REVOLUTIONIZING CZECHNESS: SMETANA AND PROPAGANDA IN THE UMĚLECKÁ BESEDA
by KELLY ST. PIERRE
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor in Philosophy
Dissertation Adviser: Francesca Brittan
Department of Music CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY
May, 2012
CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF GRADUATE STUDIES
We hereby approve the thesis/dissertation of Kelly St. Pierre candidate for the
Doctor of Philosophy
degree *.
Dr. Francesca Brittan (signed)_______________________________________________ (chair of the committee) Dr. Daniel Goldmark ________________________________________________ Dr. Mary Davis ________________________________________________ Dr. Martha Woodmansee ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________
(date) 3/8/2012 __________
*We also certify that written approval has been obtained for any proprietary material contained therein.
CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES .............................................................................................................2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................................................3 ABSTRACT .........................................................................................................................5 INTRODUCTION ...............................................................................................................7 Chapter 1. BUILDING A CZECH NATION: SMETANA ADVOCATES AND THE REBIRTH ......................................................................................18 2. A CZECH SYMPHONIC POEM: THE UMĚLECKÁ BESEDA, THE NEW GERMAN SCHOOL, AND SMETANA’S MÁ VLAST...............53 3. A CZECH MUSIC DRAMA: SMETANA, WAGNER, AND THE UB’S PROPAGANDA WAR .................................................................91 4. ANALYZING CZECHNESS: VLAST, LIBUŠE, AND THEIR MYTHS IN SCHOLARSHIP ........................................................................146 5. CONCLUSION ..............................................................................................177 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................184
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LIST OF FIGURES Figure
Page
1. Bedřich Smetana’s “Vyšehrad” theme and Zdeněk Fibich’s “Záboj” theme ..............53 2. Zdeněk Fibich, Zàboj, Slavoj, and Luděk, mm. 1-4.....................................................80 3. Zdeněk Fibich, Zàboj, Slavoj, and Luděk, mm. 61-66.................................................80 4. Bedřich Smetana, “Vyšehrad,” mm. 191-209 ..............................................................82 5. Bedřich Smetana, “Vyšehrad,” mm. 76-84 ..................................................................83 6. Vladimír Helfert’s Summary of Themes 1 and 2 in Bedřich Smetana’s “Vyšehrad” .......................................................................................................................159 7. Theme 1 in Bedřich Smetana’s “Vyšehrad” Juxtaposed with Vladimír Helfert’s Summaries of Theme 1 in Smetana’s Libuše.............................................................160 8. Vladimír Helfert’s Summaries of Theme 2 in Bedřich Smetana’s “Vyšehrad” and Libuše ..................................................................................................................162 9. Vladimír Helfert’s Derivation of Motive A from Theme 2 of Bedřich Smetana’s “Vyšehrad” and Its Extension ....................................................................................163 10. Vladimír Helfert’s Summaries of Motive A in Bedřich Smetana’s Libuše ...............164 11. Vladimír Helfert’s Motive A Juxtaposed with Statements of the Motive in Bedřich Smetana’s “Vltava” ......................................................................................165 12. Vladimír Helfert’s Summaries of Motive A in Bedřich Smetana’s Libuše Juxtaposed with Appearances of the motive in His “Vltava” ....................................166 13. Motive A in Bedřich Smetana’s “Vyšehrad” Juxtaposed with Richard Wagner’s “Rhine” Leitmotive from His Prologue to Götterdämmerung ..................................167 14. Motive A in the Melody of “Vltava” Juxtaposed with Richard Wagner’s “Erda” Leitmotive from His Prologue to Götterdämmerung.................................................168 15. Václav Novotný’s Summary of “Libuše’s Prayer” ....................................................170
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to extend my warm thanks to a number of individuals who were indispensable in producing this dissertation. Foremost among them is Professor Francesca Britten who gave generously of her knowledge, expertise, and insight throughout the various stages of this project. Francesca’s scholarly model is an inspiration, and I remain grateful for her guidance and support. I also owe a great debt to Professors Daniel Golmark and Mary Davis who provided valuable assistance and discussion from the earliest versions of this thesis. Daniel’s dedication and encouragement were instrumental to the completion of this project, and Mary’s thoughtful comments and suggestions contributed substantially to its final form. Additionally, Professors Martha Woodmansee and Derek Katz both gave generously of their time and counseling at different points throughout this research. I benefited greatly from Martha’s critical direction and Derek’s eye-opening feedback. I am also grateful to Professors Brian Locke and Michael Beckerman for facilitating introductions with several librarians and archivists in Prague. Among them, Kateřina Maýrová, Olga Mojžíšová, and Markéta Kabelková were exceptionally helpful in organizing this research. The warmth and hospitality of Šárka Handlová, and Zuzana Petrášková warrant special thanks here. Additionally, the American Council of Learned Societies and the Case Western Reserve University College of Arts and Sciences Dissertation Seminar made research for this dissertation possible. I am deeply indebted to numerous friends and family members for their assistance and encouragement, especially Dr. Dagmar Leary whose countless hours of patient instruction helped grant me the language skills necessary to complete this project. Dr. Jan
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Daněk’s tutoring and conversation similarly expanded my understandings of the Czech language and nation. My gratitude for the intellectual and personal support all of my colleagues at Case Western, particularly of Devin Burke, Erin Smith, Matt Smith, and members of the dissertation seminar, cannot be understated. Additionally, I owe a special debt of gratitude to those who believed in me even at times when it was difficult to believe in myself: Sarah Tomasewski, Patty McSpadden, Tom and Tammy St. Pierre, Earl Brinker, and, chiefly among them, Mike St. Pierre. Mike, this dissertation is dedicated to you.
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Revolutionizing Czechness: Smetana and Propaganda in the Umělecká Beseda
Abstract by
KELLY ST. PIERRE
This dissertation focuses on Czech national hero Bedřich Smetana whose life and works have long been associated with Czech nation-building and notions of idealistically Czech sounds. The purpose of my project is to examine how Smetana came to occupy this position: Who was responsible for this construction? Who gained from it? And what role did Smetana himself play? Answering these questions requires the examination of not just the composer, but the powerful organization he helped found in 1863 called the Umělecká beseda (“Artistic Society,” or UB). The UB was at the center of Czech artistic and political life during the nineteenth century and still exists today. Its members used the organization’s influence throughout its history to publish writings on Smetana that have profoundly shaped modern understandings of the composer. Beginning in the 1870s, UB members produced carefully curated collections of materials related to Smetana (criticism, editions of the composer’s letters and diaries, and even scores), which they harnessed as tools in a series of political campaigns. During the twentieth century, UB critics selectively published Smetana studies to suit the ideologies of the Communist administration. Today, UB scholarship and the political circumstances surrounding its
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production make understandings of the composer inseparable from political advocacy. Here, I use UB publications along with those of the organization’s critics to reveal Smetana as a figure whose biography has been appropriated for deliberately political ends since the organization’s founding. Doing so opens a window onto the wider complexities of Eastern European nationhood and reveals how music, scholarship, and Smetana have shaped political ideologies through the twentieth century.
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INTRODUCTION Bedřich Smetana recorded in his diary that he began work on “Vyšehrad,” the first symphonic poem of his cycle Má vlast (My Homeland), in September of 1874. Scholars, however, have challenged the composer’s chronology for over a century. Václav Zelený argued in his 1894 memoir that Smetana actually first conceived of “Vyšehrad’s” main motive—“a persistent four-note germ cell”—on October 20, 1874.1 Vladimír Helfert combined sketch studies and reports from contemporary newspapers to argue that Smetana began work on the movement in November, 1872.2 Mirko Očadlík echoed (without directly acknowledging) Helfert’s study, also claiming that Smetana began “Vyšehrad” in 1872.3 Most recently, Brian Large presented his own sketch study of “Vyšehrad” that further supported Smetana’s start in 1872.4 These authors’ investment in correcting Smetana’s composition dates for “Vyšehrad” reflects more than a desire to accurately render history. Their newlyproposed timings each coincide with idealized moments in Smetana’s biography that reinforce his myth as the lone creator of a specifically Czech music.5 Zelený’s dates
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Václav Zelený, O Bedřichu Smetanovi [On Bedřich Smetana] (v Praze: F. Šimáček, 1894), trans. Brian Large, Smetana (New York: Praeger, 1970), 264. 2 Specifically, Helfert cited a report in Hudební listy (November 7, 1872) to support his claim. Vladimír Helfert, Motiv Smetanova “Vyšehradu”: Studie o jeho genesi [The Motive of Smetana’s “Vyšehrad”: A Study of Its Genesis] (V Praze: Melantrich, 1917), 5. Since Helfert’s publication, November of 1872 has become one the more widely accepted start dates for Smetana’s “Vyšehrad.” Other prominent publications that cited Hudební listy’s report include Otakar Hostinský’s Bedřich Smetana a jeho boj o moderní českou hudbu [Bedřich Smetana and His Struggle for Modern Czech Music] (V Praze: Jan Laichter, 1901), 303; Mirko Očadlík’s Libuše: Vznik Smetanovy zpěvohry [Libuše: The Origin of Smetana’s Opera] (V Praze: Melatrich, 1939), 155; and Jaroslav Smolka’s Smetanova symfonická tvorba [Smetana’s Symphonic works] (Praha: Editio Supraphon, 1984), 126. 3 Očadlík, 182. 4 Large, 264-266. There is no direct mention of Helfert in Large’s analysis. 5 As Michael Beckerman has already pointed out in his “In Search of Czechness in Music,” 19th-Century Music 10 (1986): 61-73, notions of a “Czech” music and its affiliated noun, “Czechness,” are complicated. Both concepts will be further explored and nuanced over the course of this dissertation, especially in Chapter One. Additionally, the possibility that Smetana began composing the movement before recording it
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correspond to Smetana’s first recorded experience of definitive hearing loss. This chronology positions “Vyšehrad” as a manifestation of the most romantically tragic and Beethovian component of Smetana’s “genius”—his deafness.6 Helfert’s claim, by contrast, hinges on musical interrelationships within Smetana’s output. The author argues that Smetana incorporated themes from his fourth and most deliberately nationalistic work, the opera Libuše, into “Vyšehrad” (a comparison made easier if Smetana began “Vyšehrad” just after completing Libuše in 1872) and claims that Smetana must have intended both as “magnificent national apotheoses.”7 Očadlík also situates “Vyšehrad” as an extension of Libuše’s greatness, but only cites one newspaper report (of many conflicting possibilities) in order to argue that Smetana began the movement in 1872.8 Large also underscores connections between “Vyšehrad” and Libuše, but focuses in particular on distancing “Vyšehrad” from the possibility of an additional, less desirable connection. In particular, Large responds to comparisons between “Vyšehrad” and Zděnek Fibich’s nationalistic symphonic poem Záboj, Slavoj and Luděk (premiered before Smetana’s recorded start date) by arguing that the nuances of Smetana’s autograph manuscript “exonerated” the composer “from any suggestions of plagiarism.”9 In all of these instances, discussions of the “facts” concerning Smetana’s composition dates are in his diary means researchers will likely never arrive at a definitive start date. Marta Ottlová acknowledges this ambiguity in her summary of Smetana’s composition dates in Grove Music Online by listing “Vyšehrad” as “c1872-1874.” Marta Ottlová, et al, “Smetana, Bedřich,” Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online (2009), http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/52076. 6 Smetana’s diary entry for October 20, 1874—the day Zelený claims Smetana first conceived of the main motive for “Vyšehrad”—reads, “My ear trouble has become worse. Now I cannot hear anything with my left ear either.” “Moje nemoc ušní se zhoršila, já neslyším take na levé [ucho] nic.” See František Bartoš, Bedřich Smetana: Letters and Reminiscences, trans. Daphne Rusbridge (Prague: Artia, 1955),151. The original language appears in Bartoš, ed., Smetana ve vzpomínkách a dopisech [Smetana in Reminiscences and Letters] (V Praze: Topičova, 1941), 118. 7 Helfert, 34. The author’s claims and analyses should be approached critically, bearing in mind the political context in which they were written. See Chapter Four for an extensive discussion of Helfert’s study. 8 Očadlik, 182. 9 Large, 266.
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politically driven; they emphasize Smetana’s tragic deafness, Czechness, greatness, genius, and—in the case of Large—specifically aim to preserve the composer’s idealized autonomy. The disagreement among these authors surrounding Smetana’s composition dates raises important questions about the links between nationalism and historiography: if a desire to portray Smetana as an idealistically Czech composer has affected even basic understandings of his biography, what else has been influenced by this agenda? What information about the composer has been overlooked or even deliberately written out of history as a consequence of authors’ ideological aims? And how and why did the ideas we do have about the composer become so fixed that scholars as late as the 1970s were still tweaking century-old “facts”? This dissertation explores these questions by examining not only the composer, but the powerful organization he helped found in 1863 called the Umělecká beseda (“Artistic Society,” or UB)—an organization, which, in many senses, inaugurated the tradition of Smetana myth-creation that has continued into our own time. The UB was a center for Czech artistic and political life during the nineteenth century and still exists today. Its early members, including well-known figures in Czech music scholarship like Zdeněk Fibich, Otakar Hostinský, and Eliška Krásnohorská, used the organization’s influence to produce criticism on Smetana that has profoundly shaped modern understandings of the composer. Beginning in the 1870s, UB members produced carefully curated collections of Smetana-related materials, from criticism to personal correspondence to supposedly definitive scores, and used them as vehicles for political action. During the twentieth century, UB critics selectively published Smetana studies to
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suit the ideologies of the Communist administration. Today, UB scholarship and the political circumstances surrounding its production make understandings of Smetana inseparable from political advocacy. As I argue in this dissertation, Smetana studies— both Czech and non-Czech—continue to tell us as much about their authors’ political aims as they do about Smetana or his works. The consequence of these conditions for modern scholarship is among the key concerns of my project. Two principal objectives structure this dissertation’s larger discussion. The first is to provide an account of the UB’s membership and activities, particularly during the nineteenth century, in order to explore an important context for the dissertation. A group of UB members founded their own publishing house in 1871 called the “Matice hudební” (“Music Foundation,” or MH).10 Their early publications discussing Smetana and his works provide much of the source material on which this dissertation is centered. Providing an overview of UB members’ activities also fills two substantial voids in current scholarship. First, the UB’s music division itself has received little attention among researchers despite the organization’s prominent role in Czech artistic and political life through the twentieth century. Rudolf Matys, for example, describes the organization in great detail in his V umení volnost: kapitoly z dějin Umělecké besedy (In Artistic Freedom: Chapters from the History of the Umělecká Beseda, 2003), but only two chapters focus on the music department and even these portions of his work have relatively little to say about the nineteenth century. Zdeňka Pilková’s 1967 dissertation on the “Hudební odbor Umělecké besedy” (“The Music Department of the UB”) examines the division explicitly and thoroughly, but focuses primarily on its administrative
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The word “matice” in “Hudební matice” is related to the word for “mother” and was commonly used to name organizations whose aim was to cultivate or nurture a particular field.
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practices, so that its contributions to wider critical discourses remain largely unconsidered. Brian Locke provides the closest description of the organization in English in his Opera and Ideology in Prague (2006), though even this discussion spans only a few pages. Reviewing the activities of the UB, then, will help bring a rich artistic and political history into focus.11 A study of the UB and its activities also helps to expand our understanding of nationalism in musical discourse, particularly notions of “Czechness.” As Marta Ottlová and Milan Pospíšil point out in their Bedřich Smetana a jeho doba: vybrané studie (Bedřich Smetana and His Time: Selected Studies, 1997), past scholars have typically approached studies of Smetana from a strongly nationalist perspective, working to preserve Smetana’s status as a national hero.12 Michael Beckerman adds in his “In Search of Czechness in Music” that even this myth operates from the assumption that a distinctly “Czech” music does exist, which, itself, is highly problematic.13 Shifting focus from celebrations of Smetana as an autonomous hero to an examination of the composer as a participant within the collective social movement of the UB makes it possible to resituate his works within an “imagined community,” as theorized by Benedict Anderson.14 This framework is critical because it allows us to acknowledge the instability inherent in notions of Czechness and in the construction of nationalistic “voices” more broadly, as 11
Rudolf Matys, V umení volnost: kapitoly z dejín Umělecké besedy [In Artistic Freedom: Chapters from the History of the Umělecká Beseda] (Prague: Academia, 2003); Zdeňka Pilková, “Hudební odbor Umělecké besedy” [The Music Department of the Umělecká beseda] (PhD diss., Univerzita Karlova, 1967); and Brian S. Locke, Opera and Ideology in Prague (Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2006). 12 Marta Ottlová and Milan Pospíšil, Bedřich Smetana a jeho doba: vybrané studie [Bedřich Smetana and His Time: Selected Studies] (Prague: NLN, 1997). See especially their first chapter, “Uvažovaní nad situací v českém hudebním vědném bádání o 19. sotelí” [Considering the State of Czech Musicological Research Concerning the 19th Century], 8-29. 13 Michael Beckerman, “In Search of Czechness in Music,” 19th-Century Music 10/1 (1986): 61-73. 14 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 2006).
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well as the ways in which nationalism operated as a print phenomenon. The UB harnessed the resources of its publishing house to establish itself as a tastemaker for (and even a definer of) Czechness, and Anderson’s theorizations make it possible to resituate Smetana as a product of this organization’s continual fashionings and refashionings, rather than a lone creator. Additionally, calling on Pieter Judson’s theories of nationalism allows for an examination tailored even more specifically to the UB’s unique time, place, and influence. Judson reminds us that, though notions of “nation” may have been unstable for any “imagined community,” the process through which individual activist groups worked was deeply varied and indebted to local political discourses.15 This is especially important for considering the work of UB members, for whom understandings of “Czech” were mutable, based on local political conditions and controversies. Together, drawing on both Anderson and Judson allows us to acknowledge the cultural and political potency that Smetana and his music held for contemporary audiences, while also calling into question his status as a monolithic “voice” for the nation, complicating nationalistically-motivated, composer-centric renderings of Smetana and his works. If the first objective of this dissertation is to focus on the primary source material contained in UB members’ publications, the second is to resituate secondary literature on Smetana within a larger reception history shaped by the UB. As the producers of nearly all the available source material on Smetana (his reviews, collections of letters, and scores), UB members shaped foundational research on the composer as well as modern
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Pieter M. Judson and Marsha L. Rozenblit, eds., Constructing Nationalities in East Central Europe (New York: Berghahn Books, 2005, 4. Specifically, Judson explains, “activists shaped their strategies to make opportunistic use of every available local and political space in which they might make their arguments. Too often, social scientists have treated categories such as language use or ethnicity as broad, unchanging, ahistoric facts, without seeing that the very process of nationalization, combined with the opportunities offered by specific local political structures, actually created those ‘facts.’”
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scholarship. To study Smetana is to study the opinions, constructions, and concerns of UB members, and scholars’ research since their time has consequently been forced— sometimes knowingly and sometimes not—to engage with the discourses this group first generated around the composer during the nineteenth century. Even studies as groundbreaking as Beckerman’s “In Search of Czechness in Music” warrant resituating within this context. Placing Beckerman’s claims within a broader reception history helps us to expand beyond the (perhaps unanswerable) questions of “what is Czechness?” and “where can we find it?” to consider more fundamentally why researchers might be invested in these questions at all, illuminating the political stakes at play in current scholarship. As a means to facilitate such a discussion, this dissertation is divided into four chapters. The first situates the UB as a social and political organization within the Czech National Rebirth, which gathered momentum during the second half of the nineteenth century. This chapter is indebted in particular to Gary Cohen and Rita Kreuger, whose studies have laid the groundwork for my own approach to the cultural and class ambiguities deeply engrained in the movement.16 This chapter also provides an overview of the activities of the UB’s music division during its early years, emphasizing in particular the disputes that characterized its early meetings and later inspired the founding of its affiliated publishing house. The following chapters take the competing chronological positionings of “Vyšehrad,” as laid out at the outset of this introduction, along with the various political aims they represent as a starting point for more focused study. In chapter two, I focus on 16
Gary B. Cohen, The Politics of Ethnic Survival: Germans in Prague, 1861-1914 (Lafayette: Purdue University Press, 2006) and Rita Krueger, Czech, German, and Noble: Status and National Identity in Habsburg Bohemia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).
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the close relationships between “Vyšehrad” and Fibich’s symphonic poem, Záboj. In the past, researchers like Large have worked diligently to convince readers that Smetana was not influenced by Fibich, but examining contemporary UB publications reveals something different: a complicated and revealing entwining of both the two composers and their compositions. Rather than either Smetana or Fibich, I argue, UB members were the first to successfully introduce the symphonic poem as a critical and theoretical category to Prague audiences. Their theorizations of the genre reveal a conscious attempt to reappropriate the tools formulated by Brendel and his self-named “New German School” in the (rather paradoxical) interest of building their own specifically Czech tradition. For UB authors, the symphonic poem was an instrument of revolution, and both Smetana and Fibich’s works in this genre—intertwined and interdependent—served as ammunition. The third chapter contains an examination of the carefully-formed connection between “Vyšehrad” and Smetana’s music drama Libuše—the connection in which Helfert was so invested. Because Wagner reception has played such a problematic role in scholarship surrounding Smetana’s “Czech” works, however, it is necessary first to explore the ways in which UB publications helped shape connections between the two composers. In their discussions of Libuše, UB members deliberately appropriated the language of Wagner’s self-constructed heroism to publicize Smetana as an equally controversial and revolutionary leader. Exploring the ways in which they harnessed Wagnerian discourses towards Czech political aims ultimately illuminates the charge that Libuše came to hold for audiences, particularly by the time of its premiere at the opening of the Czech National Theater.
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This dissertation’s fourth and final chapter considers twentieth-century assessments of early UB members’ writings in order to theorize the close relationships between “Vyšehrad” and Libuše. Politician Zdeněk Nejedlý organized a group of Smetana advocates called the Hudební klub (“Music Club”) from 1910-1930 whose research attempted to counteract what they perceived as subjectivity in early UB publications. Helfert’s landmark Motive of Smetana’s “Vyšehrad”: A Study of Its Genesis (1917) was published with this group’s support and helped to definitively yoke together Libuše and “Vyšehrad” as “national apotheoses.”17 The objectivity that Helfert attached to his critique has been applauded by more recent scholars, but placing his study within the body of research produced by Nejedlý and his affiliates—within the wider critical tradition that produced it—reveals his study as less than impartial. Instead, as I argue, Helfert and his fellow researchers fashioned an elaborate mythology around Smetana’s works. If UB members contemporary with Smetana borrowed the tools of German nationalist discourses in their theorizations of the composer’s works, twentieth-century UB critics argued that Smetana was inspired in his compositions strictly by Czech sources. Nejedlý and his affiliates, then, rewrote the history of Smetana’s reception in order to celebrate an idealized, rigorously Czech hero—one more suitable to Communist ideologies. Before beginning these discussions, a few remarks on terminology are necessary. First, descriptors like “Czech” and “German” (along with their comparable nouns like “Czechness”) will only appear within quotes upon their first appearance unless their treatment calls for particular emphasis. These quotes are in no way an effort to undermine the validity and reality that these distinguishers held for past audiences, but to 17
Helfert, 34.
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acknowledge the subjectivity inherent in their use. Also, all translations in this dissertation are my own unless otherwise indicated, in which case the original Czech will be given alongside the citation. In many instances, I quote liberally from František Bartoš’ Bedřich Smetana: Letters and Reminiscences (1955).18 To describe Bartoš’ anthology as “popularizing” is to put it lightly, but dealing with the body of source material canonized in this collection is important, since it reveals with particular clarity the shaping and perpetuating of the mythologies surrounding Smetana.19 Finally, given the title of this dissertation and the themes that will follow in its subsequent pages, it is necessary to briefly situate the word “propaganda.” The activities of various dictatorships throughout the twentieth century have justifiably caused this word to become associated with deception and misinformation, giving it a very negative cast. But particularly during the nineteenth century, “propaganda” can refer more neutrally to the dissemination or propagation of ideas, and it is this meaning of the word that I intend in the following discussions, with the exception of those that address scholarship produced under the
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František Bartoš, ed., Bedřich Smetana: Letters and Reminiscences, trans. Daphne Rusbridge (Prague: Artia, 1955). 19 Quoted from Bedřich Smetana a jeho korespondence [Bedřich Smetana and His Correspondence], edited by Olga Mojžíšová and Milan Pospíšil (Praha: Národní muzeum, 2009 and 2011), xxiv, fn. Bartoš’ Letters and Reminiscences remains the most recent anthology of Smetana’s letters available in English. Mojžíšová and Pospíšil are currently working with a team of researchers to produce an updated collection. An additional word on translations: despite my best, repeated attempts, I was not able to gain access to the manuscripts of Smetana’s diary and am therefore not always able to give original language. In addition to Bartoš, I quote frequently from Brian Large (Smetana [New York: Praeger, 1970]) and John Clapham (Smetana [London: J. M. Dent and Sons, 1972]). Together with Bartoš’ collection, these are the texts that allowed Smetana mythology to travel to England and overseas and, as such, they are of great interest to me here—perhaps even greater interest than the more “accurate” or “original” material in Smetana’s own diaries and letters. When the English language translations from these sources contain clearly ungrammatical material, I have made obvious adjustments for the purpose of intelligibility. When I quote from Bartoš, I will also include the original Czech as it appears in his earlier study, Smetana ve vzpomínkách a dopisech [Smetana in Reminiscences and Letters] (V Praze: Topičova, 1941), if available. In my own translations, I focus on producing idiomatic English sentences over rendering the original Czech grammar. The language of nineteenth-century sources was not always smooth, particularly because literary Czech was still in the process of being formulated. Smetana himself was not a native Czech speaker and used grammatical constructions unidiomatic to Czech. For this reason, some of Smetana’s passages are rather awkward, and I have allowed the awkwardness to stand in translation.
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Communist administration.20 The word’s duality is helpful for acknowledging the continuity between UB members’ activism on behalf of Czechness—a large component of which was dedicated to rewriting history and manipulating its artifacts—and twentieth-century scholars’ intentionally biased renderings of information. Together, the UB’s nineteenth-century publications along with those of critics associated with its twentieth-century offshoot reveal Smetana as a multi-dimensional and dynamic political tool—a symbol of revolution during the nineteenth century who was reconstructed and celebrated as a rigorously Czech hero during the twentieth. Smetana scholarship, his music, and the composer himself have all shaped and been shaped by political ideologies since the UB’s founding. Exploring these circumstances reveals the close relationship between politics and scholarship, while opening a window onto the wider complexities of nationhood during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
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For more detail, see the entry for “propaganda” in the Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011).
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BUILDING A CZECH NATION: SMETANA ADVOCATES AND THE REBIRTH We are in the muck and mire of a transitional time, and unfortunately so! We serve…in ranks of soldiers for things that are completely foreign to us! Is this not an aesthetic Battle of White Mountain?...Must the soldiers of the Czech nation [join the] ranks of...foreign innovators who aim to dominate and destroy the Czech strength?21 -Max Konopásek, responding to Smetana, 1873. This critic’s reference to the Battle of White Mountain was a charged one. On November 8, 1620, thousands of soldiers met at Bílá hora (White Mountain), a site then located just outside of Prague. On one side, the soldiers represented the Bohemian estates, but also consisted of members of a Protestant Union army; on the other, soldiers represented the Roman Emperor and Bohemian King Ferdinand II as well as members of the Catholic League army. The conflict between these groups resulted from escalating tensions concerning the centralization of power within the monarchy as well as local residents’ desire to practice the Protestant, rather than Catholic, faith. In the end, the Bohemian estates and Protestant armies were defeated, and their loss resulted in a weakening of sovereign rule for the region.22 Despite its origins as a (partly) religious war, Czech nationalists by the end of the nineteenth century including Max Konopásek, quoted above, recast the Battle of White Mountain as a symbol of the definitive moment Czechs lost their independence to oppressive German leadership. The battle did not take 21
“Jsme uprostřed kalu a kvasu jakési přechodní doby a bohužel! sloužíme…v řadách bojovníků pro věc nám úplně cizí!—Není to esthetický ‘boj na Bílé hoře’?...Museli se naverbovati bojovníci české narodnosti, aby ve spojenís šiky dobře vedených cizích novotářů lomili a zhubili sílu českou?” Quoted in “Kde jsme? Kam nechceme se dostati?” [“Where Are We? Where Don’t We Want to Go?”], Dalibor (January 17, 1873), 19. 22 Josef Petráň and Lydia Petránová, “The White Mountain as a Symbol in Modern Czech History,” in Bohemia in History, ed. Mikuláš Teich (Cambridge: Cambridge: 1998), 143-144.
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place between specifically “Czech” or “German” soldiers, but nineteenth-century nationalists’ desire to gain autonomy within Habsburg rule colored their perceptions of the past. They simplified and even rewrote the complexities of White Mountain to generate a fantasy of a longstanding, unified Czech community—and a longstanding struggle against German hegemony. Nationalists extended the battle, metaphorically, to new fronts, including music criticism. Konopásek figured Smetana’s audiences not as listeners, but soldiers, and for him the possibility that they might support Smetana’s reliance on foreign models (particularly, but not exclusively Wagner) was as treasonous as the prospect of fighting on behalf of foreign invaders. That Smetana became a touchstone in the description of an invented past is not surprising; the composer and his advocates were among its key fabricators. Smetana’s cofounding of the Umělecká beseda (UB) in 1863 along with this organization’s establishment of a publishing house called the Matice hudební (“Music Foundation,” or MH) in 1871 gave his supporters a prominent public voice, and they used their influence to perpetuate the idea of a modern Battle of White Mountain, transferring political conflict to the aesthetic sphere.23 Smetana emerged as a leader of the Czech movement, but also became caught up in Wagnerian discourses and consequently seemed to be fraternizing with the enemy. This complexity occupies my attention in later chapters, but here I want to explore the process through which Smetana’s metaphorical armies first banded together in order to illuminate some of the nuances that shaped their political ideology.
23
The word “matice” in “Hudební matice” is related to the word for “mother” and was commonly used to name organizations whose aim was to cultivate or nurture a particular field.
19
One of the important contexts for understanding the criticism of Smetana’s day was a movement called the Czech Národní obrození (“National Rebirth”) that dominated Prague’s middle classes during the second half of the nineteenth century. Despite its name, and as Gary Cohen and Rita Kreuger point out, the Rebirth was not aimed at “rescuing” a once-thriving Czech culture, but oriented around an envisioned “reawakening” to the possibility of nationhood.24 The UB’s founding, along with its members’ advocacy for Smetana, is best understood within this movement’s thenforming community. Exploring the components of the Rebirth most immediately relevant to Smetana’s reception will further illuminate this framework, while situating the UB’s origins and operations within it will also reveal just how deeply Smetana and his music were immersed in—and responsible for producing—the nationalist mythologies of the period.
Situating the National Rebirth The National Rebirth was intricately multifaceted in large part because, in some ways, it spanned over a century. Enlightenment-inspired political and scholarly interests from the end of the eighteenth century were recast during the nineteenth century to suit newly-formed, Romantic ideologies, blurring distinctions between the movement’s beginnings, ends, and shifting objectives. Still, on its most basic level the Rebirth was a response to the eighteenth-century “Germanization” of Bohemia, which came to a head during the 1780s under Emperor Joseph II.25 Rather than a specifically nationalistically 24
See the introductions to Gary Cohen, The Politics of Ethnic Survival: Germans in Prague, 1861-1914 (Lafayette: Purdue University Press, 2006) and Rita Krueger, Czech, Noble, and German: Status and National Identity in Habsburg Bohemia. Much of the following discussion is indebted to these authors. 25 Cohen, 19.
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minded movement, however, Joseph’s “Germanization” was part of the Habsburgs’ longstanding effort to cultivate strong central government based in Vienna.26 This objective resulted in the emperor imposing restrictions on Bohemian representation. Joseph weakened the power of the Bohemian Diet, for example, abolished the Bohemian estates’ right to voice concerns with the king, and eliminated the political responsibilities of several traditional seats within the Bohemian kingdom.27 Particularly critical to those later involved in the Rebirth, the Habsburg administration also banned the Czech language in higher social settings in 1780 and named German as the national language in 1784. German consequently became the language of the elite and Czech, the language of “fools and illiterates.”28 Members of the upper and then-emerging middle classes in Prague were, unsurprisingly, frustrated with their decreased representation in government. Because they generally identified as Bohemians or Austrians rather than Czechs or Germans, however, the ban on the Czech language was not immediately a point of focus.29 There were several Bohemian intellectuals who began producing studies of the Czech language (most notably Josef Dobrovský in a landmark study of Czech grammar in 1809), but these were primarily a reflection of Enlightenment preoccupation with the philosophy of language and were only recast as nationalistic texts later in the nineteenth century.
26
The Habsburgs had worked to create a strong government in Vienna from the time of the Thirty Years’ War, of which the Battle of White Mountain had been part. 27 See Krueger, 72-73 for more on these and other reforms. 28 Bruno Nettl, “Ethnicity and Musical Identity in the Czech Lands: A Group of Vignettes,” in Music and German National Identity, ed. Celia Applegate and Pamel Potter (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002), 271. 29 Cohen, 22.
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From around the 1830s, the influence of Romantic-leaning philosophers, particularly Goethe and Herder, led to a reconceptualization of the Czech community.30 In particular, newly-emerging conceptualizations of “nation” inspired many to begin selfidentifying as “Czech,” rather than Austrian or Bohemian.31 Unlike their successors, however, Czech nationalists were not especially interested in agitating against the Germans in the days before the 1848 revolution, but instead, stamping out “national indifference” via a new kind of activism.32 To this end, scholars produced new studies of the Czech language, as Josef Jungmann did in his five-volume Czech-German dictionary (1834). Additionally, authors like František Palacký in the first volume of his Dějiny národa českého v Čechách a v Moravě (History of the Czech Nation in Bohemia and Moravia, 1836) began reinterpreting early Bohemian history with special attention to their newly-formulated Czech nation. Together, these impulses underpinned the “discoveries” of the Rukopis královédvorský (Queen’s Court Manuscript) and the Rukopis zelenhorský (Green Mountain Manuscript) in 1817 and 1818. Though later determined fraudulent, these two collections were said to contain thirteenth- and tenthcentury Czech poetry. For burgeoning nationalists (including the collections’ authors), the manuscripts contained a higher form of the Czech language and—partly because of
30
Krueger, 61-62. Often, individuals’ self-identification as Czech indicated that they came from a Czech-speaking family. For some individuals, too, “Czech” and “German” were not mutually exclusive, and it was possible to move freely between both designators. For more, see the first chapter of Cohen. 32 Quoted from Cohen, 21. 31
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this—symbolized a glorified past that would have been preserved, had the Czechs not fallen victim to foreign invaders.33 The excitement and debate surrounding the “rediscovered” manuscripts rendered language itself a significant political marker. As Prague Governor Leo Thun famously summarized in 1843, “The power of a state rests upon the development of the spiritual forces of its peoples; for the spiritual development of the Bohemian people a Slav national feeling and the revival of the Czech language is a necessary, indispensable means.”34 Thun’s statement in part acknowledged that many who self-identified as Czech did not actually speak the language; their Czechness resulted instead from an understanding that they would have been taught the language, had it not been banned. Thun’s statement also gave voice to a general belief that the power of the state rested in Czechs’ ability to reacquaint themselves with the language. Even the government’s capacity to influence, according to this rendering, was dependent upon members’ knowledge of the language. The emerging relationship between political organizations and language became especially focused around 1848. A Pan-Austrian Slavic Congress was scheduled to take place in Prague during June of that year, at which the interests of several Slavic populations within the Habsburg Empire were to be addressed. News of the riots first in Paris and later in Vienna, however, fueled feelings of unrest for some Prague residents. Three groups in particular took steps towards gaining a more prominent voice within the 33
Krueger, 14. Václav Hanka claimed to have found the first of these two collections under a church tower in the city for which it was named. The second was submitted anonymously to Prague’s leading political official. Both were determined fraudulent by the end of the century and Hanka, specifically, revealed as the author of the first. For more information, see Andrew Lass, “Romantic Documents and Political Movements: The Meaning-Fulfillment of History in 19th-Century Czech Nationalism,” American Ethnologist 15 (1988), 456-471. 34 Trans. Krueger, 4.
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Habsburg administration even before the Congress. First, a group of mostly non-noble Germans and Czechs who called themselves the St. Václav Committee (named for the patron saint of Bohemia) met in March to organize a petition to be submitted to Emperor Ferdinand. The petition asked, among other things, that the Czech and German languages be treated equally under the law. In his resulting “Bohemia Charter,” the emperor responded by granting the equality of both languages and committing to reforming the Diet so that Bohemian representatives held more legislative power.35 Together with Governor Thun, a second group of Bohemian aristocrats attempted to extend these gains by requesting Bohemia’s constitutional autonomy later that May. Specifically, they cited the riots in Vienna and Hungary, explaining that the monarchy had “lost the right to govern Bohemia” after it “lost control of both the capital and its authority.”36 Fearing the monarchy’s breakup, Ferdinand denied the request. Finally, and in part a response to this outcome (but also more generally voicing feelings of unrest), protestors in Prague organized a demonstration on June 12, 1848 to coincide with the Slavic Congress. The demonstration was initially peaceful, but turned violent following a confrontation between a group of students and Habsburg soldiers. Six days of fighting within the city ensued until imperial forces’ bombardment of the city ended the riots on June 17. The 1848 Revolution in Prague, together with the legislative moves from earlier in the year, paved the way for significant political and ideological shifts during the next several decades. Following the revolution, the fervor that once fueled nationalists was oppressed under an absolutist regime. The regime’s softening in 1861, however, allowed for the establishment of the first Czech political party, the Národní strana (National Party) 35
For more information, see Ibid., 206-8. Trans. Ibid., 209. As Krueger points out, the move was likely motivated as much by a desire not to be ruled by the radicals in Vienna as it was an interest in gaining independence.
36
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under the leadership of Palacký and his son-in law, František Rieger. The party proved somewhat ineffective after members responded to Emperor Franz Joseph’s recentralization of the government by abstaining from meetings of the Diet. Their boycott lasted for sixteen years from 1863-1879, frustrating those who desired more active representation—especially after Hungary successfully gained its autonomy in 1867. A group calling themselves the “mladočeši” (Young Czechs), opposed the position of their colleagues, the “staročeši” (Old Czechs), and began attending meetings of the Diet from 1874. The Young Czechs also eventually established their own political party, the Národní strana svobodomyslná (National Freethinkers Party), which officially gained seats in the Diet in 1888. As Pieter Judson explains in the introduction to his Constructing Nationalities in East Central Europe, the Young Czechs eventually gained a “decisive” victory over the Old Czechs in parliament (specifically in the 1891 elections) “by making virtue of their greater nationalist vigor.”37 Here, Judson reminds us that the nationalist ideologies of individual parties were less important in some ways than the fervor with which they were delivered. The performance of radicalism determined conceptions of how “authentically Czech” an organization or individual was and, by extension, how “moralistic” their aims—political posturing became as, if not more important, than substance. Political lobbying affected every component of national life by the time of the UB’s founding in 1863. In the process of trying to legitimize a specifically Czech nation—and especially in the absence of any governmental representation (the Národní strana boycott was still in place)—social organizations became the most powerful agents 37
Pieter Judson, “Introduction” in Constructing Nationalities in East Central Europe, ed. Pieter Judson and Marsha L. Rozenblit (New York: Berghahn, 2005), 6.
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for change. This led to the founding of hundreds of Czech social clubs, which cultivated rigid distinctions between the Czech and German cultures.38 The Měšťanská beseda (Burgher’s Club), for example, along with the Society for the Bohemian Museum gradually came under Czech leadership. Additionally, Miroslav Tyrš founded a specifically Czech gymnasts’ organization in 1861 in response to the formation of a comparable German club. His resulting Sokol eventually played a significant role in national demonstrations through the twentieth century and still exists today. Music became an exceptionally prominent social and political tool within this context. In 1873 alone, the journal Dalibor reported the existence of over 250 music clubs, one of the most prominent of which was a 120-member men’s chorus called the Hlahol. Additionally, the Old and Young Czechs adopted specific platforms concerning the portrayal of nationalist sentiment in opera, with Wagner’s reception forming the crux of each. In general, the Old Czechs were opposed to the use of Wagner’s compositional methods and supported instead the direct quotation of Czech folksong in national opera, while the Young Czechs preferred the opposite in both instances.39 Either way, opera’s status as an agreed-upon means for nationalist expression made it a powerful political tool. Its centrality to burgeoning nationalism resulted in the building of the Czech National Theater (Národní divadlo), one of the most tangible manifestations of the Rebirth. The theater’s construction was funded solely by Czech donations, and the laying of its foundation stones in May 15-17, 1868 was accompanied by one of the greatest national demonstrations that the Rebirth had yet seen. The theater also opened with great ceremony in 1881 and reopened in 1883 after a fire damaged the building. Its 38
Cohen discusses this trend at length in his study; see especially his first chapter, “From Bohemians to Czechs and Germans.” 39 Both parties’ views will the subject of ongoing discussion over the course of this dissertation.
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prominently-displayed dedication, “Národ sobě” (“The Nation to Itself”), reflected the theater’s intended audience as well as its cultural program.40 Opera’s important status within the Rebirth meant that both music and language were foregrounded, brought together as twin weapons in the nationalist arsenal. Opera’s status as a tool for Czech advocacy—a merging of the aesthetic, political, and national— resulted from a larger process of identity building that had been taking place since the beginning of the nineteenth century. In order to construct a newly-imagined, specifically “Czech” nation, Enlightenment-era studies of the Czech language were recast as nationalistic; histories of the Czech people were retrospectively written into history— even to the point of producing false, but symbolic documents; political parties were founded to represent members of this new community; and monuments, including operatic tastes and houses, were built to facilitate the production of a specifically Czech culture. The UB’s emergence during the 1860s meant that its members were deeply immersed in this process. At a time when the National Party’s boycott meant that nationalists lacked legislative representation and social organizations were the primary arenas for political change, UB members were primed to gain a powerful voice through the organization’s events and activities.
The UB and Smetana Advocacy, 1863-1883 When the UB was founded in 1863, its fundamental objectives were not overtly charged. Its goal was to facilitate the “general cultivation of the fine arts,” and its designation as a “beseda” situated the organization as “a friendly meeting” or “a 40
For more on the National Theater, see Kimball, Stanley Buchholz. Czech Nationalism: a Study of the National Theatre Movement. Urbana: University of Illinois, 1964.
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neighborly gathering for a chat.” 41 Despite its relatively neutral beginnings, the UB, born in the midst of the “awakening” or Rebirth, unofficially transitioned to cultivating and building specifically Czech arts by the 1880s. This shift resulted in a new kind of activism among members; whereas in the past, the UB had aimed simply to bring together a Czech community, now members wanted to promote “Czech” as an aesthetic category, inventing its history and identifying its artistic leaders. Alongside its affiliated Matice hudební (MH), the UB consequently emerged as a powerful propagator of Czech politics and culture during the era. As a co-founder of the organization and a particularly contentious member, Smetana also emerged as one of the UB’s most polarizing participants. As an individual, Smetana epitomized the cultural ambiguities that characterized the Rebirth. His first language was German, as was appropriate for the middle-class household in which he was raised, and he only began consistently practicing and using Czech with great difficulty in his forties. Smetana acknowledged this circumstance in his diary. With our newly awakened national consciousness, it is…my endeavor to complete my study of our beautiful language and to express myself—I who from childhood have been used only to German instruction—with equal ease, verbally and in writing, both in Czech and German…. It would be correct for me to keep my diary in my mother tongue now. Since, however, I started this book in the old manner in German, I shall also complete it in German. In the meantime, I am making a study of my mother tongue, which I have unfortunately greatly neglected (mostly
41
Zdeňka Pilková, “Hudební odbor Umělecké besedy” [The Music Department of the Umělecká beseda], (PhD diss., Univerzita Karlova, 1967), 17; Tyrrell, 303, footnote 7. Tyrrell also notes that “beseda” could mean “a social gathering for cultural and entertainment purposes,” a definition to which the Umělekcá beseda likely contributed in time.
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through the fault of our government and schools) so as to be able to write with ease and accuracy.42 Like other Czech nationalists, Smetana participated in the 1848 Revolution, but he subsequently moved to Götteborg, where he lived from October, 1856 to May, 1861. Announcements of an opera competition and available conductorship at the new Provisional Theater (a predecessor to the National Theater) inspired him to move back to Prague, though he was named neither the competition’s winner nor the conductorship’s recipient upon his return.43 Smetana instead began building connections as a member of the Burgher’s Club, capitalizing on introductions provided by his onetime piano student, Ludevít Procházka, and working as director of the Hlahol from 1863-65. He also took a position as a music critic for the liberal paper Národní listy from May, 1864-April, 1865 and used his public voice to slander the Provisional Theater’s new conductor, Jan Nepomuk Maýr. Among other criticisms, Smetana condemned Maýr as “old fashioned” and even once identified him as a “personal and irreconcilable enemy” in his letters.44 Smetana’s campaign against Maýr was only one component of his efforts to establish himself as a challenging and revolutionary figure within the Czech social scene. As Smetana explained in a diary entry from 1869, he vehemently aligned himself with the Young Czechs: 42
“Při nově probuzeném rozvoji naší národnosti mám také já snahu zdokonalit se ve své mateřštině, abych se i v češtině mohl dobře vyjádřiti jak ústně, tak písemné. Bylo by na čase, psáti svůj deník v mateřském jazyce. Protože jsem však podle starého zvyku začal tento sešit psát německy, chtěl bych jej také tak skončit. Zatím osvojím si svou, bohužel, velmi zanedbanou (hlavně vinou naší vlády a škol) mateřštinu tak, že budu moci všechno právě tak běžně jako spravně zapsat.” In František Bartoš, ed., Bedřich Smetana: Letters and Reminiscences, trans. Daphne Rusbridge (Prague: Artia, 1955), 64-65. The original Czech appears in Smetana ve vzpomínkách a dopisech [Smetana in Reminiscences and Letters] (V Praze: Topičova, 1941), 51. 43 The competition’s judges found Smetana’s work (as well as that of four other participants) so dissatisfactory that no winner could be chosen. Despite the panel’s initial lack of enthusiasm, Smetana eventually was named as the winner of the competition after the premiere of Brandenburgers in 1865. 44 Smetana to Fröjda Bencke, 12 October, 1863. Both quotes are translated in Tyrrell, 34. For more of Smetana’s criticism of Maýr, see also his “Music Life in Prague,” Národní listy, trans. Bartoš, 86-7.
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The feudal and clerical Old Czech Party…is stronger as far as wealth and property are concerned, while the liberal Young Czech Party—although it contains few rich people—consists of men of letters, artists and journalists. Naturally, I belong to the Young Czechs. The struggle between the two groups becomes more bitter from month to month…the Old Czechs, wherever they go in politics, in social life, or in the arts, endeavor to suppress everything that is carried out in the name of the Young Czech Party and throw them out.45 Smetana’s social interactions became a platform for his advocacy of the Young Czech cause. As UB member Josef Srb-Debrnov explained, Smetana took advantage of a weekly, Tuesday-night dinner hosted by Rudolf Thurn-Taxis to confront Rieger, leader of the Old Czechs, concerning his attitude towards Czech national music. Smetana was then preparing to write the [comic] opera The Brandenburgers in Bohemia…During a discussion on this, Dr. Rieger proffered the opinion that it was easy to write a serious opera on a historic theme, but that to write and opera of a lighter kind dealing with the life of the (Czech) people was a thing no one would easily succeed in doing. Smetana took him up on this and said that he intended to do something about that and that he thought that he could make a success of it. Rieger objected that the basis for such an opera would have to be Czech folk songs; Smetana again opposed this, saying that in this way a medley of various songs, a kind of quodlibet would come into being, but not an artistic work with any continuity. The dispute was quite heated until Smetana finally told Rieger that he did not know what he was talking about, but that he, as a musician, would see this thing through…that was the end of Smetana’s friendship with Dr. Rieger.46 Here, Smetana cultivated a reputation as an anti-conservative by publically making an enemy of an Old Czech leader. Such a rebellious move positioned him as a sort of artist-
45
Smeatna’s diary, January 1869, trans. Brian Large, Smetana (New York: Praeger, 1970), 218. “B. Smetana připravoval se toho času ke komponování opery “Braniboři v Čechách” na slova Sabinova. Při rozhovoru o tom pravil dr. Rieger, že je snadno napsati operu vážnou, historickou, ale napsat operu lehčiho slohu ze života lidu (českého), to že se tak snadno nikomu nepodaří. Proti tomu se ozval Smetana a pravil, že ji se zdarem provede. Rieger tomu odporoval, pravě, že by podkladem takové opery musily býti české písně národní; tomu opět odporoval Smetana, pravě, že tím způsobem vznikla by směsice písní různých, jakýsi quodlibet, ale žádné dílo jednotné, umělecké. Hádka byla dosti prudká, až konečně Smetana řekl Riegerovi, tomu že nerozumí, ale on jako hudebník že o věc se zasadí. Tím způsobem hned po dokončení ‘Braniborů’ počal pracovati Smetana na ‘Prodané nevěstě.’ Ale bylo po přátelství s dr. Riegrem.” Trans. Bartoš, 67-8; Bartoš (1941), 52-3. 46
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politician; he was a more effective agent for social change as a composer than a career politician. The UB’s beginnings deeply reflected Smetana’s intertwining of social, aesthetic, and political action. The composer acknowledged the social component of these relationships when he explained in his diary, Before our draft statutes [for the UB] were approved by the Government we would gather at the Jerusalem Inn, where we hired a separate room and spent happy hours…We celebrated the New Year together and also arranged collections for the new National Theatre, passing round the plate among ourselves. Sometimes we would go to a club in Přikopy where we, the younger ones, had our table and were gay…we often played billiards for funds for the National Theater!47 Smetana’s writing illustrates that members of nationalistic organizations like the UB and the Theater Committee participated in the same social circles, and that their political work went hand in hand with their personal exchanges. Poet and active UB board member Vítězslav Hálek more extensively explored relationships between sociability and activism among members in his origin story of the UB, officially recorded in the group’s 1894 yearbook, which he wrote two years after the organization’s founding. In the year 1861 during a summer month (I don’t remember exactly in which month, although it seems to me in May or June), we met in the evening for a party at [František] Pivoda’s. If I am remembering correctly, there was [Julius] Grégr, [Ludevít] Procházka, Pivoda, [Karel] Strakatý, [August] Appé, and I. There were still others, but I do not remember any more who they were. Pivoda lived at that time in Old Town, somewhere opposite the cathedral of St. Jakub [James], on the second floor. When he hosted us, Pivoda brought us beer, sang for us new songs, played the piano, and expected each person to contribute to the entertainment. Meanwhile, we began speaking about artistic conditions in Prague. Mr. Pivoda especially described the sad state of artistic life, how no one knew each other, how no club brought them together, and how they did not have any place where artists could meet to enjoy themselves and 47
Smetana’s diary, January, 1863, trans. Large, 127.
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discuss matters of importance to them. Ludevít Procházka and others agreed. Procházka and Pivoda said that they could imagine creating an artistic club that could meet all of these needs. This idea met with general consensus and in the debate that followed, the basic strokes of the Umělekcá beseda were drawn. I do not remember the details of the debate; I only know that Jul. Grégr excitedly posed ideas and I suggested that this definitely could be a Czech “Beseda.” I said that this particular national moment was the least developed for our artists; detrimental indifference was characteristic among a large portion of them. There was nothing that could bring them to our side or that could help their intent. National bastards [who claim no homeland] are among this large portion of artists, and because nothing is given from our side to theirs, they quickly become a non-nation, and this does not serve to honor our name abroad. Other artistic societies in Prague honor both possibilities, and that’s why the Czech arts are nowhere to be seen. The “Umělekcá beseda” absolutely rejects this indecision and could be ours—both national, and Czech. My proposal was met with great consensus, and I touch on it here mainly because I remember it best; it was my proposal, and I am sorry that the proposals of other gentlemen have already faded from my memory…. We were together until about eleven o’clock; diverging, we were all pleased with the plan and very much hopeful for the promising time when this club comes to life.
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At Pivoda’s we had the windows open, because it was a beautifully peaceful evening. I do not remember anything more.48 Here, Hálek’s attention to detail served to monumentalize the events of the organization’s founding; even circumstances like the floor of the building in which members were gathered and the weather warranted comment. The details Hálek provided also reveal the organization’s blend of social, political, and aesthetic interests: friends were gathered, beer was flowing, and participants found themselves heatedly discussing politics. As had been the case for Smetana and Rieger, this kind of social space became a platform for the discussion of nationalist ideologies. Hálek and Grégr (leader of the Young Czechs) villainized “other” artists whose “opposition” they meant to overcome as a means to position themselves as righteous champions of the Czech nation. Additionally, and reflective of the Rebirth’s ideals, Hálek and and Grégr were not concerned with promoting a specifically Czech cause, but anxious about the possibility of existing as a 48
“Roku 1861 v letním měsíci (nevím již určitě, v kterém, ale zdá se mi, že v květnu aneb v červnu), sešli jsme se k večerní zabavě u Pivody. Pokud se matauji, byli tam Jul. Gréger, Lud. Procházka, Pivoda, K. Strakatý, Appé a já. Byli tam ještě někteří jinni umělci, ale nepamatuji se již na ně. Pivoda tenkrát bydlel na Starém městě, kdesi naproti chrámu sv. Jakuba, v druhém poschodí. Pivoda dal přinést pivo a když nás uhostil, přednášely se některé nové písně, hrálo se na piano a každý hleděl něčím přispět k zábavě. Mezi tím jsme počali mluviti o uměleckých poměrech v Praze. Zvláště p. Pivoda líčil smutný stav života uměleckého, kterak jeden druhého nezná, nic společného kterak je nepoutá a že nemají ani místa, kde by se scházeli, po umělecku se bavili a o záležitostech svých porokovali. V tom smyslu mluvili též Lud. Procházka a jinni. Procházka a Pivoda pravili, kterak na to pomýšleli, aby se utvořil spolek umělecký, jenž by všechněm těm potřebám vyhověl. Myšlénka ta našla všeobecného souhlasu a v debattě, jež potom nastala, kresily se základní tahy Umělecké Besedy. Na podrobnosti se již při té debate nepamatuji, jen vím, že Jul. Grégr živě se věci ujímal a já že jsem navrhl, aby byla ‘Beseda’ ta rozhodně česká. Pravil jsem, že jmenovitě moment národní jest u našich umělců nejméně vyvinut, neblahá lhostejnost, že je z větši části karakterisuje. Že tu není ničeho, co by je z naší strany k sobě poutalo a intencím jich pomáhalo. Z větší části že jsou naši umělci národní bastardi a poněvadž se nic pro ně z naší strany neděje, odnárodňují se nám šmahem a v cizině neslouží takto našemu jménu ke cti. Ostatní umělecké spolky v Praze že se vyznamenávají touže obojakostí a proto že o českém umění nikde nebývá slechu. Tuto nerozhodnost že naprosto zavrhuji a ‘Umělekcá Beseda’ aby byla naše, národní, česká. Tento můj návrh byl přijat s velkým souhlasem; i dotýkám se ho šíře hlavně proto, že se nejlépe na něj pamatuji, an to byl návrh můj, a líto mi jest, že mi návrhy ostatních pánů z paměti se již vytratily….Byli jsme pohromadě asi do jedenácti hodin; rozcházejíce se, byli jsme všichni potěšeni z porady té a přislibovali se velmi mnoho, až spolek ten vejde v život. U Pivody jsme měli otevřená okna, poněvadž byl večer nad míru krásný. Na vice se nepamatuji. V Praze, dne 20. února 1865.” Vzpomínky na paměť Třicetileté činnosti Umělecké besedy: 1863-1893 [Remembrances: The Memory of Thirty Years of Activity of the Umělecká Beseda], ed. Jaromír Hrubý (V Praze: Umělecké besedy, 1894), 158-9.
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“non-nation.” These individuals, then—as was consistent with the UB’s less overtly political aims upon its founding—aimed to stamp out national “indifference,” rather than theorize a specifically Czech nation. And the way they pursued this aim was to establish a social group: a Czech national “beseda.” The development of a healthy social scene became one of the UB’s primary objectives upon its founding in 1863. Its bylaws indicated that the organization’s members, which included “artists,” “friends of the arts,” and “honorable members,” were expected to host “entertainments,” or parties, that encouraged the mutual education of its participants.49 To this end, members organized themselves into three departments dedicated to literature, the visual arts, and music, which were expected to host recitations, exhibitions, and musical performances, respectively. These departments included several participants who remain well-known in Czech history. Members of the literature department included Karel Sabina, leader in the 1848 revolution and librettist for Smetana’s operas The Bartered Bride and Brandenburgers in Bohemia; Eliška Krásnohorská, a poet, women’s movement leader, and librettist for Smetana’s operas The Secret, The Kiss, The Two Widows, and The Devil’s Wall; Otakar Hostinský (also a member of the music division), one of Smetana’s greatest advocates, music critic, and later faculty member at Charles University; Jan Neruda, prolific author, poet, and music critic; Alois Jirásek, novelist and dramatist; and Adolf Heyduk, poet and pedagogue. Members of the visual arts department included Josef Mánes, painter and designer of the Sokol’s first uniform, as well as Mikoláš Aleš and František Ženíšek, who collaborated on paintings for the foyer of the Czech National Theater. Music division members 49
The word the UB used to describe an “entertainment” was “zábava.” The UB’s bylaws also indicate that members planned to found a reading library and conduct all organizational functions in Czech. For a full list of their bylaws, see Pilková, 17-18.
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included Smetana (president, 1863-65, 1869-70); Antonín Dvořák (president, 1880); Zdeněk Fibich (president, 1890-92); and František Pivoda, music critic, singer, and pedagogue (president, 1866-67). Additionally, members of the UB’s general administrative board included Josef Wenzig, singer, pedagogue, and librettist for Smetana’s operas Dalibor and Libuše (president, 1863-68); Karel Erben, poet and folklorist (vice president, 1863); and Jan Evangelista Purkyně, pioneer in the field of neuroscience (vice president, 1864-68). Together, the UB’s membership totaled 141 by the time of its first meeting on March 8, 1863 and grew to 359 by the end of the year.50 The UB also counted 700 paying members by 1870, and by the end 1871, 1,100.51 In his memoirs, member Ladislav Dolanský noted that tensions between Old and Young Czechs also affected the organization’s membership. He claimed that 400 Old Czech members withdrew from the UB in protest in 1874 and that the visual arts department counted only 50 members at the beginning of 1876 because the division ceased providing new participants with a portrait of Old Czech leader Palacký.52 The UB’s first large-scale and multi-divisional collaboration exemplified its early, relatively neutral political aims. On April 23, 1864, the group hosted a Shakespeare Festival to coincide with the author’s 300th anniversary. This event’s seemingly paradoxical circumstances—a Czech nationalist organization celebrating an English author—reflected the UB’s objective not necessary to cultivate a specifically Czech art, but to build a Czech arts community. Shakespeare’s status as a national symbol among 50
The first total is reported in Národní listy on March 10, 1863. The second is reported in Derek Sayer, The Coasts of Bohemia: A Czech History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998), 103. 51 Vzpomínky na paměť Třicetileté činnosti Umělecké besedy:1863-1893, 166. 52 Ladislav Dolanský, Hudební paměti [Musical Memories], ed. Zdeněk Nejedlý (Praha: Hudební listy Smetana, 1918), 27. The UB’s 1894 yearbook reports further on this and membership tallies, see Vzpomínky na paměť Třicetileté činnosti Umělecké besedy:1863-1893, 158-172.
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both English and German authors (the latter, less straightforwardly so) made the author a logical focus for an organization that sought to raise awareness of the possibility of being national at all. Additionally, because the Czech community sought validation under a “German” administration, it followed that they might join German audiences in drawing Shakespeare into their political work.53 UB member and aesthetician Hostinský acknowledged as much in his retrospective description of the event. Shakespeare was the kultus [adoration] of Great Britain, particularly during the fifties, at which time the Czech dramatic arts were still in quite modest circumstances, sojourners at the German Estate Theater….Now, however—in the younger generation’s enthusiasm for this un-faltered poet of poets—affiliated, friendly actors and musicians joined poets and writers to admire Shakespeare, in order to, on one hand witness the seriousness with which they regarded their task, and on the other, the confidence with which they intended to place the Czech arts in a world arena.54 As Hostinský suggested here, the UB’s interest in Shakespeare lay in part in the glory the English playwright could reflect on Czech artists and the air of cosmopolitanism he leant them.55 Honoring Shakespeare, according to this account, was a necessary first step towards building the Czech arts; it allowed Czechs to assert their presence in a global 53
For more, see Thomas Healy, “Past and Present Shakespeares: Shakespearian Appropriations in Europe,” in Shakespeare and National Culture, ed. John J. Joughan (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997), 222-226. See also Werner Habicht, “The Romanticism of the Schlegel-Tieck Shakespeare and the History of Nineteenth-Century German Shakespeare Tradition” and Brigitte Schultze, “Shakespeare’s Way into West Slavic Literatures and Cultures”; both appear in European Shakespeares: Translating Shakespeare in the Romantic Age, ed. Dirk Delabastita and Lieven D’hulst (Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 1990), 45-54 and 55-74, respectively. 54 “Kultus velkého Brita arci ji před tím, zejména v letech padesátých, tedy v době, kdy české umění dramatické za poměrů dosti skromných bylo ještě v podruží stavovského divadla německého….Nyní však, když i mladší pokolení v nadšení svém pro básníka básníků neochabovalo, k spisovatelům a hercům přidružili se přátelský i hudebníci a výtvarníci, aby společně genius Shakespearovu vzdali hold, jenž měl býti svědectvím jednak oné opravdivosti, s níž pohlíželi na úkol svůj, jednak onoho sebevědomí, s nímž hodlali jednou umění české uvésti na zápasiště světové.” Hostinsky, “První krok” [“The First Step”], in Vzpomínky na paměť Třicetileté činnosti Umělecké besedy:1863-1893, 8. 55 Opera production in Prague was largely dominated by one theater for the first half of the nineteenth century. It was originally called the Nostitz Theater (Gräflich Nostitzsches Nationaltheater, established 1783), but was renamed the Royal Theater of the Estates (Königliches Ständestheater, Královké stavovské divadlo) in 1789. The popularity of operas translated into Czech only occasionally motivated their staging at the theater and with varying degrees of censorship over the first half of the century. For more, refer to Tyrrell, 13-27.
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conversation, participating alongside and engaging with both English and German audiences. The Shakespeare Festival included performances of works by non-Czech authors and encouraged collaborations between divisions. Member Vilém Bolek, for example, wrote incidental music for six tableaux vivants illustrative of Shakespeare’s dramas, four of which were staged by Realist artist Karl Purkyně (son of UB board member and scientist Jan Purkyně). These tableaux included “The Abduction of Jessica” (which, Hostinský noted, required lighting from both moonlight and torchlight), “Richard III,” “Anne Runs for the Coffin,” “Henry IV,” “Koriolan before Rome,” and the last scene from “Cymbeline.”56 Additionally, Smetana composed his own March for the Shakespeare Festival to accompany a procession of 230 Shakespearian characters, which Karel Purkyně also illustrated in six sketches. Smetana also conducted four movements from Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette for the event.57 All of this supposedly situated the UB as a worldly and sophisticated group poised to effect change. Increasingly, UB members worked to facilitate the development of a Czech social scene by hosting community events. The UB’s 1894 yearbook, for example, celebrated the organization’s New-Year’s party of 1863, at which “the esteemed historiographer František Palacký, according to contemporary reports, laughed like he had never laughed
56
“Pamatuji se, že zejména obraz první ‘Únos Jessiky’ dvojím světlem svým (měsícem a pochodněmi) způsobil pravou sensaci; ostatní byly: Richard III. uchází se o Annu u rakve Jindřicha IV., Koriolan před Římem, a poslední scéna z ‘Cymbelina.’” Hostinský does not list the scene depicted in the sixth vivant. “První krok,” 9. 57 The departments of the UB also collaborated on the publication Národ sobě [The Nation to Itself], ed. Otakar Hostinský (V Praze, Umělekcá beseda, 1880) whose proceeds benefited the National Theater. The book’s title shared that of the dedication still displayed prominently inside the theater. Hostinský also edited the UB publication Máj: Literarní Almanach Umělecké besedy [May: A Literary Almanac of the Umělekcá beseda], ed. Hostinský (V Praze: Dr. Grégr & F. Dattla, 1872).
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in his life.”58 Announcements on January 1 and February 20, 1870 in the journal Pokrok (Progress) also called for UB members to help organize a Spring party and participate in a masquerade ball. The latter announcement in particular noted that the ball’s attendees would include members of the Sokol, Měšťanská beseda, and a UB-sponsored mixed choir. Women were only occasionally invited to the organization’s regular meetings, but also hosted their own “high class entertainments” that “combined…pleasant and effortless instruction.”59 On January 28 and 30, 1870, for example, announcements in Pokrok invited women to attend lectures given by historian Jaroslav Goll on “The Literary Myths about Tossoni” and talks by Hostinský on the Polish artist Jan Matejko’s Unia Lubelska. The former announcement indicated that a dance party would follow beginning at 8 p.m. and reminded those wishing to join to bring their prepaid tickets. Among the UB’s individual divisions, the music department was the least active division in its first decade of operation. The department did draft its own bylaws at its inaugural meeting on March 15, 1863, the details of which reflected the larger organization’s focus on cultivating a Czech community. In particular, the division planned to organize weekly meetings during which “unknown and less known works of old, new, and the newest composers” would be performed. 60 It also planned to host lectures, establish a subscription concert series, and publish both newer and older compositions along with theoretical and instructive works. In its early years, the division 58
“Byla to I. sylvestrovská zábava r. 1863, při níž zvěčnělý historiograf Fr. Palackdle současné zprávy tolik prý se nasmál, jako nikdy před tím za svého života.” Vzpomínky na paměť Třicetileté činnosti Umělecké besedy: 1863-1893, 162. 59 “Přednášky pro dámy měly značný vliv a účinek, rovněž tak jako v nejnovější době pořádané dýchánky. Ušlechtilá zábava sloučena tu s příjemným a nenuceným poučením.” Josef Holeček, ed., Literární premie Umělecké besedy v Praze [Literary Gifts of the Umělekcá Beseda in Prague] (V Praze: Umělekcá beseda, 1888), 188. 60 “V schůzích těchto provedou se neznámé a méně známé skladby starých, nových i nejnovějších skladatelů každého odvětví.” Slavoj II, 1863, 75, quoted in Pilková, 29.
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hosted near-weekly (though scarcely documented) meetings, and its mixed men’s choir, founded by Smetana’s past piano student Ludevít Procházka, maintained a frequent rehearsal schedule.61 It also sponsored a performance on April 20, 1866 of Liszt’s Legende von der heiligen Elisabeth at Liszt’s request.62 Smetana’s attempts to organize a regular subscription concert series, however, produced a deficit within the division’s funds (as had the performance of Liszt’s work), so that only three performances took place from 1864-65.63 While the music division did not host many public activities during the first decade of its operation, it became more active (according to extant documents) from 1873. This year, an announcement in Dalibor on November 21, 1873 invited readers to attend the division’s general meeting so they might elect a new administrative board and make a fresh start. “We hope that our musicians will turn out in large numbers,” it explained, “and that [current committee members] will turn over their respect to men that are able to breathe life once again into a half-dead body.”64 Notices of the division’s activities slowly increased from 1873 onwards, though it is difficult to know whether this shift reflected new administrative action or members’ newly-gained access to the music journal Dalibor, which came under UB management from 1873-75 and 1880.65 In either case, details of the music division’s activities in Dalibor from 1873-75 underscored the 61
Ibid., 49. The UB also founded a women’s singing school in 1869 to complement Procházka’s mixed men’s choir. 62 The details of this event and the circumstances that brought it about are more thoroughly discussed in Chapter Two. 63 Smetana’s subscription concerts took place on December 28, 1864, March 4, 1865, and May 16, 1865. 64 “Doufáme, že hudebníci naší dostaví se v hojném počtu a že obrátí zřetel svůj k mužům, od nichž nadíti se mohou, že opět vzkříšiti dovedou k novýmu životu polomrtvé již těleso.” The beginning of the announcement also acknowledged the division’s “dark reputation” (“temná pověsť”), a move which points to emerging polemic battles between members. 65 The paper and its management are discussed more extensively in Chapter Three. It is important to note here, however, that Dalibor did not operate under any management from 1866-68.
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UB’s larger aim to bring together a Czech community, while announcements from 18801881 illustrate a shift in the organization’s modes of activism. Whereas early members worked to cultivate a Czech community, from 1880 members worked to cultivate a specifically Czech music. Shortly after the 1873 call to revive a “half-dead body,” Dalibor reported on the music division’s first “entertainment” for its new administrative year, which took place on December 19. Generally, summaries of the division’s entertainments are brief and list the evening’s presenters. This inaugural entertainment, however, was reviewed in considerable detail, perhaps reflecting the department’s desire to gain momentum.66 The evening revolved around a number of performances, some of which illustrate an imagined history and trajectory of Czech music. Baritone Josef Lev (who also performed in a number of Smetana’s operas) opened the evening by performing two sets of songs. Of the first, two were “Písně selské” (“Farmers’ Songs”), written by January Orebský and on a text by Karel Sudimír Šnaidr. The reviewer for Dalibor explained that these songs were from “an older time” and described the music as “naïve” and “idyllic,” the text as “not overwhelming,” and their meeting as “simple.”67 Next, Lev performed three songs from a collection called “Připloulo jaro” (“Spring Floated In”), which was written by Otakar Hostisnký and on a text by Eliška Krásnohorská. The reviewer identified this performance as “a happy success” and then explained the ways in which the melody closely followed the declamation of the text. In this case, the previous “Farmers’ Songs” served to illustrate the implicit progress of the Czech arts since its composition, which UB members had helped bring about. The evening’s events also included less charged 66
Reports covering UB “entertainments” also appear in Dalibor on March 28, 1874, January 20, 1875, and January 10, 1880. 67 Dalibor I (December 18, 1873), 418.
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performances like Zdeněk Fibich’s “Jasná noc” (“Clear Night”), a solo for violin and piano accompaniment that was to be performed in the style of a “gondolier”; Jindřich Káan z Albestů’s “Praeludium” and “Romance” for piano as well as his and “Píseň milostovou” (“Love Song”) for soprano, tenor, and piano; and three unnamed songs by Tomášek, Glinka and Fibich, which were performed by Marta Procházka. It is not clear, despite detailed reporting of the evening’s program, whether there was a formal lecture or presentation, although it seems reasonable to assume there was lively discussion. Outside of entertainments, the music division’s activities were still somewhat infrequent from 1873-75.68 Music critic František Pivoda (who, himself, had served as president from 1866-67) criticized members for only occasionally “deeming it necessary to show some sign of life” despite their purportedly “relentless zeal.” He also, however, granted that the work of a subgroup of UB members called the “Kruh mladých hudebníků” (“Circle of Young Musicians”) was a “minor exception.”69 The Circle, whose aim was to cultivate a new generation of composers, hosted its own entertainments fairly regularly from 1874 through the end of 1875. Its members included composer Josef Holý, pianist Jindřich Kaán, and Hlahol conductor Karel Knittl. Much like the descriptions for the music department’s entertainments, however, reports on the Circle’s events generally offered little detail, listing only their programs or offering brief reviews of performances.70 Such reporting combined with the generic, rather than nationalistic titles 68
The music department did likely maintain its near-regular, but still scarcely documented weekly meetings. 69 “Hudební odbor Umělecké besedy velmi žřidka dává se nám viděti v plné své činnosti, a stane-li se v dlouhém case jednou přece, že náčelníci tohoto odboru uznají za nutné, jakousi známku života vydati, nepotkáváme se i tehdá s důkazy rozhlášené “neúnavné horlivosti” členů odboru samého…Obstaraliť jej až na vyjímky nepatrné členové kruhu mladých hudebníků…” Hudební listy V, 20, quoted in Pilková, 75. 70 Such announcements concerning the Circle of Young Composers appear in Dalibor on June 6 and 13, 1874 and May 8 and 15, 1875. This organization also occasionally went by the name “Účinkující členové Umělecké besedy” (“Acting Members of the Umělekcá beseda”).
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that were typically included in Circle programs reflected the UB’s investment in bringing together a Czech musical community during the era and not necessarily building understandings of “Czech” art. Their program printed in Dalibor on May 8, 1875, for example, lists five works: “Slavnostní předehra” (“Festive Overture”) by Holý, “Symfonický obraz” (“Symphonic Picture”) by J. Přibík, “Ballada” by J. Jiránek, “Na hřbitově” (“In the Cemetery”) by J. Hartl, and “Fantasie” by J. Klíčka. A sixth work also included on this program, however, also hinted at a burgeoning nationalist agenda. The work was titled “Finale z ‘písně o zvonu’ od Šillera (překlad Jungmannův), pro sola, sbor a orkestr” (“Finale from Schiller’s ‘Song of the Bell’ (translated by Josef Jungmann) for soloist, choir, and orchestra”) and written by Knittl. Although the Circle was not specifically devoted to theorizing nationalist aesthetics, in this case one of its members had initiated a move in this direction by replacing Schiller’s German prose with Czech. In 1880, when Dalibor returned under UB management, the political aims of the group became more pronounced.71 Announcements of community-driven activities like entertainments persisted, but new types of UB events reflected an interest in inventing a specifically Czech music and in theorizing its objectives, history, and aesthetics. A report on June 20, 1880, for example, posted the results of a competition for nationalistic composition that the music department organized. The notice listed member Emanuel Chvála as the first place winner for his song on the motto, “Každý dle vsé cíly” (“Each according to Their Strength”), and Karel Kovařovic as the second place winner for his, which used the aphorism “Národ bez písně, tělo bez duše” (“A Nation without Song, a
71
The paper did not operate from 1876-8 and was not specifically managed by the UB in 1879 (although it maintained much of the same staff upon its nominal return to the MH in 1880).
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Body without a Soul”).72 Now, the UB not only supported a community of musicians, but invited them to design and develop songs meant to give voice to the nation. Indeed, the message of Kovařovic’s song celebrated such activism, personifying the Czech nation and implying that its current deficiencies resulted from a lack of song. In addition to encouraging the production of specifically Czech songs, the music division carved out a tradition of Czech music by hosting a “Historical Concert” in 1880, which featured the works of six “Czech” composers, largely eighteenth-century figures. These composers would likely have self-identified as Bohemian (a geographic marker) rather than specifically as Czech (a political marker). At this event, however, UB members hailed them as unambiguously Czech—figures from an invented and newly rich past, the details of which they disseminated as program notes in Dalibor. In addition to works by these composers, the program included Dvě písně ranní (Two Morning Songs) for orchestra titled “Chválu vzdejme” (“Give Thanks”) and “Překrásná jasnost” (“Splendid Ladyship”), which were arranged by UB member and folklorist Josef Leopold Zvonař.73 Zvonař claimed that the melodies for the first of these songs dated from the time of Charles IV (crowned king of Bohemia in 1347 and named Holy Roman Emperor in 1355) and the second, from the eighteenth century. Additionally, the concert included performances of a motet called “Chvalte Boha silného” (“Priase God of Strength”) by Jan Dysmas Zelenka (1679-1745), a musician based primarily in Dresden; Arioso e un poco Andante in F Major and Capriccio by František Benda (1709-1786), court employee of Prussian King Frederick I; an excerpt from the opera “Erzio” by Josef Mysliveček (17371781), who worked in Italy (the libretto was by Metastasio); excerpts from the singspiel 72
Dalibor (June 20, 1880), 143. Josef Zvonař also published on “České národní písně” (“Czech National Songs”) in 1859 and “Dějiny české hudby” (“A History of Czech Music”) in 1862. 73
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“Romeo a Julie” by Jiří Benda (1721-1795), employee of Frederick III, Duke of Gotha; and Sonata, op. 70 “Le retour à Paris” (“The Return to Paris”) in Ab Major by Jan Ladislav Dusík (1761-1812), who toured extensively as a concert pianist around Europe. The composers represented in the concert were born in or around Prague and, in many cases, used Czech spellings of their names (though many, like Dussek, also used German spellings), but their designation as “Czech” would not have held the same meaning for them as it did for nineteenth-century UB members. Nevertheless, they were appropriated to the new nationalist cause, becoming part of a canon of Czech composition imagined by UB members. Outside of its efforts to build Czech music both new and old, the UB’s music department held events that identified and celebrated perceived Czech figureheads, especially Smetana. On January 4, 1880, the UB alongside the Hlahol and members of the Philharmonic Orchestra hosted a “Smetana Jubilee” to commemorate the “50th anniversary of Smetana’s artistic activities,” an event which included performances of the composer’s works.74 At its conclusion, the UB also hosted a “Smetana Evening,” during which critic and advocate Hostinský toasted the composer to reportedly enthusiastic interruptions of “Sláva!” (“Glory!”)75 In addition to these demonstrations, the UB sponsored a “Liszt Evening” on October 26, 1881, which included a performance of Les Preludes (arranged for four-handed piano) along with several of the composer’s rhapsodies.76 Hostinský also gave a speech for this event, however, and used the opportunity to toast Smetana once more. “We Czechs have yet another special reason to 74
Smetana was only 56 at the time, but performed his first piano concert at age six. Dalibor II (January 1, 1880), 2. 75 Ibid., (January 10, 1880), 15. 76 The event was meant to commemorate Liszt’s 70th birthday.
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celebrate [Liszt]…and it is very significant,” he explained, “Smetana’s symphonic poems sprang from his excitement for the composer; they stirred from Liszt’s great example.”77 Dalibor reported that cheers of “Sláva!” once again met Hostinský’s speech.78 Together, the events of the Smetana Jubilee and Evening as well as that of the Liszt Evening affirmed Smetana’s position as leader in Czech music—comparable to Liszt, but belonging to “us Czechs.” The music division’s efforts from 1880 onwards to place Czech music on a world stage also brought about the occasions for which the organization is most well-known today. Although Smetana’s earlier attempts had failed, UB members successfully established a “Popular Concert” series in Prague from 1886 that attracted three international celebrities: Hans von Bülow visited Prague to perform in the series on October 10 and 13, 1886, Camille Saint-Saëns (who had actually already visited the UB once in January of 1882) returned with the division’s support to give a concert on February 19, 1866, and Pyotr Illyich Chaikovsky visited Prague twice, first in February, 1888 and again in early December of the same year.79 During the latter visit on December
77
“Ale my Čechové máme ještě jinou specielní příčinu, proč ho oslavujeme…i jest to velmi významné, že to, co v oboru naší hudby dosud jest nejdokonalejšího, totiž symfonické básně Smetanovy, pramenilo z onoho nadšení, které v skladateli vzbudil Lisztův velkolepý příklad.” Dalibor III (November 10, 1881), 254. Here, I translated the word “Čechové” as Czechs, given the context in which this speech was delivered, but this word could also be translated as “Bohemians.” 78 Dalibor III (November 1, 1881), 249. 79 Hans von Bülow's performances are covered in Dalibor VIII (October 14-28, 1886), 373-6, 381-5, and 393-4. Coverage of Saint-Saëns’ second visit appears in Dalibor VII (February 14-21, 1886), 55-56 and 6468. Dolanský reported that Smetana was self-conscious about his hearing loss when he met Saint-Saëns. See page 57 of his Hudební paměti. Dolanský also more generally discussed Saint-Saën’s visit on pages 5165.
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6 and 8, Chaikovsky gave the first international premieres of his opera Evgenii Onegin with the music division’s support.80 Together, the activities of the music division from its beginnings through the 1880s illustrate that members’ aims shifted from developing a Czech musical community during its earlier years to building a Czech tradition. Though its public activities reflected a gradual transition, the UB’s inner workings were more volatile. Member Ladislav Dolanský, who described the music department “dear” and “beloved” to him, also acknowledged its instability: “But the Beseda did not always run smoothly; it was a time when there was much strife and struggle, and not only in short bursts, but in whole wars that ran for several weeks and intervened in circles even outside the Beseda, even in the families of decisive members.”81 Reviewing some of the department’s “strife and struggle” reveals that UB members, though ostensibly united towards generating a sense of community or a specifically Czech nation, were deeply divided. Understandings of what was and was not “Czech” became linked with individual leaders including Smetana, who polarized UB members, generating political factions and shifting alliances. The music division’s slow start following its 1863 founding resulted in part from the arrival of the Seven Weeks’ War on June 16, 1866, but also stemmed from members’ disagreements. At a time when social clubs were platforms for greater political debate, even administration was freighted with social significance, and department members arrived at impasses on several occasions. The division’s first five meetings were 80
Chaikovsky also performed excerpts of the opera during a “Popular Concert” on December 2, 1888. The events of his second visit were covered in Dalibor: Hudební listy X (December 1-15, 1888), 345-6, 353-5, and 362-3. Ladislav Dolanský discussed Chaikovsky and and Bülow’s visits together on pages 65-73 of his Hudební paměti. 81 “Ovšem nešlo to ani v Besedě vždy hladce; byly doby kdy nastaly půtky a boje, a to netoliko výbuchy krátké, ale celé války, které se táhly po několik neděl a zasahovaly i v kruhy mimo besední, ba i v rodiny rozhodujících členů.” Dolanský, 25.
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dedicated primarily to debates surrounding its bylaws—debates through which Smetana emerged as a controversial leader. Among other points, the issue of whether membership should be open to amateurs became a focus; Smetana and Ludevít Procházka in particular argued to keep the organization strictly professional, though a compromise was ultimately met in which only professional, established musicians could serve on the department’s administrative committee. Throughout these discussions, Smetana developed a reputation as a politically outspoken leader—a reputation consistent with his overt and public anti-conservative demonstrations following his return to Prague. Aleš Heller later explained that Smetana as well as Heller’s father, Ferdinand, gained many “enemies” during early UB meetings. Smetana and my father worked in the Umělekcá beseda right from the beginning with their whole heart to elevate the Czech arts; they were not capable of anything else….But they were people who did not serve the “will of the people”—they were not familiar with the “secret to success”—they were not diplomats. They were also not “charming”…. and their frankness brought them many enemies. Once the people from Hlahol (also members of Umělekcá beseda) as well as Riegr's party members joined their “enemies” their suggestions were overruled…their work was played down etc. etc.82 Early UB discussions, according to this rendering, involved members divided by political alliances (the Old Czechs vs. the Young Czechs) and social organizations (the UB vs. the Hlahol). At the same time, given that the UB in its early stages aimed to create an inclusive community, Smetana’s work to make it exclusive (and his reportedly abrasive insistence on this) resulted in his silencing, at least on some occasions. Still, Smetana did 82
“Smetana i můj otec pracovali v Umělecké besedě hned od počátku s celou duší—pro povznesení českého umění ani jinak neumělí….Byli však lidmi, kteří se nepodávali ‘vůli lidu’—neznali ‘tajemství úspěchu’—nebyli diplomaty. Nebyli take ‘roztomilými’….Jejich upřímnost jim nadělala mnoho nepřátel. K těm když se přídružili jejich “nepřátelé” z Hlaholu, kteří byli členy Umělecké besedy,—straníci Riegrovi se ovšem take přidružili—byli jejich návrhy zamítány…jejich práce zlehčována atd atd.” Aleš Heller, Vzpomínky na B. Smetanu [Remembrances of B. Smetana], 24, quoted in Pilková, 46.
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head the music division as president from 1863-65, and a memorandum drafted at the department’s second meeting, which was addressed to the Old Czech leader Rieger, acknowledges his strong influence.83 The aim of the music department is to use every possible influence to turn the sad circumstances of the domestic arts—which unfortunately to now has had no honest protector—towards the better and towards achieving a high standard at which we could align with more progressive nations…. The history of all more educated nations shows the importance of opera in the development of the musical arts; the thoughts of the greatest souls were presented in opera, and the most prominent men were cultivating it. Our future opera must truly be an artistic institution if it is to achieve a higher level; it must become an impeccable school in which our young forces will be educated. If such institution could be led truly by a man who is, by his whole soul, dedicated to art and his nation and who would be able to—by his diligence and action—bring about new and more joyful times, then in even our country as it has been other places, all our musical power could center around this institution, and this artistic relationship would mean progress. The coming change of our theatrical circumstances is the most suitable opportunity to create the foundation of our opera and give the leadership into the hands in which it will succeed and progress and in which it can excel…. [Those signed below] have complete confidence in your [unnamed] deep knowledge of artistic circumstances, and are convinced that the decision about the future state of our opera rests in the best hands:
83
The authors of the memorandum were Joesf Zvonař, Ludevít Procházka, Josef Bohuslav Förster, and (likely Karel) Böhm.
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we consider it our duty to raise our voice from the “Umělekcá beseda” to you…[we express] the unified view which governs our artistic circles.84 The leader to which this document refers—the man whose deep knowledge of “artistic circumstances,” especially opera, unified all members of the group—was undoubtedly Smetana. The document’s criticism of the current state of Czech opera and emphasis on the genre’s potential as a political tool were consistent with Smetana’s later critical writings for Národní listy, as were its subtextual hints of disapproval of Maýr’s leadership. Also, members’ description of a single, unnamed hero who was individually capable of rescuing the Czech arts reflected Smetana’s rising reputation. The document was, in effect, both a ratification of Smetana’s burgeoning status as a culture hero and a key element in the forging of his nationalist persona. It reveals the development of a community devoted specifically to promoting his leadership and his political aims—an objective codified by the bylaws of the newly-established organization. Smetana’s role in shaping the music department’s ideological agenda later inspired Hostinský, one of his greatest advocates, to describe the UB as “the single truly
84
“Hudebnímu odoru pak zvláštní bude úlohou, všemožným svým vlivem působiti k tomu, aby smutné ještě poměry domácího umění, které bohužel až posud nižádného upřímného ochrance nemělo, obrátily se k lepšímu a k oné výši dospěly, na které bychom na rovni stáli s národy pokročilejšími….Jaké důležitosti právě opera ve vývoji hudebního umění nabývá, dokazuje dějepis všech vzdělanějších národů, v ní skládali své myšlenky nejmohůtnější duchové a nejčelnejší mužové jí byly pěstouny….Budoucí naše opera musí býti skutečně uměleckým ústavem, má-li se domoci vyššího stupně, a vzorným učilištěm, v němž se mladší naše síly mohou v určitém směru vzdělávati. Kdyby v čele takového ústavu stál pak skutečně muž, jenž celou duší jsa oddán umění a národu svému, by byl sto, svou snahou a činností vyvolati novou, utěšenější dobu, pak by se i u nás, jak to všude jinde bývalo, soustředily kol takového ústavu veškeré naše síly hudební a z umělecké take vzájemnosti vždy vzešel pokrok. Při nastávají změně našich divadelních poměrů neskytuje se nyní nejvhodnější příležitost, opera naší zjednati uměleckého základu, a artistické její řízení odevzdati rukoum takovým, v kterýchž se zdaru a pokroku skutečně držeti a ku cti našeho národa vyniknouti muže….Skldájíce úplnou důvěru v hlubokou Vaši znalost uměleckých poměruů, a přesvědčeni jsouce, že rozhodnutí nad budoucím stavem naší opery spočívá v nejlepších rukou: pokládali jsme předce za svou povinnost, bychom z “Besedy umělecké” našeho hlasu k Vám…náhled, jakýž panuje jednostejně v uměleckých našich kruzích.” Quoted in Ibid., 47-48.
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impregnable bastion of Smetana’s camp.”85 Hostinský’s description likely also alluded to UB members’ (and Smetana’s supporters’) founding of the MH in 1871. The MH overlapped extensively with its parent organization; it answered the UB’s call to publish Czech works (which it aimed to distribute to pre-registered members either for free or for a small fee), its administration was structured similarly to the UB, and it even eventually merged with the UB in 1890.86 The close relationships between these institutions make it difficult to discern boundaries between them, but the MH was also founded as an explicit response to newly-formulating tensions between UB members. František Pivoda (who served as president of the UB’s music division from 1866-67) initiated a campaign against Smetana in the papers from 1870. In response to this and other such action, Procházka arranged a private meeting in his home for some of Smetana’s most avid supporters, including Hostinský, Emanuel Kittl, Karel Bendl, Josef Rozkošný, František Skuherský, Šlögl, and Emanuel Starý.87 These individuals eventually founded the MH and became its administrative leaders following governmental approval on November 28, 1871.88 They also used the MH and its increasing public voice (the organization recorded over 900 members within its first year) to promote their political agenda, which took its cue from Smetana and was focused on celebrating his achievements. The first scores the 85
Pilková records this quote as “jedinou skutečně nedobytnou baštou Smetanova tábora” on page 71 of her dissertation. I chose to use Pilková’s paraphrase, rather than the original quote as it appears in Hostinský’s “First Step,” 11, only because it is more idiomatic to English. Hostinský’s actual phrase was, “jedinou skutečně nedobytnou tvrzí družiny Smetanovy” (“the single truly impregnable fortress of Smetana’s entourage”). Hostinsky became member of the music department in 1870, but had been a member of the literary department since 1868. 86 The MH’s bylaws are listed in Hudební listy II (November 29, 1871), 338-340. For 50 gulden, members were named “founders” and were automatically enrolled for 10 years. Otherwise, “contributors” paid 3 gulden per year to annually renew their membership. 87 Šlögl’s first name remains unconfirmed at the time of this research. This spelling of his last name—a mix of the Czech spelling Šlégl and the German, Schlögl—is particularly emblematic of members’ ambiguous approach to defining nationalities. 88 Specifically, Procházka was the MH’s director; Kittl, president; Rozkosný, vice president; Hostinský, secretary; and Šlögl, treasurer.
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MH published were for Smetana’s operas Prodaná nevěsta (Bartered Bride) and Libuše.89 Even more critically, it was the MH and not specifically the UB that took over management of the music periodical Dalibor from 1873-75 and again in 1880. From this platform, members of MH published a wide variety of articles describing Smetana to readers as the idealized hero that the UB memorandum had only projected (never naming explicitly). Their voice not only molded audiences’ reception of Smetana during the period, but has profoundly shaped understandings of the composer in scholarship since.
Conclusion The founding of the UB and the activities of the MH form a critical framework for this dissertation; both organizations’ publications provide the source material on which my work is based, and their beginnings illuminate the dynamic social and political contexts, which I examine more closely in the chapters to follow. Pieter Judson evocatively summarized the instability inherent during the era when he explained, “Nationalist movements often spent as much time fighting internal battles as they did fighting each other….Nationalism not only polarized political society, it also divided the very groups it claimed were nations.”90 The disunion that Judson identified is important for considering the activism of UB members, for whom the act of promoting (or not promoting) Smetana became equivalent to serving the nation. To return to the metaphor that opened this chapter, Smetana’s audiences were not listeners, but soldiers, and they did not necessarily march together, but against one another. Judson also reminds us that 89
Other publications included Karel Bendl’s operas Lejla (acts I and II, 1874) and Starý ženich [The Old Groom] (1883), Josef Rozkošný’s Svatojanské proudy [Midsummer Nights] (1872), Fibich’s Nevěsta messinská [The Bride of Messina] (1884), and Norbert Javůrek’s Moravský národní písní [Moravian National Song] (1877). 90 Judson, 9.
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nationalists’ activism was not the work of a large community, but “of social minorities who attempted, with varying degrees of success, to make [the nation] universal by nationalizing their compatriots.”91 This observation is especially critical for considering the work of UB members. Not only did these individuals represent a narrow social and economic demographic, but those who gained a prominent, “nationalizing” voice in the pages of Dalibor represented an even smaller faction of the organization—numbering together only in the tens or twenties. While UB members in many ways exemplify both the tensions in and limitations of nationalistic communities, they were also exceptional in their influence. The few voices that did lobby to position their activism as universal were so successful that they continue to narrate stories surrounding Smetana’s life and works in scholarship today. UB members, in many ways, created Smetana alongside their creations of “Czech” music. And just as nineteenth-century audiences smoothed out the details of the Battle of White Mountain, modern researchers have glossed over the instability of UB members’ creations to arrive at a version of history more palatable to contemporary political ideologies.
91
Ibid., 8.
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A CZECH SYMPHONIC POEM: THE UB, THE NEW GERMAN SCHOOL, AND SMETANA’S MÁ VLAST Numerous scholars including John Tyrrell and Vladimír Hudec have noted similarities between Smetana’s “Vyšehrad” (the first movement of his Má vlast) and Zdeněk Fibich’s symphonic poem Záboj, Slavoj, and Luděk. In particular, they point out that the contour and rhythm of Smetana’s opening theme for “Vyšehrad” bears a resemblance to Fibich’s “Záboj” theme (Fibich labeled his themes in the work’s score) and that both composers include prominent writing for the harp in their works (Figure 1).92 Fig. 1. Smetana’s “Vyšehrad” theme and Fibich’s “Záboj” theme. Note the similar rhythm and melodic contour of both in the following statements. A. Bedřich Smetana,“Vyšehrad,” mm. 191-192.
B. Fibich, Záboj, Slavoj, and Luděk, mm. 61-63.
92
See John Tyrrell and Judith A. Mabary, “Fibich, Zdeněk,” Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online (10 Mar. 2009), http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/09590 and Vladimír Hudec, Zdeněk Fibich (Praha: Státní pedagogické nakladatelství, 1971), 33.
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The commonalities between the two composers’ symphonic poems have been framed in the past as a threat to Smetana’s originality—one that a number of scholars have attempted to neutralize. Brian Large, for example, argued that the patterns of ink types that Smetana used in his autograph manuscript revealed that he began “Vyšehrad” before Fibich began his own symphonic poem, “exonerat[ing] Smetana from any suggestions of plagiarism.”93 Rather than regarding the similarities between Smetana’s “Vyšehrad” and Fibich’s Záboj as a problem, this chapter embraces them as a starting point. Situating these composers’ works and the reception of their symphonic poems within the broader discourses of the Umělekcá beseda (UB) illuminates the larger, shared intellectual and aesthetic space from which they emerged. This shift in perspective allows us to move away from a preoccupation with an “anxiety of influence” toward a process of contextualization that shows how both composers’ works constructed each other and how they themselves were constructed through contemporary criticism.94 Such an examination allows us to rethink even fundamental understandings of Smetana’s relationship with nationalism. It reveals Smetana not as a “lone genius”—a composer untainted by influence—nor as an “inventor” of a Czech nationalist voice. Instead, this discussion opens up new understandings of Smetana and his “Vyšehrad” and invites scholars to
93
Brian Large, Smetana (New York: Praeger, 1970), 266. For more on his argument, refer to 264-265. For more on Smetana’s myth, see Tyrrell’s “Postumous Reputation” in Marta Ottlová, et al, “Smetana, Bedřich,” Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online (2009), http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/52076. 94 This phrase is indebted to Harold Bloom, The Anxiety of Influence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973).
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engage with the deliberate subjectivity of Czechness as well as notions of nationalistic sound more broadly.
Becoming a Lone Creator: Liszt as a Source of the Smetana Mythology In considering the close relationships between Smetana’s and Fibich’s symphonic poems, it is necessary first to examine the international political and aesthetic impulses to which both works responded. The nationalistic rhetoric of German music criticism, particularly as promoted by Karl Franz Brendel and the so-called New German School, played a significant role in UB members’ later theorizations of the symphonic poem. Additionally, Smetana’s interactions with Liszt became a prominent feature in UB members’ constructions of the composer as a lone creator. Understanding “Vyšehrad’s” close relationship to Záboj means acknowledging not just Smetana’s working relationship with Fibich, but Smetana’s two trips to visit Liszt in Weimar in 1857 and 1859. The details of both events help illuminate the larger discourses generated by and through Smetana and Fibich’s works. Smetana’s first trip to Weimar was critical for the young composer and coincided with the culmination of Liszt’s efforts to establish the city as a center for the avant-garde: Archduke Carl August’s jubilee festivities held from September 3-7, 1857.95 During the events, Smetana met prominent members of Liszt’s circle, including Hans von Bülow (with whom he maintained a friendship upon his return) and attended a series of important performances celebrating Liszt’s artistic concepts, in particular a performance 95
This description is indebted to Detlef Altenberg, “Franz Liszt and the Legacy of the Classical Era,” 19thCentury Music 18 (Summer, 1994): 49, 52.
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of Liszt’s symphonic poem, Die Ideale.96 The experience left a significant impression on Smetana, exemplified in a letter he wrote to Liszt: Just one year has passed since I spent those unforgettable September days with you in Weimar which had such a deep and beneficent effect on me…It would be ‘carrying owls to Athens’ were I again to describe to you the soul-stirring impression your music made on me, and how I conceived, not the ‘conviction’—for this indeed had been mine—but the necessity of the progress of art, as taught by you in so great, so true a manner, and made it my credo. Please regard me as one of the most zealous disciples of our artistic school of thought, one who will champion its sacred truth in word and deed.97 Even beyond adopting “progress” as his “credo,” Smetana began experimenting towards the end of 1857 with a single-movement work based on Shakespeare’s Richard III (ultimately sharing the play’s title and completed on July 17, 1858) that was much in keeping with Liszt’s symphonic poems.98 He also began another programmatic based on Schiller’s Valdštýnův tábor (Wallenstein’s Camp) by October of that same year.99 While Smetana’s first trip to Weimar had already made an impression, his second in 1859 coincided with another major event that was similarly critical to both him and Liszt. The event began in Leipzig, where Liszt organized a meeting of young composers
96
For a more detailed list of other guests in attendance see Large, 79. Smetana to Liszt, Götteborg, October 24, 1858, trans. František Bartoš, ed. Bedřich Smetana: Letters and Reminiscences, trans. Daphne Rusbridge (Prague: Artia, 1955), 47-8. 98 Smetana did not use Liszt’s generic designation for Richard III, however, instead later describing it as a “musical illustration” that was “neither…overture nor symphony.” Smetana to Josef Proksch, September 9, 1858, trans. Large, 85. The first performance of Richard III took place in Götteborg on April 24, 1860. It was designated as a “symphonic work” and arranged for four pianos. At its full premiere in Prague on January 5, 1862, Smetana labeled it a “fantasia for full orchestra.” Ibid., 86. 99 Smetana took the narrative for the work from Schiller’s loosely historical trilogy of plays, Wallenstein (1799), which centered on the persecution of the Bohemian general, Albrecht von Wallenstein (Albrecht z Valdštejna, 1583-1634). Wallenstein fought on behalf of Habsburg ruler and Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II (1578-1637) during the Thirty Years’ War, but was eventually assassinated at Ferdinand’s command for fear of conspiracy. Smetana planned to compose two works representing both halves of the trilogy (which is consistent with Schiller’s original organization), but ultimately only composed the first, in which he focused on the festive atmosphere of the leader’s military camp. 97
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to commemorate the 25th anniversary of Robert Schumann’s co-founded music journal, the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik (NZfM).100 This was a landmark occasion for Liszt and his students; music critic, current NZfM editor, and Young Hegelian Franz Brendel identified Liszt’s movement as the “New German School” for the first time during the festival’s keynote address.101 Along with issuing this name, Brendel established several political modes of music criticism from his post at the NZfM that would eventually prove important for Smetana and his fellow UB members. In Brendel’s model, readers followed the leadership of a philosophically, historically, and artistically well-informed guide. It was the responsibility of this guide to produce critiques, or Kritiken—a deliberately “magical” and “all-encompassing” descriptor, as Sanna Pederson argues—that evaluated modern music by situating it within teleological, “progress”-driven narratives.102 Similarly, it was the responsibility of the guide in his Kritiken to identify and promote “artist-prophets” who were autonomous individuals simultaneously responsible for challenging “old” laws of aesthetics while formulating and issuing the “new.”103 For Brendel, the artist-prophet of the New German School was Liszt.
100
Events began on May 29, 1859. Brendel’s phrase most fundamentally referred to a collective group of composers and performers, specifically Joachim Raff, Peter Cornelius, and von Bülow along with Liszt, but also reflected his own nationalistic aims. See Richard Taruskin, “The New German School; Liszt’s Symphonic Poem; Harmonic Explorations,” in Nineteenth Century, vol. 3 of Oxford History of Western Music (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 411-417. 102 Sanna Pederson, “Enlightened and Romantic German Music Criticism, 1800-1850” (PhD diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1995), 3-4. On page 9, Pederson also explains that critics’ interpretations of music history’s “progress” functioned as a metaphor for the progress of humanity and was therefore exceptionally political. Cornelia Szabó-Knotik explores this dynamic at length in her “Tradition as a Source of Progress: Franz Liszt and Historicism,” in Liszt and the Birth of Modern Europe: Music as a mirror of Religious, Political, Cultural, and Aesthetic Transformations, ed. Michael Saffle and Rossana Dalmonte (Hillsdale: Pendragon Press, 1998): 143-156. 103 Taruskin, 438-440. 101
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Smetana, in addition to his immersion in Brendelian ideas through his participation in Liszt’s Leipzig meeting, attended several significant performances during his visit. He heard the prelude to Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, Liszt’s Missa solemnis, and Schumann’s opera Genoveva, and then travelled to Weimar where he and several of Liszt’s friends were guests in the senior composer’s home for 10 days. In addition to engaging socially with the group (he even hosted his own reception for Liszt and other attendees on June 12), Smetana showed the scores for Richard III and Wallenstein’s Camp to Liszt, who proposed a number of cuts to each. Though Smetana did not travel to Weimar again, he and Liszt maintained contact over the next several years, likely in part because Smetana’s relationship with such a celebrity enhanced his reputation in Prague. Smetana publicized his enthusiasm for Liszt, for example, well after the two had discontinued their regular contact. In a letter from May 23, 1880, Smetana wrote, Allow me…to tell you in a few words, for were I to obey my heart whole reams of paper would not suffice, that the recurring sympathy of my adored Grand Master, Franz Liszt, moved me to tears of deep joy. Let me admit openly that I have him to thank for everything I have achieved; it was he above all, who gave me self-confidence and showed me the path I had to take. Since then (and our personal acquaintance has lasted for over 25 years) he has been my master, my example and for all of us surely an attained ideal. My reverence, my admiration and my gratitude know no bounds.104
104
Smetana to August Kömpel, Jabkenice, May 23, 1880, paraphrased from Bartoš, 224-225. The original language appears in Bartoš, ed., Smetana ve vzpomínkách a dopisech [Smetana in Reminiscences and Letters] (V Praze: Topičova, 1941), 180: “Dovolte mi, vážený Mistře, abych ještě řekl—pouze několika řádky—neboť, měl-li bych vylíčit své city, nestačily by zde celé stohy papíru—jak mne dávdná přízeň mého zbožňovaného velmistra Fr. Liszta pohnula až k slzám vnitřní radosti. Přiznávám nepokrytě, že On to byl, kdo mne naučil důvěřovat v sebe a naznačil mi jedinou správnou cestu, kterou jsem se měl dáti. Od té doby—známe se osobně již přes 25 let—je mým mistrem, mým vzorem a pro div, právě tak jako má vděčnost neznají mezí.”
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While Smetana’s writing likely reflected some genuine appreciation for the senior composer, his enthusiasm also pointed to the ways in which the prestige of Liszt’s company served his own public image at home. A frequently-quoted reminiscence by music critic, Smetana advocate, and UB member Václav Novotný illustrates well this particular dynamic. Here, Novotný narrated a creation myth explaining Smetana’s birth as a Czech composer and did so in a way that illuminated the degree to which the myth and Smetana’s Czechness were linked with Liszt.105 I can see him [Smetana] now, eyes flashing as he told us how the idea of creating an independent Czech musical style began to mature in him for the first time. It was in Weimar. The celebrated master, Liszt…conceived a great liking for our modest artist and invited him to come to Weimar where he lived like a King of Music among a select circle of artists from all parts of the world….Naturally, in such a heterogeneous circle of musical brains much wrangling went on about the most varied questions, directly or indirectly connected with art. One of these musical disputes was to have a decisive influence on Smetana’s entire further musical creation. In the Weimar music circle of that time there was, apart from Smetana, the well-known Viennese composer Herbeck [Johann von], who was a confirmed enemy of everything Czech. They fell to discussing what various nations had done in the great sphere of music, and Herbeck began, pointedly and maliciously, to attack the honour of the Czech nation. “What have you achieved up to now,” he scoffed, turning to Smetana.— “All that Bohemia can bring forth is fiddlers, mere performing musicians who can brag only of their perfection in craftsmanship, in the purely mechanical side of music, whereas on the real artist’s path of truth and beauty your creative strength dwindles; indeed hitherto you have not done 105
In scholarship, this anecdote is often taken at face value, rather than with a critical perspective. See, for example, John Clapham, Smetana (London: J. M. Dent and Sons, 1972), 25-26. Clapham is somewhat guarded in evaluating Smetana’s capabilities towards his nationalistic aims, but not skeptical of the validity of the reminiscence. After citing Novotný’s writing, he explains, “We cannot be certain that Smetana was convinced that it lay within his power to raise Czech music to a level comparable with that of other countries, but it is evident that he was determined to strive towards that end.” See also Václav Holzknecht, Bedřich Smetana: Život a dílo [Bedřich Smetana: Life and Work] (Praha: Panton, 1984), 103-105. Holzknecht does point out that Smetana was not alone in his nationalistic impulse, but cites greater European traditions (particularly as they relate to the composers Chopin, Liszt, Schumann, Berlioz, and Wagner) and no Czechs, so that Smetana remains a lone creator of Czech nationalism.
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anything for the development and progress of musical art, for you have not a single composition to show which is so purely Czech as to adorn and enrich European music literature by virtue of its characteristic originality”…. [Smetana] felt the burning truth of much of what his opponent said….Nothing was left to Smetana but to fall back on the outstanding musical talent of the Czech people which was the first to recognize and commemorate the epoch-making work of that great master, Mozart. “Yes, yes, Smetana is right. Mozart wrote Don [Giovanni] in his beloved Prague,” came the cry from other artists in the company. This so roused the choleric Herbeck that he shouted: “Bah, Prague has gnawed the old Mozartian bone long enough…” Smetana shot up as though stung by a snake, righteous anger flashing in his eyes…At that moment, however, Liszt, who had followed the quarrel with a quiet smile, bent slightly forward, took a bundle of notes from the table, and with the words: “Allow me, gentlemen, to play to you the latest, purely Czech music,” sat down at the piano. In his enchanting, brilliant style he played through the first book of Smetana’s character pieces [Stammbuch-Blätter]. After he had played the compositions, Liszt took Smetana, who was moved to tears, by the hand and with the words “here is a composer with a genuine Czech heart, an artist by the grace of God,” he took leave of the company. Herbeck sobered down and holding out his hand to Smetana asked his forgiveness… It was already late when the artists separated in a strange mood. But on the way home, Smetana turned moist eyes to the starry heaven, raised his hand, and deeply moved, swore in his heart the greatest oath: that he would dedicate his entire life to his nation, to the tireless service of his country’s art. And he remained true to his oath even during the most
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difficult periods of his life, to the last flickering of his spirit, to the last breath.106 Novotný used Herbeck’s intense agitation and Liszt’s piqued interest to position the issue of nationalism in music as important to greater European audiences, while romantically portraying Smetana as a hero advocating for the Czechs. Within this frame, Liszt—the 106
“Vidím jej s tím ohnivě planoucím zrakem, když nám líčil, jak po prvé uzrála v něm myšlenka o vytvoření samostatného slohu českého v hudbě. Bylo to ve Výmaru. Proslavený mistr Liszt seznal Smetanu ze 12 karakteristických skladeb klavírních, jež vyšly tehdá v Lipsku, velice si skromného našeho umělce zamiloval a pozval jej k sobě do Výmaru, kdež ve vybraném kruhu umělců ze všech končin světa žil jako nějaký hudební král… Rozumí se, že v tak různorodém kruhu hudebních hlav caste sváděly se půtky o všech možných otázkách, jež primo či nepřímo s uměním souvisely. Jedna z těchto hudebních půtek měla rozhodující vliv na celé další hudební tvoření Smetanovo. V hudební kruhu výmarském byl tehdá vedle Smetany též známý skladatel videňský Herbeck, patrně z nějaké odrodilé české rodiny Hrbkův, zarytý nepřitel všeho českého. Byla řeč o tom, co který národ platného vykonal ve velké říši hudební a tu se jal Herbeck slovy velice jizlivými dotýkati cti národu českého ‘Co jste dosud dokázali?’— vysmíval se, obrácen k Smetanovi. —‘Mezi syny země české rodi se pouze šumaři, hudci výkonní, kteří honositi se mohou pouze dokonalostí v řemeslnické, čistě mechanické stránce hudebního umění, kdežto na dráze pravé krásy i pravdy umělecké tvůrčí síla vase mizí, ba dosud ničeho jste neučinili pro vývoj a pokrok v umění hudebním, neboť vykázati se nemůžete nižádnou skladbou tak čistě českým duchem provanutou, aby pro tuto zvláštní původnost mohla slouti okrasou i obohacením hudebni literatury evropské…’ Tato slova zasáhla jako blesk duši Smetanovu; neboť v těžké této výtce, jež stihá naše hudební umění ještě na počátku našeho století, vězí bohužel mnohé zrnko pravdy. Známo všeobecně, ž vlast naše povždy zásobovala všechny kapely vojenské i orchestry divadelní výkonnými hudebníky, kteří jakožto pouzí ‘muzikanti’ vždy stáli v poměru jaksi služebném kduchům tvůrčím, jichž skladby přednášeli; konečně svou ohromnou většinou převážili skrovný počet oněch tvůrčím duchem nadaných skladatelův, kteří v Čechách se zrodivše v cizinu zabloudili, tam se během času českému duchu úplně odcizili a co pouzí epigone vynikajících právě misrů škol rozličných ovšem k novému vývoji v hudbě, k jakési reformě ve smyslu českém ničím přispěti nemohli, ba ani nechtěli, poněvadž v nich vědomí národní tou dobou nebylo ještě probuzeno. Tehdá bylo umění hudební ještě kosmopolitické. Klasikové a po nich romantikové vládli neobmezeně po všech vzdělaných národech. Moderní hudební setřelo se sebe tuto bezbarevnost kosmopolitismu, ono povzneslo se k nové výši přibráním karakteristických elementův hudby národní…Smetanovi nezbývalo, než odvolati se k eminentímu hudebnímu nadání českého, jenž první přede všemi ostatními pochopil a uznal epochální dílo právě tohoto velkého mistral Mozarta…‘Ano, ano, Smetana má pravdu, ‘Dona Juana’ psal Mozart pro svou milou Prahu’—tak volali ostatní umélci v kruhu. Však to popudilo prudkého Herbecka tou měrou, že vzkřikl: ‘Ha, ta Praha již dosti dlouho hryže na té staré kosti Mozartovské…’ Smetana jako zmijí uštknut vyskočil, spravedlivý hněv sálal mu z očí…vtom však Liszt, jenž s úsměvem kildným sledoval celou hádku, lehce pokynul, vzal se stolu svazek not a se slovy ‘dovolte, pánové, abych vám zahrál nejnovější, ryze českou hudbu,’ zasedl ku klarvíru. Svým kouzelným, geniálním způsobem přednesl první sešit karakteristických skladeb Smetanových. Po přehrání skladeb ujal Liszt k slzám dojatého Smetanu za ruku a se slovy ‘zde máte skladatele ryze českého srdce, umělce bohem nadaného’ rozloučil se se společností. Herbeck vystřízlivěl že svého záchvatu a podávaje ruku Smetanovi, prosil jej za odpuštění…Byla již pozdní doba noční, když se umělci v podivné náladě rozcházeli. Však na cestě k domovu obrátil Smetana vlhký zrak k hvězdnatému nebi, pozvedl ruku a v srdci pohnutém složil nejsvětější přísahu, že celý život svůj zasvětí národu svému, neúnavné službě domácího umění. A přísaze své zůstal věren i v nejtěžších dobách svého života, do posledního zákmitu ducha, do posledního dechu.” Novotný’s writing first appeared in “Vzpomínky na Smetanu” in Dalibor VII (1885), 175-7, trans. Bartoš, 45-47; Bartoš (1941), 34-36.
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ultimate authority—put Herbeck’s argument to rest simply by playing Smetana’s music, its “purely Czech” character communicating what Smetana could not convey in words. In this scenario, Smetana metaphorically has the attention of all of Europe, while the Czechness of his music sparks awe in every listener. At a time when Brendelian concepts of history meant that a nationalist artist must be progressive and vice versa, Smetana was both a “composer with a genuine Czech heart” and the “latest” happening—a Czech artist-prophet.
Smetana as a Lone Creator: The Workings of the UB and Their Consequences for Fibich Myths like the one Novotný described are interesting as historic documents, but play a problematic role in scholarship. If we take at face value Novotný’s notion of Smetana as the original source of Czechness or its international representative, then it becomes necessary to protect him from the influence of other Czech composers. Large’s move to “exonerate” Smetana from accusations of “plagiarism” of Fibich’s symphonic poem exemplifies this impulse.107 Examining the time during which Smetana’s myth was being constructed, with particular emphasis on the year 1873, however, reveals a more complicated history of Smetana and Fibich’s interactions as well as a more nuanced sense of the relationship between their respective works. This year, UB members wrote extensively on Smetana and Fibich’s symphonic poems and their essays illustrated both the degree to which Czech nationalists were indebted to German national models and the
107
Large, 266.
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important ways in which the two composers’ works were intertwined. Interpreting their work requires us first, however, to explore the activities of Smetana and Fibich in the years preceding 1873. This context reveals an important framework for examining their later interactions as well as audiences’—and the UB’s—eventual reception of their symphonic poems. A demand for music teachers drew Smetana to Götteberg, Sweden in 1856, a city that remained his semi-permanent home until he returned to Prague in 1862. When he returned, Smetana announced his arrival by organizing two concerts in the Prague’s Žofín Theater. Audiences had a mixed response to these concerts—and to the German aesthetics with which they associated them.108 The first concert took place on January 2, 1862 and showcased Smetana as a virtuoso pianist, but the composer used the second on January 5 to showcase his compositions, premiering Richard III and Wallenstein’s Camp.109 Though Smetana was enthusiastic about the performances, audiences’ lack of familiarity with the composer and low attendance made reception of both works lukewarm. Smetana later described the event in his diary, Outside, snow was falling fast and it soon covered up the tracks of the few people who came because they had been given free tickets; shortly after the concert had begun nobody could have traced their footprints in the snow…I had hoped, if only out of curiosity, that people would have wanted to hear a compatriot who, after years abroad, was visiting his home town once more. Not at all!...Prague does nothing to help her artists!110
108
These concerts marked Smetana’s permanent return to Prague, but he did travel back to Götteberg where he stayed for eight weeks starting on March 17, 1862. He permanently returned to Prague by June, 1862. 109 He had also premiered both works in piano arrangements at Götteborg, where they were warmly received. 110 Smetana, Diary, January 1862, trans. Large, 119.
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In addition to the concert’s low attendance, Smetana observed in his diary that, although the Czech papers “praise[d]” the works “uniformly,” the German papers “reproach[ed him] with belonging to the neo-German school.”111 Smetana’s description of the public response reveals conflicting attitudes towards the New German School among Prague audiences. While this account suggests that at least part of the Czech population was open to the New German School’s works and concepts, reception among the German population was less enthusiastic. Revealingly, Smetana, too, distanced himself from the school in his diary. “Insofar as the neo-German school means progress I belong to it,” he explained, “in everything else I belong to myself. At least I try to follow what I feel within me.”112 In addition to Richard III and Wallenstein’s Camp, Smetana composed the symphonic poem Hakon Jarl (named for one of its main characters) during his time in Sweden, premiering the piece in Prague on February 24, 1864. This work was the first that Smetana labeled as belonging to the genre and was his first deliberately nationalistic symphonic poem—but on a Swedish, rather than Czech, narrative. As with the response to Smetana’s previous symphonic poems, Prague audiences were generally unenthusiastic and labeled the work “music of the future,” a slogan appropriated by opponents to the New German School as an ironic insult.113
111
February 6, 1862, trans. Ibid. Ibid. 113 The slogan “music of the future” was coined by the New German School originally in response to the premiere of Wagner’s Lohengrin at Weimar in 1850. See Taruskin, 421. James Deaville also points out that, “The effect of the term [“music of the future”] when used ironically was to dehumanize the New Germans, as if they were a genus of animals, with shared features but incapable of consciously working together toward a higher, noble goal.” See his “The Controversy Surrounding Liszt’s Conception of Programme Music,” in Nineteenth-Century Music: Selected Proceedings of the Tenth International 112
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Smetana gained wider recognition upon his return to Prague through his work in opera, rather than through his symphonic poems. He became the director of the Provisional Theater in 1866, and the premieres of his operas Braniboři v Čechách (Brandenburgers in Bohemia) in 1865 and especially Prodaná nevěsta (The Bartered Bride) in 1866 contributed to his growing celebrity. While Smetana’s recognition was rising, the younger composer Fibich was also working to establish himself on the Prague music scene after studying abroad in Leipzig, Paris, and Mannheim. To this end, Fibich became involved with the UB almost immediately upon moving to Prague in 1870 (a year during which Smetana was president of the music division) and took advantage of the organization’s support to gain publicity. Like Smetana, Fibich had taken an interest in the symphonic poem and used the UB’s assistance to premiere his first in that genre, Othello, to a warm audience in an 1873 performance under Smetana’s direction. Similarly, excerpts from Fibich’s earliest extant opera, Bukovín, were performed for a receptive audience at a private UB concert before its completion, though the work was ultimately staged only once in 1874 and criticized for its use of “old models of the Romantic school.”114 This same year, however, the premiere of his symphonic poem Záboj, Slavoj and Luděk brought Fibich new recognition, particularly because of the work’s program. He drew the work’s narrative from the Rukopis královédvorský (Queen’s Court Manuscript), which, though later found to be fraudulent, was said to contain thirteenth-
Conference, ed. Jim Samson and Bennett Zon (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002), 100. Large, in an effort to rescue Smetana, explained that critics used the comment only because they “misunderstood” the work’s “originality.” Large, 106. 114 Dalibor (April 18, 1874), quoted in Artuš Rektorys, Zdeněk Fibich: Sborník dokumentů a studií o jeho zivotě a díle [Zdeněk Fibich: A Collection of Documents and Articles about his Life and Work] (Prague: Orbis, 1951-1952), I, 14, 19.
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century Czech poetry.115 It was a landmark literary-musical affiliation; today, Fibich is credited with composing the earliest symphonic poem on a Czech program.116 Together, Smetana and Fibich’s overlapping activities point to their participation in a larger, shared cultural scene. The composers’ experimentation with symphonic poems and involvement in the UB (Fibich, in addition to joining the organization, served as the music division’s president from 1890-92) evidence this. The details of both composers’ work specifically on “Vyšehrad” and Záboj within the activities of the UB further reveals their intersections. Fibich first premiered Záboj in a four-hand piano arrangement at a private UB concert on December 12, 1873 and officially premiered the work at a “Festival of Academic Societies” on May 25, 1874. Smetana may well have been at the first UB performance of Záboj and was certainly present for the work’s public premiere in 1874, which took place only a few months before the start date that he recorded for “Vyšehrad.”117 Even before Fibich’s Záboj or Smetana’s “Vyšehrad” were ever warmly received, however, the idea of the symphonic poem as a genre for nationalist expression had gained recognition in a series of writings published in the periodical Dalibor, a periodical managed by UB members and supported by their publishing house, the MH. In many
115
Václav Hanka “discovered” the Queen’s Court Manuscript under a church tower in the city for which it was named. Václav was held as a national hero until he was officially revealed as the collection’s author in the 1880s. Still, in 1852, Václav published the manuscript’s contents in thirteen different translations in a collection titled Polyglotta. Derek Sayer, The Coasts of Bohemia: A Czech History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998), 144. 116 See John Tyrrell and Judith A. Mabary, “Fibich, Zdeněk.” 117 Scholar Jaroslav Jiránek in his biography of Fibich repeats a long-standing rumor claiming that Smetana was extremely impressed with Fibich’s Záboj upon first hearing and played it back several times. Though Jiránek emphasizes that the rumor is only hearsay and regardless of whether the rumor is true, it confirms a popular belief that Smetana had a sustained interest in Fibich’s work. Jaroslav Jiránek, Zdeněk Fibich (Prague: Adamemie múzických umění, 2000), 25.
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senses, this journal laid the groundwork for public reception of both Smetana’s and Fibich’s works and forged an important connection between them. In 1873, 44% of Dalibor’s near-weekly issues (totaling 23 of 52 issues) included feature articles by Novotný and the aesthetician Dr. Otakar Hostinský on the topic of the symphonic poem (or program music more broadly) which adapted and embraced German nationalist ideologies. Reading these publications alongside the announcements from Smetana and Fibich about their own symphonic poems illuminates the complicated relationships between the composers’ works and, more critically, the ways in with both were indebted to German, rather than strictly Czech, nationalist aesthetics. Before discussing Novotný’s or Hostinský’s writing in greater detail, we should return briefly once more to Brendel. In addition to his previously discussed teleological music histories, Brendel helped to establish two modes of criticism, the “autonomous” and the “poetic,” that are particularly critical to Novotný’s and Hostinský’s discussions of symphonic poems.118 Sanna Pederson explores both of these modes in her dissertation, German Music Criticism, 1800-1850. Here, she explains that autonomous criticism was aimed at a work’s strictly musical, idealistically objective content, or “inner value.”119 The poetic, by contrast, was aimed at expressing listeners’ subjective responses to music and their transcendence into a higher, universal plane.120 In addition to poetic criticism, a subtype called a “poetic paraphrase” allowed a critic to use freely descriptive scenarios as metaphors to communicate his own subjective experience to those, by implication,
118
Pederson, 16. Ibid. 120 Ibid. 119
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lacking the critic’s sophisticated analytical skills.121 The poetic paraphrase became an important tool for critics aiming to influence a wide public, and will be of particular importance to this discussion where identifications of “Czech” and “German” music are concerned. Pederson also points out that all three of these modes of criticism engage with Hegelian philosophies of history and are inherently political as a consequence. Despite Brendel’s framing of music history as an autonomous narrative, for example, Pederson explains, “The Romantics were not interested in appreciating music as an end in itself or as an autonomous object; rather, they understood it in terms of its relation to society.”122 Here, she emphasizes critics’ interpretations of music history’s progress as a metaphor for the progress of humanity.123 Concerning poetic criticism, Pederson also explains that “the Romantics…pinned their faith on an idea of art that could take over life through a miracle or an upheaval like the French revolution. The Romantic concepts of ‘poetic music’ and ‘poetic criticism’ were intended to have radical implications for modern society.”124 Novotný and Hostinský engaged with the symphonic poem—a genre already constructed by the New German School as highly political and nationalistic—using these modes of music criticism in their Dalibor publications. In doing so, they contributed additional layers of political meaning to the genre’s formulations, harnessing the political orientation of the symphonic poem along with methods for its discussion towards their own nationalistic aims. 121
Pederson also makes a point to acknowledge that her use of and conceptions of these terms were indebted to Carl Dahlhaus, The Idea of Absolute Music, 63-69, and Analysis and Value Judgment, 16-17. 122 Pederson, 9. 123 See also Taruskin, 414. 124 Pederson, 16.
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Novotný’s first article on the symphonic poem, “Sonata and Symphony— Symphonic Poem: An Outline of the Historical Development of These Forms,” ran serially in nearly every issue of Dalibor for over two months from April 11-June 27, 1873. His impassioned writing focused on an autonomous, progress-driven history of composition, beginning with Palestrina and ending with Liszt—a narrative consistent with Brendel’s own Lectures on the Philosophy of History (collected from students’ notes, 1837).125 Just as Brendel had framed German composition and culture as a pinnacle of history in his study, Novotný concluded his article by discussing Czech composers as great synthesizers; in fact, in Novotný’s argument, Czech musicians of the new school were even more progressive than their German neighbors. They had discovered idealistically modern genres (including the symphonic poem) later, which meant that they could bring them to still greater heights of perfection. Despite his clear debt to Brendel, Novotný did not overtly acknowledge the German critic in his writing. Instead (like many Hegelian thinkers), Novotný invoked Darwin’s Origin of Species (1859) to justify his argument, reasoning that, if Darwin has shown that all plant and animal life arose from smaller organisms, “Why would we not be allowed to use this idea in the field of art?” 126 Complementing the politicized history that he provided, Novotný’s descriptions of the symphonic poem deliberately engaged with notions of a revolution-driven 125
Taruskin, 413-415. “…Darwin po uvedení přesvědčujících důvodův, po jasném sestavení nezvratných fakt a řadě rozumých závěrkův přichází a rostlinné formy jen z několika málo organismů povstati musely a že se během (dlouhého) času úplně přirozenou cestou vyvinuly. Proč bychom této myšlénky i my v oboru umění hudebního použíti nesměli?” Václav Novotný, “Sonata a symfonie—symfonická báseň: Nástin historického vývinu těchto forem” [“Sonata and Symphony—Symphonic Poem: Outline of the Historical Development of These Forms”], Dalibor I (April 11, 1873), 120. 126
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progress. He began his article by framing symphonic poem composition (and program music more broadly) as a “revolution” initiated by Liszt’s “new school.”127 Specifically, he described Beethoven’s ninth symphony as the “last…of the old style” and the symphonies of Schubert, Mendelssohn, Schumann, and Berlioz as “nothing new, on the whole,” while describing Liszt’s works as the “center” of a new “sphere of thought.”128 Near the article’s conclusion, Novotný took this reasoning a step further, explicitly explaining that Czechs needed to harness the revolution of the new genre as their own political tool. “Our nation is a tremendous force of talented genius—that is a universally known truth long ago,” he began, I do not want to investigate whose fault it is that we, to this time, have not excelled in the struggle with neighboring nations…however, certainly we must bear on our own shoulders part of this blame…we caused it by our disinterest: [in the past,] we did not march to the fore with the spirit of the times [Zeitgeist]. This accusation is not valid at present. The majority of domestic artists arrived at the opinion that it is possible to wrestle with our neighbors for the glow of victory only when we stand with them on the same land, with the same weapons, and when we enjoy the advantage. All the advantages and all the good things that our neighbor gets we shall have too [an allusion to Hungary’s newly-gained autonomy]…we must reach with bold arms again for the greatest excellence, as given to us in the newest time of musical arts, so that we could optimize all of the domestic spirit—and work towards a more pleasing future…if we will march…steadily to the front with the spirit of the times [Zeitgeist], if we tighten in all of our artistic camps, thankfully
127
“Směru doby minulé, zvláště mistrův klasických postavil se na odpor genialní revolucionář, hlava nové školy…Jest to Fr. Liszt.” Ibid., 117. 128 Novotný softens this rendering shortly thereafter, arguing that Liszt actually did not actually “stand in opposition” to previous composers, but continued to work from their experience. “Pravda to nepopíratelná, že Beethovenem dosáhla hudba instrumentalní svého vrchole, že tedy ‘devátou’ napsána byla poslední symfonie; však poslednís ymofnie starého stylu, staré formy.” Ibid., 118.
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we now have numerous forces we can use to bring about dominance and great influence in the artistic world once more.129 Here, Novotný made clear both the political function of his history and the potential of the symphonic poem (and its history) for Czech audiences. He used militant words like “struggle,” “march,” “weapons,” and “victory” to argue for the importance of progressing with the “spirit of the times” (more accurately translated as “Zeitgest,” one of Hegel’s most well-known neologisms). According to Novotný, then, the symphonic poem was a means for Czechs to advertise their relevance and eminence to the rest of Europe—to take up arms in the interest of autonomy as well as progress. Not only was it capable of demonstrating Czechs’ modernity and “domestic spirit” to a wide audience, but the acts of producing and celebrating the symphonic poem were, for Czechs, integral to gaining their own political voice. Novotný’s extensive writing about the symphonic poem over so many issues of Dalibor along with his overtly politicized situating of the genre set the stage for important announcements at the end of his series concerning the recent work of Smetana and Fibich. Novotný used the majority of this discussion to advocate for all three of Smetana’s earlier and less familiar symphonic poems, summarizing, 129
“Nechci zkoumati, kdo nad tím vinnen jest, že jsme dosud dle toho nevynikali, v zápasu s národy sousedními—vedlo by to příliš daleko; však jisto jest, že valnou cast viny té příjmouti musíme na vlastní bedra, jisto jest, že mnoho jsme zavinili vlastním nerozumem: nedovedli jsme ktráčeti s duchem času. Výčitka tato odpadá téměř zúplna pro dobu nejnovější. Většina totiž domácích umělcův přišla k tomu náhledu, že jen tenkráte nám možno zápasiti se soused o palmu vitězství, pakliže postavíme se na stejnou s nimi půdu, pakliže postavíme Stenjých s nimi zbraní a výhod dálších užijeme. Všechny výhody a vůbec vše dobré, jimž honosí se naši soused, vytěžiti musíme ve svůj vlastní prospěch. Nerozumné to jest pohrdati krásou proto, že jest tato vzata z cizích luhů: sáhnouti již jednou musíme smělou rukou po tom nejznamenitější m, co podala nám v oboru umění hudebního doba nejnovější , abychom vše tak helděti utěšenější budoucnosti vstřic. Zkusme to a ignorujme vše nové ještě dálších deset let: sázím se, že v oboru uměleckém ani kohout po nás nezakokrhá; budeme-li však statně kráčeti s duchem času ku předu, napneme-li v táboře uměleckém všech našich, bohudíky již nyní četných sil, můžeme to v krátké době přivésti k nadvládía vlivu nemalému ve světě uměleckém.” Ibid. (June 20, 1873), 203.
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Concerning beautifully rounded forms, the third symphonic poem [Hakon Jarl] is the most perfect. Richard is more interesting as to its hearty content—richly concise and at the same such beautiful themes that it would be in vain to search for the same in Liszt’s symphonic poems. Wallenstein’s Camp is the most effective and impressive for the widest public. Certainly it is impossible to understand why the master allows these exceptional works to waste away lying quietly in a desk. We hope that the works will be performed for our audience in the future concert season.130 Novotný complemented his discussion of Smetana’s symphonic poems by revealing that the composer was planning to organize two of his conceived works, “Vyšehrad” and “Vltava” (previously announced as “great orchestral works” in 1872, but not yet begun), into a cycle of at least five symphonic poems—the collection that would ultimately become Má vlast.131 Following this discussion, Novotný also acknowledged Fibich who had been formally introduced to the public for the first time in the article, “Zdeněk Fibich: A Critical Outline and Biography” only three issues prior (June 6, 1873, No. 23). For Fibich’s introduction, a previous, unnamed author had provided an analysis of his symphonic poem, Othello. Novotný, in turn, announced that Fibich had already completed his next symphonic poem, Záboj, Slavoj, a Luděk. For Novotný, Smetana and Fibich clearly belonged in the same category and their works were working toward similar ends—the ends his own articles had already laid out.
130
“Co do krásně zaokrouhlené zevnější formy jest třetí tato symfonická báseň nejdokonalejší. ‘Richard’ jest znamenitější co do jádrného obsahu, bohatší pregnantními a při tom tak krásnými motivy, že plarně bychom podobné v Listových symfonických básních hledali. ‘Valdštýnův tábor’ jest pro širší publikum nejefektnější, nejúchvatnější. Nelze věru pochopiti, proč nechává mistr tento skladby tak znamenhité v pultu klidně spočívati. Doufáme, že v budoucí saisoně koncertní budou skladby tyto našemu obecenstvu předvedeny.” Ibid. (June 27, 1873), 211. 131 The announcement appeared in Hudební listy III (November 7, 1872), 370: “Skladatel Bedřich Smetana, dokončiv úplně velkou vlasteneckou zpěvohru “Libuše,” z nížto uslyšíme v nastávajících zábavách hudebních některé úryvky, hodlá nyní přistoupiti k větším orkestrálním skladbám ‘Vyšehrad’ and ‘Vltava.’”
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The depth of Novotný’s knowledge about contemporary Czech composers’ symphonic poem composition suggests that it was informed at least in part by private conversations with Smetana and Fibich (UB meetings would have brought these three together fairly easily and frequently).132 Though the myth of the lone creator of Czech music was already beginning to form around Smetana, then, publications in Dalibor illuminate a larger social context in which he was working. The discourses that members of this social scene generated, moreover, were self-consciously indebted to the polemics of the New German School, situating the symphonic poem as a highly political, nationalistic genre long before Smetana ever began composing the first movement of his Má vlast. Rather than inventing a discourse, Smetana’s Vlast tapped into one already entrenched in the community around him, a discussion nuanced even further by the writings of fellow UB member Hostinský. Hostinský’s essay “On Program Music” ran as a series of installments in issues of Dalibor from August 29 to November 21, 1873. Here, Hostinský provided an autonomous discussion, as described by Pederson, of the symphonic poem as a genre. Rather than providing a Hegelian history as Novotný did, however, Hostinský generated his own theory, discussing program music in great detail and using highly elevated language to provide a sort of guided tour of aesthetics for the program music skeptic.133
132
Smetana and Fibich’s compositional activities might also reveal some measure of musical competition. Though Smetana was the first to announce work on new symphonic poems, Fibich, in his Othello, was the first to complete one. Fibich, moreover, followed Smetana’s announcement that he planned to compose a cycle of symphonic poems (in Dalibor on June 27, 1873) with his own on August 29 (also in Dalibor), stating that he, too, planned to set Záboj within a cycle. 133 Brian Locke points out that Hostinský, in many ways, also used the article to respond to Eduard Hanslick’s aesthetic theories within the New German School. See Opera and Ideology in Prague (Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2006), 27.
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Over the course of the article, Hostinský methodically engaged with abstract questions like “What is the role of the text in program music?,” “How does listening to program music compare to listening for forms in music?,” and, even more abstractly, “Should music imitate nature, and, if so, what does this mean for the human ‘voice’ of a poetic idea a symphonic poem?” His range of questions were consistent with Wagner’s own from his open letter to Liszt “On Program Music,” which Hostinský quoted near the article’s conclusion.134 In keeping with his autonomous approach, Hostinský was seldom overtly political in his analyses (extra musical meaning would undermine his attempts to discuss music as an object), but his strategy for framing his article and acknowledging a skeptical audience does allude to program music’s metaphorical revolution. “Program music!”—it is true that some parts of the audience, including otherwise honest and sincere friends of the musical arts, do not have a taste for it and experience overwhelming nausea upon a mere hearing [of the words]. And why?—Are you surprised at that? Every new principle is more easily neglected and abused than understood and implemented….So it happened that those who did not take on the job of learning the true nature of “program music” did not differentiate between what is accidental and what is real, [so for them] this new direction seems to be just a random meeting—witty, perhaps, but that is precisely why it is the most dangerous—and so comes up empty…satire that, by very rude hand, 134
Hostinský quotes Wagner’s argument that musical form serves the music critic more than the artist: “Were there no Form, there would certainly be no artworks, but quite certainly no art-judges either; and this is so obvious to these latter that the anguish of their should cries out for Form, whereas the easy-going artist—though neither could he, as just said, exist without Form in the long run—troubles his head mightily little about it when at work. And how comes this about? Apparently because the artist, without knowing it, is always creating forms, whereas these gentlemen [critics] create neither forms nor anything else.” Hostinský also quotes Wagner’s tongue-in-cheek consideration of the possibility that Liszt ruined music through his lack of form: “This most superb, incomparable, most independent and peculiar of all the arts— the art of Music—were it possible for it ever to be injured, save by bunglers never consecrated in its sanctuary? Do they mean to tell us that Liszt, the most musical of all musicians to me conceivable, could be that sort of bungler?” Otakar Hostinský, “O hudbě ‘programní” [“On Program Music”], Dalibor I (November 21, 1873), 382. Trans. William Ashton Ellis, Richard Wagner’s Prose Works, vol. 3 (New York: Broude Brothers, 1966), 242, 246.
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overthrew the sacred artistic throne of old “classical” music as a chosen musical antichrist.135 Here, in referring to some audience members’ “nausea” at the mere mention of program music, Hostinský acknowledges a revealing nuance in language for his readers. In addition to possibly resisting this genre because of its newness, the descriptor “program” could be taken to mean “agenda” (in Czech and English), so that listeners, before ever actually engaging with the music, might be predisposed to expect a literal revolution aimed at “overthrowing the throne of the arts.” Though Hostinský’s writing, with this important exception, is less overtly political than Novotný’s, he did address the issue of whether or not music was capable of being nationalistic in a previous article, “The Arts and Nationality,” from 1869. This piece culminated in a call for the development of a nationalistic “music drama” (italics his), but also made several earlier arguments that are important in considering relationships between nationalism, Czechness, and music.136 In particular, Hostinský made a point of emphasizing music’s subjectivity by contrasting its study with that of the sciences. “The direction of scientific research is somehow centripetal, convergent,” he explained, “artistic creation, though, is centrifugal, divergent; or, in another way: truth is
135
“’Programní hudba!’—nelze upříti, že má název ten u valné části obecenstva jakousi osudnou nechuť, že mnohý, jinak poctivý a upřímný přítel umění hudebního, cití již při pouhém slyšení tohoto slova nepřekonatelnou ošklivost. A proč?—Nedivme se tomu! Každý nový princip bývá mnohem snadněji zneunznán a zneužit než-li pochopen a proveden: tak dopouštějí se bohužel i přívržencí ‘programní hudby’ zde onde pošetilých omylů a zpozdilých poklesků, kompromitujíce chorobnými výstřednostmi svými dobrou věc samu. Tak se stává, že se těm, kdož si nevzali práci, aby poznali pravou podstatu ‘programní hudby,’ a tudíž neliší, co jest nahodilého a podstatného, nový tento směr zdá býti pouhým [cestem] duchaplným snad, ale právě proto tím nebezpečnější—hotovou karikaturou, která svou drzou rukou svrhla starou ‘klasickou’ hudbu s posvátného trůnu umění, aby sama se ho mohla zmocniti, [zvoleným] hudebním antikristem.” Hostinský, “On Program Music,” Dalibor (August 29, 1873), 282. 136 Otakar Hostinský, “Umění a národnost” [“The Arts and Nationality”], Dalibor VIII (January 20, 1869), 18.
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single, beauty is innumerable.”137 Music as subjective experience is a point, too, that Hostinský generally emphasized in his writing. His “On Program Music” began by acknowledging multiple, equally valid concepts of beauty in art and arguing that each individual field of art, moreover, has its own specific kind of beauty. In “The Arts and Nationality,” however, Hostinský went on to contrast this individualistic perspective with one oriented around a collective nation, summarizing, It therefore falls that each nation as an individual whole has a specific national taste corresponding to its psychological nature, not only in the arts, but in the whole of its life…. [National taste] assumes no aesthetic statement. If, however, the nation seizes the power to judge the beauty of a certain work and perhaps wanted to enforce on us opinions about which forms are fairly ugly or which…forms are actually beautiful, the psychological statement is mistaken for aesthetic opinion… From here it follows that beauty and nationality are in no way a nuisance between which some kind of mediation and reconciliation are necessary, but actually are disparate, tolerant elements—each of them occupies a particular field, and therefore the arts certainly can be national without the expense of beauty.138 For Hostinský, despite the subjectivity of an individual’s interpretation, a shared worldview among an imagined nation allowed for the possibility of a national art. National art, moreover, was a neutral concept separate from beauty, although the two were not mutually exclusive. Near the end of the article, Hostinský also spoke to the capacity for 137
“…směr vědeckého bádání jest jaksi cetripetalní, konvergentní; uměleckého tvoření ale centrifugalní, divergentní; nebo jinými slovy: pravda jest jedina, drása ale nečislná.” Ibid. (January 1, 1869), 1. 138 “Tak náleží i každému národu co individualnímu celku zvláštní vkus národní, odpovídající jeho psychologické povaze a jevící se nejen v umění, ale i v celém jeho životě. Že pak takový národní vkus, jaky jsme zde vytknuli, všeobecné a nepodmíněné platnosti esthetického výroku nikterak neodporuje…Kdyby však vkus národní usurpoval si moc, rozhodovati o kráse jistého díla a chtěl nám snad vnucovati formy lhostejné neb docela šeredné za krásné, a tím psychologické své stanovisko zaměnil za esthetické,—tož bychom takovýto chorobný přechmat rozhodně odmítnouti museli, ač neměl-li by pojem umění co tvoření krásného zmizeti….Z toho všeho jde, že krásna a národnost nikterak nejsou protivami, mezi nimiž by teprvé jakéhosi prostředkování a smiřování zapotřebí bylo, nýbrž vlastně různorodými, snášelivými živly, z nichž každý své zvláštní pole zaujímá, a že tudíž umění zajisté může býti národním, aniž by to kráse jeho bylo na úkor.” Ibid., 10.
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national art to function as a political tool, explaining, “the arts must come from the land of the nation; however, they must not stay only in the land of the nation, but should not become alienated during the process.”139 According to Hostinský, national art, or, by extension, Czechness in music, was both a valid possibility and necessary for validating a culture’s place among greater European audiences. At a time when Smetana and Fibich were both announcing the completion of their symphonic poems, then, fellow UB members Novotný and Hostinský were carving out a cultural, aesthetic, and political space for the new genre that was built on existing discourses. Their descriptions reveal the wider dialogue to which both Smetana and Fibich responded in their symphonic poems and, more critically, illuminate the strong degree to which formulations of Czech nationalism in music were self-consciously indebted to a German tradition. While the close relationship between Czech and German nationalisms may be somewhat unsurprising given the two cultures’ close proximity, acknowledging their similarities has important consequences for current understandings of Smetana, Fibich and their works. “Vyšehrad” did not imitate Záboj so much as both works emerged together from a confluence of local and international discourses and were deeply intertwined—they were, as I shall argue here, in dialogue both with one another and with the critical traditions that produced and defined them.
139
“Vidíme tedy, že—má-li mu vůbec kvésti nějaká budoucnost—umění musí vyjíti z půdy národní, ovšem anižby na této půdě jednak lpěti zůstalo nebo jinak se jí zase odcizilo.” Ibid.
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UB Writings and Czechness as a Mode of Listening: Consequences for Understandings of “Vyšehrad” Examining reception of Smetana’s “Vyšehrad” and Fibich’s Záboj alongside one another in UB publications uncovers previously unacknowledged, deliberately subjective ways of engaging with their music. While critics like Novotný and Hostinský modeled their theorizations of the symphonic poem on German concepts of nationalism, these critics also deliberately engaged with subjective listening in order to “other”— aggressively, in some cases—the Germanness they perceived in music. Applying this framework in particular to Smetana’s “Vyšehrad” reveals new ways of interpreting the composer’s compositional strategies. Though scholars have focused in the past on questions of originality surrounding the work, taking into account UB publications sheds new light on “Vyšehrad’s” connections with Záboj and ultimately has significant consequences for understanding the ways Czechness operated as a mode of listening for period audiences. An additional article by Novotný, “The Queen’s Court Manuscript and Music Literature,” which ran in four installments from August 8 to September 3, 1873, opens up new means for engaging with the political discourses built into Smetana’s “Vyšehrad.” Novotný’s ostensible aim in the article was to discuss the recently “discovered” manuscripts as a potential source for programmatic material in nationalistic works. The author dedicated three fourths of the article, however, to a review—more specifically a poetic paraphrase—of Fibich’s Záboj. Novotný’s charged writing throughout reminds modern readers that subjective listening was a widely accepted and valid means of 78
engaging with music for past audiences, and, because Fibich’s Záboj and Smetana’s “Vyšehrad” share so many similarities in composition and scholarship, invites our own deliberately subjective comparison of the two works. Fibich drew his program for Záboj, Slavoj, a Luděk from the Queen’s Court Manuscript, which was the reason for Novotný’s attention to the work in his article. Specifically, Fibich used an excerpt from the collection describing a battle having supposedly taken place in 805 between two Pagan princes, Záboj and Slavoj, and an aggressive Germanic, Christian military leader, Luděk (or Ludwig). In the work’s score, Fibich featured Záboj more prominently than Slavoj (he labeled his themes according to the names of these characters) and used a loose ternary form to depict Záboj’s declaration of war against Luděk and the Czech’s ultimate victory. In his review, Novotný argued that Fibich’s use of the material made it the first by the composer to allow, “the Slavonic element, that is specially Czech, [to spread] its stately wings.”140 In addition to celebrating his program, Novotný admired Fibich’s compositional method, using his review to provide a charged and revealing analysis of the ways in which Fibich communicated a nationalistic message through music. In particular, Novotný explained Fibich’s writing as deliberately contrasting “German” and “Czech” music.141 He identified the work’s opening material as a “characteristic German motive, a motive of sharp rhythm, which evokes in us the austere impression of strict conquering,
140
“Živel slovanský, totiž specielně český rozpíná mohutná svá křídla poprvé v třetí Fibichové symfonické básní a první z cyklu, jejž časem svým provésti chce z bohatého materiálu, jenž apočívá v rukopisu Královédvorském…” Novotný, “Rukopis Královédvorský a literatura hudební” [“The Queen’s Court Manuscript and Music Literature”], Dalibor I (August 22, 1873), 273. 141 “Stavba celé této symfonické básně spočívá jedině na dvou hlavních základních motivech totiž: německém a českém.” Ibid., 274.
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inconsiderate pride,” and its second theme as “taken directly from the spirit of Czech national folksong” (Figures 2 and 3).142 Fig. 2. Zdeněk Fibich, Záboj, Slavoj, and Luděk, mm. 1-4. Fibich’s “German” theme, stated in unison strings.
Fig. 3. Zdeněk Fibich, Záboj, Slavoj, and Luděk, mm. 61-66. Fibich’s “Czech” theme.
Novotný went on to describe the ways in which the two themes interacted over the course of the piece, Both motives appear at once with the same great orchestration, similar in strength and grandiosity…At first, the German motive rejoices in the uppermost register and the Czech motive marches with iron defiance with gradual imitation forward; little by little the Czech motive reveals itself in the uppermost dynamic level in the top register, with the German motive writhing in broken triplets and fluctuating passages in the contrabass…In the third part, the joy from victory sounds, from the joy of the liberation of the servile homeland, and the part ends with warm gratitude “Thanks be to God.”143 142
“Skladba sama začíná karakteristickým motive Němcův, motivem to, jenž ostře rytmovaným krokem budí v nás představu hrdé vládychtivosti, bezohledné zpupnosti….Nasledující český motiv však jest vzat direktně z ducha české národní pisně.” Ibid. 143 “Oba motivy objeví se nám v stejně skvělé instrumentaci, v stejně síle a mohutnosti…Poprvé jásá motiv německý v nejhořejších polohách a český motiv kráčí železným vzdor tomu krokem ještě k tomu se stupňovanou immitací ku předu; poznenáhlu objeví se český motiv v nejvyšším stupnování dinamickém v hořenní poloze, kdežto německý motiv se svijí v rozbitých triolích a kolisavých poasážích v kontrabasech….V třetím oddílu zaznívá radost nad vydobytým vítězstvím, nad osvobozením porobené vlasti; celek končí s vroucím díkem ‘bohóm spasám’!” Ibid., 275-6.
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Novotný’s reading of Fibich’s organization of the work as a competition between specifically Czech and German themes reveals a mode of listening that resonated strongly with the Czechs’ desire to gain recognition and even political autonomy within Hapsburg rule. As Beckerman reminds readers throughout his “Search for Czechness in Music,” it is difficult for modern listeners to justify their own identifications of Czech or German music.144 Still, Novotný’s review shows us how some Czech audiences and critics perceived music during their own time. In this case, Novotný’s musico-political language and analytical methodologies reveal not just how Fibich might have conceived his work, but what Smetana’s later and musically related symphonic poem might have signified. Smetana’s organization of contrasting musical material for “Vyšehrad” lends itself to comparison with Fibich’s contest between supposedly Czech and German musical tropes in Záboj. Most fundamentally, the program that Smetana provided for the movement—named after the tenth-century castle situated on the cliffs of the river Vltava—is consistent with the concept of struggle featured in Fibich’s Záboj. The harps of the seers begin; the song of the seers (Bardengesang) about the events at Vyšehrad, of the glory, splendor, tournaments, and battles up to the final decline and ruin. The work ends on an elegiac note (Nachgesang der Barden).145 Musically, Smetana supports this program through the juxtaposition of material within a ternary form ABA’, which A. Peter Brown points out is also “filled with sonata-form
144
Michael Beckerman, “In Search of Czechness in Music,” 19th-Century Music 10 (1986): 61-73. His discussion is addressed in more detail in the conclusion to this chapter and dissertation. 145 Smetana to František Augustin Urbánek near the end of May, 1879, trans. Bartoš, 263-4. An untranscribed copy of this letter appears in Bartoš (1941), 235.
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properties.”146 Within this larger framework, Smetana’s juxtaposition of themes is comparable to Fibich’s own in Záboj, and these comparisons, when considered in light of both works’ deep immersion within shared nationalistic discourses, invite us to posit a culturally-driven reading of Smetana’s “Vyšehrad” using the framework of Novotný’s poetic paraphrase. It is possible to read Smetana’s treatment of contrasting themes in “Vyšehrad” as depicting the Czechs’ defeat by their oppressors. Within the movement’s ternary form, the material of both A sections is all derived from a single, lyrical melody that features balanced, antecedent and consequent phrasing and offbeat accents (Fig. 5). The material presented in the B section, by contrast, is fragmented, chromatic, and ultimately presented in a highly imitative texture (Fig. 4). Fig. 4. Bedřich Smetana, “Vyšehrad,” mm. 191-209. The single, lyrical melody from which material from the A section is derived is illustrated here.
146
Peter A. Brown, The Symphonic Repertoire: The Second Golden Age of the Viennese Symphony, Brahms, Bruckner, Dvořak, Mahler and Selected Contemporaries (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003), 446.
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Fig. 5. Bedřich Smetana, “Vyšehrad,” mm. 76-84. An example of fragmented material from the opening of the B section.
Given that historical audiences were interpreting musical material as representing struggles between the Czechs and their oppressors and that Smetana’s A material was in some ways comparable to Fibich’s own Czech theme, it seems plausible to read these sections of music as respectively depicting the Czechs and an implied “other.” Smetana’s treatment of themes within these larger sections is, moreover, in keeping with the reading of Fibich’s composition as a deliberately planned contest. Though Smetana’s first A section is devoted entirely to “Czech” tropes, his B section features rapid alternations between these and the newly introduced “non-Czech” motives. These alternations culminate near the end of the B section, where the full orchestra, at the work’s loudest dynamic, presents the unifying melodic A theme for its first and only complete statement. This metaphorical victory of Czech music over their opponents is fleeting, however, and less definitive than in Fibich’s symphonic poem. Here, the loud declamation of the Czech melody is interrupted again by its challenging musical material until the B section’s close. Even upon the return A’, “other” motives continue to interrupt the Czech on occasion, though the movement concludes with a soft statement of the opening Czech theme. Pragmatically, this partial victory situates the work as an introduction to the 83
following movements of Ma vlást by inviting further development of its program. Culturally, the partial victory could reflect Smetana’s own perspective concerning the construction of a Czech voice, a construction in which the nationalist voice continues to struggle to assert itself within a hegemonic German society. The exact degree to which Smetana and Fibich’s personal, compositional, and national ambitions overlapped is difficult to discern, let alone whether Smetana deliberately meant for “Vyšehrad” to imitate Fibich’s Záboj or vice versa. Still, reception of “Vyšehrad”—which seems, in some cases, to have been directly influenced by Smetana himself—generally upheld the cultural reading of the movement I have offered here. In his review of “Vyšehrad’s” premiere, for example, Novotný himself described the movement’s middle section as depicting the Hussite wars and the full statement of the movement’s A theme as the bard’s envisioning of Vyšehrad’s “rebirth” and “renewal.”147 Novotný went on to conceded, however, that the time at which “we—either ourselves or our future generations—will see this great future is written in the mysterious books of inscrutable fate,” before explaining that, at the end of the movement, the bard (and listeners) were faced the hard “fact” of Vyšehrad’s existence as a “barren, weathered rock.”148 Novotný’s interpretation is consistent with a reading of the movement’s themes as depicting a loss for the Czechs from which they, to that time, had not recovered. J. Žeranovský also authored a program for the movement for a subsequent performance on
147
“Však nezahynul Vyšehrad na věky pod ranami krutého osudu; básník věři a jeho znovuzrození a v obnovení staré slávy a moci. O tom svědčí vítězné a radostné ty zvuky, jež vzepnou se sílou neodolatelnou v nejvyšším jásotu na mohutných vlnách celého orkestru.” Novotný, Dalibor III (March 20, 1875), 94. 148 “Kdy dočkáme se velké té budoucnosti, zda my, či pokolení budoucí—toť napsáno v tajemných knihách nevyzpytatelného osudu…. Vábný sen pln obrazův nejjímavějších zmizel, a básník má před okem svým holou skutečnost: pustou, zvětralou skálu, o jejíž bývalé slavě…” Ibid.
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May 12, 1877 that emphasized Vyšehrad as a site of battles between the Czechs and an implied “other.”149 A poet gazes on the magnificent rock Vyšehrad and returns in his memory to the sounds of Lumir's varyto.150 At the same time, Vyšehrad emerges in front of him in the full glory of its past. In its brilliance, the site of the Czech king’s reign, knights meet in battles until Vyšehrad’s foundations are shaken by the army and the cheers of heroes and boisterous songs— Soon, however, the poet sees the destruction of Vyšehrad. The fierce battle rages on; the tremors of mad, raging battles crumble the beautiful halls of the royal seat into ruins. Everything stopped. Vyšehrad ceased, quiet forever—only Lumír’s varyto laments the sorrowful song of its fall.151 Žeranovský celebrated the “glory” of the Czechs’ culture and their successes in battles, but ended his description with their defeat, a point musically illustrated by Lumír’s mournful song. This trajectory is consistent with a reading of Smetana’s “Vyšehrad” that maps the metaphorical peak of Vyšehrad’s glory onto the only complete statement of a specifically Czech theme at its middle, the defeat of the Czechs onto the gradual dying away of this theme, and its final resurfacing in diminishing, fragmented ruins. When UB member and MH director František Urbánek later began publishing Má vlast’s individual
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Smetana provided the earlier discussed program for “Vyšehrad” in preparation for the movement’s publication in May, 1879. Žeranovský’s version of the program predated Smetana’s own by two years. 150 In Czech mythology, Lumír was a musical prophet who sang and accompanied himself on a varyto, an instrument comparable to a lyre. 151 “Básník pohlížeje na pomátnou skálu vyšehradskou zaletí upomínkou ke zvukům varyta Lumírova. Zároveň vynořuje se před ním Vyšehrad v plné slávě minulosti své. V tomto lesku, plném sídle králů českých schází se rytířstvo k zápasům a sedání, az Vyšehrad otřásá se v základech vojskem a jásotem hrdinů a hlaholem písní—Brazy však vidí báník i Vyšehrad zahynutí. Zuří dive boje, pod jejichž chvěním sunou se ve zříceniny nádherné sine královského sidle. Vše ustalo. Vyšehrad spustl a oněměl na vždy—jen Lumírovo varyto žaluje tesknou svou písní nad pádem jeho.” Žeranovský’s program was originally printed in Divadlní listy, quoted in Karel Teige, “I. Skladby Smetanovy: Kommentovaný catalog všech skladeb Mistrových v chronologickém postupu” [“I. Smetana’s Works: Commentary Catalogue of All the Master’s Works in Chronological Order”], in Příspěvky k životopisu a umělecké činnosti Mistra Bedřicha Smetany [Contributions to the Biography and Artistic Activities of the Master Bedřich Smetana] (Prague: Fr. A. Urbánek, 1893), 74-75.
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movements, fellow UB member Václav Zelený redrafted and elaborated upon “Vyšehrad’s” earlier program, strengthening such a reading.152 Looking at the magnificent rock of Vyšehrad and to a time long ago, a poet relays his memory of the sounds of Lumír’s varyto. Vyšehrad and its former brilliance rises before his eyes, crowned by the golden sanctuaries and proud thrones of Přemysl's princes and kings, full of the glory of battle. Here, at the castle, to the cheerful sound of trumpets and drums, brave knights meet each other in a magnificent battle; here, they meet in noisily victorious battles to sublime hymns and triumphant joy. Lovesick for the past glory of Vyšehrad, the poet also sees its destruction. The unleashed passion of fierce, vigorous battle knocks down sky-high towers, burns beautiful the Holy place, and destroys the proud thrones of the princes. On this place of lofty songs and triumphant joy, Vyšehrad trembles, shaken by the wild, fierce roar of war. The horrible storms calmed, Vyšehrad remained a silent, bleak picture of its glory. From the ruins of Vyšehrad, the echo of Lumír’s voice, which became silent long ago, sounds.153 Zelený’s perception (or perhaps even Smetana’s intention—this version was approved by the composer) arches between the “ruined” Czechs at the movement’s opening and close and the culture’s glory at its climax.154 As in Žeranovský’s earlier account, the movement
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Urbánek published all six movements of Má vlast in four-handed piano arrangements from 1879-1880. He also published full scores to the work’s first two movements, “Vyšehrad” and “Vltava,” in 1880. 153 “Při pohledu na velebnou skálu vyšehradskou do dávné minulosti přenáší básníka upomínka na zvuky varyta Lumírova. Před jeho zvukem vstává Vyšehrad v bývalém lesku, korunován jsa zlatoskvoucími svatyněmi a hrdými sídly přemyslovských knížat a králů, plnými válečné slávy. Zde na hradě při veselém vzuku trub a kotlův udatné rytířstvo potkává se v honosném sedání, zde k vítězným bojům hlučně schází se vojsko zářící zbrojí svou v lesku slunečním. Vyšehrad chvěje se velebnými hymnami a plesem vítězným. Roztoužen jsa po dávno minulé slávě Vyšehradu básník spatřuje i jeho záhubu. Rozpoutaná vášeň zuřivých bojů kácí nebetyčné věže, pálí nádherné svatyně a boří hrdá sídla knížecí. Na místě velebných zpěvů a vítězného plesu otřásá se Vyšehrad divokým rykem válečným. Děsné bouře ztichly. Vyšehrad zůstal němým, pustým obrazem své svlávy. Z rozvalin jeho žalostně vyznívá ohlas dávno umlklého Lumírova zpěvu.” Quoted in Teige, 73-74. 154 Equally revealing, Smetana wrote to Urbánek before the work’s publication arguing (presumably in response to an earlier draft) that the program for “Vyšehrad” warranted more attention. Specifically, he argued, “I wish that this program would shortly discuss Vyšehrad, so that even a foreigner would have a brief idea about it; the prophet, who is depicted very well…in my piece, will start narrating, accompanied by firm chords performed on harp, almost in visions, explaining what all possibly could or did happen at Vyšehrad. So the prophet starts with the beginnings of Vyšehrad in pagan times—about the possible happenings at courts, fights, weddings, other festivities, battles and wars etc.—to the fall of the castle. All this, in little words, briefly, but so that everyone, even foreign, would know what Vyšehrad means to us and
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ends with a quiet decline, confirming the defeat of both the fully-articulated middle theme and its relationship with a ravaged Czech voice. Even beyond “Vyšehrad’s’” initial programs, the trend of hearing the movement as indicating the Czechs’ continuing struggle persisted into the 1880s. UB member Emanuel Chvála, in his detailed discussion of the newly published work, once again pointed to the defeat of the Czechs at the end of the movement. Additionally, a review in Dalibor of Vlast following its first complete performance in 1882 also referred to the “question posed by “Vyšehrad” about the future of the Czechs.”155 Just as the fragmentation of the Czech theme at the outset of the movement implies, both these reviewers considered Smetana’s music to be a depiction of the Czech culture’s defeat, while the latter author in particular interpreted the movement as an indication of the continuing struggle for Czechs to assert themselves culturally and politically. All of these descriptions resonate with the deliberately subjective reading offered here; they emphasize and interpret “Vyšehrad” as musically depicting the battle of the Czech nation against the intrusion of “others.” Together, the body of publications responding to both Smetana and Fibich’s symphonic poems reminds us that these composers’ themes held deliberately subjective, what is described in this piece.” Ibid., 74. Smetana’s comments reveal the weight with which he regarded the movement, while also possibly explaining the development of a more elaborate version of the program. “Já bych si přál, aby se v mottu tomto krátce, ale tak, aby i cizinec stručnou představu o Vyšehradu dostal, mluvilo o kp. věštci samém, který velmi dobře na kresbě je vykreslen a v mé skladbě pevnými harfovými akkordy takřka ve visionech o všem vypravovati počne, co vše na Vyšehradě možného se stati mohlo neb muselo. Tak věštec začne kp.: o počátku Vyšehradu v dobách pohanských, a možných udalostech soudů, turnajů, svatbách, slavnostech jiných, o bojích, válkách atd. až k úpadku hradu toho. Vše to jen málo slovy, stručně, ale přece tak, aby každý, i cizí věděl z toho, co Vyšehrad nám je a co take v skladbě se líčí.” 155 Chvála’s discussion of new publication Má vlast was titled “Smetanovy skladby” and was printed in installments in Dalibor from October 10-December 10, 1880. Additional installments of the article discuss works beyond Má vlast appeared sporadically throughout 1881. The second review listed here appeared in Dalibor IV (November 10, 1882), 249, trans. Brown, 446.
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culturally charged meanings for nineteenth-century audiences. Though these authors typically did not state what listeners heard in Smetana’s “Vyšehrad” that allowed them to arrive at such political readings of the work, their language illuminates the ways in which they were connecting with and conceptualizing notions of a Czech music. Because the two works were so intricately intertwined, moreover, Novotný’s use of such militant language in describing Záboj opens a window onto “Vyšehrad,” inviting new readings of Smetana’s themes in the work. UB authors’ writings, including Smetana’s approved program for the work, encourage an interpretation of the movement’s opening and closing material (scored for the harp) as not only specifically Czech, but also an invocation of Lumír as he accompanies himself on varyto. This theme’s clash with “other” material throughout the movement, including its struggle towards a full statement at the movement’s middle followed by its fragmentation through the movement’s end also seems—to Smetana’s listeners and critics—to have metaphorically represented the Czechs’ struggle for political and cultural autonomy. Though Smetana’s themes as isolated musical objects did not themselves contain this meaning, their characteristics— as shaped by UB writings—reveal a version of Czechness that, instead of existing strictly within a musical object, existed as an object of discourse—a mode of critical reading and listening whose implications have been largely overlooked.
Conclusion UB members’ active negotiations of Czechness as a mode of listening both underscore and complicate current understandings of musical nationalism (in Smetana or 88
the works of his contemporaries). On several levels, for example, Novotný’s poetic paraphrase of Záboj exemplifies the complicated dynamics that Michael Beckerman identified in his “In Search of Czechness in Music.” Here, Beckerman noted that “there is in fact no single musical detail that can be shown to occur in Czech music and nowhere else,” despite traditional identifying markers of Czechness such as first beat accents, lyricism, dance rhythms, and harmonic stability.156 Though modern scholars may struggle to objectify a specifically Czech music, Beckerman also acknowledged that Czechness as a sensibility was “as real as the river Vltava” for historic audiences.157 Novotný’s paraphrase of Záboj illustrates Beckerman’s argument particularly clearly; the author’s identification of certain themes as specifically Czech or German relied on his own, subjective interpretation and is therefore challenging for contemporary audiences to justify. Still, Novotný’s impassioned writing reveals that his means of engaging with Fibich’s music held tremendous political potency for him and likely an even wider audience, despite modern scholars’ struggle to objectify and analyze the musical components to which he was reacting. More than underscoring the subjectivity of Czechness, however, Smetana’s “Vyšehrad” and the wider discourses that helped shape the work illuminate the complex cultural dynamics that contributed to its potency. The very culture against which the Czechs were struggling so militantly to escape gave them the critical, conceptual, and philosophical framework for their artistic emancipation. The UB—a group dedicated to promoting Czech art and culture and, in many senses, the inventor of a discourse of 156 157
Beckerman, 64. Ibid., 73.
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Czechness (musical and critical) relied on foreign models, particularly those of the New German School, for their musical nationalism. They bent the tools of their oppressors to their own ends, situating themselves within and beyond the narrative of progress articulated through Brendel. Additionally, Smetana’s involvement with Liszt along with the latter’s role as artist-prophet made Smetana an ideal candidate to fill a comparable position among the Czechs. Although versions of Smetana’s nationalism, as depicted in contemporary UB members’ criticism, were rooted in analytical methodologies and modes of listening first associated with Fibich, Smetana was eventually hailed as the singular voice of the Czech people, in large part because of his affiliation with Liszt. Together, these dynamics made the symphonic poem—and especially Smetana as a composer of the genre—uniquely capable of serving the political aims of UB members. Like Liszt, Smetana served his Czech advocates as an artist-prophet and his works allowed Czechs to access an international political and aesthetic stage. A review of Vlast upon its first complete performance in 1882 confirmed this role. And even if foreigners may now and then be amazed by the magical sounds of these masterly symphonic poems, Smetana’s Má vlast is written for the Czechs, and Czechs will never cease to gratefully commemorate Smetana, who devoted all of his greatest powers to the celebration of his country.158 More than celebrating Smetana’s celebrity, the “magical sounds,” or Czechness, that this critic heard in Smetana’s Má vlast served a deliberate political function. Wider European audiences would undoubtedly enjoy them, but their “magic”—not necessary to analyze, just a fact derived from subjective listening—only served Czech audiences.
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Dalibor IV (November 10, 1882), 249, trans. Brown, 455.
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A CZECH MUSIC DRAMA: SMETANA, WAGNER, AND THE UB’S PROPAGANDA WAR
On October 26, 1881, the Umělekcá beseda (UB) sponsored a banquet to commemorate Franz Liszt’s seventieth birthday. During the event, UB member Otakar Hostisnký delivered a toast in which he celebrated not only Liszt, but also Wagner and Smetana. Wagner—who wrote poetry and composed in exile without the hope that he might be able to deliver his bold and vast dreams—built the Theater Bayreuth before our eyes; in my opinion, Wagner has…already won, yet he has not yet ceased to fight…Such a victory of true idealism in the arts seems to me the perfect assurance that Smetana’s same idealistic efforts will reach the same victory in the future.159 Hostinský’s positioning of Liszt and Wagner as predecessors to Smetana in his toast along with his references to “fighting” and “victories” was not an isolated move. Instead, it reflected a longer, larger discourse that certain UB members had been formulating around notions of a “Czech” nationalistic voice since the 1870s. In 1873, Smetana’s UB advocates took over management of the journal Dalibor, which they used to launch a propaganda campaign on behalf of the composer. As explored in the previous chapter, members’ appropriations of Liszt to this end found readers receptive. Members’ attempts to yoke Smetana to Wagner, however, were much more problematic for some audiences. Whereas Liszt was a captivating celebrity, Wagner was a German radical whose political views aligned him with the Czechs’ cultural oppressors. UB members’ Wagner-specific 159
“A Wager, jenž básnil a komponoval ve vyhnanství bez naděje, že by se směl navrátiti odvážné a rozsáhlé sny své, stavěl před očima našima divadlo Bayreuthské a—dle náhledu mého—také již zvitězil jako Liszt a Berlioz [Hostinský’s acknowledgement of Berlioz as a “fighter” is somewhat atypical in his wider body of criticism], ač dosud nepřestal ještě bojovati: býváť i na poli válečném mnoze zápaseno dlouho ještě po rozhodnutí bitvy. Takováto vítězství pravého idealismu v umění zdála se mi povždy býti dokonalou zárukou toho, že i stejně idealním snahám Smetanovým musí se v budoucnosti dostati stejného vítězství.” Dalibor (November 10, 1881), 254-55.
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campaigns helped initiate “musical battles” of the 1870s (as Hostinský later described them) in which some members—especially František Pivoda—actively lobbied against any appropriation of Wagner’s compositional strategies and against the idea of a Wagnerinflected nationalism.160 In the past, discussions of the “musical battles” in scholarship have focused on either disparaging Smetana’s opponents (including Pivoda) or rescuing him from the possibility of Wagner’s influence.161 Here, I want to shift from such perpetuation of the “battles” to an investigation of the propagandist strategies of Smetana’s supporters. Exploring UB members’ music criticism reveals that, for some, Wagner’s influence was not a threat to Smetana’s creation of an idealistically Czech music, but critical to its construction. Smetana’s “Wagnerism,” according to UB writings, did not mean that his music was being “taken over” by a “foreign entity”—as Pivoda claimed—but allowed Smetana to conquer Wagner’s foreignness in the name of Czechness.162 UB members, then, positioned Smetana not as Czech Wagner, but a Wagnerian Czech—an artistprophet whose music, and especially its appropriations of Wagner, had the potential to 160
See, for example, Hostinský, Z hudebních bojů let sedmdesátých a osmdesátých [From the Musical Fights of the 70s and 80s] (Praha: Editio Supraphon, 1986). Pivoda was one of the UB’s founders and president of its music division from 1866-67. Through the 1870s, however, he emerged as one of the organization’s most prominent critics. Pivoda is discussed more thoroughly in Chapter One of this dissertation. 161 John Clapham, for example, once attempted to undermine Pivoda’s credibility by arguing that his criticisms were motivated “petty provincialism.” See his “The Smetana-Pivoda Controversy,” Music & Letters 52 (1971), 364. Brian Large, in considering Smetana’s use of leitmotives in third opera, Dalibor, claimed that “Smetana had an enormous respect for Wagner as a musician,” but that “the two men could not have been more diametrically opposed.” He went on to argue that the technique of using a musical theme to represent a character was not specifically Wagnerian, but had long been a prominent means of composition in the form of reminiscence motives for the Italian and French schools. Brian Large, Smetana (New York: Praeger, 1970), 193-4. In both of these instances, Clapham and Large worked to uphold a mythology of Smetana as an autonomous composer—one capable of creating a specifically Czech music. 162 “Proti tomu musí se všeobecné mínění již rázněji vysloviti, jinak se nedopěstujeme dlouho zvlastních tvarů, a naše opera nevykročí že stadia pohostitelky cizoty, která pojednou převezme i zde úlohu domácího páná, jest-li se tak již nestalo.” František Pivoda, Pokrok (February 22, 1870), trans. Brian Locke Opera and Ideology in Prague (Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2006), 23. The original language appears in Miloš Jůzl, Otakar Hostinský (Praha: Melantrich, 1980), 42-43.
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transport Czechs to a happier and better time. This distinction opens up new understandings of Smetana and his works, especially his fourth opera, Libuše. In order to facilitate a larger investigation of UB members’ critical writings along these lines, this chapter is divided into four sections. The first provides a context for members’ activism by exploring the ways they shaped Smetana’s reception even before the establishment of Dalibor. The second examines the rhetoric members used to build an aesthetic and political revolution around Smetana upon Dalibor’s founding. The third and fourth both focus on UB members’ assessments of Libuše. Smetana completed this music drama as the “musical battles” were beginning in 1872, but withheld its premiere—just as Wagner had withheld his Ring for the opening of Bayreuth—to celebrate the opening of the Czech National Theater in 1881. Members used the opera as an important propagandist tool during the 1870s when it existed only as a promise for a better and brighter future. By the time of Libuše’s premiere, however, their rebellion had faded, so that the opera represented instead the romantic fragments of a by-gone era. The third and fourth sections of this chapter investigate the ways in which Libuše’s shifting roles caused it to become one of the most mythologized Czech monuments of the late nineteenth century. Exploring UB members’ writings during this volatile period reveals not a passive reception history, but an active molding of Smetana’s mythology. UB members, in some ways even more than Smetana, authored the composer’s most nationalistic opera.
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Aesthetic Politics and the Advocacy of the UB The details of Smetana’s activities within the Prague social scene upon his return to the city in 1861 are a familiar part of his biography, but warrant brief discussion here to reveal an important political context for the UB’s later advocacy on behalf of the composer. As the organization he helped found, the UB emerged as one of Smetana’s most steadfast supporters preceding the “battles” of the 1870s. Members positioned the UB as an integral part of Smetana’s own process of becoming “Czech,” and their resulting status as generators of Czechness granted them the platform necessary to launch their later revolution. The announcement of an opera competition by Count Jan Harrach was one of Smetana’s primary incentives to return to Prague. The composer reportedly began searching for a librettist to join him in creating a work for the competition during his first full day back in the city, ultimately collaborating with future UB member Karel Sabina to produce Braniboři v Čechách (Brandenburgers in Bohemia). Despite Smetana’s enthusiasm, he did not agree with one of the primary stipulations of the competition that “the opera shall be based on a diligent study of the national songs of the Czech and Slovak peoples,” and took advantage of an audience gathered at an event hosted by Dr. Taxis, president of the singing group Hlahol, to air this opinion.163 As UB member Josef Srb-Debrnov later recalled, Smetana was then preparing to write the opera The Brandenburgers in Bohemia to words by Sabina. During a discussion on this, Dr. Rieger proffered the opinion that it was easy to write a serious opera on a historic theme, but that to write an opera of a lighter kind dealing with the life of the (Czech) people was a thing no one would easily succeed in doing. Smetana took him up on this and said that he intended to do something about that and that he thought that he could make a success of it. Rieger 163
See Large, 141-2 for a translation of Harrach’s announcement.
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objected that the basis for such an opera would have to be Czech folk songs; Smetana again opposed this, saying that in this way a medley of various songs, a kind of quodlibet would come into being, but not an artistic work with any continuity. The dispute was quite heated until Smetana finally told Rieger that he did not know what he was talking about, but that he, as a musician, would see this thing through…that was the end of Smetana’s friendship with Dr. Rieger.164 This anecdote illuminates a social elite (including Smetana) deeply invested in developing a repertoire of Czech operas, but also deeply divided politically. The first chapter of this dissertation began to explore the emergence of the Young and Old Czech parties; Smetana aligned himself with the Young Czechs, and Rieger was one of the Old Czechs’ most prominent leaders. Here, representatives from both parties presented strong opinions about the most appropriate ways to instill Czechness in music, Smetana doing so in a way that foreshadowed the tactics UB members would later adopt while promoting his own leadership. The newly-returned and therefore less-familiar Smetana made an enemy of Rieger, a longstanding nationalist, at one of the first social events he attended in the city. Smetana in this case established both his nationalism and his anticonservatism in front of a large audience, making it clear precisely where he stood and what was at stake. In addition to reflecting his political stance, Smetana’s argument to avoid direct folksong quotation reflected his broader interest in Wagner’s dramatic principles, which 164
“B. Smetana připravoval se toho času ke komponování opery ‘Braniboři v Čechách’ na slova Sabinova. Při rozhovoru o tom pravil dr. Rieger, že je snadno napsati operu vážnou, historickou, ale napsat operu lehčiho slohu ze života lidu (českého), to že se tak snadno nikomu nepodaří. Proti tomu se ozval Smetana a pravil, že ji se zdarem provede. Rieger tomu odporoval, pravě, že by podkladem takové opery musily býti české písně národní; tomu opět odporoval Smetana, pravě, že tím způsobem vznikla by směsice písní různých, jakýsi quodlibet, ale žádné dílo jednotné, umělecké. Hádka byla dosti prudká, až konečně Smetana řekl Riegerovi, tomu že nerozumí, ale on jako hudebník že o věc se zasadí. Tím způsobem hned po dokončení ‘Braniborů’ počal pracovati Smetana na ‘Prodané nevěstě.’ Ale bylo po přátelství s dr. Riegrem.” Pokrok (February 22, 1870), trans. František Bartoš, ed., Bedřich Smetana: Letters and Reminiscences, trans. Daphne Rusbridge (Prague: Artia, 1955), 67-8. The orginal language appears in Bartoš, ed., Smetana ve vzpomínkách a dopisech [Smetana in Reminiscences and Letters] (V Praze: Topičova, 1941), 52-3. This quote was also explored in Chapter One as a means to explore tensions between Smetana and Reiger.
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he more explicitly demonstrated during his work as a music critic for Národní listy (May, 1864 to April, 1865). In an article published on July 15, 1864, for example, Smetana argued for more performances of Wagner. “Since Goethe’s Faust has been performed on our stage,” he reasoned, “this same stage need not be afraid of great music dramas by German composers. Wagner, too, could be performed, if only there were an appropriate theatre!”165 More specifically, Smetana called in another article for more idealistically truthful performances, explaining, “Operas must not be musical productions in which one sings for the sake of singing, where it is enough if everyone is in time and there are no hitches, and in which the main thing is the baton. Opera must rise to drama during which we forget the machinery guiding it.”166 Smetana’s language in this case reflected Wagner’s Opera and Drama, in which Wagner warned against vocalists who performed as “mechanized instruments” and composers who made opera a “colourless and nothingsaying mask for aria singers.”167 Smetana also took advantage of his post at Národní listy to promote his professional aims. Harrach’s opera competition had only been a part of what drew Smetana back to Prague from Sweden; the composer desired even more urgently a position as conductor for the new Provisional Theater. Smetana was not awarded the position, however; instead, Jan Nepomuk Maýr was named the theater’s conductor in 1862. Smetana responded by slandering Maýr in his articles for Národní listy, describing him as “old fashioned” and criticizing Maýr’s reliance on Italian opera in 165
Bedřich Smetana, “Public Musical Life in Prague: Opera,” trans. Mirka Zemanová, in The Attentive Listener, ed. Harry Haskell (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), 149. 166 “Poslední, co od naší opery žádati máme jest: svědomité, věrné, ryze uměleckým duchem provanuté provádění děl. Neodstačí tu jen povinnost zevnější, která upomíná vice na hůl kaprálskou, než na taktovku. K tomu jest zapotřebí oduše vnění materie.—Opery nesmějí býti musikální produkce produkce, kde jen se zpívá, aby se zpívalo, kde dostačí, aby vše šlo v taktě a nic nevázlo, kde vždy hlavní věcí je taktovka. Opery musejí se povznésti na drama, při němž zapomínáme na zevnější mašinerii vedení.” Smetana, “Music Life in Prague,” Národní listy, trans. Bartoš, 87; Bartoš (1941), 68. 167 Quoted from Lydia Goehr, The Quest for Voice: Music, Politics, and the Limits of Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 110.
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the theater’s repertoire as well as his alterations to its productions.168 Smetana once even identified Maýr as his “personal and irreconcilable enemy” in his personal letters.169 By the time Smetana submitted his completed Brandenburgers in April of 1863, the aesthetic, professional, and political tensions that divided Prague’s audiences had also influenced the panel for Harrach’s opera competition.170 Committee members found Smetana’s work (as well as those of the four other participants) so unsatisfactory that no winner was chosen. Specifically, they argued that Smetana set the Czech language poorly and that his use of counterpoint was flawed.171 Rieger, as an outside judge, disapproved of Smetana’s avoidance of folk melodies as well as his use of dissonant harmonies (both considered reflections of his Wagnerian leanings), and Maýr opposed Smetana’s use of harmony and disliked the opera’s intricate plot.172 Importantly for political circumstances that would arise in the early 1870s (and to which this discussion will return), the opera’s libretto was set during Bohemia’s thirteenth-century occupation under Margrave Otto V of Brandenburg and portrayed the triumph of the Czech people over their past German political and cultural oppressors.173 168
Trans. John Tyrrell, Czech opera (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 34. See also Smetana’s “Music Life in Prague,” Národní listy, trans. Bartoš 86-7. 169 Smetana to Fröjda Bencke, 12 October, 1863, trans. Tyrrell, 34. 170 Because Count Harrach received no entries by his original deadline of September 30, 1862, he extended the contest for a full year, moving the final deadline to September of 1863. Harrach’s panel of judges, which was announced in December of 1863, included Jan Kittl, head of Prague’s conservatory; Josef Krejčí, head of the organ school; and poet Karel Erben. Music critic August Ambros later withdrew from the panel. Other entrants included Maýr, Jaromír, Duke of Bohemia, on a libretto by his wife, Emilie Ujková; Adolf Pozděna, The Treasure, based on a play by Václav Klicpera; and František Šír, Drahomíra (libretto). For further discussion of each, see Tyrrell, 126-130. Large claims that the panel considered Sabina’s libretto insufficiently nationalistic; see p. 145. Tyrrell disagrees, arguing that Sabina’s libretto was accepted as unambiguously nationalistic. Tyrrell, 129. 171 Large, 145. 172 John Clapham, Smetana (London: J. M. Dent and Sons LTD, 1972), 32. 173 The opera was set during Bohemia’s 13th-century occupation under Margrave Otto V of Brandenburg. In 1278, Hapsburg emperor Rudolf I murdered the Czech ruler Přemysl Otakar II and took over Moravia. For the five years following, Bohemia came under power of Otto V. Otto’s armies, which pillaged the region, stealing from and murdering its inhabitants, but generally privileging German-Bohemians over native Bohemians. The opera ends with a chorus celebrating Bohemia’s strength.
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Despite the panel’s lack of enthusiasm and resistance from Maýr, František Liegert, director of the Provisional Theater, arranged for Smetana to premiere his Brandenburgers in 1865. Smetana was named as the winner of Harrach’s competition in the wake of the opera’s success, which eventually also contributed to Smetana’s appointment as Maýr’s successor at the Provisional Theater in 1866.174 In the meantime, the newly-established UB emerged as an organization centered around and determined to defend Smetana and his musico-political views. Member Jan Neruda addressed the organization’s role in shaping reception to Brandenburgers in an article for Národní listy: In our own theatre…we can record at least one great event….I am thinking of Smetana’s Brandenburgers which enchanted everyone whose judgment is not blinded by personal ambition. It is unbelievable that there are people who are against Smetana’s opera simply because the hated, newly-established “Umělecká beseda” has declared itself in favor of the opera and who, instead of giving an objective opinion on the work itself, say: “Yes, Grund sang the part quite well!”175 Neruda in this case accused audiences of disliking Smetana’s Brandenburgers simply because the UB backed it, suggesting either that that the organization had become controversial enough at the time of the opera’s premiere to become a factor in its reception or that its members favored cultivating its reputation as rebellious. Neruda went on to mock those who criticized the opera. I wonder if anyone can credit the fact that among the people who direct our theatre such bias exists! What most angers these gentlemen is the fact that The Brandenburgers contains choruses—the Prague mob which dares to sing: “We are no mob, we are the people!” Well, in the name of the 174
Smetana received a letter on March 27, 1865 from the Count explaining, “Your score has complied with the rules of the competition and the judges have been unanimous in their decision to award you the prize of six hundred gulden. My heartiest congratulations!” Trans. Large, 146. 175 “V divadle svém—ano, jsme spokojeni, že můžeme v divadle svém zaznamenat jadnu alespoň událost velkou….Míním Smetanovy ‘Branibory,’ kteří každého okouzlili, koho vuůbec osobní ješitnost neučinila neschopným všeho soudu. Nikdo by ani neuvěřil, že jsou u nás lidé, kteří proto již jsou proti Smetanově opera, že nenáviděná mladá ‘Umělecká beseda’ pro ni se byla prohlásila, kteří místo soudu nestranného o díle samém řeknou: ‘Ano, Gurnd to spívá zcela pěkně!’” Jan Neruda, Národní listy (January 13, 1866), trans. Bartoš, 99; Bartoš (1941), 80.
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maestro, Smetana, I promise those gentlemen that our maestro will now write a comic opera and that this opera too will have its choruses—of large estate owners!176 In this case, Neruda positioned himself and the UB as a greater authority on Czechness than any of Smetana’s opponents by ironically accusing them of celebrating the wealth of the elite rather than the plight of the more “authentically” Czech people. In taking such a political stance, Neruda also initiated a long tradition of marketing Smetana as a populist and uniquely nationalist composer. The UB more prominently performed its role in promoting Smetana as Czech by rescuing him from his Germanness, or, in some instances, his Swedishness, as he worked on his next opera, Prodaná nevěsta (The Bartered Bride). Like most Bohemians of the period from middle class families, Smetana was educated in, and expressed himself most easily in, German.177 He acknowledged this circumstance in his diary: With our newly awakened national consciousness, it is…my endeavor to complete my study of our beautiful language and to express myself—I who from childhood have been used only to German instruction—with equal ease, verbally and in writing, both in Czech and German. It would be correct for me to keep my diary in my mother tongue now. Since, however, I started this book in the old manner in German, I shall also complete it in German. In the meantime, I am making a study of my mother tongue, which I have unfortunately greatly neglected (mostly through the fault of our government and schools) so as to be able to write with ease and accuracy.178 176
“Zdaž by kdo uvěřil, že i mezi lidmi, kteří divadlo naše řídí, je podobné stranictví! Nejvíc ty páy rozzlobilo, že v ‘Braniborech’ jsou sbory—pražské luzy, která zpívat se opovažuje: ‘My nejsme luza, my jsme lid!’ Nuže, ve jménu maestro Smetany těm pávům přislibuju, že apíše maestro náš nyníoperu komickou, a v té že budou take sbory—velkostatkařů.” Trans. Ibid. 99-100; Bartoš (1941), 80. 177 Ervín Špindler translated the librettos for Smetana’s third and fourth operas, Dalibor and Libuše, into German for the composer. 178 Při nově probuzeném rozvoji naší národnosti mám také já snahu zdokonalit se ve své mateřštině, abych se i v češtině mohl dobře vyjádřiti jak ústně, tak písemné. Bylo by na case, psáti svůj deník v mateřském jazyce. Protože jsem však podle starého zvyku začal tento sešit psát německy, chtěl bych jej take tak skončit. Zatím osvojím si svou, bohužel, velmi zanedbanou (hlavně vinou naší vlády a škol) mateřštinu tak, že budu moci všechno právě tak běžně jako spravně zapsat. Trans. Bartoš, 64-65; Bartoš (1941), 51. I also discussed this quote in Chapter One as a means to confirm Smetana’s German-speaking background. Here, I mean to emphasize that his study of the Czech language was part of his process of “becoming Czech.”
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Smetana indicates here that his study of the Czech language was to be part of his nationalist transformation. In the meantime, however—because his knowledge of Czech was still slim—he had to have the Czech libretto for the Bartered Bride translated into German (as had also been necessary for Brandenburgers). Later, as part of a strategy to conceal the composer’s deficiency as a speaker of Czech, UB member Eliška Krásnohorská burned several of his letters that included poor Czech grammar.179 Beyond masking Smetana’s inability to speak the national tongue, UB members began to invent origin myths for The Bartered Bride that evidenced the composer’s specifically Czech aims. These anecdotes claimed that Smetana took inspiration for the opera from his walks along the river Vltava.180 Smetana himself contributed to the mythology around the work by later explaining that he composed it in answer to accusations of his Wagnerism— that it was his declaration of Czechness (a complex claim, given his interest in Wagner’s general operatic aesthetics).181 A detailed story by Aleš Heller underscores both these claims, showing how the work acquired its Czech markers and, most importantly for this argument, how central UB members were in cultivating its sound. The anecdote’s cast of characters included Ferdinand Heller (father of Aleš and a Smetana supporter), and Jan Neruda (a prominent member of the UB’s music department as well as a poet, and music critic). 179
See Milan Pospišíl, “Bedřich Smetana as Viewed by Eliška Krásnohorská,” in Bedřich Smetana 18241884, ed. Olga Mojžišová and Marta Ottlová (Praha: Muzeum Bedřicha Smetany, 1995), 63-64. 180 UB member Josef Srb-Debrnov provided this origin story. See Bartoš, 84. 181 Smetana later claimed upon the 100th performance of The Bartered Bride that the opera was “actually only a toy. I composed it, not out of vanity but out of spite, because after The Brandenburgers I was accused of being a Wagnerian and not capable of doing anything in a lighter, national style. So I immediately hastened to Sabina for a libretto and I wrote The Bartered Bride.” Trans. Ibid., 254; Bartoš (1941) includes the original Czech on page 203: “…jest vlastně jen hračka. Já jsem ji skládal ne že ctižádostivosti, nýbrž že vzdoru, poněvadž se mi po ‘Braniborech’ vyčítalo, že jsem wagnerián a že bych ani v národním lehčím slohu nic nedovedl. Tu jsem hned běžel k Sabinovi, aby mi udělal libreto, a napsal jsem ‘Prodanou nevěstu.’”
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One evening, just after Smetana and my father [Ferdinand Heller] had played Beethoven’s Seventh [Violin] Sonata, Neruda called out: “And now that’s enough of Beethoven!—Ferdáčku [a diminutive for the name Ferdinand], play something to dance to!” […] Neruda taught everyone to dance the beseda—Smetana happily joined in. However, after his “rehearsal” Smetana made fun of the “pargamyšky”—the folksongs and folkdances used in the beseda….My father demonstrated to Smetana how they provided a foundation, drawing attention to their individuality, to their spirit, to the rhythm of the furiant etc. In these views he had an ally in Neruda, who enthusiastically defended and described Czech folksongs and dances, on which he was a particular expert. In return for Smetana’s mockery of Czech folksongs and dances he dubbed Smetana’s compositions “Swedish music,” alluding to the atmosphere of Smetana’s recent Swedish compositions, Hakon Jarl, etc. […] One day Smetana greeted my father during a free moment at the institute: “You were right.” “Why?”, asked my father. “Well, about the folksongs and dances”…He then brought and played through to my father his own “Czech pargamyška”: a polka from The Bartered Bride. When he had finished playing, he enquired: “Well, what do you say to it? Haven’t I reformed!”…When my father said “Just go on writing like that!,” Smetana beamed…“I must play it to Neruda—what do you think he’ll say?” And when he played it to Neruda the latter praised it, adding “This is something different from that ‘Swedish’ music.” Smetana wanted to know “if it was all right.” Neruda proclaimed decisively: “I should say so!” After that Smetana brought and played to my father almost every day some part of The Bartered Bride as soon as it was written: at random, simply according to his mood. He seldom forgot to add with a smile: “Just another pargamyška.” But it was not mockery, according to my father, but hidden delight. […] If my father did not like a particular passage Smetana would be taken aback, even unpleasantly offended…but the next day or so, he would bring the same piece corrected, if not completely reworked. “How do you like it now?” When my father exclaimed: “That’s much nicer,” and so on, Smetana derived a truly childlike pleasure….During this period Smetana became so “Czech” himself that he revised in a Czech manner sections of The Bartered Bride that were already written.182 182
“Jednoho večera, právě když Smetana s mým otcem přehráli VII. Beethovenovu sonátu, zvolal Neruda: ‘A teď dost s Beethovenem!—Ferdáčku, zahrej něco k tanci!’….Neruda všechny učil tančit ‘Besedu’ a— Smetana vesele tančil…Po ‘zkoušce’ se však posmíval ‘pargamyškám’—národním písním a tancům v ‘Besedě’ použitým…Můj otec dokazoval Smetanovi, že jsou to poklady, poukazuje na jejich svéráz, na jejich ducha, na rytmus Furianta a j. Obhájcem svých názorů měl Nerudu, který nadšeně hájil a líčil české národní písně i tance, jichž znalcem zejména byl. V oplátku Smetaovi za jeho posměch k českým národním písním a tancům nazval Smetanovy skladby ‘šveckou muzkou’—narážeje tím na nedávné švédské ovzduší Smetanovo—na ‘Hakona Jarla’ atd….Jednoho dne oslovil otce, když měli volnou chvíli v ústavě: ‘Vy jste měl pravdu.’—‘Proč?’ tázal se otec.—‘No—o národních písních a tancích…’ Přinesl a zahrál mu svoji— ‘českou pargamyšku’: polku z ‘Prodané nevěsty.’ Když dohrál, tázal se: ‘Co tomu říkáte? To jsem se změnil!...’ Když se otec vyjádřil: ‘Tak pište pořád’—Smetana zazářil…‘To musím zahrát Nerudovi—co
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Heller’s writing reveals that the “beseda”—a word which, in addition to providing the second half of the UB’s title (Umělecká beseda), meaning “social scene” or “conversation”— referred to a popular dance.183 Specifically, Neruda had invited colleague Karel Link to choreograph the beseda, which Smetana and his wife helped premiere in 1862.184 More critically, Heller positioned UB members (especially his own father, along with Neruda) as collaborators with Smetana in composing a specifically Czech sound into Bartered Bride. According to the anecdote, UB members rescued Smetana from his “un-Czechness” or “Swedishness” while he wrote the opera, a process that culminated in Smetana’s transformation into a specifically Czech artist through his reworkings of its scenes. Despite UB members’ enthusiasm, The Bartered Bride met with mixed reviews upon its premiere (in its first version) on May 30, 1866, partly because escalating political tensions interfered with performances at the Provisional Theater.185 On June 16, 1866, Austria declared war on Prussia, initiating the Seven Weeks’ War. Smetana
tomu a řekne?’ A když to Nerudovi záhral, pochválil jej i ten: ‘To je něco jiného nežli ‘švecká muzika.’ Smetana chtěl vědéti, ‘je-li to tak dobře.’ Neruda rozhodně prohlásil: ‘To bych řek—.’ Poté přinášel a hrával mému otci takřka každý den některou část ‘Prodané nevěsty’ tak, jak vznikala: nesouvisle—pouze podle své nálady. Málokdy zapomněl doložiti s úsměvem: ‘Zase taková pargamyška…’ Ale nebyl to posměch—podle názoru mého otce—nýbrž utajená radost…Byl to posměch otce vůči dítěti….Nelíbilo-li se některé místo mému otci, byl Smetana zaražen—ba nemile dotčen…, ale druhý nebo třetí den přinášel ono místo opravené, ne-li přepracované. ‘Jak se vám to líbí teď?’ Když otec se vyslovil: ‘Teď je to mnohem krásnější a pod.’—měl Smetana přímo dětinskou radost…Smetana se v té době tak, ‘počeštil,’ že i hotové časti ‘Prodané nevěsty’ ‘počeštil’—přepracoval.” Aleš Heller, Memoirs of Ferdinand Heller (1917), trans. Tyrrell, 226-7. The original language for this passage appears in Bartoš (1941), 63-65. 183 Ibid., 303. 184 The premiere performance of the beseda took place on November 13, 1862 in Prague’s Konvikt Hall. Ibid., 83. 185 Before its premiere, Smetana had also been involved in a performance of what was likely the overture to the opera at a UB event on November 18th, 1863 (see Large, 161). Hostinský discussed the beseda as a specifically Czech dance in his “Několik poznámek o českém slovu a zpěvu” [“Some Notes on Czech Words and Song”], Dalibor (June 12-August 21, 1875), 222.
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described these circumstances in his diary by explaining, “‘The Brandenburgers really did come to Bohemia!”186 He also expressed concerns to a colleague, When they come to know that I am author of The Brandenburgers they may shoot me and even if that does not happen I shall, like most of Prague’s inhabitants, have to help pull down the ramparts; I shall have to dig and carry away bricks and earth on barrows and I have neither the desire nor the physical strength to do this.187 Smetana (in a move somewhat contrary to his image as a romantic hero), fled to the city of Nová Huť, and the Provisional Theater closed shortly after The Bartered Bride’s premiere. Tensions leading to the conflict occupied much attention in the papers and among Prague audiences, so that neither the premiere of The Bartered Bride, nor its second performance the following day were widely discussed. As a consequence of these circumstances, UB members’ retrospective accounts of the opera’s reception receive the most attention in scholarship. Josef Srb-Debrnov explained, for example, that, although he did not attend The Bartered Bride’s first performance, he stood outside of the theater and listened to people discussing the opera upon their departure. He recalled, “Some praised it, some shook their heads and one well-known musician…said to me: ‘That’s not a comic opera. It’s a failure and won’t be able to hold its own.’”188 While it is impossible to know if Debernov’s recollections are reliable, his following sentence makes it clear that he aimed to use the anecdote as a foil to Smetana’s eventual success, writing, “Later
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“Hned několik neděl později přitáhli skuteční ‘Braniboři do Čech!’” Trans. Bartoš, 103; Bartoš (1941), 83. 187 “Jakmile se dovědí, že jsem autorem ‘Braniborů,’ budu snad zastřelen, a kdyby i k tomu nedošlo, budu muset jako většina obyvatelů Prahy při bourání hradeb…kopat a odvážet na kolečkách cihly a hlínu, a k tomu nemám chuti, ani dosti fysické síly.” This was reported by Josef Jiránek, trans. Ibid., 103-104; Bartoš (1941), 83. 188 “To není žádná komická opera, ta se nepovedla a neudrží se; začáteční sbor je pěkný, ale to ostatníse mi nelíbí.” Trans. Ibid., 102; Bartoš (1941), 82.
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on…the gentleman proved to have been a bad prophet.”189 Similarly, Václav Novotný recalled the premiere of Smetana’s final version of the opera, which took place on September 25, 1870: One day after the opera, well-known Prague personalities were seated in the inn around the long table, among them a certain musicologist whose name is of no importance, and the music critic of the paper “Bohemia,” old, jovial Ulm. The musicologist, a quarrelsome pessimist, was very argumentative that evening. He tore everything to pieces mercilessly and when the conversation turned to the newly arranged Bartered Bride, he began to fulminate against Smetana, saying that he had written nothing but jingles and couplets, that he had no serious training and no idea of counterpoint… “Well, well!” growled old Ulm, an admirer of Smetana’s every note, “what’s the slander in aid of? What I say is that whoever is able to write such amusing fugato as Smetana in the overture of that very opera has studied his counterpoint seriously. What do you think?” From that moment on the expert began to flounder helplessly and soon dissolved into thin air.190 Novotný’s account demonstrates UB members’ investment in advocating for the success of Bartered Bride. In this case, Smetana’s supporters proudly reduced both the arguments of his detractors and the individuals themselves to nothingness, essentially eliminating the work’s poor initial reception. Along with these accounts, UB members later downplayed the role of the opera’s librettist Sabina (also the UB member with whom Smetana had collaborated for Brandenburgers) as a way of distancing the composer from a controversial figure in Czech history—one whose nationalism was seriously in question. Sabina was a leader in the 1848 revolution and imprisoned from 1849-1857 for his activities, but later (1872), it 189
“Později se však ukázalo, že ten pán špatně prorokoval.” Ibid. “Jednou po opeře sesedli se v hostinci kolem dlouhého stolu znám pražské figurky, mezi nimi theoretikznalec, na jehož jméně nesejde a hudební kritik ‘Bohemie,’ starý, bodrý Ulm. Theoretik-znalec, nesnášelivý škarohlíd, měl ten večer mnoho rozumu, trhal všecko bez milosti a když přišla řeč na nově upravenou ‘Prodanou nevěstu,’ zuřil přímo proti Smetanovi, že tam napsal samé písničky a kuplety, že nemá seriosního vzdělání, o kontrapunktu ani zdání…‘Ale, ale,’ durdil se starý Ulm, ctitel Smetanův od první jeho noty, ‘nač to pomlouvání! Jářku, kdo dovede napsat tak legrační fugato, jako Smetana právě v ouvertuře této ‘Prodané,’ ten dobře prodělal svůj kontrapunktický kurs—že ne?’ Od té chvíle znalec byl jako pěna a záhy se vytratil.” Trans. Ibid., 121-122; Bartoš (1941), 96. 190
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was discovered that he had been an informant for the secret police as early as 1859. In order to protect Smetana from Sabina’s shame, UB member Krásnohorská carefully massaged the composer’s relationship with the poet: Smetana, in all things a progressive human being, had a strong personal attraction for open minds which were amenable to the fresh breeze of new ideas and fearless, free reflections and opinions….Smetana was fondest of his librettists…[including] Karel Sabina, one of our people who came in for much censure and condemnation. In the light of his great merit in kindling Smetana’s genius to an understanding of the national originality inherent in Czech folk tunes, however, the shadows flee from his name. His ‘Jíra’ in The Brandenburgers [Jíra is the opera’s Czech hero] and more recently the whole Bartered Bride have guided Smetana’s genius along the path of triumph and to the glory of the Czech art throughout the world.191 In this case, Krásnohorská rendered Smetana as a well-meaning victim in collaborating with Sabina and emphasized Sabina’s most Czech contributions in shaping the composer’s opera. Beyond Sabina’s complicated political status, the poet’s infamy extended to the quality of his libretto, which, rather than Smetana’s poor Czech, became a scapegoat in explaining the composer’s awkward text-setting in The Bartered Bride.192 At this point in the history of the Bartered Bride, individual UB members had begun to profoundly shape understandings of the opera. They had helped establish its origin story, positioned themselves as sources of the work as well as of Smetana’s own 191
“Smetana, jsa ve všem smýšlení člověkem pokrokovým, měl silnou osobní přitažlivost pro duchy otevřené, přístupné svěžím vánkům nových myšlenek a nebojácných, volných úvah i názorů….Smetanovi byli nejmilejšími jeho libretisté…a Karel Sabina, našinec zle nařknutý a odsuzovan, našinec zle nařknutý a odsuzovaný, na jehož jméně však mizí stín vedle světlé, znamenité zásluhy, že geniovi Smetanovu vznítil poznání národní původnosti v lidových nápěvech českých a svým Jírou v ‘Braniborech’ i posléze celou ‘Prodanou nevěstou’ jej přivedl na cestu k triumfu mistrovu a s ním k světové slávě českého umění.” Trans. Ibid., 78-79; Bartoš (1941), 61-2. 192 Krásnohorská herself challenged Smetana’s settings of the Czech language in his Bartered Bride in her article “On Czech Musical Declamation” (1871) for Hudební listy. In reconciling Smetana’s poor textsetting, Hostinský quoted Sabina as having said, “Had I any idea that Smetana would make anything like this out of my ‘operetta,’ I too would have taken more trouble over it and would have written a better and fuller libretto.” “Kdyby byl tušil, co Smetana z té mé ‘operety’ udělá, byl bych si také já dal větší práci a napsal mu lepší i obsažnější libreto.” Hostinský recorded Sabina’s claims in his Bedřich Smetana a jeho boj o moderní českou hudbu [Bedřich Smetana and his Battle for Modern Czech Music] (Prague: Jan Laichtera,1901), 113. Its translation appears in Bartoš, 103; Bartoš (1941), 82.
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Czechness, retrospectively reinvented the reception of its premiere, and downplayed Smetana’s direct involvement with its supposedly weakest component, the libretto. In the years to follow, the UB continued to take an extremely active role in shaping the reception of Smetana’s other operas, particularly his third opera, Dalibor. This work was markedly different from his first two. Whereas the Brandenburgers and the Bartered Bride were number operas, Dalibor was through-composed. This linked Dalibor, at least for some Czech listeners, with Wagner’s musical aesthetics, making it extremely controversial among Prague audiences—a controversy which the UB mediated and eventually subdued. Contrary to later accounts provided by UB members, reception of Dalibor was minimal at the time of the opera’s premiere, in part because its opening night coincided with one of the Czechs’ greatest national festivals.193 From May 15-17, 1868, Czechs celebrated the laying of the foundation stones for their new National Theater in a monumental demonstration that attracted an estimated 60,000 attendees. Festivities were extensive and included processions in high medieval ceremonial dress as well as the participation of 148 choral societies.194 Smetana was an honored guest at the festival’s main ceremony and made his famous pronouncement, “Music—the life of the Czechs!” while striking one of the stones.195 His Dalibor was premiered the evening of the 16th in Prague’s New Town Theater, so that its initial performance was only a smaller part of a much greater celebration. 193
UB co-founder Josef Wenzig provided the opera’s libretto. Its scenario was based on historical figure Dalibor of Kozojed, who, in the fifteenth century and following a peasant uprising, allowed revolting serfs to come under his rule. The opera portrays an attempt to free Dalibor following his arrest, but ends with his execution. 194 Tyrrell, 41. 195 Trans. Clapham, Smetana, 35.
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The circumstances of the opera’s premiere meant that the individual event received less focused attention in the major periodicals. Prague University lecturer August Ambros did, however, report to his students the following morning that Dalibor had “failed” the night before, but the majority of criticism concerning the opera was not issued until Pivoda printed his controversial articles in Pokrok nearly two years after the opera’s premiere.196 Also a UB member, Pivoda had initially supported Smetana’s work. He praised Brandenburgers, and even hailed the Bartered Bride as an ideal model for nationalistic opera. Now, however, Pivoda argued that Czech opera should remain independent from international models, relying instead on the nation’s traditional folksong (echoing the rhetoric of the Old Czechs, which we have already encountered). He warned that incorporating international styles into its composition would cause, “our opera…to fail to surpass the stage of being hostess to a foreign entity, which might suddenly take over as landlord…if it has not already happened.”197 Smetana’s reaction to Pivoda extended over several years and has been documented elsewhere.198 One of his earlier responses, however, was to argue in the paper Národní listy that the critic was not knowledgeable enough to discuss Wagner and that there was more national character in Dalibor than in any other opera.199 Smetana’s response to Pivoda raises an important problem in Wagner reception (and an important distinction in constructions of nationalism). On one hand, Wagner’s 196
Pivoda’s first publications against Smetana appeared in Pokrok in February, 1870. “Proti tomu musí se všeobecné mínění již rázněji vysloviti, jinak se nedopěstujeme dlouho zvlastních tvarů, a naše opera nevykročí že stadia pohostitelky cizoty, která pojednou převezme i zde úlohu domácího páná, jest-li se tak již nestalo.” František Pivoda, Pokrok (February 22, 1870), trans. Brian Locke Opera and Ideology in Prague (Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2006), 23. The original language appears in Miloš Jůzl, Otakar Hostinský (Praha: Melantrich, 1980), 42-43. 198 Clapham, for example, described its events in considerable detail in his “Smetana-Pivoda Controversy,” Music & Letters 52 (1971): 353-64. 199 Smetana, Národní listy (March 8, 1870), trans. Clapham, Smetana, 39. 197
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emphasis on universalism and timelessness made his dramatic theories an appealing avenue for “horizontal” constructions of Czechness, which used international or cosmopolitan means of composition to demonstrate Czechs’ relevance to greater Europe. On the other, Wagner’s German background made the possibility of using his strategies in Czech composition appear, at least at first glance, to be undermining any notions of a “vertical” Czechness, which was based on an independence from foreign influence and relied primarily on the nation’s folksong.200 For UB members like Smetana, Wagner was therefore a double-edged sword: an important tool in the generation of Czechness which also seemed, in some quarters, to undermine that very project. Nineteenth-century accounts of Smetana’s responses to charges of Wagnerism illustrate the conflicting ways in which he positioned his relationship with the German composer. UB member Emanuel Chvála, for example, recounted in his memoirs, Speaking of Wagner’s declamatory style of composition and his endless melody in orchestration, Smetana once said in the circle of his friends [in German], “We Czechs are a singing people and cannot accept this method.” On another occasion he declared that he was against Wagner’s operas being given in the National Theater, and when I asked him for the reason, he said that they were foreign to us in the downright Germanism and that it was necessary to create, on the basis of the Wagnerian reforms, Czech musical drama which would be an echo of the Czech spirit.201 Smetana both embraced and distanced himself from Wagner in this retelling, his vacillation reflecting the perplexed role that Wagner played in constructions of a Czech sound. Czechs were to reject Wagner’s operas themselves, particularly their convoluted 200
Richard Taruskin, “Nationalism,” in Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online (2012), http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/50846. 201 “Promlouvaje o deklamatorním slohu skladby a nekonečné melodii Wagnerově v orchestru, Smetana kdysi v kruhu svých přátel se vyslovil: ‘Wir Böhmen sind ein singendes Volk und können diese Methode nicht akceptieren.’ Jindy vyslovil se proti tomu, aby Wagnerovy opery dávaly se v Národním divadle, a když jsem se ptal přímo na důvod, vykládal, že ve svém vysloveném germánství jsou nám cizí, a že nutno v jich náhradu vytvořiti na základě reforem Wagnerových české hudební drama, jež bylo by ohlasem duše české.” Trans. Bartoš, 127-128. Italics mine. Bartoš (1941), 100.
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orchestral language, but at the same time were to build on “Wagnerian reforms” to generate a particularly Czech “music drama.” Hostisnký also later recorded his own conversation with Smetana in which the composer addressed the accusations of “Wagnerism” that followed the premiere of Dalibor, sending out the same kind of mixed message. I soon saw an opportunity to put to him a direct question about Dalibor. As he was answering my question, the master was grave: “Hitherto it has been performed but little. The public does not know what to do with it; they are against it because certain critics have persuaded them that it is too much in the Wagner style.” I pointed out that sooner or later it would probably be inevitable for Czech opera to follow that direction. “Of course,” was Smetana’s answer, “but not now. It is quite impossible at present. Such progress must be prepared gradually and at the same time we must follow our own path, suited to our own conditions. Dalibor hardly follows the same lines as the Flying Dutchman, yet do you know what I was told? That I had wanted to outdo Tristan, that I was only just beginning where Wagner had left off. From this it is clear that those gentlemen understand nothing and the public still less.”202 Now “progress” along Wagnerian lines was “inevitable,” although Smetana claimed that the Czech people were not yet ready for it—that they had not yet perceived what role it might play in their own nationalist project. Within the complicated dynamics of Wagner’s reception, Hostinský emerged as both the UB’s most prominent voice and horizontal nationalism’s greatest champion. In his landmark 1869 article, “The Arts and Nationality,” Hostinský addressed the tensions between horizontal and vertical versions of nationalism that came to focus following 202
“…brzo užil jsem vhodné příležitosti, abych se přímo pozeptal na ‘Dalibora.’ Při odpovědi na mou otázku mistr zvážněl: Dával se dosud málo; obecenstvo neví, co s ním, je proti němu, poněvadž někteří recensenti mu namluvili, že je příliš wagnerovský.’ Připomenul jsem, že dříve nebo později bude asi nezbytné, aby se česká opera dala směrem tím. ‘Ovšem,’ zněla Smetanova odpověď, ‘ale ne teď; teď je to naprosto nemožné. Pokrok takovýmusí se připravovat nenáhle a při tom musíme jíti svou cestou, podle zvláštních poměrů našich. ‘Dalibor’ je sotva na tom stanovisku jako ‘Hodlanďan,’ a víte, co mi řekli? Že jsem chtěl přetrumfnout ‘Tristana,’ že prý kde Wagner přestal, tam já teprve začínám. Z toho je vidět, že ti páni tomu nerozumějí, a obecenstvo ještě méně.’” Trans. Bartoš, 111-12; Bartoš (1941), 88-9. Because Hostinský reminisced about an earlier encounter with Smetana in this anecdote, it is possible that he retrospectively imposed his own views on Wagnerism in this rendering of the composer.
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Dalibor. In this philosophical discussion—a discussion informed by Wagner’s own writings—Hostinský argued not only that a nationalistic affect resulted from a negotiation between the composer and audience members’ subjective experience, but also that vocal music leant itself more easily to nationalistic expression than instrumental. National music bases its character primarily on speech. Each language has its own melodic motives and especially rhythmic [motives] (they already appear in prose), which…rise to song as the authentic music. Only later when the melody is transferred to other instruments is its nature adapted, unfolding differently according to the different techniques of the instruments, and so instrumental music comes into being. Such a foolish reversal…forces peculiar instrumental techniques on human voices; it not only clears a path to the decline of vocal music, but also generally destroys the music’s national character.… And so it will certainly be a work of art, in which poetry with music—both in their highest bloom—link, certainly music drama or opera will be the most glorious symbol of national taste and the most important representative of national art.203 In this case, Hostinský’s interest in theorizing relationships between nationalism, speech, and the abstract sounds of language (in vocal or instrumental music) reflected the blend of Enlightenment philosophy (Rousseau in particular) that Wagner had relied upon in his Zürich essays.204 By offering vocal music as a sort of solution to the problem of nationalism, Hostinský also celebrated the uniqueness of the Czech language (the vertical) while modeling his nationalistic conceptions on international, and more
203
“Však netoliko básnictví, ale i hudba národní svůj ráz zakládá především na řeči. Každy jazyk má totiž své vlastní motivy melodické a hlavně rhytmické (již i v prose se jevící), jejichžto ustálením a jasným vytknutím—takořka idealisováním—povstává zpěv, co původní hudba. Teprvé později přenášejí se melodie i na nástroje jiné, přispůsobuje se jejich povaze, rozvinuje se různě dle různé techniky nástrojů a tak stává se hudbou instrumentální. A zpozdilé převracování tohoto přerozeného poměru, vnucování zvláštností instrumentální techniky hlasům lidským nejen úpadku vokalní hudby dráhu klestí, nýbrž i narodní ráz hudby vůbec ničí….A tak bude zajisté umělecké dílo, v němž se básnictví s hubou—a sice oboje ve svém nejvyšším výkvětu—pojí, bude zajisté hudební drama čili zpěvohra nejskvělejším znakem národního vkusu a protož i nejdůležitějším zástupcem národního umění.” Hostinský, “Umění a národnost” [“The Arts and Nationality”], Dalibor (January 20, 1869), 17-18. 204 Hostinský situated Wagner in history using a discussion of Rousseau in his later article, “Some Notes on Czech Words and Song,” Dalibor (June 12-August 21, 1875), 190 and “O české deklamaci hudební” [“On Czech Musical Declamation”], Dalibor (January 1- June 20, 1882), 43.
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specifically German, theorists (the horizontal). Hostinský provides, then, a synthesis— one of Wagner’s most celebrated concepts—under the guise of Czechness. Hostinský went on to make a career of publishing on Wagner’s aesthetics, both in German and Czech.205 His “‘Wagnerianism’ and Czech National Opera” (1870) as well as “Richard Wagner: A Biographical Sketch” (1871) reveal particularly clearly the ways in which Hostinský engaged with the perceived radicalism of Wagnerian discourses in his writings.206 Here, the author carefully cultivated both the pro- and anti- Wagner camps; he used the same methodology employed by Smetana’s wider critics to begin generating Smetana’s reputation as both patriotic and progressive, laying the groundwork for the composer’s invention as a national hero. In his “‘Wagnerianism’ and Czech National Opera,” Hostinský exploited Wagner’s controversial reception. In the process of humbly asking the management of Hudební listy (in which the article was published) to print his editorial, Hostinský explained that the “unfortunate conditions” surrounding Wagner’s reception meant that he would “certainly not hesitate to sign” his name to the piece in order to relieve the editors from the responsibility of his words.207 Hostinský in this case not only romanticized the extent of the divide over Wagner’s reception, but martyred his name 205
Miloš Jůzl discusses Hostinský’s writings, particularly its sources, in great detail in his Otakar Hostinský (Prague: Melantrich, 1980). Jaroslav Jiránek also applies Hostinský’s theories concerning text setting as well as those of his contemporary colleagues in his Vztah hudby a slova v tvorbě Bedřicha Smetany [The Relationship of Music and Words in the work of Bedřich Smetana] (Praha: Československá akademie věd, 1976). Sanna Pederson discusses an excerpt from Hostinský’s Das Musikalisch-Schöne und das Gesammtkunstwerk vom Standpuncte der Formalen Aestetik (Leipzig, 1877) in her “Defining the Term ‘Absolute Music’ Historically,” Music & Letters 90 (2009): 253-4. His aesthetics have also been discussed in Music in European Thought, 1851-1912, ed. Bojan Bujić (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 132-152 and Edward Lippman, A History of Western Musical Aesthetics (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1992), 314-317. 206 “‘Wagnerianismus’ a české národní opera” [“‘Wagnerianism’ and Czech National Opera”] ran in Hudební listy from March 30 to May 19, 1870. “Richard Wagner: Nástin životopisný” [“Richard Wagner: A Biographical Sketch”] appeared in Hudební listy from October 4-December 28, 1871. 207 Hostinský, “‘Wagnerianism’ and Czech National Opera,” Hudební listy (March 30-May 19, 1870), quoted in Hostinský, Bedřich Smetana, 149-150.
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towards its cause. In the core of his article, Hostinský explained how a synthesis of the Czech language and German dramatic principles solved the “paradox” of modeling Czech nationalistic opera on Wagner’s aesthetics.208 In particular, he argued that the use of folksong was not inconsistent with music drama, but was instead one of its most fundamental components, primarily because it contained the “mother tongue [emphasis his].”209 For Hostinský, the unique melodies of the Czech language and especially its rhythms contained a collective psychology that was critical for composing Czechness into music drama.210 Still, Hostinský concluded that the “full implementation of Wagner’s principles” would require “the fulfillment of many other inevitable circumstances” including the development of more sophisticated poetry.211 Smetana’s operas, he suggested, represented the first step in this direction—they pointed the way towards generating a progressive Czech music drama. If Hostinský aimed to synthesize Wagner and Czechness in this article, he went on, in his 1871 biography of the composer, to more explicitly defend Wagner and combat the anti-Wagner camp. Here, at the opening of his preface, his language was much more charged: There is no victory without a fight. Only through a tough struggle with deeply-rooted, outdated views resulting from the natural character of human conservativeness—with the eternal power of habit—can a new thought make its path, dominating the world. Any decisive reform must stand with the merits of its revolution; in religion as it is in science, in social life as in art. We have enough evidence in the history of music. I do not want to review known things; I will merely draw here from the large number of 208
Ibid., 150. The phrase Hostinský used was “mateřskou řeč.” Ibid., 163. 210 Wagner also promoted this interest, but its parameters are exceptional in Czech where a rhythmic pattern is built into a word’s pronunciation. 211 “…úplné provedení Wagnerova principu závisí ještě na vyplnění mnohých jiných nevyhnutelných podmínek. První z nich je v rukou našich básníků…” Ibid., 167. 209
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“God’s warriors” in the arts one ringing name of [perfection], who already a century ago attempted a sort of reform of musical drama: Gluck. Even the newest time is not without similar examples; the most interesting and most spectacular is without a doubt a man whose name stands at the head of the line. The life of Richard Wagner is a constant struggle, a constant fight. Nature has dealt him a remarkably talented versatility not only artistic—it has also given such iron strength of tireless morals, endurance, and consistency, in our times surely very precious...212 Hostinský’s militant language demonstrates the growing virulence of the Wagner debate, situating his detractors as men unwilling to take up arms in the interest of their own country. The author’s use of words like “victory,” “fight,” and “struggle” situate progress as a dangerous revolution. Change, he implies, is effected not only by courage but moral fiber: Gluck (and, we are invited to assume, Wagner) was one of “God’s warriors.” Above all, Hostinský situated Wagner as the prophet of the moment—a warrior and “tireless” martyr—a position which Smetana, following Pivoda’s “attacks” on Dalibor, was primed to fill. As a composer whose celebrity and notoriety among Prague audiences was rising, whose Dalibor had already been martyred, and who, himself, promoted progress, Smetana was uniquely prepared to serve as a figurehead comparable to Wagner in a revolution aimed at revitalizing the Czech arts. Within the UB, two additional conditions—the availability from 1869 of the out-of-print, aptly-named journal Dalibor 212
“Není vítězství bez boje. Jenom za tuhého zápasu se hluboce zakořeněnými, zastaralými názory, s přirozenou povaze lidské konservativností, s mocí odvěkého zvyku může sobě nova myšlenka klestiti dráhu, může opanovati svět. Každá rozhodná reforma musí se podstatou svou státi revolucí; v náboženství jako ve vědě, v životě společenském jako v umění. Též v dějinách hudby máme toho dosti dokladů. Nechci opakovat věci známé, přípomínám zde z velkého množství ‘božich bojovníků’ na poli uměleckém jen jediné zvučné jmeno mistra, který se již před stoletím pokoušel o jakousi reform hudebního dramatu: Gluck. I novější doba není bez podobných příkladů; nejzajímavějším a nejvelkolepějším zjevem zároveň jest bez odporu muž, jehož jméno stojí v čele těchto řádek. Život Richarda Wagnera jest stálý zápas, stály boj. Přiroda uštědřila mu obdivuhodnou mnohostrannost nadání a to ne jen uměleckého—,dala mu take železnou sílu mravnía neunavnou vytrvalost i důslednost, v našich dobách věru převzácnou—avšak miláčkem štěstěny v obecném toho slova smyslu muž ten nebyl nikdy…” Quoted from Hostinský, Richard Wagner: A Biographical Sketch, 1.
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along with the establishment of the publishing house, Matice hudební (“Music Foundation,” or MH), in 1871—meant that the organization also had the potential to gain a more public voice. Additionally, an emerging propaganda war launched against Smetana also ensured his “enemies,” and by extension enemies of progress, were clearly identified.213 Smetana described these circumstances in his diary: [December 6, 1872] My enemies [headed by Rieger] are doing their best at the Theater Association to bring about my dismissal and to establish Maýr in my place. Half [of] Prague is talking about it, and opera singers, orchestras, journalists, music critics and a number of subscribers are doing their best to see that this does not happen, articles are being written in papers, etc. [December 20, 1872] The “Hudební listy” was today published for the first time under new leadership. It has again begun to fulminate against me and against all principles of the new age [Wagnerianism, etc.]. The names of these gentlemen are Rozkošný, Böhm, Pivoda.214 As Smetana’s “enemies” gained publicity through their newly-acquired journal Hudební listy (Music News), his advocates within the UB moved to counter his negative publicity. They called on the increasingly sophisticated criticism surrounding Wagner to situate Smetana at the head of a progress-driven, nationalist revolution. In so doing, UB members began to place Smetana in the same mythological space as Wagner.
213
Large documents the emerging propaganda war in greater detail from pages 235-238. Trans. Bartoš, 132. Bartoš provided the information included in brackets. Hudební listy came under Old Czech management in 1872. Large, 27. The original Czech for this quote appears in Bartoš (1941), 103-4: “6. Moji nepřátelé (—Rieger v čele—) hledějí u družstva div. prosadit, bych byl propuštěn a Maýr na mé místo dosazen. Půl Prahy o tom mluví a zpěváci opery, orkestr, žurnalisté, referenti, část abonentů se zasazují o to, aby se to nestalo, píše se v žurnálech o tom atd. 20. Nově redigovaný list ‘Hudební listy’ vyšel dnes ponejprv. Povstal proto, aby proti mně a všem zásadám novověkým (wagnerismus) atd. psáti mohl. Rozkošný, Böhm, Pivoda a jsou tito páni.” 214
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Smetana Reception and the Rhetoric of Revolution in Dalibor In a letter “To Our Readers,” the editors of Dalibor positioned the journal’s (re)founding as a mutiny against the management of Hudební listy.215 Here, they accused Hudební listy’s staff of fostering biases, situated Dalibor as an organization associated with the powerful MH (the publishing house affiliated with the UB), and called attention to their own work in support of progress. As a symbol of what we intend to win, our motto will again be truly national music for the advancement of modern art…We intend to give everything in DALIBOR—we want to convince our readers not through promises, but through action. It will be our foremost concern to gain trust and favor, which we have widely received for our current activities and will now deserve once again.216 Here, the editors of Dalibor positioned themselves in direct opposition to the Hudební listy. Unlike their opponents, Dalibor’s staff supported forward-motion and was open to new ideas. It was also a paper whose contents would deliver change, not just talk of action. Beyond Dalibor’s opening letter, its early feature articles explicitly situated the journal within a greater, self-constructed rebellion or revolution. The article “Where Are We? Where Don’t We Want to Go?” for example, declared Dalibor’s position as proWagner among the emerging musico-political debates.217 In particular, the article’s author, “Fl.” (an allusion to Schumann’s “Florestan”), provided a charged and often sarcastic response to an earlier publication in Hudební listy, the title of which was 215
Dalibor had already once been in operation, but ended its run in 1869. The Matice hudební revived it in 1873. 216 “Heslem náším a zaroveň též znamením, v němž zvítěziti hodláme, bude opět: v pravdě národní hudba na pokročílém stanovisku moderního umění…všechno v ‘DALIBORU’ podávati hodláme; ne sliby, ale skutky chceme přesvědčiti naše četenářstvo, že bude nejpřednější péčí naší, abychom důvěru a přízeň, které se tak hojnou měrou dostávalo dosavádní naší činnosti, i nyní zase sobě zasloužili.” “Našim čtenářům!” [“To Our Readers!”] Dalibor (January 3, 1873), 1-2. Formatting from original. 217 The article “Kde jsme? Kam nechceme se dostati?” [“Where Are We? Where Don’t We Want to Go?”] spans in Dalibor from January 10-17, 1873.
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“Where Are We? Where Do [italics mine] We Want to Go?”218 The author for Hudební listy had begun to explore the stakes involved in the debates using the argument that opened the body of this dissertation: We are in the muck and mire of a transitional time, and unfortunately so! We serve…in ranks of soldiers for things that are completely foreign to us! Is this not an aesthetic Battle of White Mountain?... Must the soldiers of the Czech nation [join the] ranks of...foreign innovators who aim to dominate and destroy the Czech strength?219 As mentioned in chapter one, this author’s decision to call on the Battle of White Mountain as a metaphor was a charged one. The battle, which took place in 1620, was the occasion on which Bohemia lost a significant amount of its sovereign rule within the Habsburg Empire—an event in the forefront of the minds of the nineteenth-century nationalists working to regain their autonomy. By comparing the aesthetic debates of the moment to this old battle, the author implied that those choosing to accept Wagner’s principles as a tool for Czech nationalism undermined the Czech cause—they once again accepted outside rule, “joining the ranks” of their oppressors. “Florestan” explained in response that he (and, by extension, the journal’s editors) supported the possibility of taking Wagner as a carefully-formulated model for Czech opera. I recognize that Wagner’s operas don't give us Czechs a model that we should follow, they just point to the way for us to get to Czech national opera as the Germans did for German [opera]—to develop Czech music drama directly from the path of speech—in short, that is the core of the efforts of our “Wagnerists.”220 218
Hostinský actually authored the article under council. For more on “Florestan,” see Hostinský, Bedřich Smetana, 284. 219 “Jsme uprostřed kalu a kvasu jakési přechodní doby a bohužel! sloužíme…v řadách bojovníků pro věc nám úplně cizí!—Není to esthetický ‘boj na Bílé hoře’?...Museli se naverbovati bojovníci české narodnosti, aby ve spojenís šiky dobře vedených cizích novotářů lomili a zhubili sílu českou?” Max Konopásek, quoted from “Where Are We? Where Don’t We Want to Go?” Dalibor (January 17, 1873), 19. 220 “Poznal jsem, že nám Čechům nekladou opery Wagnerovy za vzor, jehož bychom následovati měli, nýbrž že poukazují jenom k cestě, na které se můžeme tak dobře dostati k české národní opeře, jako se
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After nuancing his attitude toward Wagner, “Florestan” dismissed the previous author’s comparison of the aesthetic debates surrounding the German composer to the Battle of White Mountain as “clumsy” and “awkward.”221 “Florestan” charged the previous author to “look into your reservoir of historic knowledge. Perhaps you will find there—or perhaps you won’t, who could know?—the true view of the times of the Battle of White Mountain,” and went on to point out that several Germans (especially Protestants) were allies to the Czechs in the battles.222 While these authors’ discussions of musical aesthetics were couched in metaphors, their writing reveals that the political stakes they represented were real. Smetana and his supporters, through Dalibor, had declared themselves as revolutionaries against Rieger and Pivoda (Smetana’s “enemies”). As revolutionaries, the gesture of embracing Wagner as a political and aesthetic model was dangerous. As we will see, however, Dalibor’s authors were careful to situate Smetana and his works not as Wagnerian imitations but as extensions of Wagner’s musical philosophy—a Czech answer to the problem and promise of Wagner. This move was made most clearly by Hostinský in a serialized article that ran in Dalibor from February 14 to March 28, 1873. Here, Hostinský rewrote Smetana’s aesthetic relationship with Wagner in order to construct him as an even greater synthesizer—a composer who had progressed beyond Wagner’s own model. The author initiated this strategy near the beginning of the article: Němci dostali k německé.—Vyvinouti českou hudbu dramatickou přímo z české řeči, toť as ve stručnosti jádro snah našich ‘Wagneristů.’” Ibid. (January 10, 1873), 11. 221 “Jest to následujíci podezřívání, jehož ‘nezodpovědnou opovážlivost’ a smělou vyzývavost předčí jenom jeho nesmírná nešikovnost a neohrabanost.” Ibid. (January 17, 1873), 19. 222 “Snad tam najdete—snad take nenajdete, kdož to může věděti?—pravý názor o poměrech doby bělohorské bitvy. Zvěděl byste pak, že tehdáž stáli na obou stanách Češi, ale také na obou stranách— Němci. Němečtí protestanté byli, jak známo, našimi spojenci v boji za samostatnost království, kdežto se mnozí čeští lži-vlastenci na záhubu národa přidali ku straně katolické, císařské.” Ibid.
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I repeat that, to my full knowledge as I write [today], no other serious Czech opera—not only amongst operas written before 1868 [the year of Dalibor’s premiere], but also later operas—is so organically and thoroughly constructed of truly national musical elements as Dalibor; I will add that, concerning the use of the lyric forms of folk song, Smetana could not have gone any farther than he actually went. It will be up to me to clear up the evidence owed. I will further add that, next to Dalibor, only Brandenburgers can possibly be placed among our original serious operas, and finally that in the field of comic [opera] in our country, no one up to this point has written anything purer than the Bartered Bride. Now we remember that some people believe that Smetana is the representative and head of the German direction in our dramatic music! And it is said that Dalibor shows it best. We will take a look at the opera here and we will examine especially how things actually stand with its famed “Wagnerianisms.”223 Here, Hostinský resisted the idea of Smetana as a mere Wagner-copier and positioned him as a composer who had harnessed “the German direction in music” to a “truly national” cause, bringing Czech folk song and language together with the philosophies of German progress to effect real artistic revolution. Wagner is not a direct model for Smetana, and yet one must understand “Wagnerisms” in order to read or hear Smetana’s Czech opera correctly—to understand the nature of his great synthesis. Hostinský couched all this in a tone that greatly contrasted with that of his earlier theoretical writings (those explored in the previous chapter) adopting a more clearly political and populist style—one meant to be accessible to every reader.
223
“Opakuji s plným vědomím toho, co píšu, že v žádné jiné vážné zpěvohře české—a to nejen ve zpěvohrách psaných před rokem 1868, nýbrž i ve všech pozdějších—není tak mnoho a tak organicky a důsledně sestrojených opravdu národních živlů hudebních, jako právě v ‘Daliboru’; ano, dodávám ještě, že co se týče použití lyrických forem písní prostonárodních, nemohl Smetana takořka již ani dale jíti, než-li skutečně šel. Bude na mně, abych toho důkaz nezůstal dlužen. Připomínám dale, že vedle ‘Dalibora’ zase jenom ‘Branibroům’ lze co do směru národního vykázati místo mezi našemi původními zpěvohrami vážnými a že konečně i v oboru komiky nikdo u nás dosud nenapsal néco čistějšího, než-li jest právě ‘Pradaná nevěsta.’ Nyní sobě vzpomeňme, že jistým lidem jest Smetana zástupcem a hlavou—německého směru v naší dramatické hudbě! A to prý se ukázalo nejlépe jeho ‘Daliborem.’ Pohlédneme si tedy zpěvohru tu a budeme především zkoumati, jak se to vlastně má s tím jejím pověstným ‘Wagnerianismem.’” Hostinský, “Smetanův ‘Dalibor’” [“Smetana’s Dalibor”], Dalibor (February 14, 1873), 50.
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Hostinský went on in his review to separate Smetana from Wagner. He began by investigating the opera’s libretto, “mainly in order to convince the reader [that this opera], already from the libretto, was different from Wagner’s direction.” 224 To this end, Hostinský compared the libretto’s plot to Beethoven’s Fidelio (both operas do deal with attempts to free a hero from prison) while also emphasizing the story’s origins in Czech legend. He concluded by arguing that, though German reform opera was itself based on legend, Wagner would not have approved of Smetana’s libretto. Concerning Smetana’s score, Hostinský explained that the composer’s harmonies and orchestration were only a reflection of modern music more broadly and not specific to Wagner, and argued that Smetana used Wagner’s declamatory style only in a few places. When pressed, however, Hostinský explained that he would have to name Smetana’s greatest “Wagnerism” as his use of so-called “characteristic or typical motives (leitmotives)” in the score.225 Upon this admission and after explaining that leitmotives tended to be misunderstood as a “fancy play on words by the composer,” Hostinský launched into an explanation of how they broadly operate within a drama (particularly how they reveal the psychology of a drama) and then analyzed specifically how they operate within Dalibor.226 Hostinský’s analyses took up the bulk of his article, spanning three of the five issues in which it was printed. Afterwards, Hostinský revealed the crux of his argument in claiming that the group of leitmotives that he had just identified was actually the vehicle through which Smetana infused the opera with Czech folk character. Smetana had not imitated Wagner, but taken the German composer’s techniques in a new, specifically 224
“Dotknul jsem se poměru Wenzigova libreta k pověsti hlavně proto, aby čtenář se přesvědčil, že Smetanův ‘Dalibor’ jest již libretistou zcela jinak založen, nežli by toho směr Wagnerův žádal.” Ibid. (February 21, 1873), 60. 225 “…jest to skorem jedině důslednější upotřební tak zvaných příznačných motivů (Leitmotive).” Ibid. 226 “takořka za nějakou hříčku a libůstku skladatele.” Ibid.
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Czech direction. Hostinský pointed to one leitmotive, for example, and asked, “Here, isn’t this folk character as faithfully given as we could ever wish it?” before concluding, “And that’s why I argue strongly that Smetana’s Dalibor, maybe not ‘in despite’ of its direction of ‘Wagnerianism,’ but just ‘by consequence’ of this direction…has more national character in itself than any other serious Czech opera.”227 Significantly, Hostinský also used Smetana’s synthesis of Wagnerian aesthetics and Czechness to justify Smetana’s status as a “lone creator” of Czech nationalistic music twice in the article and for one of the first times in print.228 As a complement to Hostinský’s and “Florestan’s” work, the editors of Dalibor featured in their first issues a serial article on “Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas,” a move which grounded their rebellion in tradition, implicitly drawing Smetana into the musical canon. Additionally, they ran an article by Novotný from January 31 to February 14 titled “Tame Thoughts,” the title of which framed the article as an uncontroversial counterpart to the journal’s other features—although it did much the same kind of work. Here, Novotný presented a Hegelian history of aesthetics, beginning with the Greeks (an approach consistent with a number of Wagner’s writings, particularly Art and Revolution) and then moving into a sequence summarized by the author as, “Palestrina, Lassus, Bach,
227
Both quotes appear on Ibid. ([listed as] February 14, 1873), 83. The original language for the first is: “Není i zde prostonárodní ráz tak věrně podán, jak si toho jen přáti můžeme?” The original language for the second is: “A proto také rozhodně tvrdím, že Smetanův Dalibor ne snad ‘na zvdor’ ‘wagnerisujícímu’ směru svému, nýbrž právě ‘následkem’ tohoto směru…má více prostonárodního rázu do sebe, než kterákoliv jiná vážná zpěvohra česká.” 228 Ibid., 51 and (March 28, 1873), 103. The original language for the first is: “Jednalo se mu totiž o to, aby nepředstoupil před velké obecenstvo s dílem rázu příliš nového a nezvyklého, nýbrž aby spíše utvořil jakýsi sprostředkující přechod k onomu idealu vážné české národní zpěvohry, jaký si byl on—Smetana—sám utovřil, a jaký později ve své ‘Libuši’ uskutečniti hleděl.” The original language for the second is: “Že měl Smetana závažné důvody, proč tak jednal, řekl jsem již dříve, a vytknul také význam ‘Dalibora’ co zpěvohry tvořící přechod z dosavadní formelně-hudební ‘opery’—ne snad k pouhém nápodobení německého huduebního dramatu Wagnerova, nýbrž—k uskutečnění onoho idealu národního hudebního dramatu českého, jakýsi byl Smetana sám utvořil, ovšem na základě moderním.”
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and Handel—Gluck—Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven—Liszt and Wagner.”229 As the culmination of progress within this frame, Liszt and Wagner themselves represent a dialectic between instrumental and operatic music, or, in Novotný’s words, “the constellation that illuminates the darkness of the confusion after the time of Beethoven.”230 By implication in this case (especially given that this article ran alongside those charged writings printed at the outset of the new Dalibor), Novotný situated Smetana’s opera within a naturally occurring and idealistically autonomous trajectory, which the author summarized at the article’s conclusion: “The huge wheel of development is quickly turning on its path of intellectual life as well as the path of art. It can't be stopped and anyone who voluntarily stands in its path – causes harm to themselves.”231 Together, Smetana’s UB supporters used their newly-gained voice in the journal Dalibor to advocate for Czechness as a cause and to situate Smetana as its leader. Just as Hostinský did in his 1871 biography of Wagner, they positioned their own rebellion as the organic outcome of past revolutions and figured Smetana as the movement’s martyr—in many ways, a Czech Wagner (rather than a mere Wagnerian). The opera Dalibor represented the first step along this new path, but Smetana’s next opera, Libuše, was Czechness’ most perfect execution. As the composer’s most deliberately Czech work but also his work most deeply indebted to Wagner’s aesthetics, Libuše was in a uniquely capable position to serve his supporters’ propagandist aims.
229
Novotný, “Krotké myšlénky” [“Tame Thoughts”], Dalibor (March 14, 1873), 53. “R. Wagner a F. Liszt jest ono souhvězdí, jež osvěcuje temnoty onoho zmatku po době Beethovenovaské.” Ibid., 51. 231 “Obrovské kolo vývinu na dráze života duševního tedy i na dráze umění nelze v rychlém jeho běhu zadržeti a kdo se mu své volně v cestu staví—škodí si!” Ibid., 54. 230
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The Myth of Libuše: The Culmination of a Revolution Smetana considered Libuše to be an exceptional work. He described it in one instance as “the most perfect work on the highest dramatic plane” and in another as “[of] unique importance in our history and literature.”232 The composer even once argued that Libuše served as “the highest peak in the expression of Czech music.”233 Libuše was not only the opera Smetana regarded as his most important, it was also distinguished by the lengthy amount of time that took place between its completion and premiere. Smetana finished the work in 1872, but withheld the score until the opening of the National Theater (1881), positioning that theater and his nationalist work as linked enterprises. The combination of Smetana’s confidence in the work and its much-delayed premiere primed Libuše to play an exceptionally charged role in the propaganda wars. While the opera’s genre, as a music drama, aligned it with progress, Smetana’s withholding of the score meant that Libuše existed for audiences and UB members primarily as a possibility—a promise for revolution and, because of the premiere’s contingency on the opening of the theater, a brighter future. Before exploring UB members’ writings about the opera, it is necessary to discuss the relationship between the work and Wagner’s music dramas in greater detail. Past scholars, in their discussions of Smetana’s “Wagnerism,” have often perpetuated Hostinský’s discourses; they analyze Smetana’s scores and emphasize the composer’s modernity as a means of explaining his foreign influence.234 The aim of this discussion, however, is to examine the broader nationalist discourse—one profoundly shaped by 232
Smetana to Ludevít Procházka, Prague, September 36, 1877 and Smetana to Josef Srb-Debmov, Prague, 20 December, 1880, trans. Large, 215. 233 Smetana to Dr. František Ladislav Rieger, May 26, 1882, trans. Ibid. 234 This impulse results from the desire to rescue Smetana from Wagner’s influence. For more, refer to the discussion that opened this chapter.
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Wagner—from which Libuše emerged, to show how its foreign influence was integral to, rather than in opposition to, its nationalist voice. Given how deeply Smetana’s emerging myth was immersed in Wagner and that Czechness, moreover, had grown for UB members to require a synthesis of Wagner’s aesthetics with idealistically Czech sounds or ideals, Smetana’s most deliberately nationalistic work (the one he himself held up as a turning point in the Czech cause) warrants comparison with Wagner’s own Ring. Exploring the literary sources for Libuše reveals that the opera’s text performed a musico-political role similar to that of Wagner’s subjects and poetry in his Ring cycle. Just as Wagner’s Siegfried had previously emerged into public consciousness through the Icelandic Volsungasaga manuscripts and in the Germanic Nibelungenlied, Smetana’s Libuše (his opera’s title character) took as its source a variety of Czech texts, most prominently and problematically the Zelenohorský (“Green Mountain”) manuscripts.235 Just as Wagner, too, had used the manuscripts’ legends as a means to glorify a mythic past and anticipate a utopian future, Smetana used Libuše to celebrate the past autonomy of the Czech culture and conjure an idealistic future free from German oppression. The plot of Smetana’s Libuše recounts a story from Czech mythology in which the ruler Libuše presides over a trial between two brothers. It also depicts Libuše’s prophesies concerning the future of the Czechs. The opera’s scenario was provided by UB co-founder Josef Wenzig and was informed by a number of sources including Church delegate Cosmas’ (ca.1045-1125) Chronica Boemorum, which contained the earliest documentation of the Czechs’ founding legends, and Palacký’s History of the Czech Nation in Bohemia and Moravia, which provided a model for the content and 235
Richard Taruskin, “Deeds of Music Made Visible (Class of 1813, I),” in Nineteenth Century, vol. 3 of Oxford History of Western Music (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 492.
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organization of Libuše’s prophecies.236 Even more than either of these sources, however, the Královedvoský and Zelenohorský manuscripts played a critical role in shaping the opera’s aesthetics.237 In order to explore their contributions and their controversy, it is helpful to look back to an important event: Václav Hanka’s funeral and burial at Vyšehrad in 1861. After “discovering” the Královedvorský manuscript (allegedly containing 13thcentury poetry and named for the city in which he found it) in 1817, Hanka emerged as a national hero among the Czechs over the course of the century, and his funeral was an occasion for a political demonstration attended by thousands.238 The Královedvorský manuscript was part of a collection of eight documents “found” from 1816-1848 that were said to contain the whole history of the Czech nation, much of which took place on the cliffs of Vyšehrad.239 His gravesite symbolically situated Hanka among the nation’s founders and initiated a long tradition of burying Czech heroes (including Smetana) at the sacred location. Importantly for this dissertation, the singing organization Hlahol gave its first public performance at Hanka’s funeral, so that several future UB members were in attendance for the event.
236
This latter source inspired Wenzig’s means of portraying Libuše’s prophesies in a series of tableaux. Tyrrell, 140. 237 The manuscripts’ titles also correlate to the titles of the opera’s first and third acts; Act I, “Libuše’s Judgement (“Libušin soud”) shares the same name as a particularly prominent poem in the Zelenohorský manuscripts, and Act III, “Prophecy” (“Proroctví”), shares the title of the another manuscript “discovered” in 1848, “Libuše’s Prophecy” (“Libušino proroctví”). 238 Hanka’s involvement in announcing another “find,” Libušino proroctví (“Libuše’s Prophecy”), in 1849 along with his publication of the Královedvorský manuscript translated into 13 different languages in 1852 (under the title Polyglotta) helped to confirm his emerging status. The following information is indebted to Andrew Lass, “Romantic Documents and Political Movements: The Meaning-Fulfillment of History in 19th-Century Czech Nationalism,” American Ethnologist 15 (1988), 458-61 and Derek Sayer, The Coasts of Bohemia: A Czech History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998), 144-147. 239 The conditions of who, where, or how in the various manuscripts’ were “discovered” were not always clear, but, as Andrew Lass succinctly summarizes, each “seemed somehow always to involve Václav Hanka. See Ibid., 460.
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Despite his popularity in the 1860s, Hanka was not always so revered. Allegations about the inauthenticity of the Královedvorský manuscript appeared as early as 1818, and Hanka was also entanglied in suspicions surrounding the Zelenohorský manuscript, which was also “discovered” in 1819 (together, the Královedvoský and Zelenohorský manuscripts, or rukopisy, will be referred to in this dissertation as the KZR). In response to such allegations, Hanka successfully sued David Kuh, editor of the paper Tagesbote aus Böhmen, for libel during the 1850s, but remained a controversial figure even after his death. Tomáš Masaryk and Jan Gebauer discredited Hanka in a series of articles published in the Atheneum during the 1880s—well after Smetana had completed Libuše—while still others, most notably UB member Eliška Krásnohorská in her own Ženský listy (“Women’s News”), continued to defend the manuscripts’ authenticity through the end of the century. The KZR and associated manuscripts together contained nearly 200 “lyric,” “epiclyric,” or “epic” narratives that could be interpreted as poems or songs.240 As supposed remnants of a quasi-historical and mythical time, these manuscripts occupied the same position for Smetana’s Czech audiences that the myths of Wagner’s Ring held for German listeners—they were artifacts of a glorious past, however dubiously connected to the actual history of the people. Also, just as Wagner (and his critics) upheld the Ring mythologies as part of a utopian linguistic past, Czech critics embraced the narratives preserved in the KZR as repositories of a higher and more pure form of the Czech language—a form in which speech, song, and even some notions of folksong were synonymous. While Wagner called on “German” (also Nordic) mythology as a source of poetic inspiration for his nationalistic Ring, Smetana’s Libuše embraced a fantasized 240
Ibid., 464.
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Czech past as the vehicle for a nationalistic message. The KZR manuscripts conjured and celebrated “the folk,” facilitating the reconstruction of a mythic time that was purely Czech. Like Wagner, Smetana and his librettist used renderings of this collection of myths to place in relief the political impulses of their moment and make idealized projections for the future. The opera’s antagonist (and Libuše’s mythological adversary) is a character named Chrudoš who sympathized with German culture. The opera centers around a trial between Chrudoš and his brother, during which Chrudoš argues that the oldest son should inherit the entirety of the family’s estate, “like our neighbors, the Germans,” rather than dividing it equally as Czech tradition prescribed. Chrudoš distances himself from the Czech people in this case and does so even further by challenging Libuše’s authority, encouraging her to take a husband. At the trial’s conclusion, Chrudoš storms from the scene, leaving a shocked audience of onlookers concerned that he planned to wage war against the region. Much as Wagner’s music dramas did for German audiences, then, the plot to Libuše strongly spoke to Czech nationalists’ aims, specifically their desire to gain cultural and political freedom from a German-run administration. Smetana and Wenzig made their political aims even more explicit by collaborating—synthesizing text and music—in their renderings of Libuše’s prophesies at the opera’s conclusion. Wenzig established the foundations for this close by suggesting that he and Smetana use a series of tableaux vivants to depict Libuše’s perceptions of the future, each (as they do in Czech mythology) portraying a highly influential political leader or warrior in Bohemian history. The first featured Prince Břetislav, who joined
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Bohemia to Moravia in the 10th century. The next five depicted Jaroslav Šternbeck, Přemysl Ottokar II, Elizabeth of the Přemyslids, Prokop the Great, and Poděbrady, each of whom either defended the region from foreign invasion, expanded the territory, or, in the case of Elizabeth, established the first Bohemian university between the eleventh and fifteenth centuries. 241 In his scenario, Wenzig deliberately stopped the chronological progression of these scenes before the region yielded to Austrian rule. Smetana accepted Wenzig’s outline, but suggested that they present the scenes as an extended dialogue for Libuše that climaxed with the statement, “My dear Czech people shall never perish, they will resist all of hell’s horrors!” In his score, Smetana complemented this statement’s political charge by prominently featuring the Hussite hymn “Ye who are God’s warriors” (“Kdož jste Boží bojovníci”) in the fifth and sixth scenes of the prophecy.242 Wagner’s aesthetic theories were manifold, complicated, and typically in flux, and not all of them were at play in Libuše. Still, Libuše’s sources and plot reflected many of the aesthetic and political impulses at work in Wagner’s music dramas. The libretto’s close relationship with the KZR manuscripts situated it as part of a genealogy of imagined, purely Czech documents. This source meant that the opera’s text and music were capable of conjuring an idealized and charged “folk” affect—a sense of pastness whose power allowed it to shape the present and future. Even outside of the opera’s contents, Smetana’s withholding of the score for the opening of the National Theater allowed Libuše, in many ways, to do the same cultural work as Wagner’s Ring. Though there is no reason to suspect that Smetana would have had access to Wagner’s 1851 letter 241
See Large, 217-218. Hussites were Bohemian warriors that were especially active during the fifteenth century; their political objectives anticipated the Protestant Revolution, but also involved seizing and attempting to hold power in Prague.
242
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to Theodor Uhlig, Wagner’s language in discussing his hopes for the Ring resonates strongly with the discourses of Smetana and other UB members. A performance [of the Ring] is something I can conceive of only after the Revolution; only the Revolution can offer me the artists and listeners I need. The coming Revolution must necessarily put an end to this whole theatrical business of ours: they must all perish, and will certainly do so; it is inevitable.243 Wagner’s writing in this case reflected his desire to withhold the score for the Ring for a more idyllic time, theoretically brought about by an inevitable revolution yielding more politically and aesthetically prepared listeners—conditions that, for Wagner, would emerge upon the opening of Bayreuth. For Czechs and particularly UB members in the process of generating their own revolution, the opening of the National Theater and the performance of Smetana’s Libuše on its stage was an equally potent symbol. Smetana’s score promised a utopia, and the National Theater’s opening would deliver it. Given the score’s potent cultural symbol as well as the UB’s investment in the revolution it heralded (or was made to herald), it is perhaps no surprise that Libuše came to play a prominent role in members’ propagandist writings. At the end of his review of the opera Dalibor, for example, Hostinský revealed that he had positioned this work as a transition—a step along the way—in order to acknowledge Libuše as a crowning moment. More specifically, he explained that Smetana, using what he had learned in Dalibor, was able to more “consciously [strive for] perfect and impeccable Czech declamation” in his newest opera.244 The composer himself understood [the importance of declamation] best and therefore respected it already in composing his next newest work, 243
Wagner to Theodor Uhlig, November 12, 1851, trans. Mark Berry, “Richard Wagner and the Politics of Music Drama,” The Historical Journal 47 (2004): 673. Italics his. 244 “…co nejsvědomitěji o dokonalou, bezúhonnou českou deklamaci.” Hostinský, “Smetana’s Dalibor,” Dalibor (March 28, 1873), 103.
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Libuše, in which he most consciously [strove for] perfect and impeccable Czech declamation. So Smetana made in this regard the first step on the track to reform our nation’s dramatic opera; because in Libuše we hear for the first time thoroughly proper declamation, [we hear] no blemishes at all of the Czech language on the opera stage. We hope that [Libuše’s premiere] will happen as soon as possible!245 Hostinský’s inclusion of these statements at the end of his discussion of Dalibor situated Libuše as an epic culmination of Czech and Wagnerian aesthetics. If Dalibor was problematic (or at least underdeveloped), Libuše seemed to hold out perfection, particularly through its text setting. In addition to Hostinský’s review, the editors of Dalibor published sheet music for an excerpt from Libuše, “The Song of Přemysl” (Přemysl was Libuše’s husband in the opera and in the mythological tale on which the libretto was based), in a supplement to their fourth issue on January 24, 1874.246 They also printed a review of both the song and the opera on February 6 of that year.247 The opera’s anonymous reviewer once again acknowledged Libuše’s close relationship to Wagner’s dramatic theories, but celebrated the work as a great synthesis of Czech and international aesthetics. More specifically, the author rescued Libuše from potential charges of Wagnerism by declaring, “Let no one be mistaken: Smetana’s position is and must be completely different from Wagner’s. He is quite a patriot, otherwise he would not write Czech music but would write German music 245
“Skladatel jest si toho sám nejlépe vědom a proto dbal již při skládání svého následujicího díla, ‘Libuše,’ co nejsvědomitěji o dokonalou, bezúhonnou českou deklamaci. Tak učinil Smetana i v tomto ohledu první krok na dráze k reformě našeho národního zpěvu dramatického; neboť v “Libuši” uslyšíme poprvé naveskrz správně deklamovanou, nijak ne zohyzděnou češtinu na jevišti zpěvoherním. Doufejme, že so to stane co nejdřive!” Ibid. 246 In history, Přemysl was the first leader of the Přemyslid dynasty, which ruled Bohemia from the ninth century to 1306. 247 Smetana allowed the overture to be performed at a Philharmonic concert on April 14, 1872 and again on May 25, 1874 when he was a guest of honor at the celebrations of the Academic Readers’ Society. Emanuel Starý later published the overture in an arrangement for four-handed piano in May of 1875 and a Prague Philharmonic performance of the overture was addressed in Dalibor in its October 2, 1875 issue (see p. 322).
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and such a thing never came to his mind.”248 Having established Smetana’s dedication to a Czech cause, the author went on to situate Libuše not only as representing a whole new level of Czechness, but one so perfect that it rendered those before it less Czech. Besides, he who has had the rare opportunity to look into the score of Libuše has to admit that he has never heard music…more Czech and at the same time…[more] at the level of the most modern music than this piece is—yes, truly only at this opera we can rightly talk about “Czech music.”249 Here, the author harnessed the authority (and mystery) of the as-yet unpremiered score to declare Libuše as representing the most ideal version of Czechness—a work cosmopolitan in its modernity, but so vertically Czech that it redefined the nation’s understandings of its own aesthetics and voice. The UB, following its distribution of the sheet music for “The Song of Přemysl” and its printing of this review, also hosted an event on March 19, 1874 at which the song was premiered. While the discussions of Libuše published by Hostinský and like-minded critics working at the same time are revealing, a serialized article by Novotný dedicated to the unperformed opera did even more to build up a Libuše mythology. Most broadly, Novotný provided a review of the opera that emphasized Smetana’s use of recurring and transforming themes in the overture (the overture had been performed recently for a concert at which Smetana was an honored guest).250 Additionally, Novotný explained that his aim was to set the record straight “from [Smetana’s] own view” in order to correct the
248
“Nechť nikdo se tím nemýlí: stanovisko Smetanovo jest a musí býti zcela jiné než jest Wagnerovo. Toť jest zcela patrno, jinak by nepsal Smetana hudbu českou, nýbrž německou a takového cosi mu nikdy ani ve snu a mysl nevstoupilo…” “Zpěv Přemysla” [“The Song of Přemysl”], Dalibor (February 6, 1874), 45. 249 “…ostaně komu se dostalo vzacné té příležitosti, aby pohlídnouti mohl v partituru ‘Libuše,’ musí uznati, že neslyšel dosud češtější a při tom na stupni nejmodernějším stojící hudby, než v této skladbě—ano že vlastně teprvé při této zpěvohře po právu mluvíti můžeme o ‘české hudbě.’” Ibid. 250 The overture was performed on April 14, 1872 at a Philharmonic concert and again on May 25, 1874.
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opera’s “frequent mentions” in various publications.251 He made a bid for credibility by quoting a statement from Smetana that was ostensibly derived from an encounter with the composer. “I worked on this piece with the best of my consciousness and artistry, with the expenditure of all of my strength; I hope that I left my dear nation in this work memory of me worthy... , [of] its dignity and memory…” Upon uttering these emotionally heartfelt words, Smetana passed his opera into our hands.252 Novotný here established his own authority as an interpreter of this unperformed work and made the score itself a monument worthy of adoration. Within this frame, Novotný celebrated Smetana as a hero paving a new path for progress: Smetana [in Dalibor] arrived somehow…at a divide between the purely formal older time and the newer time in which…form conforms to expression and dramatic action; and so it happened that his serious opera Dalibor was somehow an indecisive mix of the old style of opera and the style of the modern music drama. The next step forward from here must be made towards achieving a unified style. It is time to leave the forms of old opera behind and accept the modern principles of music drama, which are the highest act of creation, and adapt them to the Czech national music and the Czech language. Smetana was motivated by this purely national effort for progress when he was composing his last classical patriotic opera called: Libuše.253
251
“Během posledních dvou roků, v nichž mistr náš Smetana s dokončením této největší své dramatické skladby byl zaměstnán, častější se děly zmínky ve veřejných listech o směru i rázu nové této opery české…dle přání svého již v nobě nynější seznámiti mohli se stavbou skvostného tohoto díla Smetanova z vlastního názoru při živém provedení.” Novotný, “Smetanova vlastenecká zpěv. ‘Libuše’” [“Smetana’s Patriotic Opera Libuše”], Dalibor (October 31, 1874), 345. 252 “‘Pracoval jsem o díle tomoto s nejlepším svým svědomím i uměním, s vynaložením všech svých sil; i doufám, že zůstavil jsem v této práci své drahému národu svému důstojnou po sobě památku…’ S těmito ze srdce pohnutého pronešenými slovy odevzdal Smetana svou operu v ruce naše.” Ibid. 253 “Zde stál však Smetana jaksi na poloviční cestě, na rozhraní mezi dobou starší, čistě formalin a novější, která hudební formu podřiďuje výrazu a účinku dramatickému; čímž se stalo, že vážná opera jeho ‘Dalibor’ byla jaksi nerozhodnou smíšeninou stylu starší opery se stylem moderního dramatu hudebního. Další krok ku před musel tedy býti učiněn ku dosažení jednotného slohu. Nad formami staré opery jest učiněn kříž, moderní principie dramatu hudebního jsou co nejvyšší zákon tvořéní hudebně dramatického přijaty a duchu národní hudby české i duchu jazyka českého přispůsobeny. Touto ryze národní snahou ve smyslu pokroku byl veden Smetana při komponování poslední své vážné zpěvohry vlastenecké, jež zove se: ‘Libuše.’” Ibid. 346.
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Here, Novotný definitively (given his authority) confirmed the nationalist status of the new work and its rootedness in a synthesis of the old and new, “Czech” and international. Libuše not only harnessed the most progressive tools—the aesthetics of music drama— but combined them with an idealistically Czech music derived from the sounds of the language to create a higher and therfore more powerful synthesis. Talking in particular about the overture, Novotný not only described it as a pinnacle of Smetana’s thematic sophistication, but identified it as a quasi-independent piece—a symphonic poem.254 The critic implied in this case that Smetana was doing for Czech music what Liszt—as well as Wagner—had done for German music. With the authority of the composer behind him, and after having positioned Wagner and Liszt as a model for progress in his previous “Tame Thoughts,” Novotný could securely identify Libuše as the highest synthesis possible—a simultaneous juxtaposition and blend of Liszt and Wagner’s aesthetics inspired from the Czech language and towards the cause of Czechness. According to Novotný, Libuše harnessed every modern and progressive means available to demonstrate the Czechs’ cultural and political autonomy more explicitly and radically than any work before it.
Libuše as Monument Smetana’s withholding of Libuše gave rise to anticipatory celebrations of the opera’s greatness during the early 1870s, but a complicated set of events combined to prevent sustained discussion of its premiere in 1881. Chief among these was the fact that the paper Dalibor went out of print at the end of 1875, and did not return until 1879, so that Smetana’s supporters lacked an easily accessible platform from which they could 254
Ibid. (November 6, 1874), 345.
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advocate for the composer.255 By the time of the paper’s return, Smetana’s reception had shifted so dramatically that notions of his revolution, let alone Libuše’s status as its pinnacle, were outdated. Smetana’s reception had already begun to shift following his reappointment as the director of the Provisional Theater in 1872. Before this time, Smetana reportedly felt so much resistance to his continued work at the post that he prepared to resign and leave for a concert tour.256 In October of that year, however, and as a result of a wider swell of support for the composer, several of Smetana’s advocates (including Fibich, Dvořák, and Heller) submitted a petition calling for his continued work as director, which concluded, “The operatic composers among us would then surely hesitate to trust their works into the hands of a conductor whom they might have to pronounce unfit for the job.”257 Though still controversial, Smetana’s position at the theater from that point on became more secure; he even received a raise. Smetana was challenged once again in a second performance review in February of 1874, but, as he recorded in his diary on February 21, “We have, then, won the day” after Maýr and Rieger had left the meeting in defeat.258 Smetana’s relative security at the theater meant that his advocates, by the time the journal Dalibor reached 1879, had less lobbying to do. Smetana did continue to be a subject of criticism, particularly from Pivoda who complained from the early 1870s that he had not produced an opera in several years (this was true: Libuše had not yet 255
An economic depression whose most difficult years spanned from 1873-1878 might provide one reason the journal closed. For more on the economics, see Gary Cohen, 72. When the paper returned in 1879, it was still managed by UB members (Fr. A. Úrbanek, publisher; Novotný, editor; and Hostinský still contributing feature articles), but is not listed as an institution of the MH. In 1880, the journal reinstated its position with the MH and maintained the same staff. 256 See Bartoš, 139. 257 “Operní skladatelé mezi námi váhali by pak zajisté svěřovati nadále svoje skladby rukám kapelnickým, jež by snad za nepovolané uznati musili.” Trans. paraphrased from Ibid., 131; Bartoš (1941), 103. 258 “My tedy zvítězili.” Trans. Ibid., 141; Bartoš (1941), 110.
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premiered, and no new opera had come out since Dalibor in 1868). As recounted by the second conductor and UB member at the Provisional Theater, Adolf Čech, Smetana’s supporters responded by rallying around the composer once again. A few of Smetana’s friends and admirers therefore began to urge the master to make up his mind to write a new opera in order to silence his enemies. The master pointed out that in his present condition and with his nerves frayed as they were he would not be able to compose such an exacting work as an opera. He added bitterly: “Now that I have already written four operas must I again prove my talent as a composer?” Finally, however, he promised to accede to the pressure of his friends, particularly after I made the proposal that I would take on all his work as a conductor during the entire period he needed to write a new opera.259 Smetana answered by producing the opera Dvě vdovy (“The Two Widows”), which premiered on March 27, 1874. Unsurprisingly, given the discourses that had emerged around Czech opera (and Smetana in particular), some still challenged the work’s Czech character, while a group of Smetana’s advocates publically demonstrated their support for the composer after its performance by presenting him with a gilded baton.260 Smetana also began work on another opera, Hubička (“The Kiss”), shortly thereafter, which he hoped would be a “sister” to the Bartered Bride.261 Hubička’s successful premiere on November 7, 1876, along with that of Smetana’s seventh completed opera, Tajemství (“The Secret”), meant that he managed in total to produce three more relatively uncontroversial operas before the journal Dalibor returned in 1879. As a consequence, it was in many ways no longer necessary for Smetana’s advocates to promote the composer as a revolutionary; Smetana had already achieved the status as a leader within Czech musical culture. 259
Trans. Ibid., 135. For an example of writing challenging the Czechness of the Two Widows, see an article published in Hudební listy and signed “t.t.;” quoted in Zdeněk Nejedlý, Dějiny české hudby [A History of Czech Music] (Prague: Nakladatelství Hejda & Tuček, 1903), 172 and discussed in Locke, 29. 261 “Bude to, jak doufám, sestra ‘Prodané nevěsty.” Adolf Čech, trans. Bartoš, 164; Bartoš (1941), 129. 260
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Smetana’s warm reception by the mid-1870s also grew exponentially following the onset of his deafness. The composer recorded experiencing a ringing in his ears—the most obvious symptoms of his syphilis—for the first time in July of 1874. His report of this condition was followed by descriptions of his complete deafness. On September 7, Smetana submitted a letter to the management of the Provisional Theater requesting a three month release from his duties in order to convalesce, explaining that, should his symptoms continue to worsen, he would have to resign.262 Though Smetana played a less direct role in Prague’s concert life from this point forward, the romantic tragedy of a composer losing his hearing (and Smetana’s ensuing role as victim over the next several years as his salaries and pensions were renegotiated with the theater) was not lost on his audiences, who began hosting benefit concerts in his honor. Countess Kounic, a previous student of Smetana, for example, hosted a concert in which several of his students performed in early 1875.263 Smetana also attended an event on November 14, 1876 that, in addition to providing financial support, featured laurel wreaths and curtain calls. Outside of the various letters in which he discussed his hearing loss, Smetana famously acknowledged his deafness in the fourth movement of his autobiographical String Quartet No. 1, “From My Life,” in which the first violin sustains a harmonic E near the end of the movement. Smetana explained in a letter to UB member Srb-Debrnov that the E represented “that fateful ringing of high-pitched tones in my ear which in 1874
262
See Ibid., 148. This benefit concert, specifically, supported Smetana’s expenses in traveling to consult with international doctors. 263
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announced the beginning of my deafness.”264 The work was premiered at a UB-sponsored concert on March 29, 1879. The combination of Smetana’s warm reception at the theater following his confirmation as conductor, his warmly received operas, and the romantic tragedy of his deafness softened his reception in the public sphere, and Dalibor’s new tone in 1879—as well as its management outside of the MH—reflected this change. In the journal’s opening “Letter to Our Readers,” the editors focused on a time after Smetana, discussing the next generation of composers, including Dvořak, Bendl, and Fibich. The journal only briefly acknowledged its earlier tradition of Smetana advocacy by printing another review of the opera Dalibor (now eleven years after its premiere) nuancing Hostinský’s past discussion.265 When the journal once again came under management of the MH in 1880, however, its editors reinstated their support for Smetana, identifying the composer as the “originator” of modern, national Czech music—at this point he was himself a monument, larger than life, frozen in time.266 Rather than celebrating the composer’s contribution to the musical revolution, however, this time the editors expressed Smetana’s monumentality by printing nothing but his lone portrait on the front page of Dalibor’s first issue. An article “In Honor of Smetana” by UB member V. V. Zelený, followed and was dedicated to the “50th anniversary of Smetana’s artistic work.”267 Given
264
“Jest ono osudné pískánínejvyšších tónů v uchu mém, které roku 1874 mou hluchotu mně oznamovalo.” Smetana to Josef Srb-Debrnov, April 12, 1878, trans. Bartoš, 190; Bartoš (1941), 151. 265 The article aims to nuance Hostinský’s earlier review of the opera. Dalibor (October 10, 1879), 229231. 266 “…za ten rok vyšlo takové množství původních prací domácích skladatelů tiskem, prací to směru národní hudby čekoslovanské na základech moderních, jejíž původcem a representatem jest náš mistr Smetana, že v minulých dobách o té bohataé plodnosti nebylo nikdy ani zdání.” Dalibor, “Našim čtenářům” [“To Our Readers”] (January 1, 1880), 7. 267 Smetana was only 56, but performed his first piano concert at age six.
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Libuše’s decreased public profile, Zelený chose to discuss Vlast in his writing, not mentioning the as-yet unpremiered opera. Though Libuše received less attention in the new issues of Dalibor, it rose again to public consciousness when the occasion of its promised premiere grew near: the opening of the National Theater.268 In an article anticipating the event, Hostinský explained once again that Smetana meant for the opera to represent “for the first time…fully faithful right and precise declamation in Czech musical literature” and explained that it “followed from the ideals that Wagner took from grandfather Gluck.” 269 Hostinský also acknowledged, however, that the opera no longer carried the political resonance it once had: “Libuše” provides for us much new music; but most of it will be new to us only on stage, because [through] the master’s “Vlast”—composed later but performed earlier—we were already being prepared for this in the concert hall. [Some elements of “Libuše”] will seem to us completely natural, obvious, and normal…[but] ten years ago when Smetana composed Libuše, it was, to us, in the daring arch of reform.270 In this article, Hostinský positioned Smetana’s audiences as having arrived at a more ideal, progressive time—an idyllic age comparable to the one Wagner had projected in 268
Smetana also considered premiering the opera for the coronation of Franz Joseph as king of Bohemia. Although Franz Joseph did accept the crown, no coronation ever took place. The National Theater’s planning committee originally scheduled its opening to take place on the Feast of St. Václav (St. Wenceslas, the patron saint of Bohemia) on September 28, 1881. The date was moved forward to June 11, however, to celebrate the marriage of Crown Prince Rudolf, a popular military leader, to Stephanie of Belgium. 269 “A nadšení, s nímž Smetana uchopil se myšleny té, zplodilo i největší pietu jak naproti slovu, jemuž se v ‘Libuši’, poprvé dostalo plného práva věrnou a přesnou deklamací v české literature…. tak i ‘Libuše,’ která—ne ve všem všudy, přece však u věcech hlavních, podstatných—kráčí za idealem, jejž Wagner přijal z dědictví Gluckova…” Hostinský, “Smetanova ‘Libuše’: Slovo k otevření Národního divadla” [“Smetana’s ‘Libuše’: Words for the Opening of the National Theater”], Dalibor (June 10, 1881), 133. 270 “Mnoho nového poskytne nám hudba ‘Libuše’; avšak valná část toho bude nám nová jen jevišti, jelikož mistrovou ‘Vlastí,’ pozeději komponovanou ač dříve provozovanou, byli jsme na to připravování již v koncertní síni. Leccos jiného zase zdáti se nám bude věcí zcela přirozenou, samozřejmou a obvyklou, poněvadž posledními komickýmí zpěvohrami již zdomácnělo na našem jevišti operním; před desíti lety, když Smetana Libuši komponoval, bylo to pro nás arci smělou reformou.” Ibid., 133-4. Relationships between Libuše and Vlast are discussed more thoroughly in Chapter Four of this dissertation.
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his 1851 letter to Theodor Uhlig. Hostinský confirmed the arrival of this utopian era when he wrote, “we are now better prepared to receive this work, with better understanding, with more enjoyment, with the most devoted worship we will listen to the sublime sounds, which will stir the National Theater powerfully.”271 In keeping with Hostinský’s suggestion that the revolution was over, later reports addressing Libuše’s premiere generally focused less on discussing the opera’s aesthetics and more on romantically rendering Smetana’s suffering. Critics depicted the composer’s deafness and victimization, rather than focusing on the contents of the opera. Dalibor, for example, reported, It is general knowledge that the theatre administration did not send Smetana any tickets for that performance. For some time the master wandered through the hall and along the stage until finally the gentlemen from the director’s box asked him to sit down as though they were doing him a favor.272 Smetana was, it seems, an afterthought among the event’s festivities, and the premiere of his Libuše a backdrop for his neglect. Zelený similarly focused on Smetana’s suffering in his own retelling, but emphasized the composer’s deafness to the point where Libuše was secondary to Smetana’s suffering. Finally the unforgettable day, June 11th, 1881 arrived—the day when, for the first time, we gathered in the Czech National Theatre. The majestic tones of Libuše made our hearts beat faster; Smetana alone did not hear them. He watched the performance from the director’s box and seemed to be in an exalted frame of mind. Even if deafness caused him the torments of [tinnitus], outwardly he was completely resigned. I spoke with him in between acts. He was quite calm. 271
“Řada let, která uplynout musila, než se Libuše dostala na jeviště, nebyla tedy ztracena: jsme nyní lépe připraveni k přijetí díla toho a s tím lepším porozuměním, s tím větším požitkem uměleckým, s tím vroucnější pobožností budeme naslouchati velebným zvukům, které se mohutně rozproudí Národním divadlem v první slavností večer, u přítomnosti budoucího krále českého…” Ibid., 134. 272 “Jak všeobecně známo, neposlala onoho dne divadelní správa Smetanovi žádné vstupenky. Nějaký čas bloudil mistr náš hledištěm i jevištěm, až jej konečně pánové z ředitelské lóže jakoby z milosti mezi sebe vzali.” Dalibor, trans. Bartoš, 236; Bartoš (1941), 188.
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Later on in the evening and on one subsequent occasion he told us about the audience he had had with the Crown Prince [the theater’s opening was scheduled to celebrate the marriage of Crown Prince Rudolf, a popular military leader, to Stephanie of Belgium], together with Professor Zítek, the architect of the National Theatre, in the following manner: The summons to the royal box came quite unexpectedly for Smetana. He was not prepared for anything of the kind, in particular he had not got his hat which had been put away somewhere backstage…The Crown Prince perceived them as they came in and addressed the architect, Zítek. Whilst speaking with him he looked at Smetana several times; he was probably enquiring into the nature of his illness failing to understand the stage it had reached, for immediately after he walked up to Smetana and standing quite close to him addressed him, after which he waited with an expectant look on his face for an answer. Smetana said: “Your Imperial Highness, I am unhappy that I cannot hear you.” The Crown Prince was evidently most surprised by these words and, in the belief that he had not spoken sufficiently loudly, he repeated his words. Smetana then said: “I have been completely deaf these six years.” After that the Prince turned to the Chairman of the Theatre Association, Mr. Skramlík, and spoke with him for a long time, looking at Smetana with obvious compassion. During his further conversation with Professor Zítek he also turned round to look at him with sympathy, after which the gentlemen were most graciously dismissed. As a result of the presence of the Crown Prince there had been no demonstrations on the part of the audiences, only after the third act when it became known that he had left, the applause which had been stifled thundered forth and Smetana was called many times—for the first time in the National Theater!273
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“Konečně nastal nezapomenutelný ten den 11. června roku 1881, kdy jsme se po prvé shromáždili v českém Národním divadle. Velebné zvuky ‘Libuše’ šířily nám prsa, jen Smetana jich neslyšel. Díval se z ředitelské lóže a zdálo se, že jest slavnostně rozechvěm. Působila-li mu hluchota tenkráte muka Tantalova, vně jevil úplnou resignaci. Mezi představením mluvil jsem s ním na chodbách: byl zcela klidný. O audienci, kterou měl zároveň s profesorem Zítkem, stavitelem Národního divadla, u korunního prince, vypravoval téhož večera a ještě jednou později takto: Povolání do královské lóže Smetanovi přišlo zcela nenadále. Nebyl na nic podobného uchystán, zejména neměl klobouk, který byl kdesi na jevišti uzamčen. Hledati jej nebylo času, nastal okamžik nesnáze, jíž učinil konec někdo že sousední lóže, podav Smetanovi svůj ‘chapeau claque.’…Korunní princ přehlédl vstoupivší a oslovil architekta Zítka. Již mezi rozmluvou s ním pohlédl několikráte na Smetanu; tázal se asi po jeho chorobě a nesrozuměl jejímu stupni, neboť přistoupil nato těsně, ‘na píd’ k Smetanovi a oslovil jej, načež s tázavým pohledem čekal na odpověď. Smetana pravil: ‘Císařská Výsosti, já jsem tak nešťasten, že neslyším.’ Korunní princ byl slovy těmi patrně nanejvýš překvapen: domnívaje se, že nemluvil dosti hlasitě, promluvil znova. Tu pravil Smetana: ‘Já jsem úplně hluchý už šest let.’ Princ obrátil se poté k předsedovi družstva divadelního, panu Skramlíkovi a dlouho s ním mluvil, se zřejmou soustrastí pohlížeje na Smetanu; také při další rozmluvě s profesorem Zítkem ještě se po něm ohlížel s účastenstvím, načež byli pánové velmi přívětivě propuštěni. Následkem přítomnosti korunního prince nebylo při prvních jednáních žádných projevů, teprve po třetím jednání, když o jeho odchodu vědělo již všecho obecenstvo, volně se rozpoutal potlesk, dříve dušený a Smetana vyvolán mnohokráte—první v Národním divadle.” Trans. Ibid., 236-8; Bartoš (1941), 188-9.
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Zelený, in this anecdote, discussed nearly every component of the evening’s events in detail except for the opera itself, focusing instead on Smetana’s affliction. The author’s conclusion situated both Smetana and the composer’s deafness as proofs of the enormous sacrifice—Beethovenian in proportion—made by Smetana on behalf of art and the Czech people. Although Smetana’s general audiences had moved past approaching Smetana as a figure of rebellion, Dalibor’s authors were still invested in Libuše’s metaphorical revolution. UB member Emanual Chvála, for example, once again noted audiences’ resistance to Libuše in his review of the opera’s premiere, explaining, We would be wrong thinking that great success that faced Libuše was due to…the complete understanding of Smetana’s work among the wider audience. From many sides the voices were heard that Libuše is an opera “for experts,” written exclusively for a narrow circle of musicians.274 Chvála’s writing acknowledged the possibility that Smetana’s opera was revolutionary only for a narrow audience. As so many writers had done, Chvála took audiences’ misunderstanding of the work as an opportunity to educate readers on its aesthetics, ultimately celebrating Smetana’s victory over his opposition once again.275 Dalibor’s editors also featured an article in their July 7 issue that covered a UB-hosted banquet, honoring the opera’s premiere. The article included reprints of the evening’s toasts, many of which returned to the rhetoric of revolution that once surrounded the opera. A speech by Adolf Čech, for example, read,
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“Mýlili bychom se, myslíce, že velký úspěch, s jakým potkala se ‘Libuše,’ dlužno klásti na účet úplného pochopení díla Smetanova se strany širšího obecenstva. S mnoha stan ozývající se hlasové, že ‘Libuše’ jest operou ‘pro znalce,’ že psána jest výhradně pro úzký kruh hudebníků…” Emanual Chvála, “Otevření Národního divadla” [“The Opening of the National Theater”], Dalibor (June 20, 1881), 140. 275 Ibid. A second review titled “Šíření vědomostí o hubdě” [“Spreading Knowledge about Music”] followed Chvála’s review and similarly established audiences’ resistance before explaining the opera’s aesthetics. The article ran in Dalibor on June 20 and July 10, 1881.
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Allow me, gentlemen, a small comparison!...We…fought this day in a battle for a new idea….Judging by the consent of the audience and critics, we have the blessed knowledge that we have achieved a victory. I will continue…by pointing out…similarities between the leader of God’s warriors [Žižka, a one-eyed, revolutionary leader of the Hussites] and the leader of our soldiers [Smetana]…As Žižka won victory upon victory even when cruel fate withdrew a sense most essential for a leader, our leader celebrates triumph upon triumph, even when he was hit by a similar blow of fate! I need only give names: The Kiss, Vlast, The Secret, and From My Life for you to recognize the truth of my words. However, a leader of the arts must also find a good war plan and inspire and prevail in order to lead his army…to victory. Well, our leader, the master Smetana, implemented this to the full extent. Certainly, you all agree with me, if I express in the name of all who had a part in Libuše my wish that the victory to which our master lead us is not the last.276 Čech’s illustrative language recalled the discourses of revolution that UB members had cultivated in their earlier propagandist writings. Čech also worked in newer factets of Smetana’s reception history, however, by incorporating allusions to his deafness. Smetana in this case was not only comparable to a violent military leader, but his hearing loss was comparable to that leader’s loss of an eye. His advocates, too, like Žižka’s armies, were Smetana’s warriors. While Čech’s toast emphasized the revolution’s beginnings, Hostinský addressed its victory and future in the evening’s longest speech. In particular, Hostinský celebrated Smetana’s martyrdom and called for others to follow in his footsteps. 276
“Dovolte mi, pánové, malé porovnání! Také my členové české zpěvohry bojovali jsme tyto dny boj za myšlenku novou. Měli jsme totiž vybojovati palmu vítězství prvnímu českému dramatu hudebnímu. Soudíce dle souhlasu obecenstva jakož i kritiky, máme to blahé vědomí, že jsme ono vítězství vybojovali. Mám pokračovati u své paralelle a říci, čim že jsou si podobni; onen vůdce božích bojovníků a vůdce vojů našich? Mám uvésti Vám na paměť, že jako sledovalo vítězství na vítězství našeho Žižku, když mu byl krutý osud odejmul užívání smylsu vojevůdcí nejnutnějšího, podobně i vůdce náš slaví triumf nad triumfem, zasáhnut jsa podobnou ranou osudu! Potřebuji uvésti jen jména: Hubička, Vlasť, Tajemství a Z mého života, by Jste uznali pravdu slov mých. Avšak umění vojevůdce záleží kromě toho, že vynajde dobrý plán válečný i v tom, že dovede armádu svou pro tento svůj plán nadchnout a zvítězit. Nuže, toho vůdce náš, slavný mistr Smetana, dovedl plnou měrou. Zajisté, že souhlasíte všichni se mnou, pakli jménem všech spoluúčinkujicích v ‘Libuši,’ vyslovuji přání, by vítězství, ku kterému nás tenkráte náš mistr vedl, nebylo posledním…” “Banket Smetanův” [“Smetana’s Banquet”], Dalibor (July 1, 1881), 148.
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[Smetana’s] enthusiastic zeal for everything in the beautiful and noble arts, his zealous efforts for all that is true, serious, and dignified—let it appear wherever and however—his adamant faith in the ideal and the possibility of its realization, his directness, endurance, selflessness, dedication, self-denial with which he dedicated his whole life to that one great idea: to elevate Czech music to a higher time—his purity of national and patriotic sentiment and feeling must penetrate and dominate all of our artistic life in all of its directions and in all of its factors…what we have seen in the National Theater [must not] remain only a historic date, but must become an inexhaustible source of a new rich, fruitful artistic industry. That…spirit which led the master…towards a great victory…will be the symbol in which we prevail.277 Here, Hostinský celebrated Smetana’s self-sacrifice, while encouraging others to follow his example. Smetana had promulgated a revolution, and it was time for his colleagues to ensure that its spirit continued to prevail. Hostinský went on to further this idea at the conclusion of his speech: That’s why it seems to me to be our duty in this moment in which we celebrate Smetana’s Libuše, its performance and arrival, to remember the master himself whose creative spirit produced the great theater building, made from the best contributions of all our artistic strength. Smetana and his Libuše have a similar importance for us as Zítek and his National Theater have for our art, which will be the pride of Czech art and the grace of this city for all in the future.278
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“Ono nadšené horování pro všechno, co v umění krásného a vznešeného, ono horlivé snažení se po všem, co v něm jest pravdivého, vážného a důstojného, nechť se to jeví kdekoliv a jakkoliv, ona skalopevná víra v ideal a možnost jeho uskutečnění, ona přimost, vytrvalost, nezištnost, obětavost, ono sebezapírání, s nimž celý svůj život zasvětil té jedné veliké myšlénce: povznésti českou hudbu na výši doby, ona ryzost národního a vlasteneckého smýšlení i cítění musí proniknouti a opanovati veškery náš život umělecký, ve všech jeho směrech a ve všech jeho činitelích, ač nemáli to, co právě jsme zažili v Národním divadle, zůstati pouhým dátem historickým, nýbrž máli se to státi nevyčerpatelným zdrojem nového bohatého, plodného ruchu uměleckého. Onen vznešeny duch, jenž mistra sámého vedl k vítězství tak krásný zajisté i nám bude znamením, v němž zvítězíme.” Ibid., I48. 278 “Proto zdá se mi býti povinnosti naši, abychom v okamžiku, v němž oslavujeme Smetanovu ‘Libuši,’ její provedení a přijetí, vzpomněli sobě též na mistra, z jehož tvůrčího ducha se zrodila velikolepá budova divadelní, provedená pak za přispění nejlepších našich sil uměleckých. Podobný význam jako pro naši hudbu má Smetana a jeho ‘Libuše,’ má pro výtvarné umění naše Zítek a jeho budova Národního divadla, která bude chloubou českého umění a ozdobou staroslavného tohoto města pro všechnu budoucnost.” Ibid., 149-50.
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Both Smetana and his Libuše emerged as monuments akin to Zítek’s National Theater. Both artists’ contributions were symbols of change—promises of a brighter future as well as challenges to the younger generation. If Hostinský had begun to build Smetana as a monument in his toast, Dalibor confirmed Smetana’s new status in its report announcing the National Theater’s fire.279 The unhappy day, August 12th, nearly deprived us not only of the National Theatre but also of the man to whom the whole nation clings with affectionate regard and boundless love. On that fateful day Smetana was travelling to Prague and arrived in….Neratovice station far earlier than the train. Not noticing any engines about, he walked on in the middle of the rails without seeing that behind him some wagons were being shunted on to the rails and that the wagons which had picked up considerable speed were bearing down along the very rails on which Smetana was standing quietly. A man who was on the first wagon shouted to Smetana to draw his attention to the danger. He, however, did not hear anything in his complete deafness. But fate did not wish to be utterly cruel to us, and at the moment of the greatest danger Smetana happened to look round. For a second he stood as though rooted to the spot on seeing the waggons bearing down on him but then with a rapid jump he saved himself from certain death. Smetana left Neratovice for Prague badly shaken by the danger which he had just escaped; near Vysočany, however, he noticed smoke and flames leaping up from the National Theater. He arrived in Prague quite crushed. The terrible news had had such an effect on Smetana that he was unable to speak a word and was seized with a fit of shivering. The next day he gazed with tears in his eyes at the building which he had honored with his greatest work, the opera Libuše, the performance of which in recent days was so significant and memorable for our entire musical life.280 279
For more on this and other events of the National Theater, refer to Stanley Buchholz Kimball, Czech Nationalism: a Study of the National Theatre Movement (Urbana: University of Illinois, 1964). 280 “Nešťastný den 12. srpna byl by nás málem připravil nejen Národní divadlo, ale i o život muže, k němuž lne celý národ súctou a láskou bezměrnou. V neblahý ten den byl mistr Smetana na cestě do Prahy a dojel povozem na nádraží stanice neratovické mnohem dříve než vlak. Nepozorovav žádného parostroje, odvážil se dále a postavil se právě mezi koleje, aniž by věděl, že za zády jeho se posunuje několik vozů na kolejích, a že vozy rozejeté na dosti silném spádu, uhánéjí a zabočují právě na koleje, mezi nimiž Smetana klidně stál.—Člověk, na prvním voze se nalézající, křikem upozorňoval Smetanu na nebezpečí—on toho ovšem ve své úplné hluchotě neslyšel. Osud k nám však nechtěl být nejkrutším, neboť ve chvíli nejvyššího nebezpečí mistr Smetana náhodou se rozhlédl kolem—vteřinu zůstal státi jako přimrazen, vida valící se naň vozy—rychlý skok pak ho vyrval jisté záhubě.—Velmi dojat nebezpečím právě přestálým, odjel mistr Smetana z Neratovic ku Praze; u Vysočan však zpozoroval již kouř i plamen, šlehající z divadla Národního. Zdrcen přibyl do Pragy. Ohromující zvěst ta účinkovala na Smetanu tou měrou, že nemohl ani slova že
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This description marks a moment in which Smetana’s status as a monument was so engrained for his audiences that the ruin of the theater was synonymous with the composer’s; the minutia of Smetana’s travels were rewritten in order to position the neardestruction of one as experienced by the other. In acknowledgment of Smetana and the Theater’s shared symbol, a performance of Libuše once again commemorated its reopening on November 18, 1883.
Conclusion UB writings reveal that Wagnerian discourses provided some of the most basic foundations for Smetana’s myth as a uniquely Czech composer. Just as Wagner had generated a revolution in order to produce the German listening audience necessary for his Ring, UB members, on Smetana’s behalf and likely under his guidance, generated a revolution around Dalibor in order to prepare Czech audiences for the premiere of Libuše. Just as Wagner, too, constructed Bayreuth as the ideal political space for the delivery of his revolutionary work, UB members positioned the opening of the National Theater, and Libuše’s premiere with it, as their own revolution’s culminating moment.281 As the center of these extraordinary circumstances, Libuše became one of the most mythologized symbols of Czechness. During the 1870s, it represented the highest synthesis of all available aesthetics, including those associated with Wagner and Liszt, while its premiere in the 1880s provided the vehicle for a monumentalizing of Smetana’s sufferings. Smetana’s most deliberately nationalistic opera, then, was also the sebe vypraviti a v zimničném rozechvění ulehl.” “The Master Smetana in Serious Danger,” Dalibor (August 20, 1881), trans. Bartoš, 240-241; Bartoš (1941), 191-2. 281 Wagner to Theodor Uhlig, November 12, 1851, trans. Berry, 673.
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composition most deeply entwined with his own emerging and shifting myth; as Smetana’s reception changed over the course of his career, so, too, did the opera’s symbol. Its resulting malleability, as we will see, makes it uniquely capable of serving a wide variety of aims in modern scholarship. At the time, however, this circumstance also meant that Libuše—Smetana’s most Wagnerian work—was also his most Czech and his greatest monument to the people.
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ANALYZING CZECHNESS: VLAST, LIBUŠE, AND THEIR MYTHS IN SCHOLARSHIP Vladimír Helfert’s Motive of Smetana’s ‘Vyšehrad’: A Study of Its Genesis (1917) was a landmark publication in Smetana scholarship. In it, Helfert provided a series of comparative analyses aimed at proving the existence of shared musical themes between the first movement of Smetana’s Má vlast, “Vyšehrad,” and his opera, Libuše. The author concluded, [“Vyšehrad”] relates organically and tightly to Libuše…Smetana felt the need to supplement the operatic apotheosis of the nation with a purely orchestral apotheosis….Libuše and Vlast are united and inseparable in their concept as magnificent national apotheoses.282 For Helfert, not only were both works closely related, but their “organicism” confirmed their status as one great monument to the nation.283 The formalist rigor of Helfert’s musical analyses combined with his nationalistically-charged conclusions has proven attractive for many generations of scholars; it is difficult to find a study of Smetana that
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“…jak tato báseň [“Vyšehrad”] souvisí oranicky a těsně s Libuše a jak nutno na “Vyšehrad” a Vlast pohlížet jako na přímé pokračování Libuše. Smetana cítil nutnost doplnit zpěvoherní apotheosu národa apotheosou ryze orchestrální, nejvlastnějším a nejniternějším svým vyznáním lásky, víry a naděje národní. Libuše and Vlast je jednotná a nerozdělná koncepce velikolepé národní apotheosy. Proto “Vyšehrad” i geneticky zapustil kořeny v posvátné půdě Libuše.” Vladimír Helfert, Motiv Smetanova “Vyšehradu”: Studie o jeho genesi [The Motive of Smetana’s ‘Vyšehrad’: A Study of Its Genesis] (V Praze: Melantrich, 1917), 33-34. The word “apotheosis” refers to transcendence, becoming divine, or, most appropriately here, defining an ideal. For more detail, see the entry for “apotheosis” in the Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011). 283 Words like “organicism,” which operate as a metaphor, and “objectivity,” which rely on subjective interpretation, will be listed here in scare quotes only upon their first appearance. Notions of organicism will be discussed more thoroughly over the course of this chapter. It is important to acknowledge that Helfert did not definitively claim that his study was objective. Instead, he explained that he used a “‘subjective’ method, in that it presupposes not only a thorough knowledge of the works of art of great masters, but also a musical instinct capable of going beyond the limits of the objective facts of musical material. It is justified since it is based on a fact, although it is a fact which cannot be materially seen and is materially unmeasurable.” Helfert in this case reconciled his admission of subjectivity by arguing that his guiding instinct led him to observations more truthful and objective than mere facts would allow. Helfert, 9, trans. Jaroslav Jiránek, “Intonation as Musical Semiosis,” in Musical Signification: Essays in the Semiotic Theory and Analysis of Music, ed. Eero Tarasti (Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1995), 173-4.
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does not cite Helfert’s writing. Within the five definitive volumes of Dílo a život Bedřicha Smetany (The Work and Life of Bedřich Smetana, 1978-1984), for example, two refer to Helfert’s half-century-old claims.284 Despite the apparent timelessness of Helfert’s scholarship, the author’s writing was deeply indebted to the political context in which he produced it—a context once again shaped in part by the Umělekcá beseda (UB). The UB’s position as a tastemaker of Czechness shifted dramatically at the beginning of the twentieth century. As explored in previous chapters, UB members, particularly during the 1870s, spearheaded a Smetanaled revolution aimed at refashioning the Czech culture as politically and culturally progressive. At this point, the UB was at the vanguard of aesthetic and political action. From around the 1900s onwards, however, it came under attack for not being nationalistic enough, and not nationalist in the right ways. These criticisms came from a number of growing, ever-more-radical political movements among Czech nationalists. Pieter Judson nicely summarizes the way these movements impacted Czech politics at the turn of the century when he explained, “Rival factions within Czech… movements… continuously raised the stakes against each other…The Young Czechs…defeated the Old Czechs decisively in the parliamentary elections of 1891 by making a virtue of their 284
Jaroslav Jiránek celebrates thematic relationships between Libuše and Vlast in his Smetanova operní tvorba: Od braniborů v čechách k Libuši [Smetana’s Operatic Works: From Brandenburgers in Bohemia to Libuše], vol. 1 of Dílo a život Bedřicha Smetany [The Work and Life of Bedřich Smetana] (Praha: Editio Supraphon, 1984), 419-422. Additionally, Jaroslav Smolka’s volume within the series, Smetanova symfonická tvorba [Smetana’s Symphonic works] (Praha: Editio Supraphon, 1984), addresses Helfert’s study particularly on pages 125 and 128. Other studies that either unwittingly or deliberately point to Helfert’s study include Mirko Očadlík, Libuše: Vznik Smetanovy zpěvohry [Libuše: The Origin of Smetana’s Opera], (V Praze: Melatrich, 1939), 182. Here, Očadlík did not acknowledge Helfert’s study, but unquestioningly pointed to an article in Hudební listy that supports Helfert’s claims. Later, John Clapham cited Helfert in his Smetana (London: J. M. Dent and Sons LTD, 1972), 78. Brian Large’s comparisons between “Vyšehrad,” “Vltava,” and Libuše overlap extensively with Helfert’s, but Large does not acknowledge the previous author. See his Smetana (New York, Praeger, 1970), 262-4. Jaroslav Jiránek continued a dialogue with Helfert in his “Intonation as Musical Semiosis” where he explained “But Helftert did not yet know the method of intonational analyses…. Today… intonation analysis, as a ‘subjective/objective’ method, facilitates material proof of such an affinity.” See pages 173-4.
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greater nationalist vigor. By the first decade of the twentieth century, however, they found themselves outflanked on this very issue by the even more nationally radical Czech National Socialists.”285 The desire of UB critics to cast the organization as insufficiently committed to the Czech cause reflected this process of nationalist radicalization; to them, a campaign was necessary to rescue Smetana from UB members’ supposedly unnationalist (or weakly nationalist) scholarship. Helfert, along with his colleague, the looming political figure Zdeněk Nejedlý, was among the UB’s key attackers.286 The aim of this chapter is to situate Helfert’s study within the shifting political dynamics of his time to reveal the investment of both him and his supporters in refashioning the Smetana myth to suit a new era. Whereas past UB members used deliberately propagandist publications to construct Smetana as a cosmopolitan blend of Liszt and Wagner, UB critics from the early twentieth century, like Helfert, called on newly-emerging, formalist methodologies to refashion Smetana as more idealistically and rigidly Czech. A close, critical reading of Helfert’s study reveals the underlying political charge built into his analyses and, because of his work’s continued attention in scholarship, current understandings of Smetana.
Investigating a Context: Politics and Scholarship The nuances of the political, musical, and scholarly climates in Prague around the beginning of the twentieth century have already been explored in current scholarship, 285
Pieter Judson, “Introduction” to Constructing Nationalities in East Central Europe, ed. Pieter Judson and Marsha L. Rozenblit (New York: Berghahn, 2005), 6. 286 Nejedlý will be discussed in more detail over the course of this chapter. For more information, however, see also John Tyrrell, “Janáček, Nejedlý and the Future of Czech National Opera,” in Art and Ideology in European Opera: Essays in Honor of Julian Rushton, ed. Rachel Cowgill, et al. (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2010), 103-121; Petr Čornej, et al., Z bojů o českou hudební kulturu [From the Battles about Czech Musical Culture], ed. Stanislava Zachařová (Praha: Academia, 1979); and František Červinka, Zdeněk Nejedlý (Prague: Melantrich, 1969).
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particularly by Brian Locke in his Opera and Ideology in Prague.287 Briefly examining the roles the UB played in the years following Smetana’s death in 1884 (just a little before Locke’s study begins), however, as well as those played by Nejedlý in particular during the early twentieth century (an investigation indebted to Locke) provides an important social and political context for Helfert’s article. Shifting reception of Smetana in scholarly publications and among contemporary political parties impacted Nejedlý’s efforts to rescue the composer from the UB. Reviewing these dynamics reveals an important framework for understanding the political aims of Smetana scholarship at the turn of the century, and especially Helfert’s study. Smetana’s death initiated a change in the type of coverage he received in Dalibor and scholarly publications more broadly. Whereas past critics like Novotný and Hostinský had used the journal to advocate on behalf of Smetana, now authors—some of whom banned together in 1884 as the “Society of Bedřich Smetana Devotees”—shifted to promoting the composer more quietly through their production of scholarly materials, particularly source material collections.288 Hostinský, for example, edited three installments of “Smetanovy dopisy” (“Smetana’s Letters”) printed in Dalibor from 188587; Josef Srb-Debrnov edited excerpts from Smetana’s diaries “Z denníků Bedřicha Smetany (1856-1861)” (“From the Diaries of Bedřich Smetana, 1856-1861”) that appeared in the journal in 1901; and Artuš Rektorys edited a 48-page “Pamatník Smetanův” (“Smetana Album”) that was printed in 1909.289 UB members also began 287
Brian Locke, Opera and Ideology in Prague (Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2006). “Družstvo Ctitelů Bedřicha Smetany.” Bedřich Smetana a jeho korespondence [Bedřich Smetana and His Correspondence], edited by Olga Mojžíšová and Milan Pospíšil (Praha: Národní museum, 2009 and 2011), ix. 289 Hostinský’s collections of “Smetanovy dopisy” were printed in Dalibor volumes VII (1885, throughout pages 18-48), VIII (1886, 18-35), and IX (1887, 30-48). Josef Srb-Debrnov’s collection “Z denníků Bedřicha Smetany (1856-1861)” first appeared in Dalibor volume XXIII (1901, pages 39-45 and 288
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independently producing their own research on the composer, which fellow UB member and publisher František Urbánek distributed. In 1885 and with Urbánek’s assistance, for example, Eliška Krásnohorská published Bedřich Smetana: nástin života i působení jeho uměleckého (Bedřich Smetana:An Outline of His Life and Impact of His Artistry). UB member Karel Tiege similarly called on Urbánek to publish his Skladby Smetanovy (Smetana’s Works) and Dopisy Smetanovy (Smetana’s Letters) in 1893 and 1896, respectively. The latter was the first independently published collection of Smetana’s letters.290 In 1894, member Václav Zelený also published his O Bedřichu Smetanovi (On Bedřich Smetana, to which Helfert later responded), and, importantly for the themes of this larger dissertation, Hostinský published his Bedřich Smetana a jeho boy o moderní českou hudbu (Bedřich Smetana and His Struggle for Modern Czech Music) in 1901 whose contents detail the author’s construction of the “musical battles” of the 1870s.291 UB members, through their active publication after Smetana’s death, profoundly shaped the field of Smetana research; they were the first to collect and edit the composer’s letters and diaries and even generated Smetana history through their memoirs. Unsurprisingly, given the tradition of Smetana advocacy in the organization, members also altered Smetana-related documents in some instances to suit their own interests. Krásnohorská, for example, famously burned several of Smetana’s letters that throughout 301-51). Rektorys’ “Pamatník Smetanův” and was printed in Dalibor: Hudební listy on April 30, 1909 and included contributions from a number of notable authors including Ladislav Dolanský, Josef Foerster, Vladimír Helfert, Otakar Hostinský, and Zdeněk Nejedlý, among others. 290 Karel Tiege’s separate studies were combined in Příspěvky k životopisu a umělecké činnost Mistra Bedřicha Smetany, I: Skladby Smetanovy and II. Dopisy Smetanovy [Contributions to the Biography and Artistic Activities of Master Bedřich Smetana, I. Smetana’s Works, and II. Smetana’s Letters] in a publication through Urbánek in Prague, 1896. 291 Zelený’s O Bedřichu Smetanovi was published in Prague through F. Šimáček. Hostinský’s Bedřich Smetana a jeho boj was published in Prague through Jan Laichter. Hostinský’s writing included reproductions of his earlier critical essays alongside further reflection and commentary from the author. Emanuel Chvála also published his more general Ein Vierteljahrhundert Böhmischer Musik [A QuarterCentury of Bohemian Music] in 1887 (Prague: F. A. Urbánek). Ladislav Dolanský’s Hudební paměti [Musical Memoirs] were later published in 1918 and edited by Zdeněk Nejedlý.
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revealed his poor Czech grammar, while Novotný altered Smetana’s harmonies in publications of the composer’s scores.292 UB members’ scholarly activities and treatment of available documents meant that scholars in the early twentieth century and still today are forced to engage with the UB in their research; the organization’s members carefully cultivated Smetana as a product, especially when publishing the composer’s own “authentic” writings. As the body of available resources grew at the turn of the century (thanks to the activities of UB members), Smetana’s status as a political symbol began to shift. Both the UB and Dalibor gradually came to be managed by the Old Czechs over the 1880s, and these political swings more closely aligned both institutions with the Prague Conservatory (long associated with the Old Czech party) as well as Antonín Dvořak, who served as the conservatory’s director from 1901-1904.293 In response, Smetana’s Young Czech supporters and particularly Hostinský began advocating against Dvořak. After the premiere of Dvořak’s opera Dimitrij in 1882, for example, Hostinský charged the composer with deviating from Smetana’s progressive trajectory for Czech music.294 Fibich, too, joined Hositnský in arguing that Smetana’s output was an ideal model for contemporary composers.295 Both critics’ activities were part of a new means of promoting Smetana as a nationalist model; past attention to questions of whether or how
292
John Tyrrell, Czech Opera (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 304, n. 4; Milan Pospišíl, “Bedřich Smetana as Viewed by Eliška Kràsnohorská” In Bedřich Smetana 1824-1884, ed. Olga Mojžíšová and Marta Ottlová (Praha: Muzeum Bedřicha Smetany, 1995), 63-64; Locke addresses Novotný’s alterations on pages 22 and 41 of his Opera and Ideology. 293 Dvořak joined the faculty of Prague conservatory in 1891 and was also president of the UB’s music division alongside J. R. Rozkošný in 1880. For more on the Old and Young Czech parties, refer to the discussions of their political activities in Chapter One of this dissertation. 294 Locke, 30-31. 295 Ibid., 31.
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Smetana wrote “Czech” music shifted instead to a focus on identifying individuals who best perpetuated the composer’s legacy. Within newly forming social and political circles, Zdeněk Nejedlý emerged as an influential Smetana advocate. Nejedlý had studied with Hostinský at Prague University (Hostinský was his academic advisor) and taken private music theory lessons with Fibich. Upon his theory teacher’s death in 1900, Nejedlý took it upon himself to defend and extend Smetana’s greatness, a process he initiated by condemning any past critics who had challenged the composer, including Karel Knittl.296 As a complement to these attacks, Nejedlý took to promoting those he felt best followed Smetana’s legacy, particularly Fibich, Bohuslav Foerester, and Otakar Ostrčil, and aggressively criticizing Dvořak and his students.297 He published numerous monographs featuring these kinds of arguments, including, among others, Zdenko Fibich: zakladatel scénického melodramatu (Zdeněk Fibich: Composer of Scenic Melodrama, 1901), Jos. B. Foerster (1910), Zpěvohry Smetanovy (Smetana’s Operas, 1908) and Česká moderní zpěvohra po Smetanovi (Czech Modern Opera after Smetana, 1911). Nejedlý also published monographs on political figures like T. G. Masaryk (1931-37) and Lenin (1937-38), but is perhaps most well-known for his position from 1948-62 as the First Minister of Culture and Education under the Communist administration. From this post, Nejedlý upheld and enforced the doctrines of Socialist Realism and developed an educational curriculum for the state in keeping with those doctrines, much of which was maintained through the fall of Communism in 1989.298 The critic’s extensive range of activities over the course of his career and role in influencing the ideologies of Communism granted him even more 296
For more information on the “Knittl Affair,” refer to Ibid., 44-48. Tyrrell, “Janáček, Nejedlý and the Future of Czech National Opera,” 104. 298 Locke, 359, n. 3. 297
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powerful platforms from which he could advocate for Smetana. His influence throughout much of the twentieth century means that he warrants a separate and broad study.299 I am interested here in his relationship with Helfert, since the two men, working in tandem, were among the UB’s primary challengers. Nejedlý and Helfert became close allies early in their scholarship, a point already evidenced in 1908 when Helfert was considered by the UB for a position on its music division’s committee. Helfert wrote to Nejedlý seeking advice on how to avoid the new position, explaining, “to accept some sort of junction with the UB…the thought is impossible. I simply despise those people who are there…there must be a radical change in the committee.”300 Nejedlý did not respond to Helfert in writing, but Helfert never became a member of the UB, and both began collaborating shortly thereafter in institutions founded by Nejedlý as part of his own push for radical change, specifically the organization Hudební klub (“Music Club,” 1911-27) and the journal Smetana (191026). Both institutions were part of an “offensive” led by Nejedlý to support a new and more zealous form of Smetana advocacy.301 The Music Club aimed to facilitate lectures, debates, and general conversation among the musical community, while Smetana provided a forum for the composer’s supporters. Both institutions also aimed in part to counteract the UB, its newest newspaper Hudební revue (Musical Review, founded 1909), as well as the journal Dalibor. Helfert was on the preparatory committee for the Music Club, became its treasurer upon its founding, and was Nejedlý’s main assistant for all of 299
Refer to footnote 286 for information on current Nejedlý research. “Ovšem přijmouti nějakou junkci v UB, dokud by jen z malé části v ní se uplatňovaly živly takové jako dodnes, na to již pomyšlení pokládám za vyloučené. S těmi lidmi, kteří tam jsou dnes, jednoduše pohrdám, a proto by musila nastat hodně radikální přeměna ve výboru UB.” Helfert, November 15, 1908, quoted in Josef Hanzal, “Zdeněk Nejedlý a Vladimír Helfert v dopisech,” in Z bojů o českou hudební kulturu , 169. 301 “Vydávání časopisu Smetana a vznik Hudebního klubu tedy spolu úzce souvisí. Plán na jejich založení byl nesporně hlavní náplní ofenzivy…” Petr Čornej, “Hudební klub v Praze (1911-1927)” [“Music Club in Prague”], in Z bojů o českou hudební kulturu, 122. 300
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its events.302 He also regularly contributed to Smetana and, along with Josef Bartoš, edited the journal. Most importantly for this discussion, Helfert once gave a lecture for Music Club—an analysis of “Vyšehrad”—which the journal Smetana later helped to publish. His resulting Motive of Smetana’s ‘Vyšehrad’, then, was deeply immersed in the musical and political polemics propagated by Nejedlý. The activities of Nejedlý and Helfert generated a cultural scene in the early twentieth century in which any publication dealing with Smetana was extremely charged. As we will see, however, unlike UB members in the past who used highly subjective, often poetic rhetoric in their promotion of the composer, Nejedlý and his affiliates relied on formalist methodologies. Related to this was a move away from emphasizing Smetana’s cosmopolitanism in order to frame him and his works as modern, and toward situating the composer as a symbol of an autonomously Czech tradition. Placing Helfert’s study within this context illuminates the advocacy he built into his writing and analyses. Helfert’s aim to prove the existence of organic relationships between Libuše and Vlast yielded scholarship capable of objectifying these works’ idealized autonomy or Czechness, blurring distinctions between research and politics.
Investigating Helfert Helfert’s study exemplifies the mode of scholarly activism that emerged around WWI. The author called on the formalist approaches—sketch studies, in particular—to prove that Smetana deliberately intended Libuše and “Vyšehrad” as apotheoses to the nation. Closely examining Helfert’s rhetorical and analytic strategies in his article, however, reveals that his work was far from objective (as his methodology seemed to 302
Hanzal, 170.
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promise), instead resting on a manipulation of the musical facts at hand. Using an approach that met the needs and interests of those aligned with Nejedlý in the Music Club, Helfert constructed a myth of Smetana that suited the contemporaneous political climate, so that Smetana emerged as a scientifically proven, misunderstood, and strictly Czech hero. Before examining Helfert’s arguments in detail, it is helpful to briefly situate the author’s use of “organicism” as a metaphor to describe the close thematic relationships between Vlast and Libuše.303 As Ian Bent argues in his Music Analysis in the Nineteenth Century, this metaphor has a long and rich history in music criticism, but it is especially important here to acknowledge first that it was strongly associated with Beethoven, particularly following E.T.A. Hoffman’s review of the composer’s ninth symphony in 1810, and second, that critics typically used the metaphor to cultivate mythologies surrounding a composer’s artistic autonomy or “genius.”304 Helfert’s reliance on the metaphor, then, positioned Vlast and Libuše as objective documents evidencing Smetana’s own, Beethovenian genius. If Helfert’s calling on the metaphor of organicism broadly positioned Smetana alongside Beethoven, the details of his study, especially from its beginning, made the comparison more explicit. Helfert began his article by initiating a dialogue with past scholar and UB member Václav Zelený. In Dalibor on November 10, 1882, Zelený had
303
See the quote that opened this chapter for an example of Helfert’s use of “organicism” as a metaphor. He also sometimes refers to a theme’s “roots”—an extension of the metaphor of organicism—as well as a theme’s “genesis.” See (among other instances) Helfert, 8, 10, 33. 304 Ian Bent, “General Introduction” in vols. 1 and 2 of Music Analysis in the Nineteenth Century, ed. Ian Bent (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 11-12 and 7-8, respectively. For more on the connections between metaphors of organicism and objectifying genius see also Janet M. Levy, “Covert and Casual Values in Recent Writings about Music,” The Journal of Musicology 5 (1987): 3-27 and David L. Montgomery, “The Myth of Organicism: From Bad Science to Great Art,” The Musical Quarterly 76 (1992): 17-66.
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introduced his own myth that Smetana conceived of his theme for “Vyšehrad” on the first day of his complete deafness (recorded in his diary as October 20, 1874). Later in 1884, Zelený further explained that the theme came to Smetana during the moment of crisis immediately preceding his complete loss of hearing. A buzzing in his head yielded the motive, followed only by the absence of sound.305 Zelený’s rendering resonated strongly with Wagner’s past claim that Beethoven’s deafness enhanced his genius by preventing distractions from the external world.306 By situating “Vyšehrad” as a result of Smetana’s “crisis,” Zelený symbolically rendered the piece as a manifestation of Smetana’s loss; audiences could literally “hear” Smetana’s deafness the movement’s main theme, the tragic circumstances of which were implicitly necessary to yield such a magnificent a work. Helfert did not take issue with the romantic implications of Zelený’s claims, preserving their implied mythology instead by agreeing that Smetana did make major compositional decisions on the day of crisis. But Helfert did nuance the previous critic’s rendering by arguing that Smetana actually chose between several possible themes during the onset of his hearing loss, which he had been considering since at least 1872, rather than conceiving of “Vyšehrad’s” theme for the first time on that purportedly fateful day. Helfert’s revised chronology was crucial to his argument that Libuše and “Vyšehrad” represented apotheoses for the nation. If Smetana conceived of “Vyšehrad’s” main theme in 1872, but definitively chose it on the day of his crisis, then the composer’s creation of the movement took place immediately following his completion of Libuše. Musical
305
See Helfert’s discussions of Zelený’s claim, 3-5. Specifically, Wagner explained that Beethoven’s genius was “free from all outside it, at home forever and within itself” because of his deafness. Trans., K. M. Knittel, “Wagner, Deafness, and the Reception of Beethoven’s Late Style,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 51 (1998), 67. 306
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connections between both works were more logical in this reading, but still allowed for Smetana’s tragedy in deafness to yield his greatest gift to the nation. Helfert in turn (and despite acknowledging Smetana’s diary entry explaining that he began work on the piece at the end of September, 1874) devoted the beginning of his article to providing evidence in support of this chronology. Specifically, he pointed out that Hudební listy reported Smetana as already working on “Vyšehrad” in 1872, and that Novotný acknowledged that Smetana was working on the movement in his “Sonata and Symphony—Symphonic Poem” printed in Dalibor in 1873.307 Helfert supplemented this evidence with his own examination of Smetana’s sketch book, in which he traced the origins of “Vyšehrad’s” main theme to the time following Smetana’s Libuše, but allowed that even this research was preliminary and not definitive—only an investigation of the organicism between Libuše and “Vyšehrad” would confirm his argument. Beyond his seemingly rigorous consideration of chronology, Helfert had already, at this point in the article, used a number of rhetorical strategies to gain credibility as a thorough observer. He situated his own research within a scholarly tradition by engaging with a previous author, while using the new prestige of (what now is called) sketch studies—a kind of scientific musicology—to generate the illusion of objectivity.308 Helfert also showcased his privileged access to Smetana’s creative process through his discussions of Smetana’s sketch book. His admission at this discussion’s end that even his own examination (at least to this point in the article) could be inconclusive only
307
For more information about both of these announcements, refer to Chapter Two of this dissertation. Helfert did not refer to his own work as a sketch study, but this method and its underlying impulse to objectify genius (as is Helfert’s aim) had already existed from around the 1860s, during which the first sketch studies of Beethoven’s works were produced. See the entry for “Sketch” by Nicholas Marston in Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online (2012), http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/42828. 308
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served to underscore his own thoughtfulness and self-reflection. All of these components prepared Helfert’s readers to easily accept his ensuing analyses and are undoubtedly part of what has attracted scholars to Helfert’s writing for nearly a century. The rhetoric of Helfert’s objectivity, however, disguised the subjectivity already inherent in his discussion. The idea, fronted in his article, that Smetana’s moment of inspiration might be scientifically proven through sketch studies reveals the degree to which Helfert wanted to preserve this idea. He even went so far as to challenge the supposed authority of Smetana’s diary—an odd move for a scholar invested in the authority of manuscripts, and one that underscores how politics trumped verity in his work. Helfert was so invested in cultivating a myth of Smetana as a martyr and Libuše and “Vyšehrad” as apotheoses that he was willing to rewrite Smetana’s own history, ignoring the hard evidence he touted so loudly in his wider argument. Following his introduction, Helfert presented a series of analyses in which he sought to prove that the themes of “Vyšehrad” and Libuše were organically related. His idea that Smetana used both works—works which, moreover, shared a setting on the cliffs of Vyšehrad—to pose an extended politico-musical dialogue is an interesting, if problematic one.309 Helfert interpreted both works’ similarities as evidence of Smetana’s intent to produce a great musical monument to the nation—as an indication of the composer’s heroicism. Observing Helfert’s strategies for forming his analyses, identifying where they become weaker, and, most importantly, examining information that was selectively excluded from their contents reveals the author’s pointed agenda. Most problematically, Helfert shielded Smetana from Wagner’s influence throughout his musical analyses, in order to preserve his undiluted Czechness—a strategy that spoke 309
For a summary of Libuše’s plot, refer to Chapter Three of this dissertation.
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more clearly to Helfert’s need (and the political needs of the moment) than to Smetana’s compositional style. Helfert’s analyses centered around not just one, but two shared themes between “Vyšehrad” and Libuše. Although these two themes never sound simultaneously in either work, Helfert made a point of arguing that that they were so similar that they could also easily sound in counterpoint.310 The author offered an adapted version of “Vyšehrad’s” opening to illustrate his point (provided in Figure 6). Fig. 6. Helfert’s summary of Themes 1 and 2 in “Vyšehrad.” 311
Theme 1
Theme 2
Here, Helfert juxtaposed the melodic theme of “Vyšehrad’s” opening harp cadenza— which, for the sake of this discussion, will be called Theme 1—with its related, textural echo as performed by the winds at m. 19—here called Theme 2. To facilitate his comparison, however, Helfert transposed Theme 2 from its original statement over a Bbmajor chord to Eb-major. The possibility for both themes to sound either independently or in counterpoint, for Helfer, affirmed their greatest organicism—even the separate themes on which both works were built were fundamentally compatible. At the same time, the two themes’ independence also meant that Helfert was able to treat them
310
In addition to his more explicit comparisons of “Vyšehrad” and Libuše, Helfert generally discussed Smetana’s themes for Libuše in his study on pages 12-15, 17. 311 Ibid., 25.
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separately in his analyses, so that he could compare “Vyšehrad” and Libuše at several malleable levels. Helfert’s analyses of Theme 1 were not at the crux of his argument (nor exceptionally effective), but they will be the starting point of this discussion because they reveal some of the strategies and problems associated with the author’s arguments. In particular, Helfert brought readers’ attention to two alleged statements of “Vyšehrad’s” Theme 1 in Libuše: the first announces hero Přemysl’s first entrance in the opera, and the second sounds when he approaches the castle, Vyšehrad. Figure 2 juxtaposes Theme 1 as it appears in “Vyšehrad” alongside Helfert’s summaries of its statements in Libuše. Fig. 7. Theme 1 in Smetana’s “Vyšehrad” juxtaposed with Helfert’s summaries of Theme 1 in Libuše.312 Theme 1, “Vyšehrad,” Full statement
Theme 1, Libuše, Přemysl’s entrance
Theme 1, Libuše, Přemysl addresses the castle, Vyšehrad
C: I (pedal C in the bass) Eb: I
vi
V6
Opening of harp cadenza.
I
C: I
V7/5 I6
Helfert’s example is taken from Helfert’s example Act II, scene 1, mm. 630-632. is taken from Act III, scene 5, m. 531.
Both occurrences of Theme 1 in Libuše take place at key, though brief, moments in the opera’s plot and share a similar contour and rhythm to its statement in “Vyšehrad.” 312
Helfert’s summaries appear on pages 18 and 23 of his study.
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Helfert does not acknowledge, however, that Smetana harmonizes Theme 1 differently in both works, a distinction that strains his comparison. While the statements of Theme 1 in Libuše appear either within harmonic stasis over a simple authentic cadence, the theme in “Vyšehrad” appears within a motion from I-vi-V6-I where the duration and high melodic range of the minor sixth chord is emphasized within the measure. All three iterations of Theme 1 sound fundamentally different as a consequence—they are not as transparently related as Helfert argued. Rather than with the alleged link forged by Theme 1, the strength of Helfert’s analyses was in his comparison of Theme 2 in both works. In particular, Helfert drew attention to a statement of the second theme in Libuše where it coincided with a messenger’s delivery of the word “Vyšehrad,” notifying Přemysl that Libuše had summoned him to the castle as her prince. Smetana’s harmony and voicing in this case is almost entirely consistent across both works. Even the vocal line in Libuše participates in the Theme 2’s characteristic texture, and Smetana placed emphatic accents over this line in his score. Helfert’s summaries of Theme 2 in “Vyšehrad” and Libuše are provided in Figure 8.
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Fig. 8. Helfert’s summaries of Theme 2 in “Vyšehrad” and Libuše.313
Theme 2, “Vyšehrad”
Theme 2, Libuše
(Listed here in Helfert’s transposition. The theme first appears in Smetana’s score over a Bb chord in EbM.)
A messenger explains to Přemysl that he should return to the “gates of Vyšehrad”
Eb:
I V6 vi V6 I V6
D: I
Helfert’s example corresponds to Smetana, “Vyšehrad,” m.19.
V6
vi
V6
I
Helfert’s example corresponds to Act II, scene 5, m. 1185.
That Theme 2’s texture, basic harmonies, and voicing are consistent across both Smetana’s works strengthens Helfert’s comparisons. Not only are both statements nearly identical, but—as Helfert noted—Smetana drew attention to the theme’s delivery in Libuše, marking it as important. As we will see, however, Helfert went on to complicate his claims about Theme 2 in ways that undermined this initial gain. Helfert developed his comparison between “Vyšehrad” and Libuše by deriving a motive, which this discussion will call Motive A, from the soprano line of Theme 2 (Figure 9). He argued that Motive A appeared in two key instances in Libuše, first during Libuše’s prayer on behalf of her people and the Czech land, and second during Přemysl’s
313
Helfert’s summaries appear on pages 20 and 19 of his study, respectively.
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address to the castle, Vyšehrad. In each case, however, Helfert noted that the theme did not appear in its original form, but with extended voicing that he illustrated using the charts provided in Figure 9. Fig. 9. Helfert’s derivation of Motive A from Theme 2 of “Vyšehrad” and its extension.314 Theme 2, “Vyšehrad”
Motive A, “Vyšehrad”
Motive A, “Vyšehrad”
Helfert’s summary corresponds to m. 19.
Derived from the soprano line of Theme 2.
Helfert’s three-note extension of Motive A.
Helfert in this case adapted the original Motive A of “Vyšehrad” so that its arpeggio extended to a higher range, which he then followed with summaries of the motive’s modified statements in Libuše using the illustrations provided in Figure 10.
314
Helfert’s summaries of Motive A appear on page 16 of his study.
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Fig. 10. Helfert’s summaries of Motive A in Libuše.315 Motive A, Libuše, Libuše’s prayer
Motive A, Libuše, Přemysl’s address
Eb: I-
(V)-I-
(V)-I
C: IHail, strong Vyšehrad! Helfert’s summary corresponds to Act I, scene 1, mm. 85-122.
Helfert’s summary corresponds to Act III, scene 5, mm. 529-30.
Though the melodic contour of Motive A as it appeared in Libuše might have been similar to Helfert’s adapted version, Smetana once again harmonized both appearances of the motive in the opera differently than their statements in “Vyšehrad.” The harmony of Motive A is static in Libuše, while Smetana set it within a I-V6-vi-V6-I-V6 motion in the symphonic poem. As with Theme 1 before, then, Motive A sounds fundamentally different in both works. Even given Helfert’s adaptation, Smetana’s statements of Motive A across the two works are less similar than Helfert implies. Helfert’s analysis leaves readers with important questions. If the primary strength of his discussion was to point out that certain melodic and textural materials in Vyšehrad in Libuše resemble one another, are these points of connection enough to indicate a planned “national apotheosis?” Is something as simple as an altered arpeggio (as in Motive A)—one moreover harmonized differently in each statement—enough to suggest concrete links between the two works? Helfert not only manipulates his examples to enhance their similarity, he is also selective in his presentation of evidence. Indeed, he 315
Helfert’s summaries appear on pages 17 and 20 of his study.
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omits to mention several points of obvious connection between Libuše and Vlast’s second movement, “Vltava.” Though Helfert acknowledged that thematic material from “Vyšehrad” returned in the various movements of Vlast (including “Vltava”), a more specific comparison of “Vltava” and Libuše could have strengthened his claims for a connection between Smetana’s opera and his later symphonic cycle; much of Vltava’s thematic material was derived from Helfert’s adapted version of Motive A. The voicing associated with this motive appears most prominently in the soprano line of the string accompaniment beginning at m. 40 as well as in the movement’s main melody. Figure 11 juxtaposes Helfert’s Motive A and its similar iterations in the string accompaniment and main melody of “Vltava.” Fig. 11. Helfert’s Motive A juxtaposed with statements of the motive in Smetana’s “Vltava.” Note that both statements feature Helfert’s proposed extended voicing (bracketed below). Motive A, Libuše
Motive A, “Vltava,” Soprano line, string accompaniment, m. 40.
Motive A, “Vltava,” Melody, mm. 40-41.
Here, Motive A appears with the completed arpeggiation, as given in Helfert’s example from Libuše. Smetana’s harmonic setting of its statements in “Vltava” makes the connection clearer. Juxtaposing the iterations of Motive A in “Vltava” with those that Helfert extracted from Libuše, as in Figure 12, reveals that all four statements maintain nearly exactly the same voicing and harmonic underpinning:
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Fig. 12. Helfert’s summaries of Motive A in Libuše juxtaposed with appearances of the motive in “Vltava.” Motive A, Libuše, Libuše’s prayer
Eb: I-
(V)-I-
Motive A, Libuše, Přemysl’s address
(V)-I
C:
Motive A, “Vltava,” String accompaniment
e: i-(v)-i6-(v)-i6- (v7)-i6
IHail, strong Vyšehrad! Motive A, “Vltava,” Main melody
e: i- (v7)-i6-(v4/2)-i- (v7)- i6
Each appearance of Motive A features similar arpeggiation, melodic contour, and harmonic motion. In his analyses, Helfert chose to emphasize musical connections between Libuše and “Vyšehrad,” but as the above evidence demonstrates, comparisons between Libuše and “Vltava” are even stronger. This raises an additional important question for readers: If Helfert could have further supported his arguments for Smetana’s deliberately-planned organicism by calling on “Vltava” in his analyses, why didn’t he? One reason Helfert might have chosen to focus exclusively on “Vyšehrad” rather than also addressing “Vltava” in his study is that Smetana’s composition dates for “Vltava” (1874) did not lend themselves easily to comparison with Libuše (1869-72)— “Vltava” was too far removed. Helfert’s altered dates for “Vyšehrad” (which had
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Smetana beginning the symphonic poem in 1872, rather than 1874) placed the movement in chronological succession to the opera, making his arguments that the two works might be organically related more logical. Additionally, because “Vyšehrad” and “Vltava” share common thematic material, perhaps Helfert felt that it was only necessary to explain the first movement’s connection to Libuše, rather than taking on both symphonic poems. One additional reason that Helfert might have avoided “Vltava” in his analyses, however, is that the author, in so doing, managed to sidestep transparent similarities between this work and the prologue to Wagner’s Götterdämmerung (finished 1874, premiered 1876).316 Both “Vltava” and Wagner’s Prologue centered on nationalistic and illustrative depictions of rivers important to their respective cultures, and Motive A in Smetana’s “Vltava” shares a striking resemblance to Wagner’s “Rhine” leitmotive, illustrated here using Taruskin’s summary from his Oxford History of Western Music (Figure 13). Fig. 13. Motive A in Smetana’s “Vyšehrad” juxtaposed with Wagner’s “Rhine” Leitmotive from his prologue to Götterdämmerung.
Motive A, Smetana, “Vyšehrad”
“Rhine” Leitmotive, Wagner, Prologue to Götterdämmerung
Both of these motives feature similar patterns of arpeggiation, Wagner’s even including the melodic extension that Helfert proposed. Wagner’s “Erda” leitmotive (illustrated here
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Czech audiences’ charged reception to Wagner is discussed at length in Chapter Three of this dissertation.
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again using Taruskin’s summary), is also closely related to “Vltava’s” main melody (see Figure 14). Fig. 14. Motive A in the melody of “Vltava” juxtaposed with Wagner’s “Erda” Leitmotive from his Prologue to Götterdämmerung.
Motive A, Smetana, “Vyšehrad,” melody mm. 40-41.
e: i-(v7)-i6-(v4/2)-i-(v7)-i6
“Erda” Leitmotive, Wagner, Prologue to Götterdämmerung
c#: i-
(V)-i- (V7)- i-
Both Wagner’s and Smetana’s themes in this case featured not only the same voicing and melodic contour, but even comparable patterns of harmonic motion.317 It is impossible to know if Smetana was aware of Wagner’s work or vice versa, let alone whether either figure deliberately intended to compose similarities into their respective compositions. Either way, Helfert’s delicate maneuvering to avoid the close relationships between Smetana’s “Vltava” and Wagner’s Prologue to Götterdämmerung begins to illuminate the political bias underpinning his study. Helfert used allegedly rigorous scholarly means to situate Smetana’s themes as autonomously Czech; not only did they spring from Smetana’s deafness—itself a sacrifice on behalf of the Czech nation—but they were so Czech that they could only have been contained by, inspired from, and legible within the works of Smetana, an autonomously Czech hero. Ironically,
317
In addition to programmatic and musical similarities between the composer’s themes, Taruskin points out that both Smetana and Wagner call on the same, seemingly unprepared deceptive cadence in their works to signal a sudden turn in either the Vltava or Rhine, a move he describes as “harmonic ‘navigation’ at its most literal.” See his, “Deeds of Music Made Visible (Class of 1813, I),” in Nineteenth Century, vol. 3 of Oxford History of Western Music (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 537-8.
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however, Helfert stripped Smetana’s themes so far down in his analyses that he inadvertently highlighted their similarities to Wagner’s, bringing to focus a comparison that he had tried assiduously to avoid. Rather than proving Smetana’s autonomy, then, Helfert inadvertently situated the composer’s work within broader international discourses. And rather than proving Smetana’s rigid Czechness, Helfert invoked exactly what he had attempted to suppress: a strand of reception history that linked Smetana with Wagner. The similarities between Smetana’s “Vltava” and Wagner’s Prologue invite us to reexamine connections between Libuše and Vlast as leitmotives rather than themes, a distinction that would allow for a more nuanced understanding of Smetana’s works. Reviewing UB member Václav Novotný’s monograph on Libuše, published shortly after the opera’s premiere (1881), illuminates the potential benefit resulting from this shift in interpretation. Novotný’s study, based on his previously-published article allegedly written “from [Smetana’s] own view,” acknowledged the very organicism in Smetana’s works that Helfert had attempted to confirm in his analyses, but did so in a way that emphasized subjective listening experience.318 Specifically, Novotný drew attention to the appearance of Motive A during Libuše’s prayer and even provided his own summary of the piece, pictured in Figure 15, to illustrate his point.
318
“…dle přání svého již v nobě nynější seznámiti mohli se stavbou skvostného tohoto díla Smetanova z vlastního názoru při živém provedení.” Novotný, “Smetanova vlastenecká zpěv. ‘Libuše’” [“Smetana’s Patriotic Opera Libuše”], Dalibor (October 31, 1874), 345. Novotný’s article was discussed in more depth in Chapter Three of this dissertation.
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Fig. 15. Novotný’s summary of Libuše’s prayer.319
In addition to highlighting the prominence of the motive in Smetana’s composition, Novotný went on to address Smetana’s use of the theme across his works. Smetana in his compositions considers [this motive] stereotypically Czech and it serves him regularly as an accompanying musical figure whenever the blessed Czech land is spoken of. So even here with Libuše’s words, “Eternal gods above the clouds, in grace bless this land, lead it to unity etc.” when she prays for the establishment and success of her land, the indicated [motive] plays a prominent role in the whole orchestra, it sounds in various instruments either mightily or delicately—there seething with the strength of nature, here with the gentle breath of a breeze—in short, in such shades and modulations as the meaning of the sung words requires and permits.320 Here, in acknowledging Smetana’s “regular” use of the motive, Novotný revealed that contemporary listeners and perhaps even Smetana himself recognized an organicism between Libuše and the composer’s other works (regardless of the chronologies of his composition dates) well before Helfert. Novotný also acknowledged that Motive A held nationalistic meaning for Smetana’s audiences and that the theme transformed to reflect
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Novotný’s example appears in Uvedení do Smetanovy slavnostní zpěvohry Libuše [An Introduction to Smetana’s Festive Opera, Libuše] (V Praze: Fr. A. Urbánek, 1882), 8. 320 “Smetana ve svých skladbách považuje za sterotypně české a jež slouží mu za stálou průvodní figure hudební všude tam, kde mluví se o požehnané zemi české. Tak i zde, kde Libuše slovy: ‘Bohové věční tam nad oblaky, v milosti shlížejte na tuto zem, ku svornosti ji veďte a t. d.’ za vznik a zdar vlasti své se modlí, hraje naznačený motiv B hlavní úlohu v celém orkestru, zaznívaje v rozličných nástrojech buď mohutněji či lahodněji, tam s celou silou povahy vroucí, zde opět co jemný vánku dech, zkrátka v takových odstínech a modulacích, jak toho smysl slova zpívaného vyžaduje a připouští.” Ibid., 8-9.
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the affect of a given moment (a fact that Helfert’s examples strained to conceal).321 The theme was not a literal repetition of melodic material, but (like a leitmotive) an allusion to an experienced past which conjured a sense of continuity between works and subjects. Perhaps because Helfert’s reading of relationships between “Vyšehrad” and Libuše has proven so attractive to twentieth- and twenty-first-century scholars, Novotný’s discussion has also received little, if any, attention. If we move away from a scenario in which the organicism between Libuše and Vlast represented a strictly Czech monument to the nation, however, and examine both works as emerging from a time in which Liszt’s illustrative symphonic poems were revolutionary and Wagner’s music dramas and system of leitmotives were considered equally “progressive” (for some segments of the Czech listening public), Smetana’s decision to incorporate a leitmotive, or even just an illustrative musical theme, across multiple genres is significant. It suggests that Smetana was pursuing, as Helfert suggested, a nationalistic apotheosis, but in a much more sophisticated and complicated way than the author suggested. Not just internally connected, Smetana’s works (to extend Novotný’s line of thinking) were part of an intricately-layered synthesis of genres, musical aesthetics, and idealized national styles. By featuring the same leitmotive across multiple large-scale works, Smetana had literally outdone or out-synthesized every supposedly German, nationalistic means of composition available to him.322 Smetana’s approach to composition, then, might be best understood not as vertically national—inspired from strictly Czech sources, as Helfert claimed—but
321
Helfert did allow in some instances that the themes he identified were from the same language or, more specifically, from Smetana’s own “musical grammar.” See, for example, page 8 of his study. 322 Recall that Novotný described Libuše as a music drama with a symphonic poem as its overture, while Vlast, too, was not just one symphonic poem, but a cycle of symphonic poems.
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radically horizontal. Smetana not only appropriated the aesthetics of an oppressive culture, but attempted to gain mastery over it. Examining the close relationships between Smetana’s and Wagner’s works and the ways in which both are depicted (or not) in Helfert’s writing begins to illuminate the intricacies of the author’s own subjective “Search for Czechness”—in this case, a rigid definition of Czechness in Smetana’s music.323 That Helfert never once acknowledged Novotný’s rich critique (likely because Novotný dedicated his entire discussion to explaining Libuše’s indebtedness to Wagner’s aesthetics), is a clear signal of his commitment to reshape and reclaim Smetana. Additionally, and despite Libuše’s long, complicated political history brought about by its status as a music drama, Helfert never once called the work by this generic title, referring to it only as a “festive opera.” Helfert used his analyses, then, to position Smetana as autonomously Czech in all cultural, political, and compositional arenas, rather than engaging with his nationalism as an interactive or responsive construct. Just as UB members during the 1870s had appropriated Smetana’s relationship with Wagner to construct Smetana as a revolutionary leading the way towards a utopia, Helfert now wrote Wagner out of his analysis in order to perpetuate a newly emerging ideal—that of a purely Czech hero more palatable to the increasingly xenophonic aesthetics of the Communist regime.
Conclusion: Resituating Helfert, Nejedlý, and the Smetana Myth Though Helfert may not have addressed Novotný’s monograph, the author did cite another prominent author, Nejedlý, in his discussion. Nejedlý produced a number of
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This phrase indebted to Michael Beckerman, “In Search of Czechness in Music,” 19th-Century Music 10 (1986): 61-73.
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publications to which Helfert might have been responding, but the language of his Zpěvohry Smetanovy (The Operas of Smetana, 1908) is a clear candidate, prefiguring the tone and even some of the rhetoric that would later turn up in Helfert. After briefly summarizing the “attacks” of Smetana’s enemies, for example, Nejedlý explained, If it is possible at all to speak of artistic martyrs, then Smetana is among their first order. We [know] only the mere passive suffering of religious martyrs. But Smetana was even an artist-hero. Only nature— not even the greatest human hatred—was able to overwhelm…his strength. In his worst moment, Smetana demonstrated the invincible power of his spirit. At the end of October, he became deaf, and in less than two months after this misfortune (before Christmas) he finished his two magnificent works “Vyšehrad” and “Vltava.” In moments like these, we become familiar with the greatness and purity of the human spirit. Even at the time of the fights against him, Smetana stood pure and elevated above the mash of struggle and the wickedness of his opponents. How did Smetana reward all of this treason, which had so plentifully been given to him? He wrote his Libuše, he wrote an apotheosis of the Czech nation, this nation, which nearly day in and day out excluded him from its ranks and threw stones at him!324 Nejedlý’s reference to “apotheosis” reflected Helfert’s label for Vlast and Libuše, while his writing also more explicitly defined the political role for Smetana that Helfert embraced in his study. Nejedlý transformed Smetana from an individual composer to a Czech savior and an artist of superhuman status. Smetana’s enemies and his deafness excluded him from the nation he aimed to serve, but, rather than merely sacrificing himself in these circumstances (as would a religious martyr), Smetana’s heroicism gave 324
“Možno-li vůbec mluviti o uměleckém mučednictví, nutno Smetanu stavěti v první řady těchto mučedníků. Ovšem my jen pouhé passivní utrpení náboženských mučedníků. S pojmem mučednictví slučujeme i pojem hrdinství. Smetana byl i umělec-hrdina. Jakoby v pyšném vědomí své síly, že teprve příroda dovedla přemoci jeho, kterého nepřemohla ani největší lidská zloba, prokázal Smetana právě v této nejhorší chvíli nezlomnou sílu svého ducha. S celou energií pokračoval ve své práci, ano ještě stupňoval mohutnost svého tvoření. Koncem října ohluchl a za necelé dva měsíc po tomto neštěstí (jěstě před vánocemi) dokončil dvě svá nádherná díla ‘Vyšehradu’ a ‘Vltavu.’ V takové chvíli nejlépe poznáme velikost a ryzost lidského ducha. Avšak i v době bojů proti němu vedených tál Smetana čist a povznesen nad rmut boje o špatnost svých odpůrců. Jak se odměňoval Smetana za všechno to kaceřování a zrádcování, jehož se mu tehdy tak přehojnou měrou dostalo? Psal svou ‘Libuši,’ psal apotheosu českého národa, toho národa, který jej skoro každoenně vylučoval že svého středu a který po něm hazel kamením!” Zdeněk Nejedlý, Zpěvohry Smetanovy (Praha: J. Otto, 1908), 167-8.
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rise to a great work for the nation: Libuše. Nejedlý went on to address the connections between Libuše and Vlast more directly. Smetana’s intention for his Libuše had long been his favorite idea. The deep national consciousness from which this apotheosis of our nation gushed appeared for Smetana already in his youth. A German education could not crush his national consciousness, so already in 1848 he was considered of our musicians the primary supporter of the Czech national cause. Very powerfully this…echoed for Smetana in the 50s when he left Bohemia and took to foreign countries (Göteborg)….This warm love for Bohemia did not lessen for Smetana following the bitterest disappointment that awaited him following his return to Bohemia and during the time of his public influence. Even in these bitter moments it was his greatest goal to build his national monument, which was designed only for celebration and to which Smetana dedicated his greatest strength. Smetana carried out this plan in the fullest measure with Má vlast and Libuše.325 Beyond Smetana’s being a savior of the nation, Smetana was so innately Czech in Nejedlý’s account that even his German upbringing and time abroad could not inhibit his devotion to the nation, and only his martyrdom allowed him to fully express it. Smetana’s Vlast and Libuše were extensions of himself—monuments to the nation produced by a composer who had become its voice. Together, Nejedlý’s political and scholarly leadership in publications like this along with Helfert’s later formalist analysis helped to establish Libuše and Vlast as apotheoses of Czechness. Situating these authors’ work within a larger reception history, however (one shaped and inspired by UB members) illuminates not just their own aims but what they were reacting against—not just the claims they were making but also those 325
“Záměr, jejž Smetana uskutečnil ve své ‘Libuši,’ byl dávno oblíbenou jeho myšlenkou. Hluboké národní uvědomění, z něhož tato apotheosa našeho národa vytryskla, jevilo se u Smetany již v jeho mládí. Německá výchova nemohla u něho potlačiti národní vědomí, takže již r. 1848 pokládán byl od našich hudebníků za zásadního soupence české národní věci. Velmi mocně ozývá se u Smetany tato stuna v letech 50tých, kdy Smetana opouštěl Čechy a odebíral se do ciziny (Göteborku)….Tuto vřelou lásku k Čechám nedovedlo u Smetana seslabiti ani nejtrpčí zklamání, jež ho tu čekalo, po návratu do Čech I v době jeho veřejného působení. I v těchto trpkých chvílich bylo jeho nejvyšším cílem postaviti svému národu pomník, jenž by byl určen jen k jeho oslavě a jemuž by Smetana věnoval své nejlepši síly. Tento svůj plan Smetana take v nejplnější mire uskutečnil ‘Mou vlastí’ a ‘Libuší.’” Ibid., 169.
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they were suppressing. For the UB of the 1870s, Smetana’s Czechness was the result of his synthesis of Liszt and Wagner. Smetana incorporated illustrative and subjective leitmotives into his most deliberately nationalistic works and across multiple genres when he composed Libuše and Vlast, all in the interest of leading a revolution. Nejedlý and Helfert actively revised this version of the composer as part of a new revolution—in part against the UB—in an effort to rescue Smetana from what they had come to see as the UB’s conservatism. The characteristics of Smetana’s compositions had not changed, but the political landscape had, and interpretation of the composer’s works followed suit. The enthusiastic reception in twentieth-century scholarship of Helfert’s study underscores Smetana’s continuing status as a symbol of Czechness for musicologists and historians. Michael Beckerman has already shown that Czechness was and is primarily a mode of reception, and difficult—perhaps impossible—for modern scholars to analyze.326 And yet our sense of Smetana’s nationalism continues to rest on Helfert-like claims, rooted in formalism. These claims permeate not only our understandings of Smetana’s compositions but the set of “facts” surrounding his biography. Helfert’s article, along with scholars’ continuing manipulation of the chronology of Smetana’s biography, reveals that interpreting Smetana’s composition dates is as subjective as examining the composer’s music. The “facts” of Smetana’s composition dates as given in twentieth- and twenty-first century scholarship reveal more about the political aims of individual authors than the circumstances of the composer’s output. The same is true of scholars’ approach to examining Smetana’s relationship with Wagner—be it through testimonials from contemporaries, scholars, or even Smetana’s own works.
326
See Beckerman, “In Search of Czechness in Music,” 19th-Century Music 10 (1986): 61-73.
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Given the diversity of critical writing available on the subject of Smetana’s “Wagnerism” either as cosmopolitan, modern, “Smetanian,” or Czech, the process of choosing any set of documents to support discussions of Smetana’s Czechness, Wagnerism, or anti-Wagnerism is just as subjective as analyzing for Czechness in his music. Scholars’ understandings of Smetana, his works, and his status as a political symbol shift as frequently as the political contexts in which they are generated. If Czechness is a mode of reception, Smetana as an individual is one of its objects—a figure whose myth is continually adapted to meet the needs of his audiences.
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CONCLUSION In their introduction to a collection of essays on Romantic Biography, Alan Rawes and Arthur Bradley succinctly address the dynamics that have been the focus of this dissertation. If Romantic biography is the product of Romantic assumptions, then it runs the risk of perpetuating Romanticism’s canonized idea of itself. The public image of Romanticism will remain unpunctured. Neglected or repressed faces of the period will never be allowed to emerge. New critical approaches will go unpursued. In other words, Romantic biography is in danger of allowing the Romantics to write their own life-stories: Romantic biography can become little more than ghost-written Romantic autobiography.327 Here, Rawes and Bradley explain that studies of Romantic figures—studies which tend to celebrate the genius of a lone individual rather than the efforts of a larger community— run the risk of seeming co-authored by their subjects. This dissertation not only affirms that Romantic artists had an extraordinary influence over their biographies, but extends this claim by suggesting that Romantic critics have also been unwittingly channeled through the work of later historians. Traditional, artist-centric studies of Smetana perpetuate the same rhetoric that members of the Umělekcá beseda (UB) first formulated
327
Alan Rawes and Arthur Bradley, eds., Romantic Biography (Burlington: Ashgate, 2003), xii.
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around the composer.328 For UB authors, correspondences between Smetana’s compositions, particularly his pairing of “Vyšehrad” and Libuše, leant prestige to the Czech culture among wider European audiences. This pairing also, to a degree, invented the idea of Czech music itself through the course of a complicated dialogue with German models. Smetana’s decision to compose in the genre of the symphonic poem situated him as a modern leader, according to UB members, while his work within the genre of the music drama made his leadership both controversial and revolutionary. Scholars at the beginning of the twentieth century perpetuated these ideas by celebrating Smetana’s affiliation with Liszt and problematizing his relationship with Wagner, but did so in ways that positioned Smetana as more vertically rather than horizontally Czech. Their understandings of nationalism changed even as they continue to rely on entrenched tropes of Smetana criticism. Scholarship, then, has maintained the framework that UB members introduced into their discussions of Smetana, but redefined its parameters to make Smetana’s heroic status meet the needs of his ever-changing audiences. UB voices— either through their continued persistence or deliberate suppression—continue to tell Smetana’s story today.
328
A notable exception to this observation is Marta Ottlová and Milan Pospíšil, Bedřich Smetana a jeho doba: vybrané studie [Bedřich Smetana and His Time: Selected Studies] (Prague: NLN, 1997). Both authors dedicate their first chapter to assessing the current state of Smetana scholarship and directly acknowledge the types of value systems still at play in studies of the composer. In particular, they explain, “It could be shown in many instances how [authors] do not stay true to the facts…and live their own lives in the literature, transforming [the facts] to meet [their] different needs without referring to the original evidence. (There is complete chaos in some foreign monographs in which the authors literally take on [someone else’s] judgments…for example, Brian Large in his Smetana.)” “Dalo by se na mnoha příkladech dokázat, jak se postupně odpoutávají od skutečnosti, o níž měly vypovídat, a žijí v literatuře dále svým vlastním životem, přetvářejí se pro různé potřeby již bez přihlédnutí zpět k původní výpovědi. (Úplný zmatek tak vzniká v některých zahraničních monografiích, které doslovně přebírají soudy, jejichž určitou relativnost a pozadí nemohou autoři pocítit, např Smetana od B. Large.” See pages 18-19. As this dissertation has shown, Large’s biography is certainly problematic; the author was especially prone to absorbing and perpetuating nineteenth-century aesthetic issues.
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Beyond molding Smetana discourses, the activism of UB members and their detractors carries over into modern writing on the composer, ensuring a persistently political undertone. UB members profoundly influenced the work of Smetana’s future biographers when they manipulated the source materials that defined and represented the composer. UB critics like Nejedlý also substantially affected future Smetana studies by engaging only selectively with the work of previous authors. Together, such scholarly manipulations mean that our understandings of Smetana as a lone creator, a romantic genius, or a national hero are deeply flawed. Smetana’s enthusiastic reception as a specifically Czech composer did not result from his works’ inherent “Czechness,” but his advocates’ careful cultivation of his mythology. Although it is impossible to excavate the “real” Smetana or what his works “actually” meant, it is possible to examine the ways in which Smetana and his compositions were used to satisfy shifting audiences. Approaching understandings of Smetana within a larger reception history acknowledges the past instability of his symbol as well as the potency it held for each generation. It also invites the reexamination of even more recent scholarship, a point which highlights once more Michael Beckerman’s landmark “In Search of Czechness in Music.” At the core of his article, Beckerman aims to remind researchers that it is necessary to distinguish between a “Czech style” and “Czechness” itself. While the former [a “Czech style”] may be considered a series of descriptive or analytic generalizations based on the actual characteristics of a body of music, “Czechness” itself comes about when, in the minds of composers and audiences, the Czech nation, in its many manifestations, becomes a subtextual program for musical works, and as such, it is that which animates the musical style, allowing us to make connections
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between the narrow confines of a given piece and a larger, dynamic context.329 This dissertation does not seek to challenge Beckerman’s claims. His broader warning against attempts to use musical analysis to objectify a mythology was a much needed intervention. At the same time, the belief that Czechness describes or even might be anchored in an animated musical style might warrant expansion. The writings of UB members and detractors reveal that, rather than operating within or serving an object, constructions of Czechness involved a broader and more densely layered set of interactions. Czechness was theorized in the wider arenas of the club, the newspaper, and the public gathering, and, within these spaces, critical reception of Smetana—and not always his music—provided the most fundamental framework for its discussion. Even Beckerman participates in this tradition when, at the end of his article—while discussing the results of “Search for Czechness”—he examines the how affect comes about in Smetana’s “Vyšehrad.” Specifically, Beckerman explains that Smetana’s opening theme for the movement is “not specifically Czech” or, in other words, that it belongs in the realm of musical style: I-vi-V6-I in the key of Eb. Yet when Smetana juxtaposes these chords with the image of the great rock Vyšehrad, and that image is further abstracted into a symbol of the enduring quality of the Czech people, the chords become imbued with a sensibility, and the sensibility becomes tied to something concrete. Having been suffused with Czechness, the chords become Czech and impart this quality to surrounding material, which ultimately redefines and enhances the very sensibility that produced it. In the same way a work, or a series of works, with explicitly Czech references, whether musical, programmatic, or both, tends to impart a Czech sensibility to other works in the composer’s oeuvre which might not otherwise have such a connotation.330
329 330
Michael Beckerman, “In Search of Czechness in Music,” 19th-Century Music 10 (1986), 73. Ibid., 72-73.
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Despite Beckerman’s warning against attempts to objectify Czechness in music, the author in this case still locates the affect’s origins within the objects of Smetana’s scores. Smetana remains a lone creator according to this rendering—an originator who produced the objects to which audiences react and through which they generate Czechness. Situating Smetana within a reception history, however, shifts focus from questions like “what is Czechness” to an investigation of how the mode was culturally and socially constructed. It acknowledges Czechness’ political relevance for the variety of audiences who invested in its construction, but also recognizes Smetana’s role as a means and not necessarily an end for its production. Rather than pointing to Smetana’s scores as containers of Czechness (or a space in which nation operates as a subtext), this affect is best understood as an object of discourse. Smetana was not its originator, but one of its instruments—a platform on and through which nationalism was theorized, contested, and “proven” time and time again, even within the context of Beckerman’s article. Inevitably, approaching Smetana studies via a reception history also becomes self-reflexive. This study, like those provided by early UB members and their predecessors, is vulnerable to the predispositions of its author and is shaped by the ideological climates of its historical moment. It is by no means comprehensive and, perhaps most problematically, risks positioning the few UB voices that have been recorded as representative of a larger community’s opinions. In many ways, this exemplifies the understandings of nationalism that Benedict Anderson wrote about in his Imagined Communities, which I address at the beginning of this dissertation. Anderson argued that nationalism is primarily a print phenomenon, so that even studies that aim to
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critically examine past nationalist voices are limited to those that have been preserved in writing.331 Like any Smetana research, too, this study is not an end, but a beginning. Where it questions the role of research within shifting political contexts, it also invites a more thorough investigation especially of Nejedlý and the activities of the Music Club, a possibility that has only recently become available following the end of the Communist administration and the opening up of key archives. This dissertation has also, in some ways, neglected to take on the most prominent musico-political framework that still operates in musicological discourses today: the impulse to “other” (or rescue) the music of “non-Western” cultures. Part of the reason this project avoids such constructions is because they are remnants of times past—holdovers from the Cold War that confuse Prague’s geographic location and cultural orientation with its past political alliances. Geographically, Prague is located further west than Vienna, and culturally, its residents did not promote their music as Eastern or Western for much of history because these political signifiers did not exist. For UB members, Smetana’s music was “Czech” precisely because it resulted from a higher synthesis of international (and especially “German”) aesthetics. To try to challenge scholars’ othering or rescuing of Czech music is to risk reinforcing discussions of music within the parameters of East meets West and perpetuating political discourses specific to the Communist administration and the former Eastern Europe as a consequence. Still, this perspective has had longstanding ramifications for the reception of Smetana’s output. The perceived exoticism of his more accessibly “Czech” works like Vlast popularize them with Western audiences. As Derek
331
Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 2006).
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Katz references in his own study, the same audiences also use works like Smetana’s second string quartet along with its allusions to the composer’s deafness as a means to uphold his Beethoven-like mythology and downplay his “Easterness.”332 Expanding this project to include reception of Smetana in more recent discourses would help it to explore a larger conversation about Smetana scholarship and politics. This dissertation only hopes to have taken the first steps towards this end.
332
Derek Katz nicely summarizes the malleability of reception of Smetana’s string quartet when he writes, “Ultimately, the story that we construct around the second quartet probably reveals more about the storyteller than the quartet….If it seems obvious that Smetana’s piece can be used as a character in a number of different stories, perhaps we should ask ourselves whether any of the qualities that we attribute to better-known works, such as “progressive,” “reactionary,” or “typical,” might also originate in the stories about music history that we take for granted, rather than being inherent in the works themselves.” See his “Smetana’s Second String Quartet: Voice of Madness or Triumph of Spirit?” The Musical Quarterly 4 (1997), 533.
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