czech music

quarterly magazine

Miloš ŠtedroňAlois Hába

Martin Smolka

32005

I. koncertPondělí 17. 10. 2005, 19.30 hodin

SKRJABIN, RACHMANINOV, LISZT, ČAJKOVSKIJČNSO/Daniel Raiskin

Enrico Pace & Yingdi Sun, klavír

II. koncertStředa 9. 11. 2005, 19.30 hodin

MITCHELL, BAKER, BRAHMSČNSO/Paul Freeman

Jiří Novotný, trombon

III. koncertSobota 17. 12. 2005, 19.30 hodin

LA PARADAJan Hasenöhrl & hosté

Paul Freeman, Václav Hudeček a další

IV. koncertStředa 11. 1. 2006, 19.30 hodin

BEETHOVEN, ČAJKOVSKIJ, RACHMANINOVČNSO/Paul Freeman

Jaroslava Pěchočová, klavír

V. koncertStředa 1. 2. 2006, 19.30 hodin

VERDI, BRITTEN, ROSSINI, RESPIGHIČNSO/Marcello Rota

Jaroslav Březina, tenorZdeněk Tylšar, lesní roh

VI. koncertStředa 1. 3. 2006, 19.30 hodin

„MOZART GALA“ČNSO/Jan Chalupecký

VII. koncertNeděle 2. 4. 2006, 19.30 hodin

RAVEL, RIMSKIJ-KORSAKOV, MUSORGSKIJČNSO/Marcello Rota

Lubomír Legemza, klarinet

VIII. koncertStředa 3. 5. 2006, 19.30 hodin

MARTINŮ, BERNSTEIN, BEETHOVENČNSO/Paul Freeman

John Walz, violoncelloChicagský dětský sbor/Josephine Lee

13 . abonentní sezóna Českého národního symfonického orchestru

2005/2006 v Rudolfinu

www.cnso.cz Weilova 2/1144, 102 00 Praha 10, tel.: 267 215 254, e-mail: ticket@cnso.cz

ASIT, s.r.o.

Partneři ČNSO:

Vstupenky / Tickets

Tel.: 222 897 333

Tel.: 224 215 031

Tel.: 296 329 999

A.M.T. Group s.r.o.5. května 65, Praha 4

www.amt-landrover.cz

czech music 3 | 2005

Czech MusicInformation CentreBesední 3, 118 00 Praha 1, Czech Republic, fax: ++420 2 57317424phone: ++420 2 57312422e-mail: czech.music@volny.czhttp://www.musica.cz/czechmusic

Czech Music is issued by the Czech Music Information Centre with the support of the ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic and the Czech Music Fund Editor: Petr Bakla, Translation: Anna Bryson Graphic design: Ditta Jiřičková Photos: Petr Francán (p. 2 - 9), Martin Voříšek (p. 18 - 20), Olga Štajnrtová (p. 20–21)and archives DTP: HD EDIT, Print: Tiskárna Nové MěstoISSN 1211-0264

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editorial

Alois Hába certainly deserves theamount of space we have devoted to himin this issue. He was a highly distinctiveexperimental composer and musictheorist and a no less important teacher.One of the few 20th-century Czechcomposers to have entered „major“musical history as a matter of course,Hába is a respected figure especially inthe German-speaking world and wasso even in the period before the SecondWorld War. His name istraditionally linked primarily withmicrotonal music. This was a field inwhich together with a number of othercomposers Hába was an undoubtedpioneer, but his importance cannot bereduced to this activity alone. In this issue we have also included aportrait of the contemporary composerMartin Smolka, who is likewise intenselyinterested in microtones and usesthem in his work. It would however, berather too simple to present Smolkaas some - albeit distant - successor toHába. Smolka is a „child“ of thepost-war avant garde, for which workwith microtones was already quite anordinary phenomenon and which came tothem first and foremost throughinterest in the timbre element of music. If there is any respect in whichSmolka is a successor of Hába’s, it isprobably simply that his work isgaining ever greater respect abroad. Weare pleased that we can contributeto this with our magazine.

Wishing you a beautiful autumn

PETR BAKLA

EDITOR

3Contents 2005

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Profiles

Every era has to give new substance to the ritualAn interview with Miloš ŠtědroňMIROSLAV BALAŠTÍK

The Hába “School”VLASTA REITTEREROVÁ

Martin SmolkaA microsentimental composerPETR BAKLA

Ostrava Days of New Music 2005PETR BAKLA

Reviews

Alois HábaLUBOMÍR SPURNÝ

every era hasto give new substance to theritual

MIROSLAV BALAŠTÍK

How do you explain it?It is hard to say. Some nations are more sus-ceptible to melody, while some are moreinclined to multiple lines. Of course this isa dangerous generalisation, more just a sortof theory. Among northerners what hasalways predominated is a feeling for struc-ture. We can see this with the Low Countries,the Burgundians, the Northern French, peo-ple from Belgium and Flanders, who wherev-er they went managed to organise perfectpolymelodic music involving many voices –five, seven or even more. The Italians addedthe poly-choral element but in fact in Italyconsiderations of melody always prevailedand were always the clearly dominant factor.The Italian approach suited the Czechs bet-ter and it is interesting that Italian influenceshave been more in evidence here thanFrench influences, even back in the reign ofCharles IV when you would have thoughtthat the Luxembourg connections wouldhave meant the import of the musical cultureof France. Let us go back to the Baroque. Whathappened then? Here what is important is the transition fromthe Baroque to Classicism. Someone oncesaid that Classicism is Baroque withoutornament, that all the decorations werestripped off the facades so that only thestrict lines remain… This may mean on theone hand create something like a barracks,but it may also be very light, airy architecture– and if I compare music to architecture,which is an old idea, architecture is music instone. In my view the model of the LateBaroque and Classicism particularly suitedthe Czechs. All over Europe the Baroque wasattractive in music because the basic line ofthe melody, two violins or two trumpets,could be immediately reproduced and com-

czech music 3 | 2005 | interview | 3

I shall start with what is perhapsa rather tired old question: what aboutthe whole supposed musicality ofCzechs? Are Czechs really particularlymusical in some way? Or is the old say-ing, “If you’re a Czech, you’re a musi-cian” just a myth we’ve constructedabout ourselves? I’d say yes to both questions. Yes it’s a myth,but it’s based on what has been a great dealof musical activity. Mikuláš Bek’s book, TheConservatory of Europe? which is essentiallya sociological study of Czech musical cul-ture, offers an enlightening answer. Bekdescribes how in the 1770s Charles Burneytravelled across Europe, from Hollandthrough France and England to Vienna, andall round Bohemia before returning throughGermany. It was Burney who supposedly saidthat Bohemia was the conservatory ofEurope. In fact, of course, he could neverhave said that, because in his time the con-servatory didn’t exist as an institution, exceptin Italy as an orphanage. Nonetheless, therewas something about the idea. If we look atit historically, we see that the first definingmoment for Czechs in music came duringwith the radical religious Hussite movementin the Middle Ages. The Hussite movementspread music more broadly across society,democratised it. In this sense Marxist inter-pretations were partly correct, since beforethat time there had never been laicisationand secularisation on the same scale, orsuch an advance in literacy among ordinarypeople. Another moment “in the stars”, to putit metaphorically, came with the Baroque,with the breakthrough into Late Baroque,when it became clear that what most suitedCzechs was the model of a melody or melod-ic line accompanied by something less com-plicated, more lucid.

an interview with miloš štědroň

Miloš Štědroň (*1942) is one of the most important Czech

musicologists and composers of today. His main interest as

a musicologist is Leoš Janáček (he has written numerous

musicological studies, and for example contributed to the

reconstruction of Janáček’s unfinished Danube Sympho-

ny), but also the Renaissance and Mannerism (he is the

author of the first Czech monograph on C. Monteverdi). As

a composer he is associated primarily with the circle of Brno

composers influenced by the principles of New Music in the

1960s, and one particular point of interest in this context is

Štědroň’s involvement in “team compositions”. He is also a

sought after composer of stage music.

municated by ear and to do so didn’t requireany great education or skill. This was why ini-tially “Czech musicality” expressed itself ina rather mediocre way and only after 1600did the phenomenon acquire features thatmade it comparable with the major musicaldiasporas. I mean that after the Netherlan-ders and Italians Czechs become the biggestgroup of musical migrants. In this senseHavlíček was right when he said that theyfilled up every corner of the world. ButCzechs do not create great concepts, or doso only in exceptional cases. For example J.V. Stamic, who revolutionised High Classi-cism period by pushing through the sonataform and modern orchestra. J.A. Benda wasanother Czech who made a contribution ofthis magnitude. But generally Czechs havebeen migrating musicians who adapt per-fectly to the local style, are in no wayprovocative but simply develop that style.A model 1.B Class, in fact, marvellous musi-cians, skilful composers and excellent ful-fillers of the norm. Which are the other periods whenCzech music reaches a peak? If we are going to talk about national Czechmusic, then it is something that emergesfrom the second phase of the Czech nationalrevival, after 1848. All this is perfectlydescribed by Vladimír Macura in hisabsolutely epochal book Znamení zrodu [TheSign of Birth], which shows how the NationalRevival had two phases. In the first phase itwas a kind of game developed by a fewdozen intellectuals, but after 1847 the mass-es became involved, and this produces cru-cial episodes such as the “discovery” of theZelená hora and Králův Dvůr Manuscripts,the supposed cycles of Old Czech poemsfrom the 9th and 13th centuries that wereunmasked as forgeries at the end of the 19th

century. The wheels of nationalism start toturn because the tracks have already beenlaid. At first the Austrian government smiles,because it believes on past form that thephenomenon is trivial. But the smile on itsface disappears when it sees the funeral ofRubeš. A poet whom everybody knows fromhis Mlynářova opička [The Miller’s Monkey]or Čech a Němec [The Czech and the Ger-man] or some little verse dies, and FrantišekPalacký gives the order, more or less a politi-cal appeal, for his memory to be honoured.Suddenly forty thousand people turn up, therain is pouring down but Palacký speaks fora whole hour and everyone listens. Suddenlyideology, something completely new, entersthe game. And we might perhaps see that asthe fateful moment for Czech music as well,which becomes national in spirit. Czechmusicians cease to be migrants, and are nowpeople very much bound to a particular cul-tural instance. Smetana is a tragic but greatexample of this kind. Here we have a phe-nomenal world talent, and if he had chosen

4 | interview | czech music 3 | 2005

the path of the Romantic composer freelytravelling and spending five years in Paris,and maybe ten years in some German cen-tre, he would certainly be three times morefamous than he is today. But he chose thepath of Czech opera and gave himself upwholly to the nation. He devoted himselfcompletely to the services of something thathe didn’t actually understand very well. Thisis crystal clear if we look at the ideas thatinform his music, I mean his view on what hewas actually setting to music. Significantlythese we noticed by Adolf Hitler with his dis-torted vision, who praised Má vlast [MyCountry] and considered it absolutely themost perfect chauvinistic glorification oflandscape, history, nation, race and so forth.He wanted to hear it played authentically; hegot his way, and the conductor Václav Talichwas later nearly charged with collaboration.But what could he have done? How has Czech music developed sincethe later 19th century? Interestingly, in music there was no greatbreak in music at the end of the 19th century.This was unlike the situation in literature,when the 1890s and the “omladina” move-ment brought a new view, with many youngwriters no longer believing that we were onenation but seeing the internal differences,parting company for good with the YoungCzech political movement and, for example,in many cases finding the iconic nationalpoet Vrchlický no longer acceptable. In musicthe situation was not so polarised. There wasa relatively smooth transition betweenDvořák and his pupils. The latter were mod-ernists, of course, but Czech modernists,a more traditional sort of modernist. On theother hand, Suk had such a mimetic talentthat he could be regarded by the Vienneseavant-garde as a composer sometimes closeto atonality and significantly only Josef Suk,Leoš Janáček and Ladislav Vycpálek weretaken up by the Society for the Private Per-formance of Music – the most avant-gardeoutpost in Vienna. Suk was thought to haveaffinities with the Viennese because some ofhis compositions were written in severalpolyphonic layers, and in that sense weresimilar to Mahler, Mahler at his most modern.But then along came Janáček and changedeverything. An outsider arrived, a solitaire,and became a great hit. After Jenůfa each ofhis operas was eagerly awaited and he over-shadows all the other Czechs. We shall come back to Janáček later.Now let’s turn to more personal mat-ters. You come from a well-known fam-ily of musicians. Do you rememberfrom your childhood any melody thathad a great effect on you and perhapseven influenced your later direction?I don’t remember any specific melody, butI lived in a very musical environment. Myfather’s friends would come to our houseand play, mainly trio sonatas or at least twoviolins and piano. Apart from that my mothertaught at music school and at the conserva-tory, and so her pupils would meet at ourhouse and play too. It was my uncles who

started my musical training. Vladimír, born in1900, was a lawyer but he had concurrentlystudied at Josef Suk’s master school. In facthe was had even been Suk’s favourite pupil.He had great talent but somehow he dissi-pated it. He constantly sat about in variouscoffee-houses debating what he would do,until in the end he didn’t do anything much.He wrote the most in the Fifties, when hewas “put out of action” as a judge becausehe wasn’t a party member, and so he fellback on music: he ended up at the Pragueconservatory where he played for ballerinas,and he was satisfied. He was a great influ-ence on me. He was a bon vivant and con-firmed bachelor and I used to go and visithim in Prague, where he educated me inartistic taste. My other uncle, Bohumír, wasa professor at the Philosophical Faculty,a pupil of Vladimír Helfert, an outstandingpianist, an excellent lexicographer, a scholar,a pedant in the best sense of the term, verystrict with himself but very friendly to otherpeople. Bohumír taught me from when I wassix and it was a real drilling. When I was nineor ten my mother couldn’t bear to watch itany longer and took me to her old professor,the seventy-year-old Mrs Holubová, who hadoriginally been appointed by Leoš Janáčekto the organ school. She venerated Janáček,but in that very Czech sort of way. She usedto say, “Janáček is a complete genius, but hespoils everything with that abruptness of his,the way he cuts everything off. It’s terrible, italways annoys me when I hear it in theGlagolitic Mass, the way he cuts a thingshort, when maestro Novák would havedeveloped it, would have made it a greatpassage. (Well, yes, but then again that isprecisely what is distinctive about Janáček).She was a graduate of the Prague Conser-vatory, and she boasted that she had riddenin a tram with Dvořák. She always told methe story of how she had been sitting thereand Dvořák had got on and she had stood upand said. “Maestro, please be seated”. Hehad said, “Sit down”. She had replied, “I can-not sit”. And he had thumped with his caneand said, “ Sit down this minute!” She wasa fantastic woman, very nice, but at the sametime very exacting. First she saw me asa pianist but then she recognised thatI might have gifts as a composer, and guidedme in that direction. And then there was myother uncle Jan, an outstanding violinist whohad a great career ahead of him but didn’thave the push to make it and so ended up inVyškov, where he directed the Haná orches-tral association. So that was the background I came from. Allmy uncles would come and visit us, at Christ-mas and at Easter, and their influences min-gled and interacted in me. You haven’t yet mentioned yourfather…My father wasn’t a professional musician. Heplayed the violin and viola very well but heworked as the secretary of the Cyril andMethodius Savings Bank. Janáček had beena regular visitor to the bank. He always usedto come to my father and say, “Good morn-

ing, do you know Mr. Chlubna?” And myfather would always answer, “Of course,Maestro, I shall call him for you immediately”.He always asked whether father knew him.Osvald Chlubna was Janáček’s right hand,and I myself got to know him well when I wasstudying, when he used to come to theJanáček Academy and curse us for beingmoderns. In seminars we almost came toblows with him. Then came 1968 and theSoviet tanks arrived. Chlubna ran into me atthe time and said, “Let bygones be bygones.Now we must all unite and defend ournational culture.” It was a very First-Republicsort of attitude, but it gave me the shiversbecause it made me realise that things werereally going to get rough. What were your student years at JAMU[The Janáček Academy of PerformingArts in Brno] like?First I completed studies at the PhilosophicalFaculty, then I went to Pardubice for a yearand did my national service as a signals man,but even before I went for a talent test atJAMU. By that time in 1961 and 1962 I wasalready in touch with the composers MiloslavIštvan, Josef Berg and Alois Piňos, who keptencouraging me in the idea that I just had togo to JAMU. When I came back from militaryservice I already had a place in the MoravianMuseum as an assistant in the music depart-ment and I directed the Theatre of Music[Divadlo hudby]. On the basis of the talenttest I was admitted to the Janáček Academyand became a regular student of composi-tion there up to 1969. But I have very happymemories of the Theatre of Music too. It wasan institution that I made in my own image.I got my friends involved with it, the BrnoSurrealists, Pavel Řezníček, and Jiří Veselskýappeared in it as well, and Arnošt Goldflam,Karel Fuksa, and of course that cult figure ofBohemian Brno life Jan Novák. I invitedMirek Kovářík, too, who produced a sort ofmini-festival of poetry. At JAMU you experienced a very potentset of teachers. The composition teach-ers were Miloslav Ištvan, Josef Berg,and Alois Piňos. Ludvík Kundera wasrector at the time…It was a truly starry period. But Berg wasn’tat JAMU. He taught for just a short time,because teaching caused him such seriousphysical problems – a kind of stigmata – thathe had to stop. He always overdid the prepa-rations for his classes and it took up toomuch of his time. Ištvan and Piňos werecomplete revelations and it was very goodthat Ludvík Kundera, Milan Kundera’s father,was rector. He was an unusually educatedand cultivated man. He had studied in Ger-many and admired Beethoven, but Janáčekwas a huge influence on him. Then he hadbeen in the Czechoslovak Legions in theFirst War and had gone through the wholelegion experience in Russia. For me he wasalways a classic example of the syndrome ofthe Czech nation, combining German cultureand Russophilia. He had a perfect mastery ofboth languages. He also wrote a book inRussian, The History of the Music of the

czech music 3 | 2005 | interview | 5

Czechoslovak People, which came out inYekaterinburg in 1919. Ištvan and Piňos were polar opposites,friendly and mutually respectful at the timebut later their paths diverged sharply. Bothwere absolutely ideal teachers. It is very diffi-cult to teach art; it means imposing somekind of artistic doctrine and often turning itinto a compulsory text and testing studentsto check they agree. But both Ištvan andPinňos were hugely liberal at a time thatwasn’t liberal at all. They taught for muchlonger than was required, sometimes six orseven hours at one go. We would sit in thepub but not drink at all, maybe a glass or soof wine at most, or would go to their flats. Wewere in close contact with them, we all usedthe familiar form of address (”ty” not “vy”, asin French “tu” not “vous”) and created thingstogether. The atmosphere was completelydifferent from in Prague, where there wasa big distance between teachers and stu-dents and a rigidity that became even worseunder Normalisation [the freeze after the1968 invasion]. This meant that the leadingPrague and Bratislava composers sent theiroffspring to Brno for their training, and Brnomanaged to keep up a decent standard evenin the Seventies. Music is something that it ishard for ideology to infiltrate. They could banconcerts, or order up concerts to celebratethe revolution or whatever, but essentially itwas the composers who created the content.And Ištvan and Piňos were completelyuncompromising. So you mean that from the point ofview of music the Sixties were moredynamic in Brno than in Prague? Yes, but it was marked by what you might callthe “curse of Brno”, which is hard to explain.Usually I say it is a matter of the relationshipbetween Czech and German identity in thearea. In Prague the polarisation of Czechsand Germans was unambiguous. After theOctober Diploma there were Czechs andthere were Germans, and anyone who want-ed to be both at the same time wasdenounced by both sides. In Brno it wasmore complicated. Up to 1890–1900 therewere Czechs living here but the Germantown hall tried to stop more Czechs movingin from the suburbs. Brno had ninety thou-sand inhabitants at the time and wanted toprotect the German majority of around fiftythousand. In Prague the turning point hadcome in 1880 – the Germans and Jews sud-denly realised that they were surrounded byCzechs. The Josefine doctrine effectivelypaid off and nobody then had any doubtsthat Prague was a Czech city. And anotherfactor was that in Brno the working classwas forced into bilingualism by the Germanowners. There was only one Czech school inthe place. So clear national polarisationcame late, only after 1900. There is alwaysthat last straw that breaks the camel’s back;that’s the law of quantity changing into quali-ty. The last straw in Brno was the carpentryworker Pavlík, who was killed in 1905 whenhe was demonstrating for a Czech university.A worker demonstrating for a university!!!

Janáček wrote a wonderful sonata on thetheme. Blood was spilt and there was nogoing back. Up to that time the Czechs andGermans in Brno had always quarrelled,brawled and then always come togetheragain in support of some idea. After 1905 itwas no longer possible for Czechs to go tothe German theatre. The divorce was final. What effects did this have for theatmosphere in Brno, what you call thecurse? Generally a kind of embarrassment aboutthe fact that actually there is a double ortriple culture here. It is most obvious in thearchitecture, because in order for Brno to begiven a Czech face something absolutelynew had to be found. That was the reasonfor Functionalism. It was clear that this wassomething new, Czech, beautiful. This is theprinciple on which I would explain the specif-ic character of Brno. The modern startedhere practically from scratch, much more sothan anywhere else. At the end of the Sixties you were partof the birth of another Brno legend –the Goose on a String Theatre [Divadlo

Husa na provázku], where you createdthe stage music for many productions.How can music influence a stage pro-duction? Or what generally is the rela-tionship between the dramatic andmusical element? Music can of course have great psychologi-cal power, but in theatre the main problem isthat it is stigmatised by being used for thetransitions. When there’s a scene change,then there’s music. There’s a constant dan-ger of someone talking while it’s playing, theaudience chatting, in short, a danger of themusic being just a backdrop. Or else it’s theaccompanying element to movement, todance, which then turns into ballet or mime.But today musicians, and also directors andultimately even actors want there to bea song or something more. So music is beingliberated from the stage of spoken dramaand becoming something that is moving inthe direction of opera or musical. At theGoose on a String Theatre [later Theatre ona String] each director had his own approachto music. Zdeněk Pospíšil cared a great dealabout music and wanted to do musical. Of

6 | interview | czech music 3 | 2005

course he didn’t know quite how to do it, buthe created Balada pro banditu [Ballad fora Bandit], which was a work of genius in itstime. Peter Scherhaufer on the other handneeded music as rhythmic emphasis, asatmosphere. But it was Scherhaufer who hadthe idea that the Theatre on a String mightdo opera. Of course – a peculiar sort ofopera, but Chameleón at the Theatre ona String meant more to me than an operaI would do in a classic opera house. Theatmosphere there was marvellous, and it wasa joy to write for people like Mirek Donutil,Mojmír Maděrič, Jirka Pecha who couldn’tread music, Iva Bittová… there was a realelectricity between them all the time. On theone hand they worked together, but on theother there was a certain competitive tensionbetween them, which led to great perfor-mances. It was all a great joke for them,because they had no knowledge of operaand so they performed the way they imag-ined opera might look. What emerged wasactually a parody of opera. I also did BaletMakábr [Ballet Macabre]. I must say I wouldlike to go back to Chameleon, though,because I think it is perfectly written, proba-bly one of Ludvík Kundera’s best plays. Thestory of Mr. Fouché, who was not wicked orcynical, but just didn’t have a character at all. You mentioned Ballad for a Bandit,which is now a popular classic, and itssongs are regularly sung around campfires. What does it mean for a compos-er of modern classical music when hissongs become part of popular culture?Isn’t there a kind of contradictionabout it? Yes there is, undoubtedly, and I am aware ofit. In the 1970s we all retreated from theavant-garde, as it were. The rapid movementof the 1960s came to an end. John Lennonor someone else said that the seventieswere worth shit and in some ways that wastrue. Naturally we turned away from theavant-garde. We didn’t for example have thesame kind of conscious view as the Germancomposers who deliberately turned againstthe avant-garde, against the remorselessexpressiveness of the new music and lookedfor a larger synthesis, a road to a new sim-plicity. We only learned about that later. Butmany of us instinctively sensed it andinclined towards historicism. Not that wecompletely gave up avant-garde things, butwe worked on two or three levels in parallel.We cultivated the New Music almost ritually,because for us it retained the attraction ofthe 1960s and we didn’t want to betray that;whenever we did a chamber piece we wouldgo back to its principles, but even then newthings were getting into it. In my case thiswas theatre and of course in the theatrethere was a yelling director who didn’t wantto hear a word about some New Music orother. He yelled that he wanted songs, songsfor people. The second line, but that was onethat I founded myself voluntarily, was histori-cal music. I realised how superficial myapproach to music had been when I hadn’thad the historical dimension, and so I sub-

merged myself in the period around 1600and studied it in great detail. The result wasthat after fifteen years I wrote a book aboutMonteverdi. Then I went back another hun-dred years. This way I got addicted to musicof the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenthcentury. It was what you might call my otherface. Of course I felt the contradiction withdoing songs for the theatre, but I took theprospect of theatre songs as a new sort ofreaction to the avant-garde, and thoughtI would try it, since I had never done it before.I had never written Country, and suddenlyhere it was with Ballad for a Bandit, andPospíšil shouting, “Do you know how to doa Western?” So first I listened to all the wes-terns and then I produced my own idea ofa western. Naturally I know that as soon assomething is too popular or too easy on theear, it’s dangerous. And so in the case ofBallad I haven’t succumbed to some greatenthusiasm. In fact I tend to be suspiciousand tell myself that it is very odd that it is socatchy and still remembered. But you mustremember that Ballad for a Bandit aspired tobe a musical. If – but neither Pospíšil norI myself realised it – if there had been moredancing. A musical needs to be very muchdance drama, and that element is ratherlacking in Ballad. Now that we talk of musical – what isyour view of the boom in musicals inthe 1990s in Czech Republic? What isthe basis of the appeal? It’s a matter of visual appeal. It’s the visuali-sation of music. If you look back on the last20 years, what you see is that music hasbecome terribly visualised. Every group musthave clips, and if they don’t they might aswell not exist. They have to present them-selves in some way, and so they put on dif-ferent costumes and create an image, whichthen determines fashion. But musical isabove all a huge commercial commodity – asI’ve often written – it is instant opera for thepoor. Nobody can get into the grand operasthese days. Just take a look at what hap-pened in Britain when the Labour Party, afterwinning the elections, wanted to get theirnew MPs their traditional seats at the opera.It was impossible because the seats hadalready been taken by the lords. Sometimesyou can get into a matinée there, but no onehas a chance of getting into the premieres.The rise of the musical was an attempt tosomehow exploit the financial capacity of themiddle- and lower classes, to get money outof them. Rock-n-Roll achieved the samething starting in the sixties. The young hadplenty of money, because after the war theywere in apprenticeships and had regularincomes, and so they could buy a recordevery week or at least every month. Every-thing is perfectly calculated. A lot of smartpeople in this country grasped the opportuni-ty and started to do musicals. Amazingly thismerry-go-round is still turning and makingmoney, which is something I can’t under-stand. Yes, I can see a number of attempts atinnovation, one cannot write it all off asmindless, and there are some major artistic

and what you might call intellectual or textinvestments. But the mortal sin of Czechmusical is that it lacks irony about itself. I aman admirer of Webber’s Joseph and hisAmazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, for exam-ple, where at one point the action stops andthe protagonists entirely challenge the prin-ciples that they embody. Joseph is suppos-edly dead and his father weeps for him, he iscomforted by a girl and together they dancein front of the curtain, and suddenly Josephtakes off his dark glasses and says,“Let’s get on with the plot. I’m dead, but noth-ing is happening.” It is a tremendous lighten-ing up of the atmosphere, and if someonedid it in Dracula (successful Czech musical –editor’s note), half the audience would defi-nitely understand and the piece wouldacquire another dimension. But in this coun-try musical is treated like an opera around1800, except that opera around 1800 wasdone a little better. Perhaps it is the revengeof history. In history it what usually happensis that once grand styles come back in light-ened up and boiled down forms. This can bethe case with musical as well, following therule that what comes first as tragedy comesback a second time as farce. Let us take the situation from theopposite side now – what is the situa-tion of classical music today? Naturally it is a minority genre, but what isn’ta minority genre? Only mainstream pop.Rock music and folk rock are already minori-ty affairs today. Jazz is very definitely in theposition of a minority genre. Unless it goesfor something of the kind that Jaromír Hnilič-ka tried, for example, when he did a jazzmass at Petrov. Ordinary believers came too,and people who were interested in paralitur-gical music, but they were not jazzmen ofcourse. In other words, I think we are seeinga huge process of syncretism, which remindsme of Late Antiquity and the Early Christianperiod. Those were times when religion didn’texist in pure form, many people believed invarious different cults and combined them inall kinds of ways. Today the media throw somuch information at us that we couldn’tactually be non-syncretic if we tried. This iswhy classical music no longer exists in pureform. When I look at the young generation ofcomposers I can’t see even one who isa purely classical composer. Earlier, com-posers used to come out of the conservatoryor studies with some master and if then Mr.XY wrote an operetta, they would want tobanish him from the avant-garde. Todayeveryone says, yes, he has to make a living.Of course he studied at the Janáček Acade-my of Performing Arts, but now he plays ina band or makes clips or ten different thingsat the same time. And occasionally he writesa symphony. His intentions are serious, buthe thinks on five different tracks. And so weget synthesis. Can one say what the classical musicpublic of today is like? Probably not, because the public changes. Itis a complete minority, but if some appealingexternal element is added, classical music

czech music 3 | 2005 | interview | 7

can attract a lot of people. One examplemight be the Ostrava Days, a festival ofavant-garde music that the well-knownavantgardist Petr Kotík, born in 1942, decid-ed to hold. He deliberately held it in industrialOstrava, in an environment we might consid-er completely acultural. But it worked per-fectly. He combined avant-garde music withindustrial conditions, which was a terrificidea and the response was very good. Thisshows that it is possible to get a broaderpublic to listen to classical music, but themusic must have some new, non-traditionalpackaging. You mean by providing the audiencewith some key to interpretation, somepotential explanation that will makethe music more accessible?Yes, or else a special performance. Forexample when a cellist like Jiří Bárta plays,or violinist like Pavel Šporcl. Šporcl attractsa certain public that admires him because heis an excellent violinist, looks unconventional,doesn’t play in black tie and so on, and sobasically he can play anything, and his publicwill swallow it, to a certain extent. I say toa certain extent, because if he decided toplay the Schönberg’s violin concerto hewould have problems in the long term,because people would start complainingeverywhere that he was playing somethingpeculiar. Or he would have to play in someexclusive setting, package it in some specialway. I think the same thing can be observedwith “high-brow” literature, whichtoday seems to need a “para-story” if itis to appeal to a broader readership.But does classical music still retain anodour of exclusivity, snobbery? Of course, old people who behave as peopleused to behave in the concert hall come toour concerts too. It is more a kind of ritualthan anything else. Ultimately we all came tothis ritual by what you might call a snobbishroute. We were taken to the theatre, some-times at six, or at ten, or at fifteen, and therewe saw the audience and learned when toapplaud and when not to, and it was thesame at concerts. Many people have ritu-alised it to the extent that concerts havebecome a social imperative for them – wejust have to be there. Naturally at JAMU it isdifferent. When there is a concert there, thestudents form another kind of audience.Probably what is important is to mix environ-ments. To do concerts among pictures andso on. Every era has to give new substanceto the ritual; there is no permanent recipe. Could one generalise and say that theperception of art is an essentially ritu-alised matter? To a certain extent yes, because when a per-ception is collective, everyone is going towatch how his neighbour reacts. With individ-ual perception the situation is slightly differ-ent. There I don’t have to make any pretence,and I am not bound to any external response.One example: I went to a musical that I aver-agely enjoyed and I was averagely satisfied.The performances were quite good. And the

people who were there, probably business-men because the tickets were very expen-sive, expressed crazy enthusiasm corre-sponding to the price of the tickets. Theenthusiasm was enormous. And so you seethat even para-stories like this influence theperception of a work. You spoke about syncretism, but don’tyou have the feeling that the oppositetrend exists as well, that artistic genresare getting further and further awayfrom each other, and that for examplecontemporary music communicates farless with art or contemporary litera-ture? Syncretism is to some extent a case of the“wish being father to the thought”, of course;we want it to be like that. But I would saythat the position may actually have improvedin music, in relation to the visual arts forexample, when you think of “graphic music”,“visual scores” and so on. Earlier music wasa purely acoustic matter but since 1950,with the existence of graphic music, it hasnot been possible to ignore the visual side.Nonetheless it’s true that a very high level ofspecialisation is occurring inside the individ-ual branches of the arts. This is perhapscomparable with specialisation in the sci-ences after the positivist era. But here toothere is a different level, because interdisci-plines are developing that are far moreimportant. Physical chemistry is emergingbetween physics and chemistry, and is moreimportant than the classicaldisciplines…Interdisciplines are also emerg-ing inside music, bringing it closer to thevisual. What is the situation in relation to lit-erature? Does contemporary opera forexample use contemporary prose aslibretto? I’ll answer on the general level. Opera isactually something that began from literatureand then moved further away from literature.The first opera librettos were written by greatpoets, but then people took over who turnedthem out as if on a production line. From thepoint of view of craftsmanship they werevery good, but they devaluated the greatwords. The great word “love” was constantlyon the lips of singers, and so nobody anylonger much believed in it anymore. That wasthe situation from 1690/1700 to 1750.After a period like that, however, innovationalways comes along in one form or another.Around 1800 we find types appearing whodon’t trust the established art of libretto andrightly find it stale, and they look for a literaryopera. Which means that they read. Obvious-ly it depends on what they read. They mayread banalities, or great literature. That wasthe case with Beethoven. He always becameenraptured with something and wanted to doit as an opera and then looked around forsomeone who would do it for him. This is theprocess of the literarisation of opera. Andthe process continued in a very steep curvethat culminates in Wagner. Wagner is theideal example of poet and musician com-bined. And I deliberately put “poet” first,

because his Collected Writings are veryimpressive. Today, however, there is nounequivocal answer. It is very likely thatopera is using literature for inspiration. Thereare plenty of cases. Recently for example anopera based on Beckett was staged inPrague. Think how many times Švejk hasbeen done as an opera. But of course thequality of the results is a different matter.Today the composer needs to have a goodliterary knowledge, to be widely read andable to find his or her own way. Abroad youfind an ideal combination in Steve Reich andBeryl Korot. They are married, Reich com-poses and Korot writes terrific texts. A few years ago the philosopher VáclavBělohradský claimed that opera wasa genre as dead as poetry…That’s nothing new. People have been sayingthat since 1600. And I think opera has basi-cally come to live with the situation and reck-on with it. Opera always has to be hittinga crisis to show once again that it is not incrisis. Since 1900 there has been enquiryafter enquiry designed to discover whetheropera is in crisis. Of course it is. Opera isa museum. People go to the MetropolitanOpera as they go to a museum. There theyconsider Puccini to be modern opera andJanáček is considered some peculiar anom-aly. Some operas are deliberately museums,museums that have fantastic subsidies andattract vast numbers of visitors. Opera ingeneral probably lives for the past, becauseit shows how many great achievements wereaccomplished then. When you compare whatwas written in the eighteenth and nineteenthcenturies with what was written in the twen-tieth century, then it is clear that the impulseof the past predominates. On the other hand,directors today in general try to innovate – todress operas in new costumes, to put themin different settings. Recently I saw a TwelfthNight that was updated to the period1900–1915. It was extremely interesting. Ofcourse, it shifted the work to a different levelentirely. It doesn’t bother people who alreadyknow the text and it can potentially attracta larger public by appeal to the popularity ofa certain period, style of costumes and so on. You have mentioned Janáček, and ofcourse his operas are a model exampleof the combination of literature andmusic. Milan Kundera has written thatJanáček discovered the world of prosefor opera, and even the world of realis-tic prose, and that he rejected stylisa-tion and discovered the acoustic worldoutside music. What do you see asunique about Janáček?It is one of the great ambitions of musicolo-gists – to explain how Janáček wrote hisoperas. Actually we don’t know much aboutit and one might ask whether it will help usa great deal when we do know. But hisachievements, his contribution, are some-thing else. Milan Kundera has expressed itvery well, but Janáček was not the first todiscover prose, and he was following theFrench naturalists. Specifically he madea detailed study of Gustav Charpentier, who

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wrote the opera Louise. This is a story fromBohemian life, from the street, where wehear the jingles of milk-sellers and bakersand so on. Evidently this attracted Janáček,because he did something similar. He knewthat opera could no longer speak ina stylised idiom that had originated sometime at the beginning of the seventeenthcentury and drawn on the tradition of Petra-ch and Dante. That idiom had slid into thehands of mass producers who strikinglyresemble today’s Musical librettists and theoriginal power of the words had been lost.Prose libretto therefore definitely helpedopera to come closer to reality, to naturalism.Janáček, originally a great proponent of for-malism, suddenly started to talk about theneed for truth to take precedence overbeauty. This means that ugliness too is justi-fied. It also looks as if he started to look forugliness. Furthermore prose creates irregularshapes that made it possible to go beyondthe stereotypes of aria and recitative.Janáček called this “formative splinters”,which is his term, and he put the operatogether from these splinters. The melodiesof speech, which he recorded on a systemat-ic, daily basis in the street, are another thing.Today we no longer believe that this wasa scientific enterprise. I would say it wasa more literary project. Arne Novák, when hewrote about his feuilletons – Mileneca nevolník okamžiku [The Lover and the Serfof the Moment] was sharply insightful on thispoint. Few Czech writers – and here Janáčekmay be considered a writer – chose this formof splinters. Perhaps the smallest form thatJanáček used in his feuilletons is preciselya kind of speech melody splinter. He thencomposes a sketch or feuilleton out ofmelody splinters and this isolated melody isactually a kind of entity. It was through thesephenomena that Janáček got to know theworld. And this is evident in his operas too.One other aspect is also interesting from theliterary point of view. In his third opera –Jenůfa – Janáček for the first time alteredthe libretto, improving on Preiss’s original interms of dramatic effect and in some instinc-tive way arrived at the Aeschylean principle.It is something first noticed by the English.The Aeschylean principle involves one figureplaying many other figures and entering intothem. We find this in all of Janáček’s operas– one character replaying, quoting another:a monologue that works like a dialogue. TheKostelnička in Jenůfa says, “It will be soon.But in the mean time I have to go througha whole eternity a whole salvation. What ifI took the child away somewhere… Thenthey would pounce on me, on Jenufa. Yousee her. You see her. You see her, Kostelnič-ka..” And now she plays the future situationover to herself. This principle is used ran-domly, appears once or twice, but it canentirely dominate as in the case of the lastopera Z mrtvého domu [From the House ofthe Dead], where it is the principle that gen-erates the action. The characters are alreadywaiting only for death in a concentrationcamp and they narrate their memories. The

memories are far stronger than their currentstate. They tell how they killed someone orwhat happened to them, what wrong hasbeen done them or how they have arrivedhere through injustice, and as they do theyplay different characters. And it becomesclear that this monologue / dialogue is farmore powerful than if there had been ten ofthese characters present with each playingonly himself. And one more thing: in Destinyand Jenůfa veristic opera plays a major part.Jenůfa is essentially ancient tragedy, and itsnovelty and great modernity lies in the factthat Janáček has set it in a highly specifictime and place. In the spirit of verism he hasreplaced the universalism at which LateRomanticism had arrived – the world asmyth, the world as the universe, as we seefor example in Wagner. This can be playedanywhere, on a boat or in a military base andsuchlike. In the case of verism, however, thesetting matters a great deal; it matters that itis a mill that is so and so many kilometresfrom Hrubá Vrbka. Verism work with the con-crete, unique setting and ritual is importanthere. An ancient tragedy repeats itself: jeal-ousy, murder, love, hate and so on, but theseare differently packaged, in this case in thegarb of folk costume, the garb of ritual, thegarb of the dance of recruits. Another musical phenomenon that youhave been concerned with and that islinked with literature is that of singingpoets. What form does this phenome-non take today?A musicus poeticus is someone who essen-tially works with both levels, with music andwith poetry or the word. This tradition devel-oped very strongly in humanism, i.e. from thefifteenth to the sixteenth century. In this peri-od the poet was able to write some musicalform and combine it with poetry. It was thesixteenth and seventeenth centuries thatwere crucial, however, because this waswhen people who had a need to combinemusic with text emerged as a clear groupespecially in the universities and the intellec-tual sphere. But even well before this, in thefourteenth century, when the new mensuralnotation was developed, suddenly it waspossible to write music down in a far morecomplex way, to structure it. Some peoplecomposed in a way that shows they were noteven very interested in the question ofwhether a piece could be sung at all, andwere just excited by the range of possibilitiesof what could be invented on the page. Withthe sixteenth and seventeenth came thedevelopment of a vast field of figurics,rhetorical figures in the sense of pre-com-posed situations that it was useful to knowfor particular kinds of verbs of motion, forparticular kinds of numerical and spatial rela-tions and so on. There are several dozensuch figures and they can either be usedconventionally as they were intended or elseindividualists can try to bend or break themusing anti-figures. This means they begin touse them in other ways, which everyonenotices. Around the year 1600 this led to therise of what was known as the modern and

a rift — musica antica e moderna. And in Italya seconda prattica — other practice, devel-oped. The popularisation of art, which is mostevident at the beginning of the Baroque andin the Middle Baroque, acted as a major fac-tor for conserving style. In the decorative artsor in literature and music, we are not sure inthe Renaissance what is schlock and rubbishand what is high art. But in the Baroque wecan be completely certain. We can see theartisan making cherubs and shrine figureson a production line. The equivalent in musicis the broadside ballad. This is the projectionof high art onto the ordinary market where itis sold for money. The trend on the otherhand means the fall of musica poetica. Bachis still a musicus poeticus, which means thathe knows exactly how to treat verses. AfterBach, from the 18th century, the roles divide.There are composers and there are poets.You can see it today in Czech pop and folk.There are poets who are quite clearly a longway from being great musicians and fit somequite decent or adequate poetic figure tosome empty music. Last year we celebrated a majorJanáček Anniversary. Do you think thiswill attract more attention to his work?I almost have the sense that Janáček ismore popular abroad than in this coun-try. Janáček really is performed abroad morethan he is here. The Janáček “boom” abroadis quite marked. But when he is performed ina better than average way here he drawsgreat attention – for exampleWilson’s Prague production of Destiny. Thejubilee year 2004 – a hundred years fromthe Brno, local premiere of Jenufa – wasa reminder that today Janáček is attractingthe greatest directors, choreographers andstage designers, and is being sung by thebest singers and staged in the most famousopera houses in the world. We are witness-ing new interpretations of his operas. Jenufaas the problem of unwanted children, socialand other inequalities. In the same way Wil-son’s breakthrough production of the operaDestiny – as a probe into thecomposer’s biography – broke through anearlier indifference to the piece. And Výletypana Broučka [The Excursions of Mr.Brouček], that excellent burlesque ona Czech or indeed any other petit bourgeois,just like Liška Bystrouška [The Cunning Lit-tle Vixen], one of the most “ecologicaloperas” of the 20th century. Its brilliantdynamism and colourfulness predetermine itto become the opera-ballet of our era, anda Paris production had just this concept of it.From the House of the Dead is the opera ofthe black 20th century – the century ofgulags and concentration camps andescapes from them. This opera cries out forfilm or television adaptation. The main thing,however, is that we shall not be able to fol-low just some “one obligatory” tradition. Newand different traditions are already emerging.And it is possible and likely that they willattract a larger number of admirers than theprevious one.

czech music 3 | 2005 | history | 9

(Reprinted in abridged form with the kindpermission of the magazine Host)

Prof. PhDr. et MgA Milo‰ ·tûdroÀ, CSc(*9. 2. 1942) Musicologist and composer. He studiedmusicology at the Philosophical Facultyof Brno University and composition atthe Janáãek Academy of PerformingArts. In the 1960s he led the Theatreof Music in Brno and was one of thefounders of the Theatre on a String[Divadlo na provázku], where he com-posed music for many productions(including Balada pro banditu [Balladfor a Bandit] (M. Uhde, 1975), Pohád-ka máje [Fairytale of May] (M. Uhde,1976), Cameleón aneb Josef Fouché[The Chameleon or Josef Fouché] (L.Kundera, 1984) and so on). WithParsch, RÛÏiãka and Medek he hasworked on “collective compositions”based on the Czech experimental musicof the 1960s. Since 1972 he has taught at the Insti-tute of Musical Science at the Philo-sophical Faculty of Masaryk University.There he specialises in Renaissance andBaroque Music, and 20t h-Century Musicwith a focus on the works of Leo‰Janáãek. He is the author of many aca-demic studies published in learned jour-nals in this country and abroad. Hisbooks include Claudio Monteverdi(1985), Josef Berg – skladatel mezihudbou, divadlem a literaturou [JosefBerg –A Composer Between Music,Theatre and Literature] (1992), Leo‰Janáãek a hudba 20. století [Leo‰Janáãek and the Music of the 20t h Cen-tury], Paraley, sondy, dokumenty [Par-allels, Probes, Documents] (1998). Asa composer he works with Iva Bittová.

VLASTA REITTEREROVÁ

We must exercise a certain cau-tion when using the word “school” in thesense of a musical movement. Admittedlyit is now conventional in music history toemploy terms like the “Low Countries”,“Neapolitan” and “Venetian” schools tocharacterise particular trends in music ofthe Renaissance and Baroque, the“Mannheim” and “Viennese” school for theClassical period, and the “Second Vien-nese School” for the circle of ArnoldSchönberg and his followers (not to speakof the “national schools” that appeareverywhere in the literature), but the mostrecent historical analysis has challengedthis blanket use of the concept. The fact isthat the definition and application of theterm “school” is very changeable and rela-tive, like historical knowledge itself. Whena new musical phenomenon appears, it iseither rejected or accepted by those con-temporaries who encounter it, but neitherrejection nor acceptance is the result oftruly objective aesthetic judgment; sincethis is impossible when the phenomenonis so new. The initial experience is not,therefore, the criterion of subsequentevaluation. If the new phenomenon is toany degree accepted, however, what fol-lows is a phase in which efforts are madeto universalise and stabilise it, and at thispoint the distinguish marks of the newphenomenon become a measuring rod,and the first “continuers” appear. Onlythen, as the new movement starts to iden-tify its own historical position, doesa search for “forerunners” ensue, subse-quently enabling us to talk of a “school”,a “personal style”, the “style of a genera-tion” or “epoch” and so forth. Bearing allthese caveats in mind we find that it is

both possible, and impossible, to talk ofanything like a “Hába School”. In his attempts fully to integrate micro-tones into European musical languageand give them a place equal to that of tra-ditional tonal and harmonic techniques,Hába remained an isolated solitaire in thehistory of European music, but as we shallshow, he was not without his continuers.His rejection of the classical romantic doc-trine of musical forms and his promotionof “athematism”, was supposed to openthe way to absolute creative freedom andemancipate the composer from depen-dence on a given compositional canon.Some considered this to mean the loss ofa firm footing, not a negligible aspect ofthe creative process of composing (what-ever the extreme avant-garde may havethought), and perhaps even less negligi-ble when it comes to the reception of themusic by the audience. On the other handtheory is one thing and its applicationanother. Hába himself was not a purelymicrotonal nor a purely athematic com-poser. His musical talent was sponta-neous and his music was never contrived.

It was another feature ofHába’s personality that he managed togather around him a very large circle ofkindred spirits. These included his pupilsin the strict sense of the word, i.e. thosewho attended his courses in microtonalmusic at the Prague Conservatoire, andhis “pupils” in the broader sense, i.e. peo-ple who met him at his innumerable lec-tures (at home and abroad), who workedwith him in musical associations and soci-eties, and studied his articles in the musicjournals and books.

the hába “school”

Alois Hába and Karel Reiner

10 | history | czech music 3 | 2005

Entry into Musical LifeAlois Hába was undoubtedly

one of the most influential people inCzech music in the period between thetwo world wars. He was a composer, the-orist, organiser, propagator of modernmusic and a teacher. Active in musicclubs and societies, he used them asa platform for applying and promoting hisviews. In the world of Prague associationshe developed this activity first and fore-most in Přítomnost [Presence], becomingits chairman at the beginning of the1930s, and in the Czechoslovak sectionof the International Society for Contempo-rary Music, ISCM. In both societies hehad the deciding voice in the most criticalyears, when political and national conflictwas becoming ever more intense. Hábaalways remained a convinced memberand representative of his nation (onecould even say his ethnic group) and healso remained a convinced supporter ofinternational co-operation without regardto linguistic, racial, religious or other barri-ers. In the mid-1930s his tolerance didnot make life easy for him. As Hitler’s Ger-many became ever more aggressive hewas often accused of tolerating “Jews andGermans” around him – a double criticismfired by the Czech nationalism and anti-semitism that grew in direct proportion tothe nationalism and racism of the Nazis.

Hába’s class at the PragueConservatoire contained a lively mixture ofnationalities; over the years it was attend-ed by students from the Kingdome of Ser-bia, Croatia and Slovenia (from 1929Yugoslavia), Lithuanians, Turks, Poles, Bul-garians and others. Hába taught for tenyears at the Conservatoire on the basis ofan annually renewed permission to hold“courses in microtonal music”. Microtonalmusic was not a separate subject in thecurriculum, but was considered a depart-ment of the composition class and couldonly be taken by students who hadalready taken the usual obligatory compo-sition subjects. Not until 1934 was Hábaappointed a professor of composition atthe Conservatoire.

When he started his courses atthe Conservatoire he already had the firstpractical tests of his ideas behind him. Hemust have been immensely gratified whenhis quarter-tone quartet (String Quartetno. 2 op. 7) was performed by the Have-mann Quartet in Berlin and especiallywhen another quarter-tone quartet (StringQuartet no. 3 op. 12) was performed bythe Amar-Hindemith Quartet at the ISCMfestival in Salzburg in 1923. At theorchestral part of the ISCM festival in1924, held in Prague, Hába had beenable to present a quarter-tone piano, new-ly made by the August Förster firm andbuilt according to Hába’s design, as partof the subsidiary programme. During justfive years, when Hába moved from theo-retical exploration of the possibilities ofmicrotones to their practical application in

composition, he had managed with the helpof performers to prove that music of this kindwas possible.

Hába’s graduation piece in FranzSchreker’s composition class in Berlin(Ouvertura op. 5) was well constructed,effective, melodically inspired, and harmoni-cally and instrumentally rich, but it did notventure beyond the post-romantic style. Thegulf between this piece and the String Quar-tet op. 7 that he wrote practically at the sametime is a gulf between two different musicalworlds. Yet Hába’s creative development hadits own logic. It was the result of anencounter between a unique individual talentand the unique creative conditions offered bythe period immediately after the 1st WorldWar. Creative enthusiasm was a reaction toordeal, and the young generation of artistsbore a genuine resemblance to a phoenixrisen from the ashes (the comparison wasfrequently made). The Czechoslovak republictoo had arisen from the ashes of the Habs-burg Monarchy. Its musicians, artists andwriters felt the need to show that they couldgive it its own, unique, competitive and mod-ern art. Hába’s internationalist sentimentscombined perfectly with the inheritance of hisroots in the Moravian countryside, and withthe social sensitivity and breadth of culturethrough which he transcended these ruralroots.

An Example of CourageHába’s path to teaching the theory

of composition was undoubtedly made easierby the teacher training that he received at thepedagogical institute in Kroměříž before hedecided to set out on a composer’s career.Music teaching was at that time an obligatorypart of teacher training and he was also ableto test out his music teaching skills in prac-tice during a period in Vienna. It has recentlycome to light that in 1918/19 he taught violinand musical theory at a private music school(Schallinger-Schule) where pupils of FranzSchreker, including Felix Petyrek and Hein-rich Knöll also taught. Hába undoubtedlyobtained the job – just like a post as an editorat the Universal Edition – through the goodoffices of Franz Schreker, who was accus-tomed to helping his pupils improve theirmaterial situation in this way.

Hába gave his first lecture on thenew possibilities of music in Prague in 1921at the Prague Conservatoire. Even at this ear-ly stage he already found enthusiasts whowere later to work with him among the youngconservatoire students. He impressed themas a man of courage unafraid to venture intouncharted territory. For Miroslav Ponc, forexample, a pupil in BedřichWiedermann’s organ class, his meeting withHába meant a radical change in his wholeattitude to the musical world. Hába’s ownbrother Karel Hába became one of his stu-dents, as did the later leading figures of20th-century Czech music Miloslav Kabeláč,Klement Slavický, Václav Trojan, andamong others Jaroslav Ježek, famous pri-marily for his work with the “Liberated

Theatre” of Jiří Voskovec and Jan Werich, andthe author of countless enduring songs withjazz rhythms that he wrote for the latters’plays. Jaroslav Ježek had another side asa composer, which found expression forexample in his Sonata for Violin, performed atthe International Society for ContemporaryMusic festival in Florence in 1934. Pieces byHába’s pupils (from at home and abroad)appeared quite often on the programmes ofISCM festivals, but the circumstances of theinclusion of the Ježek sonata were exception-al. The international jury had originally chosenHába’s Toccata for Piano for the festival, butthe success of Ježek’s sonata when pre-miered in Prague shortly beforehand ledHába to ask the jury to change the pro-gramme. In a gesture that must still be rare,to say the least, in the history of music festi-vals, he withdrew his own piece and recom-mended Ježek’s composition instead.

Over the quarter-century ofHába’s career as a teacher first at the Con-servatoire and after the 2nd World War fora short period at the newly established Acad-emy of Performing Arts (created out of theformer master school of the Conservatoire),more than a hundred musicians of whom wehave some record passed through his class-es. If we were to add all of those whoencountered Hába at lectures in the soci-eties where he presented new pieces, at hisappearances abroad and so on, the real num-ber of people influenced by Hába would bemuch higher. Not everyone who in some wayexperienced Hába’s training became com-posers, and many chose other musical pro-fessions. These included for example KarelAnčerl (1908–1973), later head of theCzech Philharmonic (1950–68) and after hisemigration in 1968 of the Toronto SymphonyOrchestra. Ančerl was a highly versatile musi-cian: he studied conducting with PavelDědeček and at the Conservatoire masterschool with Václav Talich, and composingwith Jaroslav Křiček and Hába. UnderHába’s supervision he wrote a quarter-toneMusic for String Orchestra and after graduat-ing (1930) went on to an even tougher test inthe field.

The Opera “Mother” in the Hands ofa Pupil

On the 7th of May 1931 Hába’squarter-tone opera Matka [Mother] receivedits world premiere in Munich under the batonof Hermann Scherchen. The production ofthis opera, which has remained the only oneof its kind to this day, was a risky undertaking.In his vocal music up to that time Hába hadtried out quarter-tones only in his Suite onInterjections of Folk Poetry [Suita nacitoslovce lidové poezie], which had beenperformed, also under the direction of Her-mann Scherchen, in Frankfurt am Main in1924. When Hába met with Scherchen atthe ISCM Festival in Liege in 1930, he toldhim (so Hába related later), that he had justcompleted a full-length quarter-tone opera.Scherchen enthusiastically replied “Really?Then we’ll put it on next year in Munich at the

czech music 3 | 2005 | history | 11

Karel Ančerl and his letter to Alois Hába

music festival“, and immediately senta telegram to the intendant of the MunichTheatre Fritzi Büchtger. The telegram hereceived by return read “Hába’s opera impos-sible, big worries as it is”. But Büchtgeradded “please send more detail”“ and so histelegram was not an unambiguous refusal.What Hába had not revealed to Scherchen,however, was that he was already negotiatingfor a production in Frankfurt am Main (inNovember 1929 Hába had already commis-sioned the Prague journalist Viktor Joss totranslate the libretto into German for this pur-pose). The conductor Hans Wilhelm Stein-berg was working in Frankfurt at the time,and Hába knew him well from his time at thePrague German Theatre. Together with theintendant Josef Turnau, Steinberg had beenpushing through a progressive repertoire; inFebruary 1930 Schönberg‘s opera Vonheute auf morgen was premiered here, withHába attending. As it happened, when Hábatalked to Scherchen about the opera thenegotiations in Frankfurt were not going well,and so he left Scherchen a free hand. Whenthe management of the Frankfurt Operalearned about this, they were not slow toshow their displeasure to Hába. Finally it wasFritz Büchtger, urged on by the enthusiasticScherchen, who expressed a willingness to

lich) and Žebravý student [The Beggar Stu-dent] (Bettelstudent, 1931, directed by Vic-tor Janson).

“Dear Professor! Finally I’ve gotmore concrete instructions / arrangementsfrom Scherchen. I flew about after him fora full 3 says before I could get a quietmoment with him to talk over our business.He has left everything to me, including thecasting of the individual roles. He just gaveme the names of singers, and introduced meto the director […] who will introduce me toall the Berlin people involved and will workfor the thing, since you know that a pri-madonna wouldn’t even look at a little repeti-teur from Prague […] When I’ve filled someof the roles here and set up rehearsal guide-lines I shall go to Munich to Büchtger to lookfor the other singers and orchestral players.[…] Please send me the material for thesingers to Berlin, since I can’t start therehearsals until I have parts. Scherchenthinks it will be difficult to rehearse just fromthe parts […] Please write to Förster and askhim to arrange for me to have a quarter-toneharmonium at my disposal at any time, and ifnecessary be able to have it moved wherev-er I need it. […] I hope I shall be able to doeverything the way I envisage it. I shall needto work from morning to night, but you canrely on me. “ (21st September 1930)

“Dear Professor! The situation isbecoming rather clearer. […] We ought tohave two instruments here, one in Munich,and Scherchen would have to get a quarter-tone upright piano. Maybe the orchestra willbe from Munich too, and so an upright couldcome to Munich. This will be sorted out verysoon, since I shall have to go to Munichprobably as soon as the day after tomorrow.This is because the singers want to knowsomething about the financial side of thewhole thing, and so I need to speak with Mr.Büchtger, who is in charge of the wholething, as soon as possible. (I don’t wanta revolution between Meistersingers). […]I rehearse for 6 hours and search for singersfor 8 hours. I hope it won’t go on like this fortoo much longer […] For the moment I’mrehearsing with semitone pianos, butit’s lethally difficult work and then everyonecomplains that it’s straining their voices.I can believe it, because they don’t hear thereal sound, but have to derive it all from thesemi-tones, and so they strangle all the quar-ter-tones. I’ve turned into the completesinger, just imagine how often I have to sing2–3 bars in advance for the singers! Wher-ever I go I sing quarter-tones, but I alreadyknow how.“ (28th September 1930)

“I can’t find an contra-alto for thelove of God. Scherchen is coming to Berlinon the 4th of this month, and I hope he willhelp me find a chorus, or at least tell me howI ought to set about finding one here.” (2nd

December 1930)„Today I had my first opportunity to

speak with Scherchen properly about every-thing. Just imagine, he had a whole hour.I think everything will be different now. Thething is this: suddenly something prompted

take the risk and so it was Munich that won,especially thanks to financial assistance fromimportant patrons of the arts, the brothersHans and Werner Reinhart of Winterthur. Thevery busy Hermann Scherchen needed anassistant, however, and the post was filled byKarel Ančerl. As is evident from the interimreports that Ančerl was sending Hába frommid-September 1930 from Berlin whereopera rehearsal were taking place, the twen-ty-two-year-old fresh graduate was forced tolook himself for singers able and willing totake on the difficult work, have special prac-tice sessions with them (at the beginningwith a normal semitone piano) and often tack-le the almost impossible.

“Dear Professor! Scherchen leftyesterday and told me I had to arrangeeverything by myself, or if necessary withhelp from Büchtger. In fact I’m glad, becauseI shall be able to act with complete freedom.It is better to carry the whole responsibilitythan just a major part of it. He hasn’t yet sort-ed out the finances of my position either. Hehasn’t had the time. He offered mea “Vorschuss” from his money, but I couldn’taccept that. […] Yesterday Novotná andGajewská cancelled. Novotná hadn’tobtained permission for a three-week stay inMunich from the intendant, and she’s goingto shoot 2 films that have to be ready in 3months, and so she doesn’t have time forquarter-tones […] It doesn’t matter, since in2 days I’ll have other singers. There are plen-ty in Berlin, and there must be some goodpeople among them. What is unpleasant, isthat instead of rehearsing I shall have to dothe rounds of Berlin for another 2 days.“ (13th

November 1930) Ančerl’s letter is the one proof we

have that the later world star Jarmila Novotná,who in 1929–33 was a soloist at the BerlinState Opera, was approached with a view toengaging her for a role in the premiere ofMother. The films he mentions were probablyPožár v opeře [Fire in the Opera] (in the orig-inal Barcarola, 1930, directed by Carl Fröh-

12 | history | czech music 3 | 2005

me to ask him if I could study conductingwith him. I explained to him that I had time inthe evenings and so on. I think that the ideaappealed to him, and he seems to enjoyteaching very much. […] We really do needto start rehearsals with the orchestra.It’s already December. Especially when youconsider that around Christmas we won’t beable to do anything, or with the choir for thatmatter, since as you know yourself Christ-mas is all celebrations here and no work atall. At any rate you can see that I’m notdowncast. I’m sure, and I guarantee you thatif the ensemble can just be put together,then by the end of April the opera will berehearsed to tip top standard. […]It’s strange that all my singers understandme well except Debüser [Tiny Debüser, whosang the title role]. Today I had to call her 3xyet again. […] But I won’t bore you with that,since tomorrow I shall really take a firm linewith her (she is being terribly sweet now,just because Scherchen is here.“ (4th Decem-ber 1930)

“The string ensemble is almostcomplete, only no one wants to do anythingmore before the end of the year.” (15th

December 1930) “My hope that I would geta quarter-tone harmonium in my flat hasn’tbeen fulfilled […] Scherchen was supposedto conduct today, but he didn’t turn up. […]What am I supposed to do withZelenka’s designs? […] I shall write toZelenka and send him a plan of the Munichtheatre as soon as I get it from Büchtger.” (5th

January 1931) The Czech stage designer Fran-

tišek Zelenka (1904–1943) designed thestage for the Munich premiere, but his soberstylisation, which was typical of many Czechstage designers of the interwar period, failedto find favour with Fritzi Jessner of the NewTheatre (Neues Schauspielhaus) in Königs-berg, today Kalinigrad), who was directingthere. Hermann Scherchen was also workingin Konigsberg at the time, and the idea wasto present Mother with his orchestra there.Jessner‘s preference was for realistic villagedecor, but this was not in line withScherchen’s concept of the production andso the direction was finally taken up by thedirector of the Prague National Theatre Ferdi-nand Pujman. The result was that Ančerl hadto cope not only with the musical side of theproduction (including supervision of thetransport of quarter-tone instruments), butwith other aspects as well.

“I had some words with Tini[Debüser] on the importance of her role, andtold her what I thought of her approach torehearsals, and so now she is workingsomewhat better, and keeping me waitingonly for ¨ an hour. […] To be honest, I’m wor-ried about her; she is too frivolous in her atti-tude, and doesn’t take the whole thing asseriously as she should. I shall give it anoth-er week, and if she doesn’t improve I shallstop working with her. […] I have put thechorus together in almost final form. Therewill be 12 people. So many people have

expressed an interest now that I could forma 16-strong choir, but I think that 12 isenough, since if there were more I am notsure I would have them all ready in time. Thework is going really well now and progressis being made. I hope and trust you will besatisfied when you hear it all. It is wonderful-ly beautiful preparing such a new thing.I never thought I would be able to get rightinto the spirit of it so fast. Büchtger still has-n’t sent me a plan of the stage.” (12th January1931)

In finding and choosing the choir hewas helped by the Professor of the BerlinMusic High School (Hochschule für Musik)Georg Schünemann, who knew Hába per-sonally. When Hába had been studying inBerlin he had had Hába’s works performed atschool concerts, provided him with schoolmusical instruments and allowed him to studyphonographic recordings.

“Today Büchtger wrote to metelling me not to go to Munich, because 1)Meilie [Max Meilie, the singer of the mainmale role] doesn’t want to rehearse, becauseScherchen hasn’t yet written anything posi-tive to him, and 2) there isn’t an orchestrayet. You don’t have to write to Scherchenabout that, because today I wrote him a longletter explaining everything in detail. I thinkthat now he will really do something whenhe sees what is at stake. Here is Berlinthings are now going very well. I rehearseevery day with 8 to 10 singers. Now the onlyelement missing in the choir is tenors, andI hope I shall get hold of some this week.[…] How do you see the 4th scene in thechoir? I’ve already tried it in several differentways, but it has never worked out well,because either the basses growl somethingindistinct or else they yell at the high end.[…] The choral parts ideally suit women. But

I hope that when I’ve got over the intonationproblems with the men, plenty of otherthings will come right as well. Debüser isgiving me trouble again. […] I wonderwhether it wouldn’t really be more sensibleto throw her out. Lately Scherchen wantedto do it, but didn’t and that was my fault.What do you think? I can’t devote muchattention to her now, because I have plentyof work with the others and without me shedoesn’t do anything. […] What is the situa-tion with financial matters? I would like toknow so that I can get Büchtger to write tosingers, and he doesn’t want to do that untilhe knows where the funds are coming from.”(18th January 1931)

“The whole situation looks lessthan wonderful because it doesn’t seem tome as if Scherchen and Büchtger are takingcare of anything – at least I still haven’theard anything. […] I don’t know if I canrehearse the strings in Munich, I don’t knowif I have performers at my disposal, andI don’t know what the state of affairs is withwind players. You yourself know very wellthat if everything is going to come together,I just have to finally get a chance (it’s theend of January after all!) to work properly.[…] I have already asked Büchtger to writeto singers several times. So far he has donenothing at all. The singers are absolutely inthe right, because they simply must be toldat least the date and roughly the financialconditions. […] Still, they are all workingvery hard and conscientiously. […] I don’tknow anything about Meilie. […] Debüserbrowbeats me, but I browbeat her as well.I am already doing the 7th Picture with her,and I think it would be a pity to start againfrom scratch with someone else. I can copewith it, but Scherchen ought to take moreinterest in the thing. I’m still lacking tenors

Quarter-tone clarinets German type (left), French type(right)

Quarter-tone piano

A postcard Hába used to explain

his microtonal accidentals (to his

brother Antonín)

czech music 3 | 2005 | history | 13

for the choir. I’ ve exhausted all the sourcesand don’t know where to get hold of them.[…] As far as the singers are concernedI can guarantee that I’ll have them ready bymid-April, but I can’t answer for the orches-tra, because I don’t have one yet.” (24th Jan-uary 1931)

“So far I don’t have tenors, but I’llfind some […] Debüser has improved.I wonder for how long. On Wednesday therewas an interesting concert here. They playedSchönberg’s Suite op. 29 for violin, viola,‘cello, 3 clarinets and piano, and then Hin-demith’s String Quartet op. 32 and Stravin-sky’s Octet. After Schönberg all the restseemed to pale. Never before had I felt thatkind of difference, but the Hindemith andStravinsky went down better.” (30th January1931)

“Yesterday Scherchen was hereand Büchtger came as well. Scherchen final-ly sorted everything else, asked for theaddresses of the singers and wants to writeto them all himself… He set a date forrehearsals in Munich. Rehearsals will beginon the 22nd of April and by that time hewants everything to be ready. Confound it,I’ll be sweating. He wants you to come tohim in Wintherthur for about ten days so thathe can work with you at least 6 hours a dayon your opera. […] He immediately madea firm contract with Meilie. […] Büchtger hashimself talked to some of the singers, espe-cially those who were giving me trouble. Itlooks as if finally everything will now cometogether. Next month the Munich danceensemble will start to rehearse the ballet.I have to be repetiteur with them. OtherwiseI have to assist with Stravinsky’s OedipusRex, Honneger’s Antigone and probably withMilhaud too. This really speeds up my worktempo, but it doesn’t matter, since I’m learn-ing a lot. I shall certainly cope.“ (23rd Febru-ary 1931)

We do not have any more reportsfrom Ančerl to Hába on the course ofrehearsals for Mother; perhaps his work tem-po became so tough that he had no time to

write any. Most probably this exceptionalexperience was something that helped KarelAnčerl resolve his own personal dilemma: heentirely gave up composing and becamea master conductor. With Hába he shareda tireless commitment to work and an undy-ing faith that things would eventually turn outwell. These attributes helped him to survivethe horrors of imprisonment in the Terezínconcentration camp, where he founded andled an orchestra. After the war he joinedHába in the Great Opera of the 5th of May,which occupied the building of the formerNew German Theatre (today the PragueState Opera) and Hába became its director.Karel Ančerl also took part in the productionof the Czech premiere of Mother on the 23rd

of May 1947, this time directing it himself.

KarlíkThe job of repetiteur during

rehearsals for the Czech production ofMother in 1947 was taken on by another ofHába’s pupils, Karel Reiner (1910–1979),familiarly known to everyone as “Karlík”[“Charlie”]. He too was someone who divid-ed his interest between various differentbranches of music. For many years he notonly composed but also was an active pianistand one of the first players on the quarter-tone piano. The first performers ofHába’s quarter-tone pieces included aboveall his own pupils at the conservatory, notonly Reiner but also Jiří Svoboda, ArnoštStřížek, Táňa Baxantová, and the later con-ductor of the Scottish Orchestra and VictoriaSymphony Orchestra in Melbourne and musi-cal director of the Toronto SymphonyOrchestra Hans Walter Süsskind. Outsidethe circle of Hába’s students his interpretersincluded Jan Heřman and most notably ErwinSchulhoff. Reiner – like Schulhoff – alsowrote on the theme of play on the quarter-tone piano: “Not even in the performance ofsemi-tone music is one particular techniquesufficient. […] Chopin demands a differenttechnique than Beethoven, Mozart a differ-ent technique than Liszt, Bach a different

technique than Schönberg, Smetana a differ-ent technique than Suk or Janáček. In thesecircumstances it is clear that a similarly limit-ed technical-piano training is even less suffi-cient for play on the quarter-tone piano. […]Play on the quarter-tone piano has ceased tobe the acrobatic privilege of individuals andhas become the basic starting point forunderstanding the common foundation of allpiano technique. […] The complete pianooeuvre of Alois Hába [on semitone and quar-ter-tone piano] provides us with some of thegreatest milestones in the development ofcontemporary pianistic art.” (Rytmus[Rhythm] 4, 1938–39, pp. 51–53).

Reiner’s help was invaluable in sav-ing the threatened 13th ISCM festival in1935. The festival had been supposed totake place in Karlovy Vary, but a number ofunfavourable circumstances exploited by thenationalist campaigns of the Sudeten Ger-man party unnerved the town councillors andpreparations for the festival collapsed. Butwithin less than six weeks of feverish activitythe festival was saved. One of the peoplewho devoted themselves twenty-four hoursa day to correspondence and telephonecalls, used their diplomatic talents to theutmost and refused to give into depression,was Karel Reiner, and not simply because hewas supposed to perform at the festival, play-ing a Piano Concerto by another ofHába’s pupils, the Slovenian composerSlavko Osterc. (At this festival Karel Ančerlconducted Hába’s symphonic fantasia Cestaživota [The Journey of Life].)

For two years Reiner (a qualifiedlawyer) acted as repetiteur and composer inthe avant-garde theatre of Emil FrantišekBurian, for whom he created or arrangeda number of stage music compositions, forexample for a production based on KarelHynek Mácha’s great romantic poem Máj[May], or in collaboration with E. F. Burian forthe production Haškovy noviny [Hašek’sNewspaper], for the play Mistr Pleticha on ananonymous text from the 15th century (all in1935), for a production of Procitnutí jara

Karel Reiner Alois Hába

[Spring Awakening] by Frank Wedekind, thedramatisation of Karel Hynek Mácha’s Kat[The Hangman], Pierre Auguste Caron Beau-marchais’s The Barber of Seville, Burian’sadaptation of Václav Kliment Klicpera’sKaždý něco pro vlast [Everyone does Some-thing for His Homeland] , Burian’s dramatisa-tion of Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin and forLeonce and Lena by Georg Büchner (1936).He also published articles in music magazi-nes, undertook organisational work andlooked for his own musical idiom.

Like Ančerl, Karel Reiner wasJewish, and Nazism had a devastating effecton his life. Reiner went through a number ofconcentration camps and by a miracle man-aged to survive not only the “final solution”but also typhus and a death march. He camefrom a German-speaking family. His fatherhad been the cantor in the Jewish communityin Žatec in North-west Bohemia in what wasknown as the Sudetenland. From the end ofthe 1920s this originally merely topographicname had acquired political significance,especially after Hitler’s rise to power in Ger-many. From the mid-1930s Hitler’s support-ers strove to “ethnically cleanse” the area ofCzechs and to become part of Germany.Reiner, who deliberately declared himselfCzech-speaking, settled in Prague. While heconsidered himself a Czech, at job interviewshe was often asked why he didn’t join “theother side”: for Germans he was alreadya Czech and for Czechs he was still a Ger-man. For the Nazis he was a Jew with nolonger any rights at all.

Even after the war Reiner had a dif-ficult time. It was impossible to revive sev-ered bonds and restore the institutions andorganisations of the pre-war period. Political-ly speaking, the first three post-war yearssaw Czechoslovakia becoming increasinglydependent on decisions made in the SovietUnion. While the inter-war avant-garde inCzechoslovakia had been broadly left-wingand had seen in the Soviet Union the onlypower capable of defeating Nazi Germany,after the war left-wing orientation meant theloss of freedom and artistic liberty and sub-jection to ideological diktat. It took KarelReiner several years to realise that by adapt-ing to the demands for “communicability, sim-plicity and melodic character” promulgatedby Socialist Realism, he was losing his ownidentity. When he refused to abandon “for-malist” composition, he started to be undesir-able for the future development of socialistculture. There followed years in which hismusic was scarcely ever performed. Onceagain, he was afflicted with the feeling thathe “belonged nowhere”, for the last timewhen after 1968 he condemned the Sovietoccupation and resigned from the Commu-nist Party, which he had joined soon after thewar. In all the trials that he encountered in hislife and in his efforts to defend his moralcredit Reiner drew strength from the princi-ples that he had come to embrace throughhis association with Alois Hába.

An Education in FreedomHába’s influence on his pupils relat-

ed not just to music, but also to overall out-look in life. In the 1920s – and perhaps evenearlier, during his studies in Vienna – Hábahad been introduced to the anthroposophicalteachings of Rudolf Steiner. In the light ofSteiner’s theories he saw the role of the artistin society and musical compositions asa duel between contradictory elements andan attempt to achieve equilibrium. In thisrespect he influenced Karel Reiner, who alsoespoused anthroposophical doctrines, andaffected the spiritual orientation of another ofhis pupils, Viktor Ullmann (1898–1944).Viktor Ullmann was the son of an Austrianofficer, a Jew who had converted to Chris-tianity. His native language was German, andhe grew up in Vienna, fought in the FirstWorld War (from which his father returned aninvalid) and started to study law beforedeciding on music and attending ArnoldSchönberg’s composition class. In 1919 hemoved to Prague and thereafter his life (apartfrom the years 1930–33) was bound up withthe cultural milieu of the Czech capital. Wedo not know precisely when and where hefirst met Hába, and it is possible that theybecame acquainted in Vienna just after thewar. Ullmann first took a sceptical attitude toSteiner’s ideas, but in the end studied themin detail and was so enthralled that for a timehe gave up composition. Hába acted as Ull-mann’s sponsor when the latter joined theAnthroposophical Society and Ullmann him-self called his new step in life, for which hecredited Hába, the “conversion of Saul intoPaul”. In Stuttgart he purchased a debit-rid-den anthroposophical bookshop, but thissoon went bankrupt and in 1933 Ullmannfled from his creditors to Prague (not fromHitler, since at that time he was protectedfrom German discriminatory laws by his sta-tus as Austrian citizen and Christian). Radicaldecisions had not brought Ullmann good for-tune, but as he himself said, fortunately he

still had music. A new distinctive phase in Ull-mann’s composing career began in themid-1930s.

Hába and Ullmann remained closefriends. Ullmann’s search for all kinds of cre-ative possibilities also (already at a relativelymature age) brought him to Hába’s microton-al class at the Prague Conservatoire(1935–37). His graduation piece wasa Sonata for Quarter-tone Clarinet andQuarter-tone Piano, of which only the clarinetpart has survived. Subsequently he neverused quarter-tones in his music. It can besaid that in this piece he reached the bound-aries of an experiment that helped him to finda musical idiom in which elements of histori-cal forms are balanced by great freedom oftonality and effective use of timbre. There arealso grounds for supposing that it was Hábawho introduced Ullmann to the folk song thathas left its traces in his Piano Sonata no. 2and Slav Rhapsody.

Viktor Ullmann the composer hasbeen rediscovered since 1975, when hisone-act opera written in Terezín Císařz Atlantidy (Der Kaiser von Atlantis –TheEmperor of Atlantis) was first performed inAmsterdam, but in a new orchestration (theoriginal form has been in performance sincethe 1990s). Many of his pieces have, alas,been lost. The works that remain havebecome without exception part of the con-cert and opera repertoire. In 2006 there areplans finally to present the long delayed firstperformance of Ullmann’s opera PádAntikristův (Der Sturz des Antichrist – TheFall of Antichrist) on a Czech stage (theworld premiere, as yet without successors,was produced in 1995 in Bielefeld).

Ullmann’s The Fall of Antichristwas written in 1935. It has its counterpart inthe output of Alois Hába, in the form of hisnever performed opera Přijď království Tvé[Thy Kingdom Come] of 1942.Ullmann’s opera was based on a play by theanthroposophist poet Albert Steffen about

14 | history | czech music 3 | 2005

Viktor Ulmann

the struggle of technocracy (the Technician),demagogy (The Priest) and free creative life(the Artist) with despotic desire for power(the Regent). The Artist prevails over theRegent and by his conviction and faith liber-ates his “brothers” – the Technician and thePriest – and the whole of mankind. Hába inhis opera on his own libretto written with thehelp of Ferdinand Pujman, places socialclasses in opposition, allegorised into a duelbetween the anthroposophical symbolsLucifer and Ahriman. Ullmann’s music for theAntichrist is tonal, with long declamatory pas-sages but also melodic sections with thegreat orchestral apparatus of the post-Romantic inheritance. Hába’s opera is writ-ten in a sixth-tone system, i.e. in an evenmore finally nuanced idiom than his operaMother. To have produced a work of this kind,with no chance that it would be performed, inthe midst of the war, under the rule of a sys-tem that branded his music as “degenerate”(entartete) and banned anthroposophy, wasthe rebellion of a spirit that refused to beovercome. This rebellion of the spirit was alsoevident in the work of Viktor Ullmann inTerezín, where he composed, took part inconcerts and write music reviews. In the lat-ter he never conceded that standards of per-formance might be judged more tolerantly inthe improvised conditions: “We have listenedto and loved the Magical Flute from child-hood. Many still have Mahler in their ears,others Richard Strauss, Schalk, Walter,Zemlinski; we have heard the leading inter-national singers of Mozart, seen the stagedesign of great artists and preserved thememory of the soft, incomparable sound ofthe tenderly accompanying orchestra. Is itpossible that we may be allowed to express

criticism of a production that is to this mem-ory what a second stage rehearsal is toa dress rehearsal? A production that theconductor is not even allowed to conduct –and why not? – and that has to be accompa-nied by a more than problematic piano? […]While Gustav Mahler was in the provinces,he kept his promise: not to present Mozartand Wagner there!”

Modern Music between NationsAmong his pupils from the former

Yugoslavia, the one with whom Hába kept upprobably his liveliest correspondence wasthe Slovenian Osterc, who was in any caseonly two years his junior. Slavko Osterc(1895–1941) had arrived in Prague in 1925.In some ways he shared a starting-point inlife with Hába. Apart from the fact that bothhad originally been supposed to becometeachers and had to struggle to beat a pathto art, they had both had the same teacher,Vítězslav Novák, at the beginning of theircareers as composers. In addition, Osterchad also been trained by Karel Boleslav Jirákand gone through Hába’s microtonal depart-ment. Later he was himself to pass on hisexperience when teaching composition at theconservatory and Academy of Music inLublyana. Hába’s contacts with Osterc relat-ed not just to exchanging news about theircompositions but above all to the activities ofthe ISCM. Osterc was a member of theISCM international jury in Paris in 1937 andplayed an important role in promoting Czechcomposers there. He managed to arrange

a matinee of quarter- and sixth-tone musicoutside the main festival concerts and wonvotes for most of the pieces proposed by theCzech section. After negotiations in the juryhe informed Hába that:

“[…] now to details, mainly aboutthe Ľ ad 1/6 matinee. The jury allowed it, butdoesn’t want to be responsible for the pro-gramme, because the pieces have not beensubmitted to them. In my view that is perfect-ly all right. You can therefore start to negoti-ate with the French section. But [the leaderof the French section Jacques Ibert] hasalready been lamenting that there isn’tenough money. And so at the moment thatwould be the one vulnerable point. ButI know you and I am sure you’ll find a wayover this.

Naturally our internal work: puttingtogether and presenting a programme – willbe difficult. […] Kačinskas’s Nonet looks likethe only piece for the moment, but of courseyou are better informed about everything! Ithasn’t been possible to push through Bar-toš, Polívka and Koffler, because Bořkovecalso sent a piece and Martinů too, outsidethe section, and so I was already rather anx-ious about Reiner. The situation was thatapart from me no one was enthusiasticabout Reiner (it’s a modern jury!!!, that waswhy Koffler was dropped – just because hewrites in modern style) and I invested all myenergies in pushing for Reiner and even gotunanimous agreement for him, which makesme truly happy for Charlie’s sake. As far asorchestral pieces are concerned, then it is

czech music 3 | 2005 | history | 15

Slavko Osterc’s letter to Alois Hába

Jeronimas Kacinskas

Excerpt from Hába’s

Harmonielehre

Twelfth-tone system

accidentals and scales

16 | history | czech music 3 | 2005

you, Žebre and Rosenberg, that wasunisono […]“ (25th December 1936 fromParis)

And Hába’s reply: „You have put upa brave fight and I’m just as curious aboutthe whole programme as I am about the hueand cry that I expect for Ľ and 1/6 matinee[…] For me and Reiner it will be a little hardto live with the jury decision, even thoughwe are both delighted by it! Because athome the “financial reward” for pieces keepsgoing – to the others! Reiner and I at leasthave recognition abroad! If at leastBartoš’s piece had been accepted, asI strongly hoped, it would all be allright. Butthis way – just Hába and his most faithfulpupil – Dr Reiner, there will be bad blood.”(26th December 1936)

Just by way of explanation: Fran-tišek Bartoš, Pavel Bořkovec and VladimírPolívka were not Hába’s pupils, but VladimírPolívka had taken part in presenting some ofHába’s piano pieces. The Polish composerJózef Koffler was a pupil of Schönberg and isconsidered to be the first Polish composer touse twelve-tone music. He fell victim to theNazis, who murdered his entire family. TheSlovenian composer Demetrij Žebré studiedwith Hába in the mid-1930s. The Swedishcomposer Hilding Rosenberg, regarded asa “romantic modernist”, was a member of thejury along with Alfred Casella, WladimirVogel, Nadia Boulanger and Ernst Křenek inthe year that Hába gave up his place at thefestival to Jaroslav Ježek. The programme ofthe microtonal matinee consisted of works byHába and his pupils Karel Reiner, the SlovakJulius Kowalský and the Englishman FrankWiesmeye. Inventions by Bohuslav Martinů,who was living in Paris at the time, was notperformed at the festival.

Jeronimas Kačinskas (born 1907)from Lithuania, studied with Hába in the

years 1929–31 and became his zealous sup-porter. For many years he tried vainly to getthe teaching of microtonal music introducedin Klaipeda. He wrote his Nonet for theCzech Nonet, which premiered it. It was not,however, performed in Paris, and Hába wasfinally to help get it played at the next festivalin 1938 in London (just like the piece by Kof-fler), when he was once again a member ofthe international jury. Kačinskas later foundtemporary exile in Czechoslovakia afterescaping from Lithuania after the occupationof the Baltic states. He spent some time ina refugee camp in Lednice in Moravia.

“Degenerate Formalist”The Nazi regime classified Hába as

a “degenerate” composer, and for the com-munist regime he was a “formalist”. After1948 he was deprived of his place as direc-tor at the Great Opera of the 5th of May andof the chance to go on teaching. With onlytwo years to go before he reached pension-able age, Hába naturally defended himself,albeit in a fashion that today we might con-sider undignified, if not hypocritical. He wrotethe following to the Dean of the Academy ofPerforming Arts Antonín Sychra: “I have composed, and still composing andintend to go on composing. Among my latestcompositions a number were highly rated atthe [communist] Composers‘ Union plenarymeeting, and not in any formalist sense.Likewise my 7th String Quartet op. 73 andyouth song Jarní země [Spring Earth] wonprizes in the last year. I am now working ona Wallachian Suite for orchestra and plana series of other works inspired by the life ofthe people and the present. […] Consideringthese circumstances it is my view that if mywork as a teacher is currently consideredundesirable, a certain account should atleast be taken of my work as a composer

and present creative orientation.” (8th July1951)

Hába had never been embarrassedto approach people in the highest placeswith his requests, and did so this time aswell. He wrote in his own cause to the Minis-ter of Education Zdeněk Nejedlý: “I havebeen teaching in this field for 28 years. In1933 – after my illegal visit to a theatre andmusic conference in Moscow – the thenMinistry of Education wanted to suspend myteaching activities at the State Conservatoryof Music. […] During the Second World Warthe teaching of composition in the Ľ and1/6-tone system was threatened by theNazis for both artistic and political reasons.This did not surprise me. I used even my Ľand 1/6-tone compositions to fight for a bet-ter future for working people. You yourselfwrote about my cycle of Ľ-tone male choralpieces Pracující den [The Working Day] (ona poem by J. Hora), dedicated to all workingpeople for the 15th anniversary of the estab-lishment of the USSR […] The Ľ and1/6-tone system may also be employed forartistic expression of the kind that you spokeabout at the last congress of Czechoslovakcomposers […] Apart from this, on the 1st ofFebruary 1950 I signed a socialist contractwith the Rectorate of the Academy of Per-forming Arts in which I undertook that inaddition to my existing teaching dutiesI would act as permanent advisor to compo-sition students for the writing of mass songs,choral works, cantatas, operas and othersocialistically orientated music.” (July 1951)

The document is one that speaksfor itself as a witness to the times.Hába’s attendance at the InternationalOlympiad of Revolutionary Theatres inMoscow in 1933 definitely cannot be calledillegal; incidentally, one result of this visit hadbeen to re-establish, or perhaps initiate

czech music 3 | 2005 | portrait | 17

a closer link with Hanns Eisler, whom wehave mentioned above. The paradox ofHába’s argumentation and the folly of theFifties is the fact that in the String Quartetop. 73, which he speaks of in the letter toSychra, Hába managed to smuggle in theCzech Christmas carol Narodil se KristusPán [Christ the Lord is Born]. Four years lat-er, in the same way, his Concerto for Violacontained a version of the song of St.Michael, who as the angel who weighs thesouls of the dead is one of the central sym-bols of anthroposophy.

In 1956 Hába attended the Sum-mer Courses of Contemporary Music inDarmstadt, but faced with the Darmstadtexperimentalists the former enfant terrible ofthe interwar period emerged as a defender ofthe “good old times”. Nonetheless, when hewas asked to give a lecture to musicologystudents at the Ernst-Moritz-Arndt Universityin Greifswald in 1963, it was he who provid-ed the East German students with some con-tact with events in Western music. He madean impact in the GDR particularly bydemanding that music teaching concentratejust on music itself, its structure and specificmeaning independent of philosophical sys-tems that ultimately always manifest them-selves as ideology. According to one of thosepresent at the lecture Hába defended free-dom of choice of musical material, without“expressing an opinion on questions ofsocialist realism and dogmatic definition, asif these questions did no exist for him”.(Gedanken zu Alois Hába, 1996, pp.95–97).

To be a successful teacher a per-son needs to remain a pupil throughout his orher life. This was the case with Hába. Hekept up with events of all kinds (not just inmusic), studied historical systems of harmonyand the music of non-European cultures andtowards the end of his life even wrote a fifth-tone string quartet with a very concise struc-ture, something quite new in his output.

Many Languages, One Music Apart from those already men-

tioned, important pupils of Hába includedDragutin Colić, Dragutin Cvetko, RadoslavHrovatin, Marjan Lipovšek, Ljubica Marić,Pregrad Milošević, Maks Pirnik, Milan Ristić,Pavel Šivic, Franc Šturm and VojislavVučković from the former Yugoslavia, fromBulgaria Vasil Božinov, Atanas Grdev andKonstantin Iljev, Jan Wieczorek from Poland,Kazim Necil Akses and Halil Bedi Yénetkenfrom Turkey, Mykola Kolessa from the Ukraineand many others. The English violinist andcomposer Frank Wiesmeyer (already men-tioned above) later took the professionalname Georg Whitman and did a great deal topropagate Czech music in England.

In his Česká moderní hudba[Czech Modern Music] (1936) VladimírHelfert defined Alois Hába as “the mostextreme wing in the development of Czechmodern music, […] a phenomenon that hasadvanced the furthest in terms of evolutionbut at the same time represents the Euro-pean standard of our music”. The way inwhich the generation that did not come intodirect contact with him on “the school bench-es” still responds to Hába as teacher wasbeen summed up by the composer AloisPiňos in 1993 (Opus musicum 1993, pp.277–284): „Nobody composes thoroughly ina microtonal system like Hába, but theimpulses he gave have lived on, for examplein the now dead leading representative ofthe ‘Brno School’, Josef Berg, and also JosefAdamík, František Emmert, Peter Graham,Marek Kopelent, Václav Kučera, ArnoštParsch, Alois Piňos, Rudolf Růžička, MartinSmolka, Miloš Štědroň and others. Hába hashis heirs (but not mere copiers) abroad as

well. The Austrian composer Georg FriedrichHaas, for example, admits his influence,although (as Haas himself says) ‘my way ofseeing Alois Hába is – to put it cautiously –very individual. ’ ”

Insofar as the authentic responsesof Hába’s pupils have come down to us,summarising how they saw the value of histeaching, they echo the opinion of MykolaKolessa, who wrote to Hába on the occasionof his seventieth birthday: “Your works andthe creative methods to which you intro-duced us […] in your very interesting lec-tures and creative discussions, have leftdeep traces in me, even though I haven’t infact used the quarter-tone system in my ownwork as a composer. Even today, after sucha long time, I like to recall your teachingmethods, which are a great help to me in myactivities as a composer and teacher.” (26th

July 1963)

Martin Smolka appeared on the Czech musicscene in the Eighties, when together with thecomposer Miroslav Pudlák he founded theAgon ensemble. Later the composer andconductor Petr Kofroň joined the group andAgon soon became the most importantensemble for contemporary music in Czecho-slovakia. Not only did long-term co-operationin Agon provide the composers with a plat-form for performance of their work and forexperimentation, but Agon also functioned as(almost the only in Czechoslovakia) mediatorof the repertoire of world avant-garde music. Somewhere at the beginning ofSmolka’s career as a composer we can find,to a greater or lesser extent, the influence ofessentially all the important movements andaesthetics of post-war music. In general, the1980s were a time when the earlier fierce“irreconcilability” of “opposite” movementswas a thing of the past, and this was doubly

Hába’s String Quartet no. 11, op. 87 in sixth-tone

system (left)

String Quartet no. 16, op. 98 in fifth-tone system

(excertpt from 2 nd mouvement; right)

martin smolka a microsentimental

composer

PETR BAKLA

“Wherever I mention that I use

quarter-tones, sooner or later

someone brings up the name

of Hába. But I came to micro-

intervals as part of the com-

mon equipment of post-war

New Music and didn’t concern

myself much with Hába“. We

would be hard put to it to find

any other composer in contem-

porary Czech music who has

focused as systematically,

conspicuously and successful-

ly on the use of microtones as

Martin Smolka (*1959). The

basic idea behind his approach

to microtones is in fact rela-

tively simple and in itself not

so uncommon. Smolka does

not introduce “new tones“ into

the tempered system, but just

“detunes” intervals as a means

of emotional expression.

18 | portrait | czech music 3 | 2005

ment, musical box tunes and the sounds ofthe junk shop, typical noises of civilisation,folk or brass band, if possible playing off key,and 2) wistful memories, painful longing, theecho of the sounds of mode 1, nostalgia. In this context perhaps we could say thatSmolka the composer is not very interestedin undirected “pure research”; what Smolkais looking for is for yet more ways of gettinghimself and the listener into the desiredmood, to brighten up or to move. This alsoapplies to pieces that involve stylisation ofsounds heard in the real world. Especially atthe beginning of the 1990s Smolka focusedon the timbre aspects of music, and he talksabout some pieces as “sound photographs”(for example L’Orch pour l’Orch of 1992 ispartly a “portrait” of a shunting yard); despiteSmolka’s fascination with some real sounds(locomotive brakes, ship sirens and so on),however, they are selected through the prismof expressive charge, and stylised in a partic-ular emotional direction. In his use of microtones, we see the samebasic pragmatism and subordination of tech-nique to goal that we noted in relation to hispreferred mode of structuring pieces andchoice of musical elements (and the directionof his “research” as a composer) on the basisof emotional potential. The main feature ofSmolka’s approach to micro-intervals is itseconomy – deviations from standard tuning(and so deviations from established perfor-mance practice) are justified only when theyare prominent and immediately recognisableto the ear, and this happens if they carrysome expressive, emotional charge. On hissources of inspiration, Smolka explains that: “My most important starting point was con-crete sound experience, and I started withexperiments aiming to mimic the sounds ofnature and civilisation. And then I found outthat many of my early musical fascinationswere caused by microtonal mis-tunings,often unwanted and unregistered. For exam-ple I was charmed by the interference ofsome piano chord and didn’t know that itwas caused by the poor tuning of a neglect-ed instrument, or I was spellbound by theemotional power of a blues singer and didn’trealise that he was actually tugging at myears (and soul) with notes just under pitch. In jazz orchestra recordings of the1920s pretty well all the wind instrumentshave a sliding wail – the longer notes startunder pitch and are then gradually tuned upto it. Or the singers of blues, spirituals andgospels – they sing mainly the notes of theaccompanying harmony with its thirds, fifthsand sevenths pitched just under the toneand then tuned up, or sometimes not tunedright up as the note is held. Chords that arerendered slightly out of tine in a similar way,whether exposed harmonically or in melody,can be found in recordings of Central Euro-pean folk music where this music has beenhanded down from generation to generationuncontaminated by music from the media(does this perhaps count as at least one atti-tude in common with Alois Hába’s folklore

deringly – softly and so on. Smolka’s piecesare almost regularly built out of internallyhomogenous form segments, of which theremay for example be only two in the wholecomposition or in which on the contrary manycontrasting segments may follow in veryquick succession, in extreme cases even inbar after bar. Development techniques areusually suppressed, seams between the formsegments acknowledged, and the basic prin-ciple is repetition. These attributes makeSmolka’s music accessible for audiences,since the structure and direction of his com-positions is apparent on a first listen andthanks to the high level of redundancy (every-thing usually comes back several times), thelistener can take in the music sufficientlywithout needing to hear a piece again. Ofcourse, with music of this kind there is alwaysa risk that the music will not bear further lis-tening at all and the composer will be shownup as a mere purveyor of routine, but Smolkagenerally manages to come up with freshideas that balance the rather schematic treat-ment. Martin Smolka is a composer of innovationand experiment, whose “discoveries” aremostly related to the exploitation of bizarresources of sound (very undertuned strings,old gramophones, non-standard percussioninstruments and so forth) and (to return toour central theme) the possibilities offered bymicrotones. It is nonetheless true that all hisinnovations and experimentation virtuallyalways take place in the framework of themethod described above for the “securely”structured form and are essentially systemati-cally subordinated to the goal of finding newways of projecting expressive contrast. Smol-ka’s music is practically never emotionallyneutral, and two basic modes are typical here(the reader will I hope forgive me the cheapmetaphors): 1) crackling exuberant merri-

true in communist Czechoslovakia. In the suf-focating atmosphere of the hegemony of theofficially privileged pseudo-modern music,which fumbled about somewhere betweenVítězslav Novák and Shostakovich, practicallyany kind of music outside this circle was theobject of attention and authentic interest, andall the more so because it was not an easymatter to get recordings or printed scoresand there was no danger of “saturation”. In Smolka’s music (as in the music of many ofhis contemporaries), we have generally littledifficulty in identifying the influences of Post-Webernism, Minimalism, American experi-mental music (above all M. Feldman) and thePolish School. The latter was itself essentiallya synthesising and borrowing phenomenonand especially in its later period eclectic.Added to this we find an interest in “acrossthe board” tendencies to experiment withnatural tuning and a “flexible” concept of thepitch, especially in the music of Harry Partchand Giacinto Scelsi; for Smolka’s develop-ment, however, this tuning systems were lessfundamental than certain expressive tech-niques and idioms that are peculiar to themusic of this circle. (As he himself says, hisuse of microtones is not based on any theo-retical system). All these influences never entirely disap-peared from the work of Martin Smolka andat different periods they have been more orless evident, but much more often asabstracted principles rather than adoptedmannerisms. Smolka’s music is original andin no sense plagiaristic or derivative (at thevery least from the end of the 1980s). Whatthen makes “Smolka Smolka”?For Smolka what is characteristic is the typi-cally European strategy of basing musicalstructure on contrast, i.e. de facto thinking inthe „sonata“ categories of first subject – sec-ond subject: slow – fast, merry – sad, thun-

inspirations? Author’s note). This kind ofgural music could sometimes accompanya whole song with a tonic in which themajor third was hopelessly flat and wasflat for the whole piece! I believe thatthere is a wonderful expressive power inthese natural microtonal situations. Inthese out-of-key thirds I feel pain, bitter-ness, weeping and unfulfilled longing.“The key principle behind Smolka’s treat-ment of microtones is therefore the out oftune and “detuning” of this kind alwaysretains its link to the “in tune”. It is onlypossible if the reference point of the prop-erly tuned is immediately present. ForSmolka, therefore, it is not “new notes”that are important (i.e. tones as indepen-dent steps expanding the number of tonesin standard tuning), but out-of-tune inter-vals, and this is the direction that Smolkatakes in his actual strategies as a compos-er. (Here we might point out a distant anal-ogy with J.M. Hauer’s approach to twelve-tone music: for Hauer the starting pointwas not the 12 chromatic tones, but the12 intervals.) Detuned thirds (or sixths) and octaves (orunison) appear to be by far the most effec-tive elements in terms of expressive possi-bilities and immediate recognition by theear. The great majority of Smolka’s micro-tones fall precisely into this category.When he alters other intervals (for examplefifths) microtonally, he usually does so inthe framework of common chords anda reference tone creating a third (sixth)with the altered tone or a prime (octave) isusually close by. Especially Smolka’s morerecent pieces (ca from 1998) strikinglydraw on the expressive possibilities of tra-ditional melodic phrases and harmonicprogressions, but microtonally deformed:“In the choral piece Walden, the Distiller ofCelestial Dews, in the 3rd part called Indi-ans I exposed a B Minor triad in severalquarter-tone alterations. It was like illumi-nating one object with various differentspotlights. Here detuning the commonchord served as an expression of pain inline with the text, the passage in Thoreauwhere he describes how the Jesuits tor-tured the Indians who didn’t want to giveup their faith, but the Indians stillexpressed unparalleled love for their ene-my and forgiveness. The melody thatappears between the detuned commonchords and interacts with them towardsthe end as they tend to rise, finally opensout into tempered B Major, which hasa radiance that represents the Indian for-giveness. From the point of view of classical harmo-ny we have a remarkable paradox here.Throughout the piece there is a triad, butwe are liberated from its quarter-tone ten-sion by chords of four or more notes – thespecial radiance of the quiet B Major isenhanced by an added second, sixth, sev-enth and even a fourth. (Just for the sakeof completeness – as even higher purging

comes at the end with a two-note motif fromthe soprano, which turns into E through theordinary cadence progression V–VIII.”“Our ears are so accustomed to tempered tun-ing that they react to detuned intervals witha desire to put them right, to get to proper tun-ing – the detuned tones then function like theleading notes in classical-romantic harmony.In the orchestral composition Remix, Redream,Reflight a pathetic string unisono dominates.Here quarter-tones play the role of the leadingnotes, and in an exemplary, direct way. Theascending modal melody has a simple, pre-dictable structure and so every inserted quar-

ter-tone massively gravitates towards theneighbouring step of the given mode.“ (seeexample)(Another typical Smolka’s technique is thestepped filling of a narrow interval such asa second with microtones ascending ordescending, which creates the impression ofa hesitant glissando trying to hold itself back.)While his alterations are usually quarter-tonal,Smolka also quite often uses sixth-tone alter-ations (for example in the Three Pieces forRetuned Orchestra the instrumental sectionsof the orchestra are divided into sub groupsthat are detuned by a sixth in relation to each

czech music 3 | 2005 | portrait | 19

above: string unisono from Remix, Redream, Reflight (2000)

below: Interludium for string quartet from Missa (2002)

with permission of Breitkopf & Härtel

= 120MM Appassionato

20 | portrait | czech music 3 | 2005

Selection of works:

Music Sweet Music (1985/88) for ensembleand soprano Music for Retuned Instruments (1988) forensemble Ringing (1989) for percussion soloThe Flying Dog (1990/92) for ensembleL’Orch pour l’orch (1990) for orchestraRain, a Window, Roofs, Chimneys, Pigeonsand so … and Railway-Bridges, too (1992)for large ensembleRent a Ricercar (1993/95) for ensembleTrzy motywy pastoralne (Three pastoralmotifs) (1993) for tapeEuforium (1996) for 4 instruments or ensem-bleThree pieces for retuned orchestra (1996)Lullaby (1996–7) for trombone, guitar andensemble 8 pieces for guitar quartet (1998)Autumn Thoughts (1998) for ensembleLieder ohne Worte und Passacaglia (1999)for ensembleBlue Note (2000) for percussion duoWalden, the Distiller of Celestial Dews(2000), text H. D. Thoreau, for mixed choir andpercussionRemix, Redream, Reflight (2000) for orches-traHouby a nebe (Mushrooms and Heaven)(2000), Czech text P. P. Fiala, for non-operaalto and one or two string quartets Geigenlieder (2001), German texts Chr. Mor-genstern, B. Brecht for violinist-narrator andensembleNagano (2001–3), opera in 3 acts, libretto J. Dušek, M. SmolkaObserving the Clouds (2001/3) for (youth)orchestra and 3 conductorsMissa (2002) for vocal quartet and string quar-tetTesknice (Nostalgia) (2003/4) for chamberorchestra

Discography:Music Sweet Music – CD AGON, ArtaRecords, Prague 1991 Music for Retuned Instruments, 2 CD Witten-er Tage für neue Kammermusik 1991, WDRKöln, 1991 Rain, a Window, Roofs, Chimneys, Pigeonsand so… and Railway-Bridges, too – 3 CDDonaueschinger Musiktage 1992, collegno/SWF Baden-Baden, Munich, 1993 A v sadech korálů, jež slabě zrůžověly forsolo voice, 1987 – CD Na prahu světla, HappyMusic, Prague 1996 Rent a Ricercar, Flying Dog, For WoodyAllen, Nocturne – 2 CD AGONORCHESTRA – The Red and Black, audioego/ Society for New Music, Prague, 1998 Euforium, Music for Retuned Instruments,Ringing, Rain, a Window, Roofs, Chimneys,Pigeons and so … and Railway-Bridges,tooaudio ego/ Society for New Music,Prague,1999 Walden, the Distiller of Celestial Dews –4 CD Donaueschinger Musiktage 2000, collegno/SWF Baden-Baden, Munich, 2001

other), but much less often eighth-tones oreven tenth-tones (on ordinary instrumentsthese can only be played very approximately).Obviously the intonation of quarter- and sixth-tones is not usually entirely precise, whichnormally adds to the interest of the soundresult (one of the reasons why Alois Hábawas not entirely successful in his microtonalefforts was evidently the unnaturalness of“tempered” quarter-tones and so on.). Forexample, in places where a unison is pre-scribed, the imprecision can lead to slightdeviations from pitch and so a characteristicroughening of the timbre; quarter- and sixth-tone fingerings in woodwinds have the sametimbre effect.

See also http://www.bostonmicrotonalsociety.org/

MARTIN SMOLKABorn 1959 in Prague, Czech Republic. Stud-ied composition at the Prague Academy ofPerforming Arts (with J. Pauer, C. Kohoutek),but found private studies with Marek Kope-lent more important.

His work ahs won him recognition both athome and abroad. He has written commis-sioned pieceżmble, ensemble 2e2m, ArdittiQuartet, Neue Vokalsolisten Stuttgart andothers) and his works have been chosen forperformance at other important festivals(ISCM World Music Days, Hoergaenge, TageNeue Musik Stuttgart, Klang-AktionenMunich etc.). Very successful was his operaNagano, staged in the National Theatre inPrague in 2004. In 1983 he co-founded Agon, a group spe-cializing in contemporary unconventionalmusic in which he worked as artistic directorand pianist until 1998. In the course of Agonprojects he has also carried out research(quarter-tone music by the pupils of AloisHába, the 1960s music in Prague etc.), andthe realization of graphic scores and concep-tual music (the works by John Cage, Cor-nelius Cardew, Daniel Goode and Milan Gry-gar).He co-authored the book Graphic Scoresand Concepts.Recently he has been teaching compositionat Janáček Academy of Performing Arts inBrno. Since 2000 his new works have beenpublished by Breitkopf & Härtel.

czech music 3 | 2005 | event | 21

ostrava days of new music 2005

PETR BAKLA

Although he has lived mainly in the UnitedStates since the end of the Sixties, PetrKotík, the composer, flautist and leader of theNew York S.E.M. Ensemble, is a very impor-tant figure in contemporary Czech music.When in 2001 he came up with the project ofa biennial Ostrava Days event and the idea offounding a Centre for New Music in Ostrava,many people (including myself) rather doubt-ed that any enterprise of this kind had anyprospects of success here. Kotík conceivedthe Ostrava Days as a “Second Darmstadt”,in all seriousness and with all the impliedambition.

Events have proved Kotík right, andhe has literally done wonders together withhis small production team headed by RenátaSpisarová. The Ostrava Days Institute –three-week (!) composition courses focusedon work with orchestra (!) has come into exis-tence, and composers and performers withinternational reputations have been comingto Ostrava as lecturers. Kotík persuaded theJanáček Philharmonic to participate, anorchestra with which he has several timessuccessfully performed difficult works of thepost-war avant-garde as well as entirely con-temporary pieces (before and after thelaunch of the Ostrava Days). His invitationwas accepted by the Arditti Quartet, anensemble specialising in contemporarymusic and considered among the best quar-tets in the world. The Days culminate in aweeklong festival involving more than tenconcerts. Even in its very first year the festivalimmediately became practically the mostimportant festival of contemporary music inthis country in terms of choice of music andscale. The Ostrava Days 2001 was anunequivocal success.

This year saw the third OstravaDays festival; the project has abandonednone of its ambitions and has in fact tendedto grow. The industrial city of Ostrava, strug-gling with high unemployment and otherproblems, is perhaps one of the last venueswe would expect for such an event, but itclearly appreciates and supports “its” festi-val. The Institute is regularly attended bymore than 30 young composers, largely fromabroad (the registration fee is a hefty 2000USD, but scholarships are provided). Apartfrom P. Kotík the OD Institute permanent lec-turers are the legendary composers AlvinLucier and Christian Wolff, while many otherleading figures can already be considered

long-term collaborators with OD. Theyinclude the composer Phill Niblock, the com-poser Zsolt Nagy, the members of Kotík’sS.E.M. Ensemble pianist Joseph Kubera andpercussionist Chris Nappi, the baritoneThomas Buckner and others – and the list isfar from complete. In 2001 and 2003, partici-pants in the Ostrava days included suchprominent composers as Jean-Yves Bosseur,Tristan Murail, Frederic Rzewski, SomeiSatoh, Martin Smolka and Rebeca Saunders.This year the role of “chief star” was taken byLouis Andriessen, and the musicologistsMakis Solomos and Volker Straebel wereinvited. It is no exaggeration to say that OD isan event of international stature.

The Ostrava Days Festival is moreever more attractive. In addition to theJanáček Philharmonic (which actually in theend turned out to be the weakest link), a nowtraditionally large number of distinguishedand lesser known ensembles and soloistsperformed at the festival, and above all a sig-nificant number of usually young musicians(some from the ranks of students at the ODInstitute) specialising in contemporary music.The international group (The Ostrava Band)of these musicians formed for the purposesof OD, flexibly metamorphosing from the vari-ous necessary chamber ensembles to anensemble of more than twenty members, thisyear ensured that the standard of perfor-mance at the OD was very good, which wasno always the rule in previous years.

I shall choose from the bestmoments of the festival: the opening concertpresenting the Atlas Eclipticalis (togetherwith Winter Music) by John Cage – theJanáček Philharmonic with many additionalmusicians is divided up spatially into threeorchestras, into the cool beauty of thesounds generated inc accordance with astro-nomical maps the Ondruš miners‘ brass bandsuddenly breaks in with its two “numbers”. Agreeting from Charles Ives? The outstandingSoozvuk Ensemble led by Marián Lejava,Lejav’a beautiful piece The Gloaming Ses-sions. The dark organ recital by ChristophMaria Moosmann with music by M. Feldman,H. Holliger, O. Messiaen and E. H. Flammer.Alvin Lucier’s new piece, Explorations of theHouse – Lucier has dusted off an old trick ofhis: the orchestra plays a few bars ofBeethoven, the recorded sound is repro-duced into the hall and once again recorded,and after several repeats the resonance ofthe hall changes Beethoven into abstract

electronic music. The Canadian string quar-tet Quatuor Bozzini – add a pioneering reper-toire to the usual superlatives (perfectensemble play, absolute identification withthe text and so forth). The leader of the quar-tet, Clemens Merkel, later brilliantly performsone of Luigi Nono’s last pieces, La lontanan-za nostalgica utopica futura. The almost fami-ly atmosphere at the night performance of anextract (cca two hours) of Erik Satie’s Vexa-tions. Andriessen’s La Passione, Xenakis’sAta for large orchestra, Ives’s Piano Sonatano. 2 („Concord, Mass. 1840–1860“) per-formed by Heather O’Donnell, the violinistHana Kotková with Berio’s Sequenza VIII(see photo), Petr Kotík’s Variations for 3Orchestras and so on. I could go on in thesame fashion for much longer, because prac-tically every concert was a real event.

Although the festival is the mostconspicuous and for the general public theonly accessible part of OD, the meaning ofthe enterprise should not be “reduced” to thefestival. The three-week meeting of all theparticipants in the “Days”, both “maestros”and “pupils”, composers and performers, andenthusiasts, generates a very special atmos-phere in Ostrava. If the words had notbecome too much of a cliche, it is an atmos-phere we would call creative and companion-able. All the events take place close to eachother. The Institute uses the premises of therecently renovated conservatory, the eveningconcerts are held in the nearby City of Ostra-va House of Culture, and everyone is accom-modated in a few adjoining hotels. Unlikelypeople gathering in an unlikely place; as if thecity had been taken over by a conspiratorialspirit. Two years from now when youencounter a legend of the New York experi-mental school in Ostrava in the afternoonwith a hot dog in his hand, making for thetram, you will appreciate what I mean.

Ostrava Conservatory

22 | reviews | czech music 3 | 2005

Ančerl recordings of Stravinsky in the Sixties are among the best that he himself and the Czech Philharmonic with

him ever recorded. In my view they will in a sense represent the centre even in the several dozen recordings of the

“Gold Edition”. Ančerl’s interpretation is characterised by something that I would call “disciplined elemental force”.

While discipline and elemental force are opposites, they can complement each other and Ančerl knew how to

achieve this whenever he had to transform a score into sound. In Les Noces the vocal soloists of the Prague Phil-

harmonic Choir (PPC), four pianists and the percussion section of the Czech Philharmonic create a realistic musi-

cal scene of the marriage ritual, but today we would probably demand more attention to Russian pronunciation. The

performance of the Cantata is particularly effective. It was written very close to The Rake’s Progress and its Neo-

classicist idiom in combination with the English text is strongly reminiscent of the music for the opera. Both soloists

are brilliant, Barbara Robotham with a dark-toned soprano and Gerald English with a light, easy tenor. In the mass

the PPC presents itself in the best light, the individual voice groups are well balanced and the choir is acoustically in

equilibrium as a whole. The recording is accompanied by a four-language (English, German, French, Czech) transla-

tion of the text for Les Noces (unfortunately the Russian in which it is sung is missing) and a Latin text of the mass.

VLASTA REITTEREROVÁ

All the nine Dvořák symphonies in this recording by the Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra with Vladimír Válek

can be rated highly for several reasons. One is the project itself. Supraphon could easily have chosen from the

existing recordings of Dvořák symphonies and perhaps added one or two new individual recordings if the quality or

interpretation on an old one failed to suit. Instead it decided on one orchestra and one conductor. Apart from the

live recordings of the 5th and 7th Symphonies from the Rudolfinum, all were made in the recording studio over a rela-

tively short time from October 2000 to October 2003. As far as power of performance is concerned, they testify to

a unified interpretative concept and the very high standard of the radio orchestra at the time. A great deal of credit

must also go to the musical directors Milan Puklický, Jan Málek, Igor Tausinger and Jiří Gemrot, the sound directors

Jan Lžičař, Jaroslav Vašíček, Miroslav Mareš and the assistants to the sound master Jan Šrajer and Václav Maršík. In

terms of interpretation the first three symphonies are a particular challenge; they are full of the musical ideas with

which Dvořák was always brimming, but at this stage in his career he was still too prodigal in the way he presented

them. Symphonic movements of this kind are difficult to hold together. But Vladimír Válek manages it admirably. With

the “well worn” symphonies, on the other hand, the danger is that of routine, and Válek triumphantly avoids it.

Although I have no idea what precisely he intended and whether such “transcendence” is at all possible, it seems as

if he is interpreting the early symphonies as the works of a mature composer, and approaching the mature works as

if for the first time. This allows him to bring the sense of inevitability and lucidity that we discern in the last three sym-

phonies to those chronologically earlier works and to give a surprising freshness to those last symphonies. The set

is well equipped with a booklet and accompanying text by Jaroslav Holeček, which contains all the essential infor-

mation in four languages (unfortunately in the German version the Prozatímní divadlo – Provisional Theatre appears

as Vorläufiges Theater, a mistake that has occurred in previous Supraphon texts. For clarification: in bilingual

Prague the usual name was Interimstheater and there is no reason to change it) and profiles of the orchestra and

conductor (booklet edited by Daniela Růžková). As is clear from the attached logo, the recording has been partially

funded by the Prague Radio partner Hotel. There ought to be more such businessmen.

VLASTA REITTEREROVÁ

The recording of a hitherto never recorded piece by a a well-known composer is not such a rare event and so it is

not unusual to find the catchy slogan “world premiere recording” on the back of a CD. But this CD is something

different. It is not just a newly discovered piece of music that has its world premiere here, but a newly discovered

composer and his whole oeuvre. This musical portrait of the Moravian composer Gottfried Finger is no small

event for admirers of early music and above all for lovers of the viola da gamba.Finger, a native of Olomouc, first

served for a short time in the Archbishop’s Capella of Archbishop Lichtenstein-Castelcorn, but he soon found

Central Europe too small for ambitions that he pursued, immediately finding favour and a place in the London

Chapel Royal. In England he composed a great deal of stage music including what was evidently the largest and

most costly opera performance of its time, the Virgin Prophetess. Finger later left England and went to Vienna,

although he did not stay there for long. His production of Eccles‘ opera The Last Judgment in Vienna went down

in musical history as the first performance of an English opera in continental Europe. Apart from holding posts in

the service of the Prussian Queen Sophie in Berlin and as Kammermusiker and later Konzertmeister to Duke

Charles Phillip of Neuberg, he travelled all around Europe. In his last years he settled in Mannheim, where he was

one of several who laid the foundations of the “Mannheim School”.

It would be unrealistic to expect a breakthrough in music history nd nobody could claim that Finger was a major

peak in European culture. His output ranges from very original musical ideas to the borders of triviality. Yet it can-

not be denied that he was an important phenomenon of his time.

The initiators of the project Petr Wagner and musicologist Robert Rawson, who actively shares in the recording

as the second gamba player, together with other members of the Ensemble Tourbillon, have taken great pains

with the recording. The CD has been very creatively conceived as far as the sound colour of the instrumentation

Karel Ančerl – Gold Edition (Vol. 32)

Stravinsky: Les Noces, Cantata, Mass

Libuše Domanínská, Barbara Robotham – soprano,

Marie Mrázová – mezzo soprano, Ivo Žídek, Gerald Eng-

lish – tenor, Dalibor Jedlička – bass, Zdeněk Kožina,

Ján Marcol, Peter Toperczer, Arnošt Wilde – piano,

Prague Philharmonic Choir, choirmaster Josef Veselka,

Czech Philharmonic, Karel Ančerl.

Production: Vít Roubíček. Text: Eng., Ger., French, Czech.

Recorded: 1964–1967. Published: 2004. TT: 65:44. ADD.

1 CD Supraphon SU 3692–2 211.

Antonín Dvořák

The Complete Symphonies

The Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra, Vladimír Válek.

Production: Czech Radio, Daniela Růžková. Text: Eng.,

Ger., French, Czech. Recorded: 2000–2003.

Published: 2004. TT: 50:49, 51:41, 74:42, 76:58,

72:27, 38:21. DDD. 6 CD Supraphon SU 3802–2.

Gottfried Finger

Compositions for Viola da Gamba

Petr Wagner – viola da gamba, Ensemble Tourbil-lon. Production: Vítězslav Janda. Text: Czech, Eng.Recorded: 1/2005, Waldorf School, Příbram. Pub-lished: 2005. TT: 54:04. DDD. 1 CD Arta F10137(distribution 2HP Production).

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in cooperation with the magazine

czech music 3 | 2005 | reviews | 23

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is concerned, and works with the specific features of the sonata da chiesa and sonata da camera, variations,

suite and with contrast between ensemble and solo passages. In the first sonata we already appreciate the imag-

inative approach to sound colour: the gamba is accompanied by an organ positive, a second gamba, archlute

and theorba, which gives place in the course of play to the Baroque guitar. The entire set develops in similar per-

mutations of the continuo. Each piece is differently instrumented, and this gives the recording its own highly indi-

vidual character. The vibrant performance reflects not just the evident pleasure that the players take in the music

but their clear musical concept of the work and feeling for lightness and wit. The listener may congratulate himself

that he is filling up a gap in musical history with this CD, but first and foremost he won’t be bored listening to it.

JAKUB MICHL

The attempt to rehabilitate the third of Gluck’s reform operas on Calzabigi’s libretto has undoubted value just in

itself. Paris and Helena has lagged chronically behind Orpheus and Alceste since its first production in the Vienna

Burgteater on the 3rd of November 1770. Yet Gluck had been at great pains (and emphasised in the prologue) to

base the opera on the musical contrast between the rough and sharp Spartans with their brusque rhythms and the

subtle Trojans with the soft lyricism of melodic arches. He had tried to give the part of Paris the urgency of amatory

passion in his conquest of an honourable woman, firmly resolved to do her duty as a wife before her antagonistic

suspicions are overcome not just by the insistence of Paris but by Amor, who as a confidante of beautiful Helena

has been charged with seeing that the promise of the God Aphrodite is fulfilled. What are the problems in this

opera, which seem to have continued to dog it despite all the subsequent changes in opera styles both from the

point of view of composition and staging? Stretched out over five acts the action is rather thin, and the wrathful

appearance of the goddess Pallas Athena in the first scene of the last act, warning that the affair between Paris and

Helena will cause many years of war, does not go far enough to enliven a simple schema in which only three charac-

ters are involved. What is worse, of these three characters only Helena undergoes any development, from stubborn

rejection to enamoured harmony. The opera is also weighed down by many celebratory, anthemic dances and choral

passages that only increase the overall impression of disengaged, almost officious distance. Despite a series of

arias, ensembles, choral passages and instrumental numbers, long sections are taken up by melodically very flat

recitatives that soon begin to seem tiresome. And the use of woman’s voices in soprano registers for all the roles

(Gluck wrote the role of Paris for soprano castrato) is too monotonous, as well as doing little to lend credibility to

male passion for the most beautiful woman in the world.

In this recording we find Magdalena Kožena as Paris and conductor Paul McCreesh with the Gabrieli Consort

and Players doing their best to overcome these handicaps. Magdalena Kožená has many years of experience per-

forming parts in Gluck’s operas. Indeed it was precisely this role that she took in 1998 in a production of the opera

at a festival in Drottningholm, and Paris’s aria from the second act even provided the title for her CD recital of Gluck,

Mozart and Mysliveček arias conducted by Sir John Eliot Gardiner (and directed by Robert Wilson). She has sung

Orpheus at the Théātre de Chātelet in Paris and taken part in Minkowsky’s Armida for Deutsche Grammophon.

Kožená does not dazzle by brilliance of technique for its own sake, a temptation to which Cecilia Bartoli, whose

repertoire is similar, sometimes succumbs. The strength of Kožená’s interpretation (always based on a technically

entirely reliable mastery of the part) lies in the intensity of the marriage of text and music, in fine modelling, nuanced

to the smallest detail, of the scale of expression from a whisper full of anxiety to fiery explosions of erotic feeling not

only in the musical numbers, but also in recitatives. At the same time Kožená retains a sense of balance and never

slides into mannerism or over-the-top exaltation. We have a sense of a kind of confidential urgency, an intimacy, with

which she as it were “speaks” directly into our souls. In this she has the full support of the orchestra, which also tries

to extract the maximum contrast from Gluck’s music, and of the choir with its well-balanced and integrated sound.

While in the role of the persuasive Amor the English soprano Carolyn Sampson enhances the colour of the music

and the overall liveliness of the recording with her clear, light soprano, the choice of Susan Gritton as Helena,

despite all her great experience with roles in Händel, Purcell and Mozart, overloads the opera with high notes that

are sometimes excessively shrill (the closing aria of Act 4 Lo potrň) and a relative lack of compatibility with the other

voices, evident particularly in the trio Ah lo veggo in Act 4.

Although the recording tries to get the most out of the score, it seems that Paris and Helena is destined to remain

a work that helps to complete the picture of Gluck as an opera composer but does not embody the full richness of

his imagination or the principles with which he advanced the development of opera.

HELENA HAVLÍKOVÁ

A representative of the young generation of Czech harpsichordists, Monika Knoblochová has a great deal to be proud

of despite her youth. She has a very broad repertoire ranging from early music to the most recent works and she has

already won a number of prizes for performance, among them 3rd Place in the Prague Spring Competition in 1999,

together with a special prize for the best performance of Bohuslav Martinů Harpsichord Concerto.

And it is Martinů that dominates this CD, released this year by Supraphon. Apart from the already mentioned

Concerto for Harpsichord and Small Orchestra, Two Pieces for Harpsichord, Sonatas for Harpsichord and Two

Impromptus for Harpsichord, the album also contains Martinů’s chamber Promenades for Flute, Violin and Harp-

sichord. All this is complemented by Manuela de Falla’s Concerto for Harpsichord, Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, Violin

and Cello.

Reviewing a performance from a promising young talent is always an extremely sensitive matter. As we all know,

prizes at international competitions are not in themselves automatic guarantees that musicians will make the top

Christoph Willibald Gluck

Paride et Elena

Magdalena Kožená, Susan Gritton, Carolyn Samp-son, Gillian Webster, Gabrieli Consort & Players,Paul McCreesh. Production: Christopher Alder. Text:Eng. Ger. French. Recorded: 10/2003, All SaintsChurch, London. Published: 2005. TT: 79:42 + 66:41.DDD. 2 CD Archiv Produktion 00289 477 5415(Universal Music).

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ranks of world performance and find a place in wider public consciousness. That is something only time will tell.

The fact is that Monika Knoblochová has brought us a fresh, carefully constructed and extremely agreeable

recording. Thought and precision are also evident in her play. Yet however hard and long I listened to it, I couldn’t

help feeling something was missing, and what was lacking was that essential surge of musical energy, immediacy

and real persuasiveness of expression. Furthermore, as far as the other instruments are concerned, especially in

the Promenades the impression was spoilt by uncertain intonation in places and a not entirely acoustically satis-

factory violin (in this context I was reminded of Martinů’s Three Madrigals for Violin and Viola, played with pre-

cisely that disarming energy I was looking for by the violist Jitka Hosprová and violinist Veronika Jarůšková on the

Rhapsody album of 2002).

In any case, lovers of harpsichord music (and not only specialists) should not overlook Monika

Knoblochová’s album. It comes with a booklet containing a commentary by Aleš Březina, who offers expert infor-

mation on the background to the writing of the various pieces.

SVATAVA ŠENKOVÁ

The Stamic Quartet is indisputably one of the best Czech quartets and has a major reputation abroad as well as

at home. It celebrated its 20th anniversary in the autumn with a surprisingly ambitious project. No Best of…, no

Dvořák, Beethoven or other composer with assured marketing potential, but three very little known and little

played works by the “Terezín” composers (as the composers imprisoned in the Terezín Ghetto during the War are

now called). These are complemented by Janáček’s 1st String Quartet “Inspired by Tolstoy’s Kreutzer Sonata”,

and it is interesting (and one of the useful insights provided by the album) to find that in many respects the other

music on the CD involves a response to Janáček. The Stamic Quartet plays brilliantly, especially Schulhoff’s rusti-

cal 1st String Quartet. It has unbelievable elan and marvellous moments of articulation. The brilliantly profiled

String Quartet by Hans Krása in no way lags behind. Pavel Haas’s 3rd String Quartet by Pavel Haas is distinctive

for moments of genius and some lapses. The Stamic Quartet have managed to get almost the maximum out of

these works. In the Janáček we can appreciate the way in which the piece has been fully assimilated by the play-

ers, a clarity of conception that in no way means a loss of drama and raw expressiveness, but deliberately moulds

the passionate cantabile of the work. I could, however, with for a more engaged and luminous tone in the first vio-

lin. Given the nature of the CD I shall break with my usual practice and explicitly praise the sponsor, which was

a co-initiator of the project. The firm I.Q.A. is a pike in the pharmaceutical generics market, but would deserve

praise just for the comment that “Hans Krása is … as important as the discovery of a new drug”.

Musically and visually the CD is a pleasure, although it is slightly annoying to find some unnecessary faults –

there is no legend for the track numbers, the overall length of the CD is not given, and the simplistic emphasis on

Janáček on the cover.

LUBOŠ STEHLÍK

The problem of modern renovation of old and older recordings is one that has been confronted in various ways since the

very beginnings of digitalisation. It is an exceedingly difficult task and involves far more than just repairing damaged sec-

tions or removing hum and crackle from the original records or tapes. It is enough just to emphasis the high or low fre-

quencies too much, ad hall to the original mono-picture too thickly, or even to enlarge it in an attempt to achieve a kind of

pseudo-stereo, and we find ourselves in a completely new, artificially created environment which in no way corresponds

to the unique atmosphere of the original recordings. Today‘s experienced restorers abroad and in this country (for all of

them let us mention the sound masters Stanislav Sýkora, whose studio digitalizes records specially for Supraphon, and

Miroslav Mareš of Czech Radio, who is rescuing the rich archives there), have gone through all of this and learned to

create a result in which authenticity and a modern sound are both essential conditions. This year Supraphon crowned

their admirable Supraphon Ančerl Gold Edition and now they have launched a major Talich project. It has been opened

with a unique recording – Dvořák’s Slavonic Dances made in the summer of 1950 in the Domovina Studio in Holešovi-

ce. This was the second recording of the cycle under the baton of Václav Talich. The first had been made for His

Master’s Voice in London in 1936 and thanks to RCD it is now also available in digital form on CD. There is an absolute-

ly basic difference between the two recordings. The pre-war version is much more sparkling, sharper in tempo, and fo-

cuses more on the dance quality of the individual scores. The now newly released and in recent decades generally

known recording of 1950 radiates a much deeper, more lyrical power, in which of course the original dance energy has

not been lost, but there is an equal stress on the emotional aspect and the individual inventions are more elaborately

worked. Each of the sixteen scores thus acquires its own unique character as well as the distinctive Tallich touch. The

Dvořák specialist Otakar Šourek was reportedly present at the recordings and annoyed his close friend Václav Talich by

pointing out the increased length of the recording compared to the first. It is actually precisely because of these distinc-

tive features that even years later this musically brilliant recording has retained its exceptional stature. Some passages

are so ravishingly effective that we would vainly look for something as memorable in other more recent recordings (for

example the return of the main theme in the fourth dance, and the slowed tempo of the middle section of the ninth!).

Supraphon is releasing this recording for the third time on CD, i.e. it is the third digital reworking. In the first in 1988

(Crystalcollection) the original hum of the tape was left and some hall was added. This means that while the orchestra is

very colourful and readable in the individual instrumental sections, it is rather misleading in the sense of great “spacious-

ness”. The present version is nearer to the original. The hum of the tape has gone entirely, the overall sound picture is

more homogeneous and with no disturbance of any kind, although a price is paid for this in terms of less luminous high

notes and more prominent details (until the end of the Fifteenth the percussion is almost inaudible except for the kettle

drums). Every reconstruction requires a degree of painful compromise – this is one of them. The design of the CD and

above all the informative text by Petr Kadlec in the booklet are models of their kind! Let us hope the other CDs in this ex-

tremely welcome edition will be just as good.

BOHUSLAV VÍTEK

Bohuslav Martinů

Music for Harpsichord

Manuel de Falla

Concerto for Harpsichord, Flute, Oboe, Clar-inet, Violin and Cello

Monika Knoblochová – harpsichord, LenkaKozderková-Šimková – flute, Vladislav Borovka –oboe, Karel Dohnal – clarinet, Václav Fürbach –bassoon, Adéla Štajnochrová, Daniela Oerterová,Eleonora Machová – violins, Vojtěch Semerád – vio-la, Tomáš Strašil – cello, Jan Buble – double bass,Jana Vychodilová – piano, Michal Macourek – con-ductor. Production: Monika Knoblochová. Text: Eng.,Ger., French, Czech. Recorded: 7/2004, Church of St.Kunhutay, Bamberk. Published: 2005. TT: 59:06.DDD. 1 CD Supraphon SU 3805–2.

Stamic Quartet

Czech String Quartet Discoveries

Stamic Quartet. Text: Czech, Eng. Recorded:11/2004, 1/2005, Protestant Church “U Jákobovažebříku”, Prague. Published: 2005. DDD. 1 CD Stamic Quartet – www.stamicquartet.cz

Václav Talich – Special Edition 1

Antonín Dvořák: Slavonic Dances

The Czech Philharmonic, Václav Talich. Production:

Jana Gonda, Petr Kadlec, Petr Vít. Text: Eng., Ger.,

French, Czech. Recorded: 1950. Released: 2005

(remastering Stanislav Sýkora and Jaroslav Rybář).

TT: 78:19. ADD Mono. 1 CD Supraphon SU

3821–2.

24 | reviews | czech music 3 | 2005

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In the general perspective of music history,Alois Hába is usually characterised as oneof the leading protagonists of the CentralEuropean inter-war avant-garde thatmoved between Vienna, Berlin and Prague.In the specific context of Czech music helikewise has the reputation of an exem-plary innovator but is considered to havebeen strongly rooted in tradition as well.Hába is known primarily as a tireless prop-agator of microtonal and athematic music,for which his own term was “liberatedmusic”. In this music he added more subtlequarter-, fifth- and sixth-tone intervals tothe semitone system and abandoned uptraditional treatment of motifs. Hába’sdream of the unlimited possibilities of newmusic lasted roughly twenty years(1919–1939) and found expression ina series of pieces that oscillate betweenthe diatonic and bichromatic system. Hewanted to introduce the public to the newtonal systems by using newly constructedinstruments, and we might see hisprogress in this respect as a step towardsthe institutionalisation of his own innova-tions as a composer. Finally, Hába wasa tireless organiser who helped to ensurethat works of new music were regularlypresented in Prague concert halls. Many ofHába’s pieces provoked a great deal ofcontroversy in their time, and the listener

today will certainly be able to judge his out-put (103 opuses) more objectively. Todaywe can see Hába’s creative impulsesagainst the background of a broader pat-tern of cultural history, in which shorterperiods of destruction of existing artisticnorms always give way to periods of cre-ative synthesis.

Alois Hába (21st June 1893 Vizovice – 18th

November 1973 Prague) entered Czech musi-cal culture at a time when the “lived inheri-tance of folklore” had come to be recognisedas something of genuine potential value forhigh culture. Attempts at the authentic expres-sion of musical roots no longer meanta degrading provincialism, as had still to someextent been the case when the Czech musi-cologist Zdeněk Nejedlý (1878–1962)expressed highly critical views of the work ofLeoš Janáček and Vítězslav Novák. Nejedlý theaesthete condemned Novák for “falsified quo-tation“ of folk song, in the sense of its use inthe structure of his works as a musical symbolat a different level. Janáček he saw as a typicalregressive composer, and claimed to see inthe opera Jenůfa a striking similarity with theearlier romantic aesthetic of the 1860s, whenthe character of the work was deliberatelydetermined by quotation from folk songs andthe desire to get closer to the taste of the

wider public. In fact, Nejedlý was much moregenerous in his criticism of Novák’s music,seeing it as at least a higher stage of responseto folk material. Nejedlý’s critical opinions onthe treatment of folk music have a very clearrationale, in line with the changing ideas of thetime on the function of folk culture withina national programme. At this point, at thebeginning of the 1920s, Nejedlý distinguishedbetween folk culture and the taste of thebroader public. In his view the audience, thewider public culture, was essentially conser-vative, and a progressive composer ought notto pander to its tastes. Despite the trials thatthis might involve, he should resist the pres-sure of the public and develop his own indi-vidual artistic identity. Art for the people shouldnot be an art of lower quality that made fewdemands on its listeners. When another Czech musicologist, VladimírHelfert (1886–1945) in his book Česká mo-derní hudba [Czech Modern Music] (1936)tried to define Hába’s place in the evolution of

alois hába(21st june 1893 – 18th november 1973)

between tradition and innovation

3 | 2005

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Czech music, he praised the positive signifi-cance of the composer’s folklore inspirations.Helfert believed that in Hába, after Janáček,the Czech musical scene had acquired a com-poser whose starting-point was not romanti-cism and whose sensibility was partly definedby his origin. Some passages in Hába’s musichave an undeniable similarity with EasternMoravian melodic types, but Hába does notfalsify folklore or demean himself by trying forthe required “folky” effect, i.e. the admixture ofthe “folk” remains something more essentialthan contrived. Although regional roots playan important role in Hába’s music, the com-poser never imitates or parodies folk music.As one of the most radical representatives ofthe Central European aesthetic avant-gardebetween the wars, Hába expressed his indi-vidual style by drawing on the well-springs inthe sense of his own lived experience of folk-lore, but then reformulating this inspiration atthe most universal levels – microtonality, athe-matism, modality. Furthermore, at the verymoments when we are aware of the compos-er’s “inclination to folklorism” we can also hear,like a base note, his critical reaction to the LateRomantic idiom of Hába’s great teachers. Ina number of other commentaries Helfert wasto continue to insist of the importance ofHába’s work for Czech music, seeing his workand that of Bohuslav Martinů as the twoopposed, defining poles of its future develop-ment.

* * *

Alois Hába was born in Vizovice in Moraviainto the family of a folk musician. In this regionhe was able to experience folksong and musicin its authentic forms, and his theoretical andbiographical writings often allude to folk inspi-rations as a unique and major source of hisoriginal work as a composer. In the autobio-graphical sketch Můj lidský a umělecký vývoj[My Human and Artistic Development], whichby his own dating was written at Christmas in1942 (printed in 1993), and later in the textMein Weg zur Viertel- und Sechsteltonmusikof 1971, he stresses the importance of inher-ited musicality, gradual acquaintance with thetraditions of artificial classical music and thenthe further development of his own originalmusical language, that of “liberated music”.With the caveat that this is a necessarilystylised picture of his own search for artisticidentity we have no reason not to believe him.We can also take his account of his life asa more general contextual commentary on theadvantages and shortcomings of “peripheral“culture in relation to the culture of “the centre”.Wallachia and Slovácko, which by his timewere permeated by various different levels ofmusical culture, provided the necessary doseof authenticity but at the same time the neces-sary degree of knowledge of “serious” artifi-cial music. As Hába himself insisted at manypoints, practical “music-making” in his father’sensemble and his first-hand lived contact withfolk music was of essential value for him. Forexample he recalls that “At dance entertain-ments and folk festivals we used to play not

only composed dances but also dance songsthat the dancers would sing for us to copyand follow immediately. Some of the folkmusicians still knew how to perform in the oldfashioned way, i.e. to sing with ornamentsdeviating from the usual semitone system.These people would want us to play them justas they sang them, which meant we had to“catch” unusual intervals, mainly on the violin.My perfect pitch made it easier for me, but itdidn’t always work to the full satisfaction ofthe singers-dancers. Once – in Vsacko I thinkit was, the singer, a lad built like a mountain,wanted to smash our bass with a two-litreglass because I didn’t manage to play hissong on the violin the way he sang it. He real-ly scared us. Afterwards at home we learnedthe different intonation deviations of the folksingers.” 1 In a text of a different kind, Hába’sNeue Harmonielehre (1927), we encountera similar description: “The question of whetherand why quarter-tone music is justified is onethat belongs in the field of psychology. In mycase its was to do with my father and brothersplaying with my perfect pitch in childhood.They would sing, whistle and play me notesthat didn’t belong in the semitone system totry and trip me up and show that I couldn’tidentify every note. First I would sing, whistleor play on the violin the nearest correct notein the semitone system and then I would pro-duce the note offered me for identification,and I would find that the given note was low-er or higher than the nearest note in the semi-tone system. That was what later led me tostylise the intervening notes into a quarter-tone system.” 2

The point of this kind of account is clear: Hábaslipped his memories into texts of various dif-ferent kinds in order to stress the uniquenature of his own style. When at various pointshe reminds us that “there was music allaround him throughout my childhood“, this isan indirect allusion to a unique experience withmusic, the essence of which has determinedthe composer’s later musical expression.Hába also talks about this childhood music aspure unpretentious play and at the same timea livelihood, with the implication that the devel-opment of his aesthetic attitude to form inmusic was not a matter of some whimsical rar-ified detachment but derived from the active,ordinary and real. Regardless of someabstract criterion of beauty, the value of suchmusic is determined by its setting in the con-crete situation in which it is created or repro-duced. It is also very significant that Hábadraws our attention to his perfect pitch, hissharpened perception of sound, since this isone of the sources of what he often declaredto be the realism of “liberated music”. An earfor fine deviations of intonation became some-thing that allowed him to identify scarcely audi-ble phenomena, the most subtle expressivenuances of played and sung music. Hába wasexceptional for his absolutely sure recognitionof these signs, these flexions or modal andmicrotonal deviations. And the specific “alientones” that he perceived were deeply rootedin his cultural background, which means thathe was not talking about errors or deviation

from usus, but about a typical phenomenonassociated with a particular type of musicalidiom. The ability to perceive such tones with-in the limits of normal performance made Hábahighly adept at seeing all kinds of phenomenaas the expression of the specific musicalthought of a given cultural region. If we want to explain the principle of the quali-tative transformation of folklore roots inHába’s life, however, we need to find the pointat which he started to cultivate and developthis inherited element. In looking at Hába’swork we may also ask how far his choice oftechniques, material and mode of treating thatmaterial was influenced by his later studies, orelse whether his use even of the methods thathe subsequently adopted through studies wassubject to the kind of rules that predestine thedirection taken by artists, rules that we acquireoutside the field of art as it were unconscious-ly even before we start to create. In this con-text it will suffice to consider the tradition ofthe “culture of the centre” which Hába bothaccepts and rebels against. His journey fromthe periphery of the Eastern Moravian region,which led through teacher training college inKroměříž (1908–1912) and a short period ofwork as a teacher in Bílovice in Slovácko(1912–1914), took Hába first to Prague(1914–1915), then to Vienna (1917–1920)and to Berlin (1920–1923). In his case theprogress through important centres of Euro-pean culture genuinely corresponded to theartistic “progress” of the young composer onhis “journeyman travels”. Studies with Novákand Schreker in Prague and his Berlin meet-ing with Ferruccio Busoni were undoubtedlyimportant moments in Hába’s artistic growth.Apart from new experience and knowledge,however, what he acquired above all was thehallmark and reputation of a noteworthy inno-vator and propagator of the new avant-gardetrends. In the spirit of the collective creed ofthe avant-garde young generation Hába bothjoined the current of the most contemporarymodern movement and at the same timeincreasingly developed his specific creativeidentity. Hába’s first real teacher of composition wasVítězslav Novák (1870–1949). Hába joinedNovák’s master course in 1914 without hav-ing graduated from the conservatory. With hissheer perseverance and hard work, and withthe essential encouragement of the humaneand tactful Novák, the enthusiastic autodidactfilled in the serious gaps in his training asa composer. Novák insisted that his pupilsacquire a perfect mastery of traditional musi-cal forms and classic treatment of themes. Healso encouraged interest in folk songs andtheir compositional principles. At this periodnone of Novák’s pupils had so close a rela-tionship to folk culture as Hába, but he need-ed to enrich his experience of folk music bythe kind of critical examination that wouldallow him to explore its musical organism moredeeply and consciously. Hába studied withNovák for just under a year. In this short timehe mastered the rules of compositional tech-nique and crowned his studies with the com-position Sonata for Violin and Piano op. 1.

czech music 3 | 2005 | profiles | 3

Successful completion of his studies pavedthe way for the young Hába to enter Praguecultural life, but on the day of his twenty-sec-ond birthday he had to give up this promisingprospect and join the Austro-Hungarian army.He spent the first years of the war on the Russ-ian front, from where he was recalled to Vien-na to organise a collection of military songs forarmy purposes together with Felix Petyrek(1892–1951) and Béla Bartók (1881–1945). His first contact with radically innovative ideasin new music can clearly be dated to January1917, and in this case precise dating has con-siderable explanatory value. Towards the endof January Hába, as a student of the ViennaOfficers’ School, attended a performance ofthe opera Die Schneider von Schönau (1916)by the Dutch composer Jan Brandts-Buys(1868–1933) and at the same time read inthe Viennese press about a showcase eveningof quarter-tone music by the German com-poser Willy von Möllendorf (1872–1934),held in the Tonkünstlerverein in Vienna. Imme-diately after the opera visit, Hába, keen to com-pose similar music, wrote to Brantds-Buysasking for lessons in composition. Brandts-Buys was too busy to agree, but on his rec-ommendation Hába was taken on for a whileas a pupil of the important Viennese musicaltheorist Richard Stöhr (1874–1967), whotrained him in harmony and strict counterpoint.The encounter with quarter-tone music wasfateful for Hába’s future orientation as a com-poser, despite the fact that he only learned ofthe Möllendorf evening at second hand,through a newspaper article: “In 1917 I readin the German music magazines that W. Möl-lendorf was campaigning for the introductionof the quarter-tone system. It was the mostprogressive idea for the further developmentof European music. I realised that with myexperiences of Eastern Moravian folk singersI had a firm melodic foundation for the cre-ation of quarter-tone music.” 3

What then did innovation of tone materialmean for Hába? It meant that he could turn tohis own inherited values in the role of the her-ald of new ideas. In Hába’s case the desire fororiginality combined with the attempt to pre-serve the riches of the culture from which hecame. Hába first tried out his idea of “unusualmusic” in February and March of 1917 in hisunfinished Suite in the Quarter-tone Systemin Three Parts. The piece remained incom-plete in a piano part. In the same year he alsocomposed an orchestral Ukrainian Suite. Heincluded neither in the numbered list of hisworks. In 1918 Hába entered the ViennaAkademie für Musik und darstellende Kunstas a private student in the class of FranzSchreker (1878–1934). Under Schreker’sexpert supervision he composed his first num-bered works, Sonata for Piano op. 3, StringQuartet no. 1 op. 4 and Overture for LargeOrchestra op. 5, and Six Piano Pieces op. 6.The last two pieces in particular are excellentdemonstrations of how perfectly Hába mas-tered the traditional craft of composition. Thepiano pieces also reveal an attempt to use theup-to-date compositional techniquesexpounded above all by the Schönberg

School. With the establishment composerSchreker – and what is more in Vienna, whereclassical values for a long time represented anaesthetic boundary that could not bebreached – it was almost impossible to com-pose using unusual techniques and in systemsthat had, at best, uncertain futures. Nonethe-less, in the spring of 1920 Hába presented histeacher with his first quarter-tone String Quar-tet op. 7. Schreker greeted the work withamazement (Was? Vierteltonstreichquartett?Mensch, sind Sie verrückt geworden?), butrecommended the piece for publication by therenowned Vienna publishing house UniversalEdition. The new work was then rehearsedunder Hába’s direction by the HavemannQuartet and presented in Berlin in the autumnof 1921. To this mosaic we may also adda piece from the biographical memoirs of ErnstKřenek (Im Atem der Zeit. Erinnerung an dieModerne): “Later Alois Hába appeared,undoubtedly the most original composeramong us young men. He was a Czech chau-vinist and probably took an active part in theCzech resistance movement. He too worea military uniform, even an officer’s uniformI think, but later he boasted that he had beenunder police observation because of his rev-olutionary activities. But that was not consis-tent with his position in the army. He com-posed a piano sonata or a string quartet andwas the only one of us who at that early stageexpressed a certain antagonism to Schrek-er’s teaching and his compositional style.” 4

Leaving aside the derogatory and perhapsunjust depiction of Hába as a Czech chauvin-ist and fanatical nationalist, Křenek’s accountof the composer presents him as one of themost original students in Schrker’s class andalso one of the toughest critics of the compo-sitional style and teaching methods of his Vien-nese teacher. Despite many sharp commentsand repeatedly expressed reservations, how-ever, Hába’s relationship with Schreker wasprobably less one of struggle than of mutualrespect. As a prominent and experiencedteacher and composer, Schreker offered hisstudents the opportunity to acquire the nec-essary technical skills for mastering musicalmaterial, did so in the spirit of up-to-date devel-opments in music and at the same timeallowed his students a reasonable level of cre-ative freedom. In the autumn of 1920 Franz Schreker left forBerlin to take up the position of director of theBerlin Staatliche Hochschule für Musik. Hismost faithful students followed him, includingnot only Alois Hába but also, for example,Ernst Křenek, Max Brand, Karol Rathaus andJascha Horenstein. Berlin, where Hába livedfrom mid-1920 to Easter 1922 and with inter-vals until the summer of 1923, was anotherdecisive stage in Hába’s life. He arrived in Ber-lin as a self-confident composer already start-ing on his career but nonetheless still in theprocess of finding his own expressive lan-guage. Althought he faced financial problemsin Berlin, a major centre overflowing withimportant protagonists of the avant-garde inall branches of culture offered him a goldenopportunity for contact with the latest artistic

movements. In his biography Hába puts theemphasis on his search for creative methodsof his own. He comments: “I sensed thatI would not be able to go on composing asI had hitherto, i.e. using the principle of repeat-ing and varying motifs and varying or combin-ing principles of form that were already well-known and used. […] But no ideas came.I had serious fears for my further creativedevelopment. […] Now thrown back just onmy own resources, voluntarily renouncing thehelp of grand musical tradition, I experiment-ed by improvising on the violin just for myself,as I used to play to myself on the violin asa boy at home in the dark hour before thelamps were lit in the evening. I gave myself upto the melodic flow, surge, climax andprecipices. I created lively and slow sectionsand structured them by immediate feeling. Inimprovisations on the violin there was no timeto think of repetition or variation on melodicideas or of repeating or varying longer sec-tions. Now it was a matter of capturing spon-taneous creativity not just with my hands onthe instrument, but in musical thought and innotation.” 5 These lines have, of course, under-gone the inevitable authorial self-censorshipand are highly stylised. The state depicted issupposed to correspond to the character ofthe avant-garde artist who wants to go his ownway and lives through an indescribable cre-ative rebirth. Nevertheless, by something likethe path he describes Hába certainly foundanother element that was to be one factordetermining his “liberated music” in the future:this factor is athematism. The first of his worksusing this technique are the quarter-tone Fan-tasia for Solo Violin, op. 9a and Music for SoloViolin op. 9b, the quarter-tone String Quartetop. 12, The Choral Suite op.13, the quarter-tone String Quartet op. 14 and the sixth-toneString Quartet op. 15. Their experimental qual-ity apart, even after many years these worksremain a clear confirmation of the compos-er’s exceptional creative powers. A strikingfeature of this period is his attempt to exploitto the full the possibilities of the new tone sys-tems. Hába embarked on new music withpanache and enthusiasm and if some attribut-es of his style were later to be singled out astypical of his work, they originated in this peri-od. In the years 1923–1927 he wrote themajority of his pieces for quarter-tone piano,among them five suites and ten fantasias. Thecharacter of this period as one of maximumtechnical innovation is underlined by the factthat between the piano Suite op. 10 (1923)and his Fantasia for Cello and Quarter-tonePiano op. 33 with one exception Hába wroteno pieces in semitones. Hába also contributedto the invention of new instruments. For exam-ple he designed a three-manual keyboard forquarter-tone harmonium and piano, and in1925 the firm August Förster built a quarter-tone piano on his initiative.

AthematismAn expression often used in connection withHába’s music is Musik der Freiheit, or more

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precisely Musikstil der Freiheit. (This expres-sion appeared for the first time in Hába’s arti-cle Casellas Scarlattiana – Vierteltonmusikund Musikstil der Freiheit, 1929.) The phe-nomenon Musik der Freiheit is one that invitesconnection and comparison with a number oftheoretical concepts of the Central Europeanavant-garde that explicitly appeal to forms ofaesthetic liberation. If Hába’s liberated musicis often taken to mean the possibility of freetreatment of sound material, its technical sideis often associated with the expressionsmicrotonality and athematism. The second, inparticular, deserves a short commentary. In athematism Hába found a potential for freecreative expression that bears some resem-blance to Schönberg’s technique of musicalprose – a melodic idea released from the rulesof the periodical structure. When Hába talksabout athematism, he very often also mentionsSchönberg. In 1934, on the latter’s sixtiethbirthday, Hába alludes to Schönberg’s tech-nique of “the strictest thematic treatment”(twelve-tone music) but in the same breathrecalls the importance of Schönberg’s “freeathematic style” (Schönberg und die weiterenMöglichkeiten der Musikentwicklung, 1934).In his article Harmonické základy dvanác-titónového systemu [The Harmonic Founda-tions of the Twelve-Tone System] (1938)Hába repeats this idea when he talks aboutSchönberg’s opera Erwartung, which is com-posed – with the exception of a very few the-matic passages – in a free non-thematic style,without the support of the “basic form”. Many of the texts in which Hába mentions ath-ematism are supposed to serve as explana-tions of his own goals as a composer. Hencethey involve elaborate metaphors and surpris-ing verbal combinations in them. Seeking toformulate the basis of the “non-thematic style”,Hába often gropes for similiarities betweensocial development, spiritual movement andthe form of the work of music, and refers tovalues and signs that say something about theoverall character of the time and its intellectu-al climate. In his book O psychologii tvoření[On the Psychology of Creation] we read that,“[…] a need for change and movement quiteevidently penetrates our consciousness fromthe musical expression of the present time.Today man is intellectually more mobile, andthis mobility is also expressed in a faster mod-ulation of sound. The more conscious the lawof motion and change governing the humanmind becomes, the more distinctly it mani-fests itself in artistic expression and especial-ly in music. Harmonic drones have disap-peared from music, because the sense of sta-bility has progressively vanished from spiritu-al life. The sense of reminiscence, return tothe impressions and scenes of the past hasalso gone. The human spirit today is concen-trated on the concept of “forward”, the con-quest of new knowledge and the creation ofnew forms of living. In music this reorienta-tion is manifest in a turning away from theconcept of reprise (not repeating longer partsof musical form). Musical expression has notyet, however, emancipated itself from the rep-etition of details. The task of the youngest

generation and next generations is to carryout this developmental rebirth fully and toconstruct a completely new musical style onthe principle of “not repeating and thinkingahead, always forward.” 6

What exactly is Hába’s athematism then? Ifwe want to understand it better, the precedingquotation is not a sufficiently clear answer.First of all we need to say that the expression“athematism” is itself somewhat unfortunate.It would be a mistake to think of Hába’s “athe-matism” as music without themes. The com-poser merely abandons traditional ways oftreating motifs and themes. The definition ofa musical structure as “non-thematic” there-fore means excluding imitation in the generalsense – the repetition of the preceding pre-sentation; i.e. the modification and develop-ment of musical ideas. Here some ofHába’s instructions for performance are rele-vant. According to these the performer mustdistinguish between “more prominent andless prominent melodies“. The idea is that the“more prominent melody” should be broughtout in performance, and so the composer nolonger needs to repeat such passages in theoriginal form or in variations. To grasp Hába’s concept of athematic style isis also important to remember that athema-tism, which many other authors in a range ofcommentaries often describe in terms of themicrostructure of the work, primarily influ-ences the work in its overall form. Hába want-ed to produce forms with a new distinctivecontent that would not be simply transferableinto a pre-established schema. The themesused in the framework of the overall form arenot supposed to connect up the separateparts of the work and create the feeling of a tra-ditional form. Minor reminders and returns arenot relevant for the construction of the formfrom this point of view. It is no accident thatthe pieces of this period are often named fan-tasia, suite, toccata. While in the 1920s Hábaappears as a radical opponent of traditionalforms and the traditional mode of treatment ofmotifs and themes, from the 1930s we canobserve a certain tendency towards “closedforms”. This return was never radical enoughto allow us to speak of clear schemas, but thecomposer nonetheless tries at least in a gen-eral way to revive the principle of some olderapproaches to form. In addition to the morefrequent juxtaposition of contrasting sectionswe can see more frequent returns to harmon-ic centres or the repetition or variation of minormotif sections. The first notable piece to betraythis change is the Fantasia op. 19, which withcertain reservations corresponds to thescheme of the sonata form, and later the Toc-cata quasi una fantasia, op. 38.

In Hába’s case we can clearly identify themotives that led the young composer to con-sider athematism or microtonality to be impor-tant compositional techniques. Berlin offeredHába a wide range of opportunities to pick upnew ideas that would then form part of the the-oretical background of his Musik der Freiheit.

Among the composers who inspired him onefrequently mentioned in the literature is Feruc-cio Busoni (1866–1924). In Berlin Hábaencountered Bussoni’s ideas in the second,reworked edition of his book Sketch of a NewAesthetic of Music (Entwurf einer neuenÄsthetik der Tonkunst, 1907, 1916). Later heoccasionally attended the celebrated discus-sion circles that Bussoni ran in his Berlin apart-ment, where the young composer was famil-iarly nicknamed Ali-Baba by his host. In widermusical circles Busoni had the justified repu-tation as a leading supporter of microtonalmusic (and new music in general), but in facthe was extremely hostile to quarter-tonemusic, seeing the third-tone and sixth-tonesystem as far more natural and promising forfuture use. Busoni’s views eventually inspiredHába to compose his sixth-tone String Quar-tet op.15.Yet another influence was at work here in Ber-lin, and that was the boom in ethnomusicolo-gy. The introduction of the sound recording,and invention of the phonograph, pitchmeterand gramophone records, had been vastlyincreasing the potential of the new musicolog-ical discipline. The deputy director of the Ber-lin Hochschule für Musik Georg Schünemann(1884–1945) arranged for Hába to visit thePhonogramm-Archiv, part of the Psychologi-cal Institute of Berlin University, where thecomposer could find other fundamental ratio-nales for his own music. The Berlin archivecontained a very large quantity of recordingsof non-European music; the infinitely repro-ducible songs, instrumental pieces and spo-ken word could scarcely have left a composerof Hába’s kind unmoved. Comparison ofrecordings of the music of distant culturesopens up the possibility of identifying funda-mental common factors despite diversity. Ofcourse, one of the most useful recommenda-tions when listening to “unusual” non-Euro-pean music, is that the listener should try ashard as possible to avoid established stereo-types of perception and conventional meth-ods of study, but in Hába’s case the new expe-rience seems to have led him less to an under-standing of “objective differences” than to anattempt to derive general conclusions andlook for common constants. Perhaps it washere that an opinion to be found repeatedly inHába’s later writings first took shape. The different kinds of music of distant cultureswere in his view just different variants and dif-ferent evolutionary stages of one and the samething. The different types of musical produc-tion share audible features that are hard toexplain in terms of pure cultural convergenceor the evolutionary kinship of different cultures. On the other hand, comparison led Hába tothe belief that the a priori categories of Euro-pean music relating to methods and tech-niques of musical structurings were not nec-essarily eternally valid. Theoretical and histori-cal relativisation of this kind undermines theclaims of the “grand musical tradition”. There was no reason why different types ofmusic, hitherto regarded as incommensu-rable, should not be subjected to the samekind of judgement. Hába declared that “After

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an exhaustive and feverish process of search-ing I gradually came to realise the abstractkinship between my own work and folk musicand old chorale; I recognised that my spiritu-al expression was united by close affinity withthe distinguishing sign of the human spirit thatmanifests itself in all nations.” 7

Hába’s apprenticeship years, which culmina-ted in Berlin, were something he could capi-talise on at home, where many of his expe-riences acquired the attractive hallmark ofcomplete novelty. In 1923, therefore, Hábareturned to Prague for good. He started toteach at the Prague Conservatory in the sameyear and in 1925 managed to persuade theschool authorities to allow him to open a classin quarter-tone and sixth-tone composition. In1934 he was made a regular professor there.Hába’s class attracted the pupils of othercomposers as well, who wanted to get toknow the latest methods of composition. In hisseminars Hába introduced his pupils to themethods of his own compositional work. Theprinciples by which such music could bebrought to real life were to be demonstratedwith the help of materials gathered in a newlyestablished phonograph archive. Hába’s classsoon developed an international reputation.Apart from Czechs and Slovaks it was atten-ded by Germans, Southern Slavs, Ukrainians,Bulgarians and Lithuanians. Hába traineda number of pupils who also tried to composein microtonal systems: his brother Karel Hába,Rudolf Kubín, Václav Dobiáš, Miroslav Ponc,Karel Reiner and Southern Slavs Osterc, Ris-tič, Iliev, and others. The first years following Hába’s return to Cze-choslovakia were by no means easy. Probablythe most serious difficulties were associatedwith the reception of his microtonal work.While in the Prague German Association forthe Private Performance of Music he foundimportant support and facilities, thanks towhich several of his quarter-tone piecesreached the Prague festivals of the Interna-tional Society for Contemporary Music(ISCM; 1924, 1925), the Czech section ofthis organisation showed no interest in hiswork. (the same syndrome was behind the factthat at the Prague ISCM festival in 1925Bohuslav Martinů was classified as a memberof the “foreign” French school). Quarter-toneand athematic music was felt to be a symptomof the stalemate in avant-garde art. Not evenHába’s introductory lecture before each con-cert could change this opinion. The untrainedlistener heard such music primarily as chaosand “rough, naturalised expression”. In theeyes of critics Hába’s “liberated music” waspart of the destruction of the organic unity ofthe work, and the author’s theoretical ideaswere often considered symptomatic of a crisisof values and essential negation of traditionalculture. Furthermore, for an important groupof Czech critics Hába’s music failed to fit wellinto their concept of the evolution of Czechmusic, because it sounded calculated and“un-Czech”. The feeling that Hába did not suitthe native scene was aggravated by his sup-posed and real ties to German music, and

implicitly to the compositional techniques ofthe Schönberg School. Many of the polemicsexploited a tried and tested smear technique,consigning the condemned to the categoriesof alien, speculative, inappropriate or emptilyartistic as against idealist art, against musicthat respected the native and authentic(unutilised) tradition. The prospects for the performance of the com-positions of Hába’s and his pupils were trans-formed in 1927. In this period Hába, togetherwith the music critic Mirko Očadlík(1904–1964), took up leading positions inthe Spolek pro moderní hudbu [ModernMusic Club]. One crucial factor here was theaffiliation of the Club to the ISCM, in whichHába could now exercise a major influence.The Club’s publicity organ was the magazineKlíč [Key], in which it he published critical arti-cles on modern music. In 1935 he transferredhis activities to the Association for Contem-porary Music Přítomnost [Present], and waselected its chairman. He also published in themagazine Rytmus and helped to create its pro-file. He took an important part in the organisa-tion of the ISCM international festival inPrague in 1935, when he sat on the interna-tional jury, as he was later to do in 1932, 1938,1958 and 1961. (In 1957 Hába was made anhonorary member of the ISCM for his services,an honour previously granted to his teacher V.Novák.) Hába’s name appeared on the inter-national scene in other connections as well.Together with his assistant, the composer andpianist Karel Reiner (1910–1979) in 1932 heaccepted an invitation to the InternationalCongress of Arab Music in Cairo to give lec-tures and demonstrations of quarter-tonemusic. (Others who attended this conferenceincluded Béla Bartók, Paul Hindemith and theethnomusicologist Erich von Hornbostel).Hába also took an active role in musical edu-cation. He realised that it was not enough justto train a new generation of composers whenan adequately educated public is just asessential to musical life. In any case Hábabelieved that music cultivates the humanbeing and that – in line with Steiner’s anthro-posophy – it helps man achieve the true spiri-tual experience of humanity. He was also con-vinced that music’s educational effect will pro-tect music itself from degradation into “mereentertainment” or “technical game”. Educationfor music and by music was the theme ofa number of Hába’s lectures. Together withLeo Kestenberg (1882–1962) Hába helpedto found the Society for Music Education(Prague 1934) and later to plan the 1st Inter-national Music Education Congress (Prague1936). (The Society for Music Education wasthe precursor of the International Society forMusic Education, which was formed in 1953.)

Neue HarmonielehreHába’s own theoretical texts have very muchconditioned the way in which his music hasbeen understood. The most important of thesetexts came out as early as the 1920s: Har-monické základy čtvrttónové soustavy [The

Harmonic Principles of the Quarter-tone Sys-tem] (1923), O psychologii tvoření, pohybovézákonitosti tónové a základech novéhohudebního slohu [On the Psychology ofCreation, the Laws of Tonal movement andon the Principles of the New Musical Style](1925) and Neue Harmonielehre des dia-tonischen, chromatischen, Viertel-, Drittel-,Sechstel- und Zwölfteltonsystems (1927).These works were largely directed to offeringexplanations and justifications. They havebeen treated as a supposed interpretative keyto Hába’s music, as texts that could help tosettle disputes on its direction. In many cases,however, interpretation of these texts has notproved helpful in this respect. Most of theopponents of Hába’s microtonal music havefocused their critics on the mechanical divi-sion of the tempered system into smaller inter-vals. Hába himself actually conceded the pos-sibility that division into third-tones or sixth-tones was more suitable from the point of viewof natural voice capacity, and admitted thatmicrotone intervals were not natural distancesbut a mere stylisation of the natural system.On the oher hand he forcefully defended theright of the composer to choose his own lan-guage of expression. At a time when discus-sion of Hába’s work was conducted in the cat-egories natural – artificial (system), VladimírHelfert defended the view that it would be bet-ter to debate Hába’s music in terms of the con-cept of artistic reaction versus progressivemusic. In the latter context “liberated music”emerges an expression of a specific kind ofmusical thought: “I confess that as yet I havenot been convinced that quarter-tone musichas a future. But one of Hába’s arguments isof fundamental weight, and that is his creativeact – his music. We do not have the right, andin fact we have no way of doing so, to doubtthe authenticity of his quarter-tone musicalimagination. The courage with which Hábaand his pupils fight for this new form of imag-ination deserves respect. They are fighting forsomething that today is extremely unpopularas well as technically difficult. They placethemselves in an exposed position for some-thing from which they can expect no materialsuccess. Hába’s musical gifts are such thathe would have not the slightest trouble pro-ducing music in some more popular, ingratiat-ing style. But he doesn’t do it. Hába pursueshis own creative vision with a courage andpugnacity that recalls the creative discoverer.And it is in this that the power of his argumentconsists, at least for anyone who looks at thething calmly and without prejudices.” 8

The most famous of Hába’s theoretical worksis probably the Neue Harmonielehre des dia-tonischen, chromatischen, Viertel-, Drittel-,Sechstel- und Zwölfteltonsystems. (ArnoldSchönberg praised it when in a letter to HugoLeichtentritt of 1938 he recommended it asan important German language treatment ofnew music). The book was written as early as1925. The author himself translated the origi-nally Czech text into German and after revi-sions by Erich Steinhardt, the book was pub-lished in 1927 by the Leipzig publishing houseKistner & Siegel. In the 1960s, still under the

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composer’s own supervision, the book wastranslated back into Czech by Eduard Herzog,but the Czech version was not to be publisheduntil 2000 under the title Nová nauka o har-monii diatonické, chromatické, třetinotónové,šestinotónové a dvanáctinotónové soustavy[A New Theory of the Harmony of the Diaton-ic, Chromatic, Third-tone, Sixth-tone andTwelfth-Tone System]. On the 251 pages ofthe original edition the author gives an accountof the melodic and harmonic foundationsof the diatonic and chromatic system(pp. 1–134), the quarter-tone system(pp. 135–198) and finally the remaining mi-crotonal systems (pp. 199–251). In severalplaces Hába refers to the Ancient Greek musi-cal tradition, to Zarlino and Rameau, and final-ly describes himself as the heir to the worldCzech musical tradition (Skuherský, Stecker,Novák, Janáček). The value of the textbook increases when con-sidered in historical context, and above all bysuggesting a relationship to the work of ArnoldSchönberg. Much of what Schönberg hadalready formulated (mainly in the Har-monielehre, 1911), appears in Hába in modi-fied form. Hába contests many of Schön-berg’s ideas but at the same time appeals tothem. As early as 1927 (resp. 1925) Hába wasalso reacting to Schönberg’s twelve-tonemusic. Despite his sympathy for the new theo-ries, and despite his constant stress on thevalue of Schönberg’s music, Hába tries toachieve a distinctive individual concept of hisown and his own interpretation of Schön-berg’s musical thought. One notable piece ofevidence of this relationship is a copy ofHába’s Neue Harmonielehre, annotated bySchönberg, to be found in the Arnold Schön-berg Center in Vienna. We might ask whetherHába‘s textbook might usefully be defined asan attempt at a theory of Schönberg’s music.The answer must be a definite no, but his bookis a valuable map of Hába’s view of the greatcomposer and the annotated copy a fascinat-ing document of Schönberg’s correctiveresponses to Hába’s view. Schönberg is thecomposer most frequently referred to in thebook, and Schönberg’s annotations relateexclusively to comments on himself. Hába’sefforts to define his own different identity andat the same time find a common language withSchönberg are very evident in his evaluationof dissonances (and likewise harmonic disso-nances), and in his emphasis on the excep-tional importance of the scale or row. The sec-ond part of the book, which is devoted tomicrotonal systems, Schönberg left withouta commentary. (In any case he had alreadyexpressed his attitude to quarter-tones in hisown Harmonielehre.) Hába first of all develops the basic premise ofthe traditional Stufentheorie, in which chordsconstitute key and are based on the respec-tive scale. Examining these principles herestates some of the conclusions of Rie-mann’s Funktionstheorie – according to whichthe notes of the scale become the material forthe construction of the chords that representthe three main functions (T, S, D). The premiseis then stretched to extremes with the claim

that the abolition of these “controlling func-tions” will grant the necessary freedom to thewhole system. A single chord built of six thirdsis presented as the image of freed relations inthe order. This radical option is exploited tothe full: when Hába sets out the possibilitiesfor the maximum construct exploitation of thedifferent tone systems, he speaks of seven-tone chord in diatonics, twelve-tone chord inchromatics, twenty-four tone chord in thequarter-tone system and so on. Hába does notgo on in his Harmonielehre to describe chordprogressions or rules of treating the voices,because in this respect almost everything ispermitted – instead he explores the possibili-ties for building chords.The rules given for the “free construction” ofchords, however much they might seem to bethe result of creative individuality, are notdetermined just by free decision and are notan independent act of the human psyche, butrespond to the historical state of technical andaesthetic norms in. The idea of the inter-changeability of the horizontal and the verticalmakes it possible to bring interval progres-sions usual for melody into the chord. Thuschords are convertible into a row and vice ver-sa: the notes of the row can be sounded simul-taneously. And just as there are no rules forthe creation of melody, there is no need to for-mulate any recipe for the construction ofchords. According to Hába the sound quali-ties of the new music are unequivocally basedon the introduction of sharp dissonances. Theauthor’s specific recommendation thenrelates to “unusual sounding triads” contain-ing a minor second. Despite this freedom ofthought many of the examples given in the text-book remain mere construct possibilities,which are not of course excluded, but forwhich the composer found no broader practi-cal application. The chords built of secondsmight be regarded as a proposal for their actu-al use and nowhere in the textbook is thereany prohibition on employing them, but theycan also be considered an abstract model thatdemonstrates the material possibilities of thesystem (diatonic, chromatic and microtonal).While Hába concedes the possibility of maxi-mum density of the chord, he at the same timeappeals for sobriety. The possibility of free octave transpositionsallows the inclusion of a number of secondsinto a chord and the construction of new chorddissonances. It might seem that Hába was try-ing to take to extremes Rameau’s idea of chordinversions, which entailed the notion that allsubsequent forms of the triad are merely vari-ants of the one same chord and have the sameroot (centre harmonique). This is not the case,however, and here we find the apparent con-tradiction of the Neue Harmonielehre. Hábasees each of the chords as an independentand unique form. Adding any other tone to thechord means its transformation in terms ofstructure and significance: the transpositionof one tone changes the character of thechord. Hába likewise avoids octave doublingsbecause every such “strengthening” gives therelevant tone or chord an importance thatdoes not correspond to its real position in the

structure of the musical phrase. (In Hába’s lat-er expositions harmonic doubling acquires themetaphorical meaning of “halting” or “fini-tude”.)Lengthy passages of the Neue Harmonielehredeal with the importance of newly constructedtone rows. When Hába talks about them(series of five, six or eleven tones), he in thesame breath explains his own concept oftonality and his rejection of potential “atonali-ty”: every piece is tonal, because its soundmaterial is part of a series under all circum-stances. Perhaps just on account of thisinescapable aspect scales and rows becomea major theme of Hába’s textbook. In theframework of twelve-tone chromatics (andwith an eye to the principle of symmetry), Hábacreates 581 different scales, differing in thenumber of tones and interval structure (thenumber of these series is not supposed to befinite). Instead of describing different harmon-ic situations the author draws attention tounusual possibilities for creating scales, totheir new features and the uncommon charmof the melodies that result. (If we are curiousabout the inspirations behind Hába’sapproach here, we shall find an answer ina number of tucked away places. For examplethe author refers to the modal peculiarities offolk music, which are recognised and exploit-ed by several domestic composers. The theo-retical work of Ferrucio Busoni may also beanother source of Hába’s interest.) Hába also points out the possibility of replac-ing the traditional hierarchic relationship byother rules in chromatic (microtonal) music. InHába’s case the notion of Tonzentralität is theway he solves the question of the notional rela-tional centre. Its use may be considered thekey principle in Hába’s work as a composer,because it is this that gives his music its spe-cific order. Here Hába has come up with hisown approach to the organisation of twelve-tone material, one conceived on the principleof the relatedness of tones and chords to onetone centre. What we are speaking of here isa kind of texture in which the centre is con-veyed by other than harmonic means. In thiscase the tone has the functional significanceof central chord (tonic) and this role isexpressed by relationship to surroundingchords and tones. Translated into the lan-guage of Hába’s theory this means that anychord can be based on any tone of the chro-matic scale and this tone becomes the centrefor the relevant chords; or also, that all theremaining tones of the row may be related toevery tone considered a centre. In later textsHába enlarges this possibility. It is not just indi-vidual tones that can be tone centres, but alsotone clusters, which “harness” the main toneto a minor second. Tonzentralität as a way oflooking at musical structure is in a certainsense an auxiliary approach supposed toshow the internal connections between dis-tant harmonies. The introduction of this princi-ple is designed to allow more complex har-monic phenomena to be analysed in a lucidway. Tonzentralität simplifies a rather compli-cated argument concerning alterations orsome passing-note harmonies.

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We can regard Hába’s Neue Harmonielehreas an attempt to explore and encapsulate thedevelopmental trends of music in the firstquarter of the 20th century together with anattempt to express his individual style, his ownconcept of Musik der Freiheit, which can onlywith great difficulty be translated into a gener-al rule governing the chord construction andchord progressions. Musik der Freiheit is nothowever something accidental, and certainlynot something negative. This kind of musictoo, as the author tries to demonstrate in hiswritings, should be a matter of form and order. In its basic principles Hába’s Neue Har-monielehre faithfully reflects trends in music inthe Twenties, a period of important transfor-mations of style, and so it is no accident that inhis textbook Hába redefines or abandonsestablished terms in harmony theory, as wellas he tries to find new possibilities for creatingchords that correspond better to the needs ofthe new music. Why are individual chords andmore extensive harmonic passages notformed as freely as melody – according toHába through free development of fantasy –or why does the theory of harmony bound byquantities of fixed rules fail to meet the trendsof contemporary music? Hába asks thesequestions at a time when the search for “new”principles of melody and harmony was becom-ing more intense. In this case, however, thepath that he takes and the way that he arguesas he pursues his goals is perhaps moreimportant than the finished results.

The Opera Matka (Mother)Hába sought to embody his notion of a new“liberated music” in a genre with a sufficientlyhigh profile to publicise an emergent style;opera would be a demonstration of the viabili-ty of quarter-tone and athematic music. In theperiod 1927–29 he composed the quarter-tone opera Mother on his own libretto. Thework was first performed in German on the17th of May 1931 in Munich with HermannScherchen conducting. (The opera was notpresented in Czech until 1947 and then 1964in Prague). Hába composed this opera after several earli-er opera sketches. Mother is a realistic work,with “realist” understood in the widest sense.The story is set in the composer’s native Wal-lachia. The text of the libretto is written in Mora-vian dialect. The local colour is then enhancedby a number of folk scenes (funeral weeping,a lullaby, wedding song). Despite this, as isthe case with other important operas in thesame vein (for example Janáček’s Jenůfe or inBurian’s Maryša) Hába is not composinga “folklore opera”. Although the work has clearreferences to folk setting, this is supposed toenhance the raw reality of the work. The plot ofthe opera is simple. After the death of his firstwife the peasant Křen finds a new bride. Thisis Maruša, a girl from the neighbouring village,who just like the peasant’s first wife has to takeon a great deal of work in the cottage and carefor her step-children and own children. For thecomposer, Maruša Křenová seems to repre-

sent his spiritual and sensual ideal of the ruralwoman and mother. While the practical andenergetic farmer brings up all his children towork in the fields and the household, the moth-er takes care of their emotional and spiritualdevelopment. She wins for the most talenteda right to higher education, while her youngestson, the future farmer, stays at home to sup-port her. The twenty-three years that the operacovers are divided into ten scenes – scenes ofordinary everyday life. They are stripped of allthe contrasts, stylisations and paradoxes usu-ally employed to create dramatic tension andmovement towards a denouement. Hába’sstyle of opera might be compared toreportage. Instead of stylised focus, Hábaenlarges the sphere of his work to cover theentire field of life, thus cancelling the differ-ence between “ceremonial/festival art” andthe “art of the everyday”. The lack of theatrical-ity is sometimes interpreted as deliberate andinnovative, but in many respects the work per-haps aims wide of experiment. Moreover whilethe use of the quarter-tone system on the onehand secures the opera Matka a special placein world opera repertoire, on the other its spe-cific requirements make it a piece for whichfew companies would have the resources. Two further stage works show that Hába wasthorough and consistent in his aims here. Inneither is the epic pathos of building a newworld stylised, but in both it is to be discov-ered in daily reality. Hába devotes himself toprogressive social issues in his (semitone)opera Nová země [New Land] (1935–1936;libretto written by Ferdinand Pujman based onthe book by Soviet author Feodor Gladkov).After the premiere of the opera overture, inwhich there was a quotation from the Interna-tionale, preparations for the staging of theopera in the Prague National Opera were halt-ed. The official reason given was the threat ofworkers‘ demonstrations. The struggle fora better future, linked with the coming of Christin the framework of the anthroposophicalideas of Rudolf Steiner, is an idea presentedand developed in the author’s last opera,composed in sixth-tone system, Přijďkrálovství Tvé. Nezaměstnaní [Thy KingdomCome. The Unemployed] (1937–1942). Thiswork was likewise never staged.The lack of positive response to Hába’s stageworks was not accidental. What it was aboutthe composer’s approach that was behindthese failures? First of all Hába’s stage worksdo not observe the conventions usual for thegenre. Although Hába’s Musik der Freiheitwould be hard to imagine without the stronginspirational influence of the theoretical workof Ferruccio Busoni, Hába seems to have tak-en no notice at all of his views on opera.Busoni saw opera as a stage genre in whichplay was the central issue. It was an idea laterto be brought to life by Igor Stravinsky in His-toire du soldat and by Bohuslav Martinů in sev-eral of his works. It seems to have bypassedAlois Hába. Although the expression Musikder Freiheit might suggest a notion of the for-tuitous and the playful, this is not entirely thereality. Hába’s understanding of opera wasclearly quite different from Busoni’s. The world

of Busoni’s operas in contrast to Hába’s operaaesthetics is modified, stylised to the point ofunlikelihood, which is why it retains harmony,order, balance, organic coherence. Hába onthe other hand abandons the ground of “oper-atic fiction” and lets himself be carried awayby the idea of return to authentic representa-tion of lived reality. Ideas that in their time musthave sounded provocative (and are still just asprovocative today), express a faith in reality, inrevolutionary social change, which necessari-ly leaves its mark on art. While this is an over-simplification, we are clearly dealing here withnotions taken from interwar proletarian art,heavily spiced with the anthroposophy ofRudolf Steiner. Hába formulated his own phi-losophy of opera in the article Zvukový filma opera [Sound Film and Opera]: “What sortof life content should modern opera express?The different elements of the internal and pub-lic struggle of mankind today for a new styleof life on earth. Fairytale and historical sub-jects must give place to new themes. There isa need to see and depict the moving forces ofsocial struggle, which is the greatest dramainvolving many personal tragedies and come-dies. There is a need dauntlessly to announcewith artistic deeds as well as others thatChrist has risen from the dead in the will ofthe world proletariat. There is a need to read“the signs of the times” and draw the rightsocial and artistic conclusions.” 9

In the course of the 1920s and 30s Hábaearned a reputation for himself in broader cul-tural consciousness as an original composer,teacher and tireless organiser. This creativegrowth was interrupted by the fascist occupa-tion, when together with many other avant-gardists he was classified and banned as anexponent of “entartete Kunst” [“DegenerateArt”]. After the 2nd World War he was appoint-ed head of the Great Opera of the 5th of May(1945–1948) and also became professor ofcomposition at the Academy of PerformingArts in Prague (1946–1949). Towards theend of the 1940s, however, a spontaneousreaction against the First Republic and to therecent war created a new social situation. Fol-lowing the communist coup of 1948 Hábawas exposed to the attacks of the ideologicalspokesmen of Socialist Realism and in 1951his composition class was dissolved. Thepost-war social elite, which decided on thecharacter of production, no longer had anyinterest in work that was full of elemental rev-olutionary unrest, apparently incomprehensi-ble, resistant to rules and guidelines. Hába’srefusal of an offer to join the Communist partycontributed to his exclusion from social andcultural life. His own concept of socialismderived from Steiner’s anthroposophy hadnothing in common with the Soviet vision of(real) socialism. Anthroposophy, a doctrinethat found many supporters and passionateopponents throughout the century, was ofenormous importance for Hába, providing himwith spiritual and moral support in times of cri-sis. He followed its principles in his readiness

8 | profiles | czech music 3 | 2005

to interact with people of all religions and con-victions, and anthroposophy also providedinspirations for his musical theory and prac-tice. (Hába had been introduced to anthro-posophy by Felix Petyrek, who in 1926 tookhim to the Goethena, the headquarters of theAnthroposophical Society in Dornach inSwitzerland. From 1927 Hába was an activemember. He lectured regularly at the DornachFree University for Spiritual Science, and se-veral of his works were premiered in theGoethenau.)

In the years 1949 - 1953 Hába’s works werenot played or published, but he himself contin-ued to compose, writing both semitone andquarter-tone music. He was rehabilitated in1953, and thereafter worked only as a com-poser. The last twenty years of Hába’s life werean extraordinarily fruitful peiod. Many musi-cians were ready to perform his earlier andnew works, above all the Hába Quartet underits leader Dušan Pandula. Hába’s pieces wereabundantly published and the composer invit-ed to lecture and to attend the performance ofhis works abroad. His name appeared againat the ISCM international festival in Prague in1967. He used his influence and contacts tohelp young composers who often identifiedwith his legacy, although they took a cautiousattitude to some of his aesthetic conclusions.In the final phase of his career Hába com-posed as many as 40 new works. These weremainly chamber pieces, and when he wrotelarger-scale works, concertos. Hába contin-ued to write in various different tone systems,whether traditional (e.g. the String Quartet no.7 “Christmas”, op. 73; 1951), quarter-tone(String Quartet no. 14, op. 94; 1963), fifth-tone (String Quartet no. 16, op. 98; 1967) orsixth-tone (String Quartet no. 11, op. 87;1957). Even at this late stage Hába never gaveup an experimental and open-mindedapproach, and he repeatedly tried to get torespond to revived impulses of twelve-tonemusic and Webernian serialism.

After surveying his career, we may tentativelysuggest some conclusions about Hába’splace in the context of Czech and Central-European music. First and foremost it is clearthat he was a composer who became involvedin the Central European musical avant-gardevery much “from the outside”, from a Moravianregion with a predominantly folk tradition. Thestrong individuality and originality that hebegan to show during his stay in Viennabecame a respected reality in Berlin. In termsof the expressive canon of 19th-century musicthe position of “other, outsider” had been neg-ative, a pure liability, a status overlapping withthat of “dilettante“ in the sense of exclusionfrom professional advancement. Now the situ-ation had turned around – at least in Berlin ifless in Vienna – and the position could be oneof special privilege. (Vienna is generallyregarded as a place with great respect for tra-dition and conservative views). To be different

was now to have an exceptional status. Sud-denly the attribute of otherness became anundeniable advantage. In a sense the changereflected the new democratic era, since it wasa status that could be claimed by anyone,regardless of social background. Novelty anddifference were transformed into attributesthat could bring participants in the common“project of the new“ closer together while atthe same time representing another scale bywhich they could define their distinct identitiesand differentiate themselves. Hába was sensi-tive to the various individual developmentaltrends but did not identify himself wholly withany one of them. Despite his sympathy andaffinity for the new theories, and his repeatedstress on the value of the influence of Novák,Busoni and Schönberg, Hába sought to cre-ate a style all his own. For Hába art is undoubt-edly a field of creative freedom, where a workis born as the result of the active activity ofa unique, irreducible individual. Nonetheless,Hába shared with the rest of the Central Euro-pean avant-garde the striving for explicit defin-ition of the principle of redundancy. It is clear-ly a striving to render musical language moreprecise, to rid it of the last trace of the decora-tive and the rhetorical. Hába’s project was alsocharacterised by a distinctively sharp struggleagainst traditional ways of treating materialthat forced the composer to surrender his ownindividuality. Another feature of Hába’s type asa composer was that fact that he shared onlymarginally in the future development of Euro-pean new music; from the point of view of the“culture of the centre” as a historical ratherthan just geographical concept he ultimatelyremained at the periphery. The character of hiswork excludes him from the community of“established composers” and makes him onceagain an “outsider”. There are a number of different reasons whythis should be so. Hába’s “liberated music“ isknown only through a few theoretical worksthat came out mainly in German, a few record-ings and relatively inaccessible scores. Thishas naturally limited an understanding of thewhole Hába phenomenon. Usually Hába ischaracterised as a tireless propagator ofmicrotonal and athematic music. These mereassertions, however, do not of themselveshave any precise content and in fact prob-lematise any proper conception of Hába’smusic; for example, pieces composed withmicrotones in fact represent less than a thirdof Hába’s output as a composer. Of course, itremains an open question whether the changein the conditions for the reception of Hába’smusic will make for major change in the wayhe is viewed. While in the 1920s Hába in hisworks took significant steps beyond the canonof traditional music by using unconventionalsound material, in the period after the SecondWorld War the leaders of the modern move-ment of the time rejected him for alleged tradi-tionalism (and in some cases for technicalinadequacy). Here the criterion of musical val-ue was above all the developmental novelty(innovativeness) of Hába’s music between thewars, perfectly corresponding to the “spirit ofthe time”. His retreat from his well-known posi-

tions was then interpreted as inability toexpress that “spirit of the time” in an appropri-ate way. Hába therefore came to occupy onlya marginal position among the “classics” ofmodern music who made major contributionsto the “artistic values” of European music andhelped to create the main stylistic trends. Therationale of assertions of this kind is based onthe historical conception of the rise of themodern. If we focus our attention on importantmoments of development (athematism, micro-tonality), we necessarily push everything elseabout this music into the background. Suchmusic becomes a mere signpost to futuredevelopment. Thus just like technical discov-eries Hába’s music necessarily becomesobsolete for future generations. Not even theideas of “liberated music” could escape thisprocess of ageing and Hába’s name wasreduced to a mere encyclopaedia heading,becoming a synonym for microtonal and athe-matic music.

1 Alois Hába, Můj lidský a umělecký vývoj, in:

Sborník k životu a dílu skladatele (ed. J. Vyslou-

žil). Vizovice 1993, p. 50.

2 Alois Hába, Neue Harmonielehre des diatonis-

chen, chromatischen, Viertel-, Drittel-, Sechstel-

und Zwölfteltonsystems. Leipzig 1927 p.135.

3 Alois Hába, Můj lidský a umělecký vývoj, p. 51.

4 Ernst Krenek, Im Atem der Zeit. Erinnerungen

an die Moderne, München 1999, p. 157.

5 Alois Hába, Můj lidský a umělecký vývoj, pp.

52–53.6 Alois Hába, O psychologii tvoření, pohybové

zákonitosti tónové a základech nového hudeb-

ního slohu, Praha 1925, p. 36.

7 Hába, O psychologii tvoření, pohybové

zákonitosti tónové a základech nového hudeb-

ního slohu. Praha 1925, p. 38.

8 Vladimír Helfert, Hábova Nová nauka o har-

monii (Na okraj Hábovy nauky o harmonii), in:

Hudební rozhledy, III–1927, p. 148.9 Alois Hába, Zvukový film a opera, in: Klíč,

II–1931/32, p. 60.

LUBOMÍR SPURNÝ