of 1919 from the composer’s “patriotic enthusiasm” (Šourek 1948). “The Ballad of Blaník” (“Balada Blanická”), by Leoš Janáček (1919) This symphonic poem from 1919 is based on a narrative poem written by Jaroslav Vrchlický in 1885. In the poem, our “good friend Jíra skipped church on a particularly ‘unhappy’ Good Friday and headed towards the woods instead. The day was dark and gloomy, How desolate were the trees, how sad their murmuring.” He made his way to Blaník on the one day of the year in which the mountain opens. Inside he saw rows of horses outfitted for battle, “dark-visaged knights” standing in a circle nearby, and many kinds of fearsome weapons. The poet notes simply that above them was a banner “On which St. Václav’s eagles spread their wings.” Had he not fallen asleep, he might have turned around and gone out at the end of one year. However, the stay extends to 100 years for those who fall asleep, and that is exactly what Jíra did. When he finally awoke, he encountered a changed scene. The mood was much more positive than it had been when he had entered the mountain. The horses and knights looked much the same, but their weapons had turned into peaceful farming implements. The banner of St. Václav still towered above the scene, but now the eagles were “Fluttering with joy.” After leaving the mountain he headed home but paused by a stream and then saw how old he had become. However, the tone of the poem is still optimistic, for he was a special kind of man. Earlier the poet had stated that the townspeople saw him as “a thinking man.” By the stream a century later, he appeared to be: Like the man who has read many books of wisdom Which God seldom gives us to read

Once home, Jíra was of course unknown to those around him. However, the surrounding countryside was “smiling” and “the joyful skylarks sang.” Music historians and critics have found challenges as they explored connections between the images and events in the poem and musical themes within the symphonic poem. One scholar concluded, at the end of a lengthy commentary on the piece, that “The Ballad” might be regarded as one of the composer’s “interesting experiments” (Vogel 1962, 258). Another scholar,

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noting that some musical thematic elements could be related to images in the narrative, concluded that the composer’s strategy in the overall design of this short eight-minute work raised questions that were not easily answered (MacDonald 1988/1995, 275–79). It is Janáček’s music—specifically, his compositional style—that provides the challenge. For the most part, the composer does not work with easily identifiable “transparent” themes. Instead, he explores a collection of multi-layered thematic units which are composed of subunits that can readily be expanded, overlapped, and combined—and, on occasion, highlighted individually. The opening theme, for example, has not just one principal feature but a main component with two subsidiary components that might sound together or be overlapped in the musical texture. Later, a memorable hymn-like theme heard on the harp—which to many critics seems appropriate to the story—is, in fact, part of a theme complex, for it is heard in association with a loud, passionate, even impulsive and sweeping motive that undercuts the “romantic” stability of the hymn. Janáček explores the idea of compositional strategies that foreshadow multiple perspectives throughout the symphonic poem. It is not inappropriate to look for a relation between the musical flow of the composition and the world of the dream, and to find in the musical flow the suggestion of one dream overtaking another as Jíra walks through the countryside. It is tempting to characterize this symphonic poem as a “modern” transformation of the established tale: it then takes its place not only as a modern—or perhaps “modernist”—retelling of a tale but as one which consciously joins the specific message of peace (the weapons in this version of the story have turned into farm implements) in Vrchlický’s poem with an up-to-date version of “harmony.” In conclusion, the “Ballad of Blaník”—in both its literary and musical forms—is centered on the character Jíra. In the end, Jíra, a “thinking man,” made his way through a “smiling countryside” in which the “joyful skylarks sang.” The “Ballad of Blaník” has the potential, in our view, to open listeners’ minds to the contemplation of the possibility of a post-war notion of harmony and peace. It is, the composer seems to be suggesting in his retelling of the well-known story in 1919–1920, what might be found at the end of a voyage of discovery. National Songbooks and Arrangements of National Songs and National Anthems The list of compositions for this category shows that publishers were dedicated to providing national songs in a variety of formats—as individual compositions and as collections of national songs—in the period from 1918 to 1922. These volumes kept in circulation a rich repertoire of national songs,

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patriotic songs and folksongs (including “Ye Who Are God’s Warriors” and the Wenceslas chorale). The national anthem of Czechoslovakia combined two well-known songs, one from the Czech tradition and one from the Slovak tradition. Urbánek provided around 1919 a publication: Kde domov můj? / Nad Tatrou sa blýská (Prague). “Where Is My Home?” (Kde domov můj?)  was first heard in Prague in 1834 in a production of a work by Josef Kajetán Tyl, Fidlovačka (“No Anger and No Brawl”), at the Estates Theatre (“Four scenes from Prague life”), which included an overture and 21 musical numbers composed by František Škroup (Tyrrell 1988, 325). Tyl asked the composer for a “patriotic chorus” and the composer provided “Kde domov můj?” (“Where is My Home?”). The song “Where Is My Home?” is the “central focus of the fair scene” (Tyrrell 1988, 163). While the version known as the national anthem presents one stanza of text, the 1834 song had, in fact, two stanzas. In the poetic context of the two-stanza song, the opening question, “Where is my home?” has increased resonance, for the second stanza opens up the realm of the “heavenly land.” If the melodic style of the song is broad and expansive, the harmonic style is, for the most part, economical (drawing on a small collection of chords). But the composer builds to a climax—in terms of the melodic structure and the harmonic structure—at the end of the stanza (focused on the words “země česká domov můj” [“The Czech land, my home”]). In an article titled “Ambivalent Patriots: Czech Culture in the Great War,” Claire Nolte underlined the importance of “Where Is My Home?” in the war years. Nolte draws our attention to a series of performances in Prague during the war. The work Fidlovačka by F. Škroup and J. K. Tyl, made an impression on the wartime audience. She reports that the work was produced by both amateur and professional groups—all in all, more than thirty performances—in Prague (17 performances in the Vinohrady Theater). The accounts report that audiences frequently stood up and sang along with the cast the song that was undoubtedly the most famous in the score—“Where Is My Home?” (Nolte 1999, 169). If “Where Is My Home?” became part of the official national anthem of the Czechoslovakian Republic in 1919, “Nad Tatrou sa blýská” (“Lightning Flashes over the Tatra”), based on a Slovakian folk tune, functioned as the second part of the official anthem. The one-stanza text of “Lightning Flashes over the Tatra,” by Janko Matúška (1844), begins with these lines: “Lightning flashes over the Tatras, the thunder pounds wildly. / Let them pause, brothers, they will surely disappear, the Slovaks will revive.” “Nad Tatrou” is unquestionably based on a Slovak folksong and based specifically on “Kopala Studienska” (a folksong with the text “She was digging a well, looking into it”). The melody has a restricted melodic range (six instead of eight pitches found in the folksong) and the melody has been simplified and streamlined

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(eliminating some distinctive features found in the folksong); the harmonic structure is drawn directly from that which can be heard in contemporary renditions of the folksong. The text suggests that the threatening weather will not hold the Slovaks back—they will revive and they will prevail. One additional song was prominent in both the war years and the post-war years: “Hej, Slované” (“Hey, Slavs!”). “Hej, Slované!” is the opening line of a two-stanza Czech poem, by Samuel Tomášik, set to music by Tomášik himself in 1838. The first stanza includes references to language and to the “Slavic spirit”: “O Slavs, our Slavic language still lives / So long as our true hearts beat for our nation.” “Hej, Slované” served as a marching song for Czech troops in 1915 (Seton-Watson 1965, 287). And “Hej, Slované” assumed importance on the Russian front early in the war. From the beginning, Czechs were prepared to protest the requirement that they arm themselves against the Russians. According to one report, Czech troops leaving Prague for the front at the end of September of 1914 carried large flags and banners which declared that “We are marching against the Russians and we do not know why” (Rees 1992, 12). As early as August in 1914, Czechs living near Kiev received permission from Tsar Nicholas II to work in tandem with Russians against the Germans and Austro-Hungarians (Bullock 2009, 6–7). And these troops were determined to convince Czechs serving in the AustroHungarian Army to switch their allegiance and then join their compatriots in the special unit (“druzhina”). Masaryk, in communication with the Russian General Staff, requested that Russian troops refrain from firing on soldiers who were waving “white cloths” and singing “Hej, Slované” (Bullock 2009, 7–8). “Hej, Slované” / “Hej, Slováci” had become an important text and tune in the nineteenth century, remained important during the war years, and found its way into a number of publications in the period 1918–1922. Five notable collections from this period are listed below: • 1920 Nový národní zpěvník (Třebíč: Lorenz, 1920) (682 pages) The largest collection, with 682 pages, included as many as 10 categories of songs. The first section, “Patriotic songs,” includes 24 titles. • 1921  Hymny  Jaroslav Křička (12 pp) (S.I.): Pev. Obec Csl (Contents: “Kde domov můj?,” “Nad Tatrou sa blýská,” “Liepa nasa domovina,” “Marseillaise,” “God Save the King”) The score, in the Olomouc State Library, is designed for choral performance (soprano, alto, tenor, and bass) and the text layout for the “Marseillaise” includes three options: the French text, a phonetic guide for Czech-reading singers to produce a sonic version of the French sung text, and the Czech text.

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• 1919  Hymny: Marseillaisa; Hvězdnatý Prapor (Praha: K.J. Barvitius, c. 1919) Barvitius published 13 different arrangements of this work which brings together “The Marseillaise” and “The Star-Spangled Banner.” • 1921  Od Šumavy-k Tatrám!: národní zpěvník československý s nápěvy (Praze: K. J. Barvitius) (105 pages) (Internet resource: hathitrust) Included in the 1921 collection of 162 songs titled Od Šumavy-k Tatrám!: národní zpěvník československý s nápěvy (Prague: K.J. Barvitius), “Moravo, Moravo”—with four stanzas—appears as the sixteenth song. The editor provides no information about this song, indicating, perhaps, that it was a well-known national song. “Moravo, Moravo” was in circulation, in fact, from the first half of the nineteenth century, and it appeared in a number of publications in the period from 1918 to 1922. The song is in 3/4 meter and brings to mind a dance-tune idiom which features accents on the first beats of the measures, and the musical setting provides for a repetition of the fourth and final line of each stanza. This collection includes “Hymna československá” as the first example (see next section), followed by “Kde domov můj?” and “Nad Tatrou sa blýská.” The eighth song is “Hej, Slované.” The “Marseillaisa,” No. 35, provides both a French and a Czech text. Finally, the first section of this collection includes both “Kdož jste Boží bojovníci” (“Ye Who Are God’s Warriors and of his law”) (No. 12) and “Svatý Václave!” (No. 28). “Hymna československá” (“Czechoslovakian Hymn”) The “Hymna československá” by Josef Quido Lexa, dedicated to the “Esteemed Professor Masaryk: First President of the Czechoslovak Republic,” includes five stanzas. The text as a whole brings together a wide range of references to the Czechoslovak “banner,” the Tatras, the Czechs, the Vltava, the Slavs, the Moravians, and the Silesians. Lexa succeeded in writing a text that, as a narrative, brought together the peoples and traditions united in the Czechoslovak Republic. The five stanzas of the text are designed with purpose to highlight unity both in the first stanza and in the final stanza while introducing the theme of suffering and struggle in the interior of the poem. The final stanza begins with the words “Beloved homeland, awaken in a safe way the fire of love” and proceeds to build a literary theme drawing on love, God’s help, justice, and the “world of the Slavs” before reaching the final line—“Out of the blood of the sons new happiness can again bud”—which recapitulates the theme of struggle and sacrifice leading to fulfillment (“happiness”). The musical setting of the poem may be reminiscent of a dance-tune idiom: it is a lively and lilting 3/4 song built around a melody that is not difficult to sing

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and featuring a rhythmic motive—short-short-long-long—that might well bring to mind the rhythmic features of “Hej, Slované.” Barvitius gave prominence to this hymn in his collection, Od Šumavy-k Tatrám!: národní zpěvník československý s nápěvy: Lexa’s hymn is the first item in the volume. • 1921  Oblíbené písně našich hochů v Česko-Slovenské armádě v Rusku/Favorite Songs of the Čecho-Slovak Army in Russia/Charles M. H. Atherton ([New York]: Chas. M. H. Atherton, 1921) (87 pages). Czechs living near Kiev received permission in 1914 from Tsar Nicholas II to work in tandem with Russians against the Germans and Austro-Hungarians (Bullock 2009, 6–7). And these troops were determined to convince Czechs serving in the Austro-Hungarian Army to switch their allegiance and then join their compatriots in the special unit (“druzhina”). In 1916 the forces grew in number as the Czechoslovak rifle regiment joined the already formed battalions (Bullock 2009, 8). A significant development occurred with the Brusilov Offensive, 1917, in which 7,000 Czechoslovaks battled 12,000 enemy forces (Battle of Zborov) (Bullock 2009, 9). On the first of September 1918 the Legion troops were in a strong position at the port of Vladivostok on the Sea of Japan, having secured the territory—almost 6,000 miles in all—that stretched from the Volga to the coast itself (Bullock 2009, 22). Charles Atherton published a volume of songs of the Czechoslovak Army (Czech Legion) in Russia after the war, in New York. The collection includes 45 songs, among which are the Hussite chorale, “America,” and “The StarSpangled Banner.” “These songs were sung day after day by the men of the Čecho-Slovak Army, both in their camps in Russia, and also on their historic and unforgettable journey across Siberia” (preface to the volume). Atherton worked with the Čecho-Slovak Army as a YMCA secretary and as accompanist, on the reed organ or harmonium, which went with the troops on the train (preface to the 1921 volume). The volume of army songs was dedicated by Atherton to the troops and to Masaryk: “To these wonderful soldiers, my good friends, whom no one can admire and honor more than I, who had the rare privilege of becoming closely acquainted with them, and to their beloved ‘little father,’ as he is fondly called, T. G. Masaryk, first president of the Čecho-Slovak Republic, this volume is dedicated” (preface). The fourteenth song in Atherton’s volume is the Hussite chorale—“Kdož jste Boží bojovníci” (“Ye Who Are God’s Warriors and of his law). In this version of the venerable chorale the tune, which has genuine historical resonance, is coupled with a more up-to-date harmonization (presumably supplied by Atherton). The collection includes “Koline, Koline” (No. 15) and “Muziky, muziky” (No. 20), and presents as the final songs “Americká národní hymna” (“The Star-Spangled Banner”) (No. 44) and “Má Vlast” (“America”) (No.

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45), providing the Czech translation below the English text in both cases. The publication Favorite Songs of the Čecho-Slovak Army in Russia, includes information about the project itself: “Compiled, arranged and published, with the cooperation of Rev. Dr. V. Písek, pastor of the John Hus Church of New York by CHAS. M. H. ATHERTON” (1921). National songs from the Czechs and Slovaks and from those with whom the Czechoslovaks were allied in 1918—the French, the English, and the Americans—were widely published in this period. CONCLUSION During the first four years after the founding of Czechoslovakia, it is hard to conclude whether global or national forces were the stronger ones. Without the presence on the European stage of the American president Woodrow Wilson with his Fourteen Points, the importance of state creation based on the concept of self-determination of nations would have been less significant. However, his international presence and force made development of a picture of the future Czechoslovak state clear and formidable. Of course, there were nationalistic forces at work under the cover of that new state, for the minority ethnic groups possessed nationalistic dreams that undercut the stability of the state that had just emerged. However, nationalism clearly possessed a very positive character as well, for its force over a millennium gave both a spiritual force and concrete embodiment that drove the new political conception to a real force that survived the period of the Nazi takeover, the four decades of communist rule, and the eventual break-up of the state into two nations. Surprisingly, the blend of globalism and nationalism seemed to be one of equal players in the early evolution within the long dreamed-of physical location that now bore the name of Czechoslovakia! NOTE 1. And the project pointed the way to his later development as a composer of operas: “But Brouček was an important turning point. For all its dramatic problems, it was a much richer and even more innovative score than Jenůfa and, with Fate, contained the seeds for the last four operas” (Tyrrell, 1992, 245).

Final Conclusion

NATIONALISM Nationalism was a powerful force in determining the destiny of the Czech Lands and Slovakia in the period from 1848 until 1922. The 1848 revolution was technically the political starting point in this nation-building process, but the cultural and musical antecedents throughout the previous centuries were manifold. Earlier leaders that figured into the post-1848 process included such historical figures as St. Wenceslaus, King Charles IV, and Jan Hus. Mythical figures such as Libuše and Přemysl also were part of the history of Bohemia and became inspiring sources within musical works. Mid-nineteenth-century political events were also critical in building a sense of national political consciousness as well as political culture. Czechs were able to elect legislators within the Habsburg-sponsored institutions, and results included the formation of key political parties and also the emergence of strong leaders such as Tomáš Masaryk. It is true that Vienna backtracked on concessions granted in the 1850s and later decades, but the nationalist anvil had been struck in ways that were permanent. Several nationalist construction projects in the last two decades of the nineteenth century reinforced the growing sense of what might be possible, and they included the National Theater, the Jan Žižka monument, and planning for a Jan Hus foundation stone. Powerful musical works such as Má vlast, the Hussite Overture, and Šárka enlivened the new national theater with Czech works performed in the Czech language. Progress was noticeable not only in the building of political parties but also in passage of language laws that permitted use of Czech in official governmental offices and schools. During the first decade anda half of the twentieth century, nationalism had yielded to outside influences such as modernism, but Czechs did make significant progress in the Reichsrat elections of 1907 and 1911, while the actual completion of the Hus statue also took place. Janáček’s collection of Moravian folksongs gave a nationalist breath to that population to the east 173

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of Bohemia, while the musical work Praga cast light on the central city that would form the core of a potential new state. Progress in nation-building thus took place, while many other vibrant currents were streaming through the region. National pride in the Czech Legion during World War I was a highlight of Czech national pride, for its soldiers had physically broken away from the Habsburg forces, an image that would a short time later apply to the whole nation. The military officer/poet Rudolf Medek was a central figure in linking the military successes of Czech forces in battle sites such as Zborov to national feeling and indirectly to nation-building prospects. In his setting of Horák’s poem The Czech Legion for male chorus (1918), Janáček creates a sober and eloquent concluding passage (for the “Epitaph”): the poetic-musical statement depicts a powerful combination of Czech and French troops working together for a victory, and ultimately, for freedom. The military and cultural experiences of World War I reminded Czechs of what their earlier leaders had accomplished and foretold what would probably happen in the near future. National aspirations came to a climax in October 1918, as Czechoslovakia broke its chains with the Austro-Hungarian Empire through its Pittsburgh Agreement based declaration of independence. The celebratory concert two days later included three compositions by Josef Suk, and all proclaimed the uniqueness of past Czech culture and their future prospects within the global order. The 1920 Constitution stitched together the various subnationalities that composed the new state, but many of them came to resent the Czech ambition for dominance within the new political entity. In any event, the various features of the Constitution accorded each of them language and administrative rights. State creation was a notable accomplishment but one that would not have been possible without the support and assistance of many countries within the global order. GLOBALISM Globalism, in the 1848–1881 period, certainly influenced Czech and Slovak perceptions of their possibilities for more freedom within the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Ideas of national unity and new conceptions of what it would take to unite conflicting ethnic groups flowed from the experiences of Italy, Germany, the United States, and others in the decades surrounding the 1948 revolution. Ideas of how to build democratic foundation stones also flowed in from western societies, and so the Czech formulations about political structures in the future were embedded in outside global models. Creation of the Dual Monarchy in 1867 was a message as well, for

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it awakened Czech aspirations for parallel grants of prominence and authority to them, not just to the Hungarians. Incorporation of Czech historical and mythical figures from the past was similar to the reliance on such comparable personalities by other peoples in the region as well. Smetana’s “Song of Freedom” was the kind of musical work that other peoples in the region and abroad had utilized to inspire their own national undertakings. Clearly, such global variables inspired the Czech nationalists who sought greater autonomy and power within the Vienna-dominated empire. In the 1881 to 1901 years, globalism began to take on different forms than it had in the preceding decades. Modernism began to have an impact, and Dvořák’s Water Goblin was an innovative work on topics that bore no relationship to nationalism. The rise of the Young Czechs and emergence of several political parties with a variety of objectives treated many social and economic questions that were not tightly bound to nationalist causes. Further, the weakening of all the regional empires in the region meant that imperialism was on the verge of yielding to a more modern version of globalism, as well as to new national possibilities. In the years 1901 to 1914, the first year of the war, global pressures consumed all sectors of Czech and Slovak life. For example, the “Manifesto of Czech Modernism” captured the spirit of the new industrial age, for it stressed the rights of workers rather than actual or potential new nations. Impressionism had an impact on musical works as well, as Novák’s Toman and the Wood Nymph was a unique composition that bore a complexity that contrasted with the direct messages of nationalistic works of the late nineteenth century. Art Nouveau captured the minds of many Czech artists and its use in the building of the Municipal House in Prague was accepted by the local population in Prague and surrounding areas of Bohemia. Such global trends did not really contradict the budding hopes for a nation-state but did add richness to it. The war itself (1914–1918) was part of a global torrent that impacted all the nations and empires in Europe but also brought in outside powers like America and Russia. Development of wartime alliances linked the Czechs and Slovaks with other nationalities in their region and played a distinctive role for the Czechs, as so many left the Austro-Hungarian Army and fought side by side in the Czechoslovak Legion with Russia, France, and Italy in very different settings than their own home front. Music expressed the suffering of the wartime forces in those global settings but often included reminders of the deep nostalgia for their homes and families, sentiments that were tied at least to national feeling if not so directly to nationalism. President Wilson’s Fourteen Points provided a powerful global input to the possibilities for Czechoslovak statehood in the four years after the end of the war in 1918. Victorious allied forces worked with the new states to help

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them get a firm start that was free of the old empires such as Austria-Hungary. Meetings of émigrés such as the Ruthenians in the United States added a different kind of global flavor to the mix, and the Pittsburgh Agreement had served as the foundation for the new state. Western democratic patterns surely animated the writing of the 1920 Constitution and influenced provisions such as the ones on language rights for the ethnic groups within the new state. In music the Suk composition “Towards a New Life” looked ahead to a new role for Czechoslovakia and its people in the world, and it received international recognition as well. Of course, nationalism was well served by all of this global influence, for the state itself immediately became a national entity on the regional and world stages.

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Index

Art Nouveau, 90, 175 Atherton, Charles, 150, 162, 170 Austro-Hungarian Empire, 119, 150, 155, 174 Bach Era, 34 Badeni Decrees, 70, 82 Balkan Wars, 92 Battle of White Mountain, xiii, 2, 6, 66–67, 69, 71 Bella, Ján Levoslav, 42 Bendl, Karel, 32, 46, 55 Beneš, Edward, 6, 153, 157, 159 Blaník, 2,3, 22, 38, 50–51, 56, 69, 149, 151, 162, 165 Bohemian Diet, 34, 66, 68, 88, 151–52 Bolshevik Revolution, 119, 159 Charles University, 38, 67 Cleveland Agreement, 158, 161 Constitution of 1920, 10, 150–52, 155, 174, 176 Czech Lands, xiii, 6, 8, 30, 65, 85–87, 89, 115, 117 Czech Legion, 10, 119, 121–22, 125, 136, 161–63, 174 Czech Modernism, 90 Czech National Council, 8, 153, 158–59

Czechoslovak National Committee, 11, 153 Czecho-Slovak National Council, 8, 11 Dual Monarchy, 6, 7, 37, 39, 83, 154, 174 Dvořák, Antonín, 45, 55, 69, 71, 80, 93, 109–15, 157, 161 Fibich, Zdeněk, 77–79 Foerster, Josef Bohuslav, 132, 142–43 Fourteen Points, 175 Habsburgs, 7, 30, 53–54, 56, 66, 151, 160 Hlaváček, Karel, 90, 116 Hurban, Jozef, 151 Hus, Jan, 32, 43, 53–55, 70–71, 88–89, 116, 173 Hussite Period, 2 Hussites, 31, 50–51, 53, 56, 69, 76 Janáček, Leoš, 6, 48, 69, 93, 101–8, 116, 125, 132, 136–39, 141–42 149– 51, 161–63, 165–66, 173 Jirásek, Alois, 90, 120 Kovařovic, Karel, 71, 78, 95 Kramář, Karel, 11, 153 189

190

Index

Kroměříž Constitution, 34 Křička, Petr, 122, 133 Lexa, Józef Quidi, 169 League of Nations, 160 Manifesto of Czech Modernism, 175 Marian Column, 5, 10 Martin Declaration, 11 Martinů, Bohuslav, 13, 16–17, 22, 161 Masaryk, Tomáš, 7, 8, 9, 15, 17, 21, 27, 40, 70, 87, 150, 153, 155–59, 161, 168–69, 170–71 Medek, Rudolf, 121–23, 125, 133–34, 174 Moravian Diet, 87 Mucha, Alfons, 91 Municipal House, 90, 120, 175 National Museum, 68–69 National Theater, xiii, 3, 23, 30, 37–38, 53, 56–57, 66–67, 70, 77 New Town Hall, 92 Novák, Vitězslav, 13, 16, 22–23, 27, 93, 95–101, 125–28, 147, 175 October Diploma, 57 Pan-Slav Congress, 33 Paris Peace Accord, xiv, 154 Pittsburgh Agreement, 10, 40, 149, 153, 160, 161, 174, 176

Realist School, 89 Revolution of 1848, 33, 152, 173 Ruthenian Congress, 154 Šebor, Karel, 48 Slovak National Council, 39, 41, 153 Smetana, Bedřich, 3, 23, 30–31, 37, 41–53, 55–56, 65–67, 69, 71, 73–67, 150, 175 Sokol, 37, 150, 162, 164–65 Štefáník, Milan Rastislav, 8, 41, 153, 157–59, 161 Suk, Josef, 6, 16–18, 67, 93–95, 116, 125, 132–33, 139–40, 149–50, 162, 164–65, 174, 176 Theer, Otakar, 122, 125, 131, 133 Tomášik, Tomáš, 168 Treaty of St. Germaine, 155, 160 Treaty of Trianon, 155, 160 Treaty of Versailles, 160 Vomáčka, Bohuslav, 125–26, 132–36 Vrchlický, Joseph, 2, 14, 21, 133, 150 Vycpálek, Ladislav, 128–29, 132, 142–45, 161–62 Zborov, 119, 170, 174

About the Authors

Dr. James W. Peterson, professor emeritus at Valdosta State University, served for thirty years as Department Head in Political Science at Valdosta State University, 1985–2015. He taught a variety of courses on American Foreign Policy, Comparative Politics, Politics of Post-Communism, and American National Security. He presented several professional papers each year at state, regional, and national conferences in both Political Science and Slavic Studies. He also published many professional articles in important journals. His six books are listed below, and their publication years range from 2011–2021. A seventh book will appear sometime in 2023. • Defending Eastern Europe: Defense policies of New NATO and EU member states. 2021, edited with Jacek Lubecki. Manchester: Manchester University Press. • Defense policies of East-central European countries after 1989: Creating stability in a time of uncertainty, with Jacek Lubecki. Manchester, U.K.: Manchester University Press, 2019. • Russian-American relations in the post-Cold War world. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2017. • American Foreign Policy: Alliance Politics in a Century of War, 1914– 2014. New York: Bloomsbury, 2014. • Building a Framework of Security for Southeast Europe, and the Black Sea Region: A Challenge Facing NATO. Lewiston, New York: Mellen Press, 2013. • NATO and Terrorism: Organizational Expansion and Mission Transformation. New York: Continuum, 2011. William J. Peterson, professor emeritus of music and college organist at Pomona College, served in the Department of Music for 39 years (1979–2018). He received the M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University 191

192

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of California, Berkeley. Earlier he received the B.A. and B.M. degrees from Oberlin College and Conservatory. At Pomona College he taught organ and courses in music history and he served as Chair of the Department of Music for several years. As a performer, he has played concerts in recent years in many parts of the United States. He has performed a number of all-Bach recitals at various locations, including complete performances of Bach’s Dritter Teil der Clavier-Übung. In 2002 he presented the Inaugural Concert on the Hill Memorial Organ built by C.B. Fisk (Op. 117), for Bridges Hall of Music at Pomona College. And he has presented many concerts on the Hill Memorial Organ in the last twenty years: in 2015 he presented a concert in Bridges Hall titled “French Organ Music, 1870–1920.” As a scholar he has worked extensively on French organ music of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He is co-editor with Lawrence Archbold of French Organ Music from the Revolution to Franck and Widor (University of Rochester Press, 1995). His article, “Storm Fantasies for the Nineteenth-Century Organ in France,” appeared in Keyboard Perspectives, volume II (2009). A translation of this article was published, in 2010, in the Belgian periodical, Orgelkunst. In 2012 his article titled “Saint-Saëns’s Improvisations on the Organ (1862)” appeared in Camille Saint-Saëns and His World (Princeton University Press). And he has presented nineteen papers at conferences between 1993 and 2022 (many co-authored by James W. Peterson in recent years). Research projects have been supported by a Fulbright research grant (1985– 86, in Belgium) and by the Mellon Foundation. In 2018 Loft Recordings released a CD, “Recital at Bridges Hall, Pomona College” (Loft Recordings [LRCD 1140]) which was made possible by a Sontag Fellowship, from Pomona College. Works recorded by Peterson have been heard on programs broadcast by “Pipedreams” (American Public Media) in 2019 and in 2022.