Janáček as a critic

Janáček‖s activities as a critic date back to his youth, when his identity as a musician was starting to emerge. As the edition of Janáček‖s Literary Works (LD1) records, Janáček‖s first critical writings date to the year 1875. They appeared in the journal Cecilie (edited by P. F. Lehner) under the name Lev Janáček.³²⁰ The first writing (Cecilie, 5 January 1875) was about the poor quality of church choral singing and Pavel Křížkovský‖s role in its reform, and the second was a critique of a performance of Gregorian mass at the Piarist church in Prague, conducted by F. Skuherský (5 March 1875). As Straková (2003: liii) remarks, Janáček obviously became aware of the chasm between the relatively advanced Czech cultural life and music scene in Prague, and the backward Czech cultural and musical life in the predominantly German-speaking Brno of that day. In his critical writings, especially in the periodical Moravská Orlice [The Moravian Eagle], he tried to remedy the situation and considered possibilities for elevating Brno‖s weak standard (ibid.). After his studies in Leipzig and Vienna, Janáček continued writing critiques corresponding to the ideals of Durdík‖s formalism.

According to Helfert (1938: 23, 25; 1949: 78–79), Janáček‖s early critical output until his thirty-fifth year is completely congruent with Durdík‖s system. In his juvenilia writings in the periodical Moravské Orlice from the year 1875, Janáček (with the simple moniker -á-) fully adopted Durdík‖s literary style and his way of expressing ideas. Moreover, Helfert (1938: 25) finds Janáček‖s very first article about P. Křížkovský to be almost a school-like

320 As Tyrrell (2006: 136) notes, all articles from 1875 to 1877 bearing Janáček‖s full name rather than ―L.

Janáček‖ or a pseudonymic symbol are signed ―Lev Janáček‖.

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copy on Durdík‖s methods. As Helfert points out, Durdík‖s formalism and tendency for classicism provided a powerful weapon against late-Romanticism, its mysticism and, especially, Wagner‖s art. As has been discussed in earlier chapters, and specified here by Helfert (1938: 25), Durdík‖s philosophy belonged to the most popular school of thought in Brno especially around the year 1874. Janáček‖s conscious and convinced belief in Durdík presents a very interesting initial stage in his critical activities, leaving naturally some permanent marks on him, Helfert (1938: 26) comments. In an 1877 number of Cecilie, Janáček declares:

“We are all concerned with truth: we avoid fabling, poeticizing in discourses, discussions and expositions, which require chiefly scientific approach, that lucid, well-ordered—yet because of that regarded by many as ―cool‖—rational account.” (Cited in Kulka 1990: 63.)

Along with Janáček‖s gradually evolving realism, fundamentalist abstract formalism developed into concrete formalism, which is recognizable also in Janáček‖s theoretical works. For example, in his periodical Hudební listy (1884–88), Janáček gradually parts with Durdíkian dogmatism. (Helfert 1938: 27–28; 1949: 80–81.)

As the choirmaster of the Brno Beseda Society and with its support, Janáček was able to establish in 1884 his own musical periodical, Hudební listy [Musical pages]. The paper came out first as a weekly, then as a bi-weekly, and finally a monthly. Janáček‖s idea was originally to offer a forum of criticism and review of the newly opened Czech-language theater in Brno. As Straková (ibid. lv) points out, reporting on the theater gave Janáček valuable experience in acquiring knowledge of several Czech and foreign Classical-Romantic operas from first-hand listening. It is no wonder that Janáček‖s first opera, Šárka (1887), coincides with this era. In 1884 Hudební listy published, for example, Janáček‖s review of Wagner‖s Tristan und Isolde, and in 1886–87 his article on Gounod‖s Faust.

Hudební listy ceased to exist in 1888 as Janáček left the Beseda Society. However, in 1890 he became music critic and subsequently music and theater editor of the new Brno daily Moravské listy [Moravian leaves] as well.³²¹ In 1891, Janáček reviewed the performance of Tchaikovsky‖s Eugene Onegin for the paper and in 1896, he gave an enthusiastic review of The Queen of Spades (Straková 2003: lviii). In 1892, he praised the performance of Cavalleria rusticana of Pietro Mascagni. This first encounter between Janáček and the Italian verismo coincided with his acquaintance with Gabriela Preissová and her play Její pastorkyňa (1891).³²² Janáček‖s activities as a critic therefore gave an important impetus for his career as

321 Moravské listy was being published between 14 September 1889 and 14 December 1893. Janáček‖s first review in this paper appeared on 8 October 1890. As previously in Hudební listy, Janáček signed his reviews with a simple triangle, which he had adopted from the Czech writer and journalist Jan Neruda. (B. Štědroň 1954a: 640.)

322 Janáček met with Gabriela Preissová in the Brno society Vesna, where she gave a lecture about her dramas from the Moravian Slovakia in January 1891. According to Vysloužil (1955: 52), it is very likely that this connection led to Janáček becoming acquainted with the motif of his opera Jenůfa. Štědroň (1968b: 58) claims that Janáček was well familiar with the critiques over the performances of Preissová‖s play Její pastorkyňa in Prague on 9 November 1890 and in Brno on 10 January 1891. The society Vesna (in Slavonic mythology the goddess of spring: in modern Russian the word весна means 'spring') was founded in 1870 originally as a girls‖ choir and later contributed to the education of young girls. This society had an important role in maintaining interest in folk culture. Janáček‖s membership with Vesna started in 1876. According to Vogel (1997: 91) it is very likely that Janáček became acquainted with František Bartoš here (Bartoš was a

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an operatic composer, leading to the composition of the opera Jenůfa. Other activities in the 1890s, such as the collection of folk music and the working with speech melodies, were also crucial for the emergence of his new musical identity. In 1893, Moravské listy merged with the Olomouc paper Pozor to form the daily Lidové noviny [The People‖s Newspaper]

(ibid. lviii). Its first issue printed Janáček‖s feuilleton “The Music of Truth” (Hudba pravdy, 16.12.1893), which can be listed among the first exemplifications of Janáček‖s growing realism. Lidové noviny was to bind Janáček to the daily and cultural life of Brno and its people, and became a lifelong stage for Janáček the “feuilletonist”, as will be discussed below.

II.4.4 Feuilletons

As a writer, Janáček has definitely become best known for his feuilletons,³²³ the small snapshot-like belletristique articles published in the Brno daily Lidové noviny. This progressive paper, revived again after the Czechoslovakian velvet revolution, was founded in 1893 as an organ of the Young Czech party Lidová strana. Thus, some of the leading figures of the Czech social and political movements, including the first President of the independent state of Czechoslovakia, Tomáš G. Masaryk, stood behind the founding of the paper. Janáček was assisting the new paper that favored culture and arts since its establishment in December 1893. (Helfert 1949: 20, 81; Racek & Firkušný 1938: 29.) Janáček also continued writing for other daily papers or periodicals, such as the Prague Dalibor and Hudební matice and the Brno Moravská Orlice and Hlídka.³²⁴ Although there were some breaks in his writing for Lidové noviny, Janáček continued contributing to the paper until the end of his life.³²⁵ The most notable pause occurred in the years 1895–1906, when Janáček was concentrating on his work as a folk music collector and as an organizer of folk music and culture exhibitions. These years include also the demanding process of composing Jenůfa and experimenting with the idea of the theory of speech melodies. The next longer break took place during the World War I, in the years 1913–17. At that time

member of the society from 1874). In 1877 Janáček served briefly as choirmaster for Vesna. It is also here that Janáček learned to know the acknowledged specialist in folk dances, Lucie Bakešová, who was teaching folk dances there and with whom he gave a lecture on folk dances in January 1891, the same month as Preissová.

(In the concerts organised on 7 and 11 of January, Janáček conducted four of his Lachian dances, which were accompanied by dances performed by Bakešová and X. Běhálková [Vysloužil 1955: 82].) Janáček‖s wife Zdenka and daughter Olga (from the year 1898) were active members of this society. (Vysloužil 1955: 49–52.) See more about Vesna and its history in Vlasta Fialová‖s article Brněnská Vesna a její význam v moravském národopisu, Časopis moravského musea v Brně, XXXV, 1950.

323 According to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, the definitions of “feuilleton” (with the etymology of the French feuillet/foillet) are, among others: 1. a part of a European newspaper or magazine devoted to material designed to entertain the general reader, and 2. a short literary composition often having a familiar tone and reminiscent content.

324 Translated as The Monitor in Steinmetz (1996: 2) and as Patrol in Beckerman (2003b: 226). Janáček had started to write for the Brno literary paper Hlídka in 1887, however his systematical contribution began in 1897 (Štědroň 1954a: 641).

325 As Racek & Firkušný (1938: 34) point out, Lidové noviny was important for Janáček as it was published in Brno, thereby struggling for its identity in Czech journalism in the similar way he was doing in the field of arts. Referring to the English environment, Margaret Tausky (1982: 25) compares this daily paper to the standing of the old Manchester Guardian.

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Janáček was busy with composing (e.g., the opera The Excursions of Mr Brouček, finished in 1917, the ballad The Fiddler‖s Child [Šumařovo dítě] for orchestra, 1913, and the cantata The Eternal Gospel [Věčné evangelium], 1914). Interestingly, Straková (2003: lxviii) proposes the assumption that Janáček might have been unwilling to publish during the war years: as a head of the Brno Russian Circle, he was followed by the Austrian police.³²⁶ Boosted by the succesful première of Jenůfa in Prague (1916), and refreshed by the liberating spirits of the founding of the independent Czechoslovakia (1918), Janáček started again to write actively for Lidové noviny in 1919.³²⁷ (Racek & Firkušný 1938: 31.)

John Tyrrell (1983: 33) felicitously describes Janáček‖s feuilletons: “The range of topics covered is refreshing. Some articles paint vivid scenes from childhood, cut through with reflections from old age, others are pictures of Janáček‖s environment, both town and country; and there are some amusing and wonderfully observed descriptions of animals.”

Janáček sometimes commented on his compositions in his feuilletons, as is the case in the feuilleton “My Lachia”, (Moje Lašsko, Lidové noviny 27.5.1928) that deals with the early Lachian Dances. Straková (2003: lxvi–lxvii) mentions the essay “What Came to Mind” (Jak napadly myšlenky; in Nový život) from 1896–97 as the oldest of these kinds of introspections, dealing with the cantata Amarus. One of the last writings belonging to this group is the reflection on the Glagolitic Mass (Glagolská mše, Lidové noviny 27.11.1927). As Margaret Tausky (1982: 26) concludes, there is often a common structure to many of the articles [feuilletons]: they begin with a description of the subject, and subsequently followed by Janáček‖s reflections and memories of it, often without regard to the time factor. In the middle of a thought or happening, Janáček remembers an occasion perhaps thirty or forty years prior, he comments and then returns, without explanation, to the original subject. The article often ends with some philosophizing or sometimes in a cheeky, humorous vein. (Ibid.)

As Tyrrell (1983: 33) points out, many feuilletons are springboards for Janáček‖s demonstrations of speech melodies, or poetical explanations of the relationship of natural and artistic creation. Indeed, the majority of Janáček‖s feuilletons are devoted to speech melodies in their widest meaning and to his so-called speech melody theory, even though often only in a fragmentary form. The note examples and notations of everyday life speech fragments put down by Janáček often had to be printed in a facsimile, due to the lack of a suitable technique. For a modern day reader, this is only a delightful document of Janáček‖s handwriting and style. In the collection of feuilletons edited by Racek and Firkušný (1938), many excerpts of Janáček‖s compositions have been left out and sometimes, for the sake of clarity, speech melodies have been printed in a standard format, as for example in the feuilleton “Spring” (Jaro). In conclusion to this brief chapter on such a large sector in Janáček‖s literary output, it was decided that this capricious and vibrant little piece of writing, published in Lidové noviny on 6 April 1912 would be translated. As always in translating with the support of a third language, some of the meanings and nuances certainly get missed or altered compared to the original. Despite this, an opportunity to glimpse at Janáček‖s rare language as it could sound in Finnish through an expert ear and

326 The Russian Circle was broken up on 27 Februrary 1915 as “highly dangerous to the state” (Straková 2003: lxviii). Cf. also Vrba 1960 and 1963.

327 These spirits are reflected in the feuilleton Moje město (“My Town”) in Lidové noviny 24.12.1927. (The feuilleton first came out in German as “Meine Stadt” in the Prager Presse 4.12.1927.)

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eye has been gained.³²⁸ It is hoped that an English-speaking reader can add in his or her mind to the English version some of the features of Janáček‖s literary style that were discussed earlier.³²⁹ In any case, Spring is a beautiful example of the way Janáček observes his surroundings by notating the sounds of nature. With the melodies and calls of a robin, a blackbird and a cuckoo it is a tonal document of the awakening of nature into the new blossoming season in Janáček‖s favourite park in Brno, Lužánky [italics from the original text]:

Spring

A little black eye peeks friendly, without fear; small head and back are dark blue, chest and belly brown. The little wings have black and white stripes. What bird might it be? Lužánky is full of its calling:

Again and then again! How its little throat is trembling! Now it flew aside, groaning:

Now it ventures beside me: it pecks at something on the ground, hops and pecks again:

As if it said: how hard!

Then an anxious and gloomy motif sounds somewhere from a tree and the small bird at my feet answers exactly the same way, kind of: don‖t be afraid, I‖m okay! Then a swarm of blue mischief-makers takes over the whole park.

As if the slope would like to get rolled up: I am looking for the blackbird that has filled it with its warbling. Like by calling it rises from somewhere to a robinia: it is black and unnoticeable, but its beak is gold. Now it glanced somewhere in the distance and I don‖t get my eyes of it.

Its first motif

328 I thank for the kind assistance of the awarded translator Eero Balk, who helped me to translate the text from Czech into Finnish in all its nuances and rhythmic finesses. The Finnish version (“Kevät”) has been published in the journal Bohemia 1/2006.

329 An English version of Spring is provided by Vilem and Margaret Tausky (1982: 77–80).

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gets a repeat somewhere far exactly alike. Now it knows for sure, whom it is singing to. It starts a new motif:

There is a little melancholy in it. Now it scratched with the little foot its chest and burst into a more decorative:

As if by exactly measured intervals it finishes its song:

The coda of the singing was hard. The singer squeaked sharply

as it always does when it‖s frightened, as every blackbird does and has done last year and other times.

It flew up and dropped down into bushes.

How many times the cuckoo calls

It didn‖t lower its voice a notch. On the contrary. The spouse calls in a same way and now, yearning for love they take turns, tuning their voices more and more insistently, always higher and higher. The last third of the tunes D and B flat fainted already away in a distant young spruce stand

What about a human being?

Spring floods have filled riverbanks with brushwood. Having come all the way from Hranice, a poor woman in a rolled up skirt is walking there along Bečva. With her eyes sunken in the dirty

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grass she merely casts a twinkle into the flickering ripples. Now she lifts up a branch, then a bare-washed root; her pack is already growing. She talks to herself, quietly but understandably:

[It keeps going before me, it keeps going before me.]

I think she is talking about a friendly fish.

The woman is walking there along the bank in extreme poverty, sunken in her thoughts as deep as possible when a person is talking to her lost self. In that stage of preoccupation, the string of the soul is so tightly stretched that one can make it sound from outside only by snapping it.

Not even that stage of sickly tension is needed to change the speech into a monotonous and stiffened expression. Painful longing, puzzling astonishment, a fear that sees danger everywhere, an infant‖s rosy happiness, cutting mockery and breathless rush that distorts speech into a stammer—all these tense moods seethe bubbling beside one another, playing with the same colors.

*

These tunes are so tenaciously attached to what prompted them, to what caused them, that when you lift the lid and uncover them, they quiver as in a draught with the same joy or with the same sorrow of your soul. They are a comprehensible password by which you can easily become the guest inside the soul of someone else.³³⁰ A bird to a bird‖s and a man to a man‖s: it‖s all the same. Fiercely they struggle to get together, yet they are the soul‖s cries! The spring has also its passwords: all are rejoicing: let‖s sprout and live!