Bohemia; a brief evaluation of Bohemia's contribution to civilization/The Bohemian Music

by Jaroslav Egon Salaba-Vojan

Victor Stretti: Týn Church in Prague.

The Bohemian Music

By Jar. E. S. Vojan, LL. D.

N Smetana’s opera “Dalibor” the old jail-keeper, when sending a violin to the imprisoned knight, says: “What Bohemian would not love music?” And that was always a full truth from the sixth century, when the Slavic tribes came from the northeast and settled in the country known as Bohemia to the present day.

Of the great number of old religious songs we mention only two—“Hospodine pomiluj ny” (“Lord, Have Mercy,”—from the end of the tenth century) and “Svatý Václave” (St. Václav,”—a beautiful Phrygian melody from about 1300). Well known is the majestic war-song of the Hussites” “Kdo jste boží bojovníci”, (All ye warriors of God,—a doric song of an extraordinary energetic character). The notations of the folk songs reach also very far, the first ones being from the fifteenth century.

The first book on musical theory in the Bohemian language was published in 1558. “Musica” by Jan Blahoslav, one of the most prominent of the Bohemian Brethren and an excellent musician, is a very valuable work.

After the battle of White Mountain in 1620 Bohemia lost her independence, the capital Prague, which under Charles IV (1346–1378) had become the heart of central Europe, was pushed into the background, and the population of the rebel country came to poverty. Many Bohemian musicians enjoying the best renown went to foreign countries, and some of them became famous in the history of music, e. g., Jan Stanitz (1717–1761), founder of the classic form of symphony at Mannheim, Jiří Benda (1722–1795), creator of the modern melodrama, and Josef Mysliveček (1737–1781), called in Italy “il divino Boemo” (known also under the Italian name Venatorini).

In the eighteenth century the style of Bohemian music begins to show a strongly marked national character, both in the melodies and their harmonic treatment.

The composers who may be especially mentioned are as follows: Jan Dismas Zelenka, the greatest Bohemian composer of the first half of the eighteenth century, born at Louňovice in 1679, who studied in Vienna and Venice, became court composer to the Prince Elector of Saxony and died in Dresden, December 23, 1745; Bohuslav Černohorský, a contrapuntist of the first rank, born at Nymburk in 1684, who became choirmaster in Padua, Italy, later in Prague, and died there July 1, 1742; Jan Zach, born at Čelakovice in 1699, archiepiscopal conductor in Mainz, Germany, where he died in a lunatic asylum in 1773; František Tůma, born at Kostelec upon Orlice, October 2, 1704, who also lost his reason, like many eminent composers, and died in Vienna in 1774; František Habermann, born at Kynžvart in 1706, who was choirmaster in Italy, France and Spain, died in Cheb, Bohemia, April 7, 1783 (some of his themes were adopted by Handel).

To the end of the eighteenth century and the early part of the nineteenth, the leadership in all that pertained to the art was acknowledged by the musical world to be in the masterly hands of Mozart and Beethoven. After the first performance of Mozart’s opera “Le Nozze di Figaro” (The Marriage of Figaro) in Vienna on the first of May, 1786, everything that could be done by jealous plotters of Vienna to mar the composer’s success was done, and that so effectively that Mozart declared he would never bring out another opera in the city which treated him so meanly. Then “Figaro” had a brilliant success in Prague. The enthusiasm was immense, especially for the air “Non piú andrai” which was sung in streets and inns and played by aristocratic orchestras as well as by strolling harpers. Mozart became at once the idol of all musicians of Prague. Here he conducted his opera personally, and that day of January 20, 1787, was one of the greatest triumphs of his life. He received a commission to write an opera for the next season, with a fee of 100 ducats. On the 29th of October, 1787, the new opera, the immortal “Don Giovanni” (Don Juan) was produced in Prague with extraordinary effect, and from this moment Prague belonged to Mozart for half a century. Numbered in the ranks of his enthusiastic followers were the leading national composers, such as the refined and poetic pianist Jan Lad. Dusík and the greatest master of music in Bohemia in the first half of the nineteenth century, Václav Jan Tomášek.

Jan Ladislav Dusík (in English encyclopaedias incorrectly Johann Ludwig Dussek) was the greatest Bohemian genius of piano-forte in the eighteenth century. Born at Čáslav on the 9th of February 1761, where his father, a musician of high reputation, was organist and choir-master in the collegiate church, he appeared (just like Smetana seventy years later) in public as a pianist at the age of six. In 1783 he visited Hamburg, and placed himself under the instruction of Philip Emmanuel Bach. After spending two years in Lithuania in the service of Prince Radziwill, he went in 1786 to Paris, where he remained, with the exception of a short period spent in Milan, Italy, until the outbreak of the revolution, enjoying the special patronage of Marie Antoinette and great popularity with the public. He returned to Paris in 1809 to become musician in the household of Prince Talleyrand, which place he held until his death, March 20, 1812. Dusík had an important influence on the development of piano-forte music. As a performer he was distinguished by the purity of his tone, the combined power and delicacy of his touch, and the facility of his execution. As a composer he wrote some sonatas which contain movements that have scarcely been surpassed for solemnity and beauty of ideas. His works “The Invocation”, “The Farewell” and “The Harmonic Elegy”, belong to the really immortal compositions. Václav Jan Tomášek, born at Skuteč, April 17, 1774, came to Prague in 1790, and from 1806, when he became musician in the household of Count George Bouquoi, his word was decisive in music matters in Prague till his death, April 3, 1850.

Of other composers we will mention only the name of František Škroup (1801–1862) who wrote the first opera in Bohemian language, “Dráteník” (The Tinker, first performance February 2, 1826), and composed for a play by Josef Kajetán Tyl a touching song of “Kde domov můj” (“Where is my home”, words by Tyl) which soon became the anthem of the Bohemian nation.

The eminent composer of the transition period, preceding the birth of the modern Bohemian music, is Pavel Křížkovský (1820–1885) whom the earnest study of the beauties of folk songs led to produce some splendid works, chorals “Utonulá” (The Drowned Girl), “Dar za lásku” (The Love Token), etc.

Bedřich Smetana, the founder of the modern Bohemian music, was born at Litomyšl in eastern Bohemia on the 2nd of March, 1824. He made such rapid progress in his piano studies that at the age of six he appeared in public as a pianist. But for a long time thereafter he was unable to overcome his father’s opposition to a musician’s career. Finally he succeeded and came to Prague in October, 1843, rich in ideals, but poor in money. He went to Proksch, the famous piano teacher and pedagogue, and became one of the greatest Bohemian piano virtuosos of all time. For a short time, he studied also with Liszt at Weimar. Liszt was a sincere friend of Smetana till his death. In 1856 Smetana accepted Alexander Dreyschock’s suggestion to go as conductor of the Philharmonic Society to Gothenburg in Sweden, where he remained till 1861. Here he wrote his first symphonic poems, “Hakon Jarl”, “Richard III.” and “Wallenstein’s Camp”.

The opening of the Interim Theater in Prague induced Smetana’s return to the capital of Bohemia. This theater being a preparation for the present great Bohemian National Theater, he felt in his inmost heart that he was the only man who could become a founder of the modern Bohemian music. He the voice of the genius of his nation and came to fulfill his great mission.

Smetana was a wizard and a hero in one person.

A wizard, because he created the modern Bohemian music without any predecessors and put it at once on the level of the most modern music of his time. In the days he studied with Liszt at Weimar, Prague was still under the spell of Mozart whose epigon Tomášek was an absolute ruler in the musical life of Prague; later Verdi and Meyerbeer became idols of Prague musicians. Smetana found the way to connect Beethoven and Wagner with the character of the music of his nation, and so arouse his absolutely original style which is a confluence of modernism and the spirit of the Bohemian folk music. He did not use any folk songs in his works, but he wrote his own original music so perfectly in the spirit of the folk music that his operas, symphonic poems, etc., are immensely dear to every Bohemian heart. His works are the Bohemian music par excellence. He gained his victory only after a long and tragic struggle: Smetana’s opponents asserted that the progressive ideas of the world’s music were incompatible with the national idea, but Smetana proved the contrary. And so he wrote eight operas and many other works which after half a century are as fresh and brilliant as if they had been written yesterday. They reached, as the works of all epoch-makers, far into the future, and until today they are unsurpassed and of unrivaled popularity—for instance, The Bartered Bride, Smetana’s second opera, (first performance in Prague May 30, 1866) celebrated on January 1, 1915, in the first year of the present war, its 600th performance at the National Theater in Prague.

A hero,—because many of his most beautiful works, full of grace and brilliancy, were written in complete deafness, in a state much worse than that in which Beethoven had written. For years a mysterious affection of his ears brought this ever-increasing malady in its train. No doctor could explain the pathological basis of this affliction, which was aggravated by the nervous strain of the long fight with his malignant enemies. All remedies applied were in vain, and on October 20, 1874, Smetana entirely lost the sense of hearing. He was stone-deaf, nor did he ever hear again. Yet he wrote without interruption. It was his desire that Bohemia should be glorified in his art, that he should shed lustre upon the music of his land and hold up before the entire world the glories of its history and the strength and power of its race. Smetana describes his own tragedy in a letter of December 11, 1881, in the following pathetic words: “The loud buzzing and roaring in my head, as though I were standing under a great waterfall, remains today and continues day and night without interruption, louder when my mind is employed actively, weaker when I am in a calmer condition of mind. When I compose, the buzzing is noisier. I hear absolutely nothing, not even my own voice. Shrill tones, as the cry of a child or the barking of a dog, I hear very well, just as I do loud whistling, and yet I cannot determine what the noise is, or whence it
Max Švabinský: Bedřich Smetana. comes. Conversation with me is impossible. I hear my own piano-forte playing only in fancy, not in reality. I cannot hear the playing of anybody else, not even the performance of a full orchestra in opera or in concert. I have no pain in the ear, and the physicians agree that my disease is perhaps a paralysis of the ear nerves and the labyrinth. And so I am wholly determined to endure my sad fate in a calm and manly way as long as I live.” Yet Smetana was destined to endure a trial worse than that which he had made up his mind to bear with patient courage. In 1882 the great master showed symptoms of mental instability. He was attacked by hideous delusions. His memory failed him. On April 22, 1884, his friend J. Srb brought him into the asylum for the insane in Prague, and there Smetana died in utter eclipse of mind, on May 12, 1884. His funeral was a royal one, the entire nation grieved for the dead genius.

Smetana composed eight operas: “Braniboři v Čechách” (The Brandenburgers in Bohemia, first performance January 5, 1866), “Prodaná nevěsta” (The Bartered Bride, mentioned above), “Dalibor” (name of a knight from the end of the 15th century, hero of a folk legend, first performance May 16, 1868), “Dvě vdovy” (Two widows, March 27, 1874), “Hubička” (The Kiss, August 31, 1876), “Tajemství” (The Secret, September 18,1878), “Libuše” (the daughter of the legendary prince Krok, who reigned after the death of her father over the Bohemians a festival opera, the climax of Smetana’s dramatic music, first performance at the opening of the National Theater, June 11, 1881) and “Čertova stěna” (The Devil’s Wall, a folk legend from the 13th century, October 29,1882). The comic operas “Hubička” and “Tajemství”, just as charming as “The Bartered Bride”, and the romantic opera “Čertova stěna” were written in total deafness.

From all these immortal works only one has been given in America, “The Bartered Bride”. And it is a most deplorable fact that it is, alas! the only Bohemian opera which ever entered the American stage. The first performance of “The Bartered Bride” at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York on February 19, 1909, was a great triumph. “New York Herald” wrote next morning: “Smetana has been called “the Bohemian Mozart”, which is very apt, for this music is classic in its gayety and its light-hearted charm. It is simply melody from beginning to end. One pretty tune succeeds another—it is a treasure of purling tunefulness that will occupy a prominent place in the repertoire of the opera house.” The same success was repeated in Chicago on April 17, 1909. One might think that the reasonable consequence would be the performance of other operas of Smetana. But nothing of this kind occurred. New York and Chicago Grand Opera are playing today works of Italian and French authors of the second and third rank, but Smetana and Dvořák are entirely forgotten. Is it not curious?

The greatest gift of Smetana to his nation was the cycle of six symphonic poems “Má Vlast” (My Country). Here in America again only two poems of this complex are given every season by the symphonic orchestras: the first “Vyšehrad” and the second “Vltava” (In German “Moldau”). “My Country” is a grandiose conception. The first symphonic poem “Vyšehrad” celebrates the proud rock of Vyšehrad, the seat of the first Bohemian rulers. The harp of a national bard opens the poem, the glory of the Bohemian nation is sung here, the loss of independence and the firm belief in the new rising of the nation. The second poem “Vltava” depicts the river Vltava from its sources in the Šumava mountains, through dense woods and beautiful lowlands, around the picturesque ruins of castles, through the St. John’s Rapids, to the majestic Vyšehrad. The third poem "Šárka” leads us in the national myths. The Bohemian amazons are at war with the Prince of Vyšehrad. Their leader, the beautiful "Šárka”, deceives the brave warrior Ctirad, and all his soldiers are killed. The fourth poem, “From Bohemia’s Meadows and Forests”, is a delightful idyl, congenial in mood to Beethoven’s Pastoral symphony. The fifth poem, “Tábor”, celebrates the most magnificent section of the Bohemian history, the Hussite wars. The Hussites, who had in the town of Tábor their main stronghold, were invincible warriors, you hear their above-mentioned song in an iron-clad instrumentation. The last poem, “Blaník”, is the credo of the composer. Blaník is a hill in southern Bohemia, in which, according to a folk myth, an army of knights is sleeping to come to help when Bohemia will be in the greatest danger. And all these splendid poems were written by a deaf master! In Smetana’s string quartet in E minor “Z mého života” (From my life), a gem of modern chamber music, Smetana marked in the finale by a high persistent note a similarly persistent accord whistling in his ear, which was the signal of his deafness. Among Smetana’s other works, piano compositions “The Bohemian dances” and “Polkas”, male choruses “Rolnická" (Farmer’s song), “Píseň na moři” (Song on the sea), the cantata “Česká píseň” (Bohemian Song), five songs “Večerní písně” (Evening songs) and the pompous Shakespeare March (written for the Shakespeare Festival in Prague in April, 1864) are the most important.

Smetana is the greatest Bohemian composer. He deliberately took his stand as an exponent of the art of his native country, and every note of his immortal bequest shows how passionately he loved his nation. His dreams were identical with our great hope of today: the resurrection of the independence of Bohemia!

Antonín Dvořák is the only composer from the three stars of the beginnings of the modern Bohemian music who knew the joy of world’s fame in his lifetime. Smetana’s works began to conquer the foreign countries only eight years after his death. Fibich’s compositions are still little known abroad. The luck was only in Dvořák’s favor. Although the privations he suffered till his thirty-fifth year had been great, his later successes were very remarkable.

Dvořák was born at Nelahozeves, a small village not far from Prague, on September 8, 1841. His father was the village butcher and innkeeper, and his ambition touching his son ran no higher than to make him his successor. “The fate which gave the world a composer of music robbed Bohemia of a butcher,” says H. E. Krehbiel.

In 1858 Dvořák entered the organ-school in Prague. From 1862 he began to compose, but he did not venture before the public until 1873, when he made his first bid for popularity by a patriotic cantata “Dědicové Bílé Hory” (The Heirs of the White Mountain). In 1877 his “Slovanské tance” (Slavonic Dances) took the public by storm. These piano-forte compositions, full of glittering melody and rhythm, ravished even Germany and England. On March 10, 1883, the London Musical Society performed Dvořák’s “Stabat Mater.” The work created a veritable sensation, which was intensified by a repetition under the direction of the composer himself three days later, and a performance at the Worcester festival in 1884. Dvořák now became the hero of the English choral festivals. In 1885 he composed “Svatební košile” (The Spectre’s Bride) for Birmingham, in 1886 “St. Ludmila” for Leeds, and in 1891 the “Requiem” for Birmingham. The same year on his fiftieth birthday the University of Cambridge in England gave him the title of a doctor of music and the Bohemian University in Prague the honorary title of doctor of philosophy.

In 1892 Dvořák came to America for three years as head of the National Conservatory in New York. Of ten works written in America, the first was the immortal Fifth Symphony in E minor, “Z Nového Světa” (From the New World) op. 95 (sketched from January 10 to May 25 in New York, first performance at New York Music Hall, December 16, 1893). There was a long controversy here in America, whether Dvořák used in the themes of the symphony some real Negro or Indian music. He settled it himself in his letter to the Bohemian composer and conductor Oskar Nedbal in February 1900: “I am sending you Kretschmar’s analysis of my symphony, but omit that nonsense that I have used Indian and American motives, because that is a lie. I tried only to write the themes in the spirit of those American melodies.” So all in the symphony is Dvořák’s original music. The work is of rare beauty, Dvořák’s intention being to give America the best specimen of his talent. The other American compositions were written partly at Spillville, Ia., where Dvořák spent his summer vacations with his family among the Bohemian population of that village (Quartet in F major, op. 96, and Quintet in E flat major, op. 97, the climax of Dvořák’s chamber music works), partly in New York (the Sonatina in G major, op. 100, whose second movement is known under the name given by Fritz Kreisler, “Indian Lament”—“Humoresques”, opus 101, from which the seventh is highly popular all over the world, “The American Flag”, a cantata, written in January and February 1893, etc.)

In 1895 Dvořák returned to Prague, where he was shortly afterward appointed head of the Conservatory of Music, but not for a long time. He died May, 1, 1904. His bequest contains more than 120 works. Among them are seven symphonies, several symphonic poems, symphonic overtures, 30 chamber music works, concertos for violin, violincello, piano-forte works (many of them were later arranged for the orchestra by the author himself, like “Slavonic dances”, “Legends”, “From the Bohemian Forest”, songs, choruses, cantatas, oratorios, several operas the best of which are “Rusalka” (The Water Nymph) “Jakobín” (The Jacobin), “Dimitrij” (the story taken from Russian history), “Čert a Káča” (The Devil and Kate, a Bohemian fairy tale), “Šelma sedlák” (The Sly Peasant), “Tvrdé palice” (The Pig-headed Peasants), “Armida”, , etc. Characteristic rhythms and harmonic effects of the folk music as well as bright and glittering instrumentation are significant of the works of Dvořák who was one of the most original composers of the world in the realm of absolute music.

The third grand master of the Bohemian music of the nineteenth century, Zdeněk Fibich (ch pronounced like Spanish j), was born in 1850 at Sebořice of an old forester family. He grew up in the woods, absorbing their meditative poesy. He is little known in America, although his symphonies, symphonic poems, melodramas and operas rank with the best musical works written in Europe during the last three decades of the nineteenth century. He died in Prague, October 15, 1900. From his operas the best are “Šárka”, “Blaník” (these two names were explained in connection with Smetana’s symphonic poems), “Pád Arkuna” (The Fall of Arcona), “Bouře” (The Tempest, after Shakespeare), “Nevěsta Messinská” (The Bride of Messina) and “Hedy” (Haidee, after Byron). He not only wrote melodramas for the concert podium—from these especially “Vodník” (The Water Sprite), “Štědrý den” (The Christmas-Eve) and “Hakon” with texts of Karel Jaromír Erben and Jaroslav Vrchlický are splendid works, but even tried to create in the melodrama a further continuation of Wagner ideas about the musical drama: his “Hippodamia” is a scenic melodramatical trilogy consisting of three all evening dramas “Námluvy Pelopovy” (Pelops’ Wooing), “Smír Tantalův” (Tantalus’ Reconciliation), and “Smrt Hippodamie” (Hippodamia’s Death), where the dramas by Jaroslav Vrchlický, played on the scene, are continuously accompanied in the orchestra by symphonic music.

Among the contemporaries of the three coryphaei of the first period of the modern Bohemian music the most conspicuous were Vilém Blodek whose opera “V studni” (In the Well) is still very popular, Richard Rozkošný who wrote several good operas, “Svatojanské proudy” (St. John’s Rapids), “Popelka” (Cinderella), etc., Karel Šebor and Karel Bendl, composer of operas, but especially of choruses and songs which are in great favor with singing societies.

The leading composers of the living generation are Vítězslav Novák and Josef Suk. Novák wrote many excellent orchestral, chamber music and piano-forte works and in the last three years also operas (“Zvíkovský rarášek” The little imp of Zvíkov, and “Noc na Karlštejně”, A Night at Karlstein, the first after an historical comedy by Stroupežnický, the other by Vrchlický). Suk wrote also many orchestral chamber music and piano-forte works (among the best is the melodramatic music to Zeyer’s drama “Radúz a Mahulena” from which Suk made an orchestral suite known here under the title “The Fairy Tale”, and symphonic poems “Praga” and “Asrael”). In these later years both Novák and Suk are trying new paths broken by Richard Strauss, Debussy and other most radical modernists. Very prominent composers also are Karel Kovařovic, director of the opera at the Bohemia National Theater in Prague who wrote several operas, “Psohlavci” (The Dog-heads, which name was given to the Chods, hereditary borderers at the southwestern frontier of Bohemia, because of the dog head, symbol of watchfulness and loyalty, on their banners, this effectual opera would be a great success in America, if the opera conductors in New York and Chicago ceased to ignore the Bohemian composers) and “Na starém bělidle” (At the Old Bleachery, with the story taken from the most popular Bohemian novel, “Babička”, The Grandmother, by Božena Němcová) Jos. Boh. Foerster, author of delicate songs, symphonical works and operas “Debora”, “Eva” and “Jessica”, Otokar Ostrčil, composer of operas “Vlasty skon” (The Death of Vlasta, the leader of above named amazons of the Bohemian folk legend), “Kunálovy oči” (Kunal’s Eyes, an Indian story) and “Poupě" (The Bud); Karel Weis and others.

The theoretical literature is splendidly represented by Dr. Otokar Hostinský, late professor at the Bohemian University of Prague, a fervent champion of Smetana, Karel Stecker, professor at the Conservatory of Music in Prague, Dr. Zdeněk Nejedlý, professor at the Bohemian University, etc.

The reproductive art reached always the highest level. Many Bohemian virtuosos and singers became world-famed. We will cite only from violin virtuosos Josef Slavík, rival of Paganini (1806-1833), Ferd. Laub and from living, František Ondříček, Jan Kubelík and Jaroslav Kocián, these both being pupils of Prof. Ševčík, the Bohemian Quartet (Hoffmann, Suk, Nedbal and Wihan), the dramatic soprano Emma Destinnová, for eight years member of the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the first Mařenka in Smetana’s “Prodaná nevěsta” in the New York performance, today living at her castle Stráž in Bohemia, because the Austrian government refused to give her a passport for going anew to America, the tenor Karel Burián, also for some seasons a star of the Metropolitan Opera in New York, etc.

All that has been said in this brief essay concerns the art music. But the Bohemian folk songs and dances have also an unusual fascination. The main characteristics of these songs are the preponderance of the major mode (the farther to the east, e. i. in Moravia and Slovakland, the more this preponderance is waning), with a diatonic melody and a favorite close upon the third, rich rhythmics and a correct declamation of the text. The folk dances are closely related to the folk songs, and their rhythms are very original. What Chopin did for the mazurka and the valse, Smetana did for the polka, a Bohemian dance dating from 1830. His “Polkas” for piano-forte are congenial to Chopin’s sublime compositions. He wrote also ten other Bohemian dances for piano and inserted a “polka”, a “furiant,” and a “skočná” in his opera “Prodaná nevěsta”, and Dvořák used the furiant even as scherzo in his symphonies.