Karel Vachek and Bedřich Smetana

Pavel Haas

Konvergence

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Czech Music is issued bimonthly by the Czech Music Information Centre with the support of the ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic, Bohuslav Martinů Foundation, Leoš JanáčekFoundation and the Czech Music Fund Editor: Matěj Kratochvíl, Translation: Anna Bryson Graphic design: Ditta Jiřičková, Photos: Jan Vávra (p. 11-12), Karel Šuster (p. 15) and archives DTP: HD EDIT, Print: TobolaISSN 1211-0264The subscription fee is 25 for Europe, $ 30 for overseas countries, or respective equivalents.

Bedřich Smetana is the Poet of the FutureAn interview with director Karel VachekLUKÁŠ J IŘ IČKA

Pavel Haas’s Music for the StageVOJEN DRLÍK

KonvergencePETR BAKLA

Krumlov Composition ClassesPETR BAKLA

Pavel Richter – Richtig musicPETR FERENC

CD Reviews

editorial

Sometimes it is not easy with greatnames of our history, not only in music.They seem untouchable and far awayfrom our time. It is good when someonetries to find a new point of view. Thiswas the case of director Karel Vachekand his documentary. It is sometimesvery useful to talk about music from theartist from different field. We can seethen, that Smetana and his music cantell us something new about our timeand maybe, as the title suggests, aboutfuture.Group of young performers andcomposers Konvergence does not haveSmetana’s works in their repertoire.They are oriented towardscontemporary music and gain goodreputation in this field. In our interviewwe try to find out, what we can expectfrom them in future.Interest in life and work of composerPavel Haas is maybe stronger abroadthan in Czech republic. Text of VojenDrlík brings interesting information onHaas’ works for stage.Couple of new CDs was releasedrecently, which, in our opinion, areworth recommending. There arearchival recordings of guitarist andcomposer Pavel Richter, new CD ofVlastislav Matoušek and new collectionof works from the group of youngfemale composers called Hudbaby. I wish you nice time and look forward tosee you with next issue of Czech Music

MATĚJ KRATOCHVÍL

EDITOR

Let’s start with the title of the film. Canyou explain it for us?Certain works of art are important for me,and because I want people to read them, Ilike to add them to the names of my films.This last film is called Who will Guard theGuards? Dalibor or the key to Uncle Tom’sCottage. Uncle Tom’s Cottage is an impor-tant book for the liberation of the blackinhabitants of America, and opened up thequestion of minorities for the whole world. Inthe same book there is also reference to theBible, also not a book to make light of, andthe passage that reads, “Who will guard theguards?” When someone guards us, heneeds to be guarded in his turn, and we arethe only ones who can guard him. This is animportant idea about government throughoutthe world: if we give someone power, wemust also keep an eye on him ourselves. InDalibor, Smetana allows one of the guards tobe deceived in order that the hero shouldregain his freedom… I also want people to

listen to Bedřich Smetana.The whole tetralogy, of which Dalibor is thefinal part, is called The Little Capitalist. Thetitle is a paraphrase of the novel The LittleLord, in which a grandson reforms his grand-father, an aristocrat who oppresses hisunderlings. In the other films I have also used musicalpassages from Smetana. In Nový Hyperion[The New Hyperion] I have used the Bran-denburgers in Bohemia, in the film Co dělat?[What is to be Done?] you hear the preludefrom the Devil’s Wall and in Bohemia Doctaparts of the Bartered Bride. The title What isto Be Done is taken from Chernyshevsky,Bohemia Docta from Bohuslav Balbín,Labyrint světa a lusthauz srdce [TheLabyrinth of the World and the Paradise ofthe Heart] is from Jan Amos Komenský andBožská komedie [The Divine Comedy] is thework of Dante. Hyperion comes fromFriedrich Hölderlin.

You use these works to explore thepresent. The fictional Hyperion alsohelps in the Greek fight for independ-ence from the Turks.Hyperion helps in the struggle for liberation,but he ruins something in his struggle, andso damages his relationship to his spirituallover Diotima, the equivalent of Dante’sBeatrice. If you rebel and fight, then you willmost probably be tainted precisely what youtrying to get rid of. How can Diotima loveHyperion if he is foolish? That is what myfilms are about: if we damage something, wemust remedy it ourselves. What brought you to Smetana’s musicand why is it his music that you use inyour films? When I was young I wasn’t at all interested inBedřich Smetana. I thought Dalibor was tire-some swash-buckling medieval stuff. I mainlylistened to Mozart and Bach, and Smetanawas on the periphery. But my wife forced meto find a way to him, and take him seriously.

bedřich smetana is the poet of the futurean interview with director karel vachek

LUKÁŠ JIŘIČKA

2 | interview | czech music 5 | 2003

Stones and trees, the opera Dalibor and politicians, doctors

and ecologists, poets and singers, a theatre director and

a documentary maker, the National Theatre and dialogues

about the present. All these elements come together the

concluding documentary film of the tetralogy Malý kapital-ista [The Little Capitalist] directed by Karel Vachek, and enti-

tled Kdo bude hlídat hlídače? Dalibor aneb klíč k chaloupcestrýčka Toma [Who Will Guard the Guards? Dalibor or the

key to Uncle Tom’s Cottage]. The documentary is unconven-

tional not only because it is almost four hours long, but

above all in the way it is structured, more like a novel or piece

of music than a traditional documentary. It consists mainly

of a film record of piano rehearsals of Smetana’s opera Dal-ibor at the National Theatre, directed by Jan Antonín Pitín-

ský, which is intercut with conversations on the themes of

the current cultural, political, medical and human situation

And so I opened up to Smetana.His music is devoid of ego, you know, and hehas the ability to see everything in the samelight. He doesn’t create passionate turning-point climaxes when someone is dying oravowing love or expressing joy; everything isnarrated with the same feeling, the only pos-sible feeling. This makes Smetana the poetof the future. It is an ability that LeošJanáček does not possess, nor even AntonínDvořák in most of his work. I may be makingthe point humorously, but I am convinced ofit from my own personal experience. In all the preceding parts of the Little Capi-talist tetralogy there are echoes of BedřichSmetana, one of the most profound musi-cians who ever lived. In my eyes he is a realmystic, because he teaches us somethingfundamental. Yet we read him as a Czechmusician, who just bases his music on Czechnational melodies. This is sheer stupidity, butit is a good thing that the image appeals topeople, and so at least Smetana gets to be

performed. He is a much deeper composerthan Richard Wagner and although he oftenuses Wagner’s composing techniques, it wasalways in full awareness that it was neces-sary to exploit some discoveries in a wisecause. How did the rehearsals of Dalibor getinto your film?Originally we went to the Dalibor rehearsalsat the National Theatre just with the aim ofgetting a few shots, and without any inklingthat we would shoot the whole way through.In the National Theatre we worked for amere five days at the piano rehearsals, onereason for the ease of proceedings beingthat the director Pitínský is a very nice per-son.In the film, what is happening is a kind ofdeconstruction of the opera, since there isno orchestra, conducting, or definitive per-formance of role. It is all only rehearsal,where you only have the basic rhythms anddistances between the notes, and so the

czech music 5 | 2003 | interview | 3

in the Czech Republic. All these themes are linked up and

woven around problems that are given concrete embodiment

in the opera Dalibor. And trees and stones are silent com-

panions to Smetana’s music, although they too certainly

have something to say. Almost four hours long, but above all

in the way it is structured, more like a novel or piece of music

than a traditional documentary. It consists mainly of a film

record of piano rehearsals of Smetana’s opera Dalibor at the

National Theatre, directed by Jan Antonín Pitínský, which is

intercut with conversations on the themes of the current cul-

tural, political, medical and human situation in the Czech

Republic. All these themes are linked up and woven around

problems that are given concrete embodiment in the opera

Dalibor. And trees and stones are silent companions to

Smetana’s music, although they too certainly have some-

thing to say.

4 | interview | czech music 5 | 2003

people involved can really get to grip with itwithout misleading outer layers of silt.

In my view music ought to expand out intothe world in a way that allows people to useit to correct specific ideas and realities ofeveryday life. That is why in the film I addedthe auditorium, where we interviewed variouspeople who would most probably be given nospace in another film or television pro-gramme. All the dialogues relate to the tragicideas to be found in Dalibor. You deconstruct scenes and individualpassages from the opera Dalibor. Theviewer would naturally expect, at leaston the basis of conventional film struc-tures, that at the end he would see thecomplete production of the opera,whether at the premiere or later. Butthis expectation isn’t one that you fulfil.I wouldn’t have wanted to shoot the pre-miere, or the scandals that blew up aroundPitínský’s particular interpretation of Dalibor.My work is different from that of J. A. Pitín-ský as director of the production, or Kulín-ský’s as music director, or the work of thesingers. Anway, for financial and technicalreasons it wouldn’t even have been possibleto film the premiere, and I was just gratefulto Pitínský for letting me film five days ofrehearsals. I didn’t set anything up or makethem stop at any point, and I don’t think I dis-turbed them at all. I was an observer whooccasionally stood in the light. The fact thatsome of the scenes in the film are in thewrong order was just because that was howthey were rehearsed, and some momentsrepeat in the film but just because they wererepeated at the rehearsals. To what extent does the film copy thestructure of the music itself? Was Dali-bor the basis for the composition ofyour film? To give you a prosaic answer – when thecameraman is walking about the stage witha camera that weighs twenty-five kilograms,and taking various turns and going betweenthe singers, then he’s behaving musically. I think my films are aggressive; they areoperations, and make surgical interventionsin the thinking of this society. These inter-ventions are drastic, but useful, and that is anattribute of Smetana’s music as well. All thedifferent phenomena have equal importance,and should be understood in terms of notionthat the human being having basically onlyone emotional response to everything. Andwe divide and classify this one emotion:there is no admiration for passion, a grain ofcoffee is as important as Dalibor and the airwe breathe. That too is the content ofSmetana’s music. Dalibor is distinctive for being perhaps themost important of Smetana’s works, whereZdeněk represents the philosopher whoteaches Dalibor his relationship to being.When Milada arrives and sees Dalibor, whomshe has up to then hated because he killedher brother, she realises that this is a man ofa different order, a spiritual order. And shestarts to love him and to learn from him to bea philosophical individual. And then there is

Jitka, the ward brought up by Dalibor, a pureyoung woman who helps Vítek. For me Dali-bor is a story about philosophers and notabout the homosexual relations that wereemphasised in this production. As a film-maker I have tried to be worthy ofSmetana. I hope the result is as silly as allSmetana’s operas. A philosopher must knowhow to be silly as well! But with their emphasis on continuitywithout gradation or refrains, yourfilms have more in common with themusic of the 1960s than with Smetana.You create chains of events rather thandrama. It is impossible not to be eclectic and so Isteal and find sources of inspiration, just likeCamil Saint-Saens who had the ability totune himself to any register. As far as com-parisons with the structure of the film areconcerned, I think of the German composerStockhausen, who affected me in the 1960s.And also structural pictures, and MikulášMedek who scratched through the layers ofpaint on the canvas with his fingers. I learnedfrom all this and discovered that everythingcan be incorporated into the composition ofa film, which can carry a great deal. Otherimportant figures for me have been the writ-ers John Dos Passos or Karl Kraus, who cre-ated structures that have been an inspirationto me. But the strongest influence on me hasstill been Smetana, and that is why I likeworking with his music in my films. And Ienjoy his Two Widows and other trifles morethan Jenůfa, which everyone so loves to behorrified by. And at the same time LeošJanáček was as it were closer to Stock-hausen, because no one else had such agenius for capturing the physical and psy-chological human feelings that have goneinto the language and from the languageinto music. But he didn’t allow his composi-tions any philosophical outcome, and sothere is no tranquillity in his music. I can’tstand such operas. How significantly did Dalibor deter-mine the themes that you talk aboutwith your guests in the film?Dalibor is a potent theme for the present. Hebehaved decently to the serfs who escapedto his estate although they belonged tosomeone else, and so it is into surprising thatthe nobility had him destroyed, given that hehad taken their property. Another is thetheme of change and revolution, stability andorder. A society unable to integrate the twotendencies will develop in the direction offascist dictatorship. Moreover a society thatgets rid of one of its selves – a part of itsidentity – immediately defines itself as thebest. It is essential not to allow a situation inwhich someone is marginalised anddestroyed immediately they protest. Dalibor is an opera concerned with the needfor an pen society, which is in motion andeveryone in it knows everything. We stillkeep allowing society to be governed bypeople who have the right to operate with adegree of secrecy, because they know andpossess power. And then we wonder at the

result. And for that reason it is important tofight for transparency in society, so that it isnot only the kind who has the right to judgethe situation in which society finds itself andto take steps to tackle it. I have deliberatelycalled my film, Who will guard the guardians?But in the film you also have interviews onthe theme of under-tying malignant tumours(an experimental form of cancer treatmentthat caused huge controversy in the CzechRepublic recently). What is the relationshipof this topic to Dalibor as an opera? At firstsight there doesn’t seem much of a connec-tion. In the passage on malignant tumours I usedthe passage in which Jitka sings: “… and letus go to his aid”. And she persuades thearmour-bearers who are friends of Vítek andthey actually go to his aid. She gives themthe courage not to be afraid of power. There was such a lot of unnecessary theatreand posturing round the issue of under-tyingtumours… If the medical institutions hadbehaved normally, it would have been possi-ble to deepen the research and use it. I knowthat in the film the subject gives the impres-sion of just being an item of contemporarynews, but I make contemporary films. Thework must react to contemporary phenome-na, it has to do something. The films made inthe Czech Republic for Bohemian Lion prizesare only up to date to the extent that theyneed to be as a means of entertainment, butI am up-to-date because I am not entertain-ing and I refuse to produce a false interpre-tation of the recent past. I don’t want tobelieve in disintegration and in the arrival ofthe last days of Rome. Perhaps I offer testi-mony to that in my films. Did your reading of Dalibor accord withthe director Pitínský’s reading?We didn’t actually take much notice of eachother, and the results of his rehearsalsweren’t important to me. We were eachdoing something else and had different aims.It was enough for me that Pitínský was agood man who let me shoot me film in theNational Theatre, for which I am very gratefulto him. What is important for me is Smetana.

Perception of the work of Pavel Haas is inmany respects similar to the kind of attentionenjoyed by his otherwise much more popularyounger brother, the actor Hugo Haas, wholives on in the consciousness of the Czechpublic simply as the hero of a number of pre-war films, while his much longer and moreprolific film career in America falls outsideour angle of vision. The music of Pavel Haasfigures more in music guides than in theminds of listeners, despite the fact that theoutput of the composer has found an enthu-siastic and devoted publicist in LubomírPeduzzi (Pavel Haas, Brno 1993).

Pavel Haas is known chiefly as a composerof songs, operas and orchestral music. As faras work not designed for concert perform-ance is concerned, there has been mostattention to his film music. Although the Bar-randov Studio gave the composer only threecommissions, all of them turned out to be forunusually successful film. Much of the creditfor the success must go to Hugo Haas, asthe actor in the lead roles but also as theperson who got his brother the work.

Haas’s film music was written in the Thirtiesand still lives on, in its way, in screenings ofold films. His music for the stage, however,with the exception of his opera The Charla-tan, was a child of the Twenties and hasbeen forgotten, some of it lost entirely. It wasclearly not regarded as an independent bodyof work and the composer paid no greatattention to its subsequent fate, especiallysince it was written without pretensions tolater representation as concert music. Nev-ertheless, we cannot write off Pavel Haas’swork for the stage as entirely marginal. Sur-viving materials (some of them newly discov-ered) testify to the immediate reactions ofthe composer to the stimuli of his time andare also evidence of his personal contacts.

Lubomír Peduzzi, Pavel Haas’s biographer,mentions seven works for the stage in his listof the composer’s output. Six were writtenfor the National Theatre in Brno, and one forthe Vinohrady Theatre in Prague shortly afterHugo Haas had been engaged there as anactor. Pavel Haas had the good fortune to beembark on stage work with a play that istoday still regarded as a modern classic. His

first project was to work with the BrnoNational Theatre on the production ofČapek’s play R. U. R., which had its Brno pre-miere on the 9th of April 1924 in the Nahradbách Theatre, directed by Bohumil Ste-jskal. The Brno company (still under therepertoire direction of Jiří Mahen), wastherefore only three months behind thePrague premiere of the play in the NationalTheatre (25th of January 1921). In the castlist, besides such leading company actors asKarel Urbánek (Domin), Ladislav Pech(Alquist) and Zdeňka Grafová (Helena), wealso find Hugo Haas as “Third Robot”. It wasHugo Haas’s first theatre season, the com-poser’s younger brother just starting on whatwas to be a dazzling career in Czech theatreand film. In Brno, Čapek’s drama was pre-sented with the secondary itle “A UtopianPlay” and the composer of the music wasconcealed under the pseudonym A. Pavlas.In fact, in the newly discovered score (L. Pe-duzzi believes it to be lost) the pseudonym isgiven as H. Pavlas, making the composer’sidentity even more obvious. The “A” probablycrept in by mistake and was then actuallyretained in the subsequent production (pre-miered on the 2nd of December 1927 at theNa hradbách Theatre), directed by VladimírŠimáček (conductor Kurt Glas), again withZdeňka Grafová, but with Ladislav Pešek asthe robot Primus (in 1922 this role had beentaken by the director B. Stejskal). Naturallywe do not find Hugo Haas in the latter pro-duction, since by this time he was alreadybecoming a star of the Prague theatrescene.

R. U. R. is in many ways a typical conversa-tion piece, and so offers relatively little spacefor music. The surviving score together withcomments in the original director’s recordshow that Haas’s role was quite limited, but

6 | history | czech music 5 | 2003

pavel haas’s music

Interest in the Brno composer Pavel Haas (1899–1944) is

scanty today, to say the least. Only very occasionally do his

works appear in concert programmes, and although his one

opera The Charlatan [Šarlatán] has been restaged by the State

Opera in Prague (1997), it has yet to be produced again in his

native Brno. Such interest as has been shown in the composer

has tended to stimulated from abroad, where he is known as

one of the “Terezín composers”.

czech music 4 | 2003 | history | 7

for the stage

surprisingly less limited in length than interms of dramatic use. The seven-memberorchestra, made up of flute, horn, 1st and2nd violin, cello, harp and harmonium-celes-ta, only “took the floor”, as it were in the lastact and always in the form of a melodrama.The title page of the score reads: MusicBackstage and 2 places in the 3rd Act, withthe 2 corrected to 3 in pencil. In fact Haaswrote two fully-fledged numbers – the firstfor the dialogue between Helena and Prius,and the second for the closing dialoguebetween Alquist and the robots who areturning into human beings. The added thirdpart survives only in the part for keyboardinstrument (played by B. Bakal), and it isquite likely that it was written just for thisinstrument and as an extra touch in responseto a specific staging need. Although occa-sional music was not at the time an automat-ic feature of the Brno company’s produc-tions, none of the reviews of its R. U. R,include any mention of Pavel Haas’s contri-bution. On the other hand, the very fact thata twenty-two year old composer, just startingout on his career, should get such a commis-sion is in itself telling. After all, we find noother composer involved with any otherstage production in the same Brno season(although we can assume that there wassome music in some form for the productionof Moliere’s Le Malade Imaginaire, since achoreographer is mentioned). It may be rashto speculate that Pavel’s younger brotherhelped him get the commission but it is cer-tainly possible, even though Hugo at the timewas very much a “greenhorn”.

The theory is strengthened by the fact thatPavel Haas obtained his next stage commis-sion in a another production where his broth-er was playing, this time in one of the centralroles. The production was itself rather prob-lematic. It had been written for a competitionorganised by the National Theatre co-opera-tive in Brno and was one of four plays rec-ommended for staging but not actuallyawarded a prize, since the jury did not consid-er any of them quite worth the award. Theaddition of music may well have been part ofan attempt to “improve” the play (the directoralso added a prologue with the same aim).Quido Marie Vyskočil’s romantic bandit

entertainment, Brigands from the BohemianForests or the End of the petrovští was a farless powerful piece than Čapek’s R. U. R.and certainly had no great pretensions. Theauthor was known as skilful and prolific, buthardly as intellectually profound or artisticallyrefined. The End of the petrovští is even lessthan an anecdote. The whole comedy is justa sequel to the punishment of the brigandsas described in a well-known Czech fairytale.After their humiliating defeat by animals,Vyskočil’s bandits. have lost their dignity andmake a living by small-scale thieving. In com-plete desperation they try to seize a farmmanaged by three energetic young women.The result is predictable – the women winand the brigands are forced to work for themon the farm. Tender feelings soon develop,and everyone ends in an embrace, with onlyone of the men going back into the forests,into the lap of nature…

This undemanding trifle, directed by RudolfWalter, had its premiere on the 31st of Ja-nuary 1923 in the na Veveří Theatre, andHugo Haas, as has been said, had a majorrole. The production text book (with the cen-sor’s stamp of permission) and Haas’s scorehave both been preserved in the archives ofthe National Theatre in Brno. The data in thetext book do not, however, entirely corre-spond to the form of the score. The bookrecords an introductory melodrama, then alittle song for the three sisters (Waltrová,Balounová, Urbánková), with the commentunaccompanied, as light as possible, thenbackstage music for the end of the 1st Act,Věra’s song in the 2nd Act, a song for thesisters and brigands (Horňák, Haas, Walter),likewise with the comment unaccompanied –short, and finally the closing melodrama turn-ing into a finale. The score, dated 25th ofJanuary 1923 is briefer and purely orches-tral, It contains an introduction, clearly usedin the form of a melodrama before the playactually commenced, then the melodramaMatůska, the close of the 1st Act and theclose of the 3rd Act. It is quite possible thatHaas did not include the simple ditties forthe actors in the score, although these musthave been parts of the stage music, sincethe length of their texts makes it impossibleto believe that they were recited or just

somehow improvised. In any case, commentsin the text testify to the need for musicaltreatment. The simple sung parts did notbecome part of the musical material (accord-ing to the comments the singing was acapella) and have obviously just disappearedfor good.

For his second venture in stage music Haasused the same instrumental line-up that hadproved its worth in R. U. R. The score for theEnd of the Petrovští is written for flute, horn,harp, 1st and 2nd violin, cello and harmoni-um. Stage music was once again an infre-quent feature of the rest of the company’sseason, a fact which highlights Haas’s posi-tion. Only in two other cases did directorsuse stage music: Suk’s music was alreadyvirtually obligatory for Tyl’s Strakonice Bag-pipe Player (music by Karel Kovařovic) andZeyer’s Radúz and Mahulena. Unfortunately,there was scarcely more response from thecritics than there had been over R. U. R. Onlya critic calling himself E. S. in the nationaldaily Lidové Noviny remarked at the end of acrushing review that “Mr. Pavel Haas com-posed music to create the mood behind thescenes…”

The situation proved to be the same shortlyafterwards, when Haas worked with the Lon-gen husband and wife team who from Febru-ary to June 1923 were guests at the BrnoReduta theatre and were trying to build ontheir repertoire from their period at the Revo-lutionary Stage in Prague. In Prague theirensemble had boasted a number of actorswith major reputations (Ferenc Futurista,Vlasta Burian, Eman Fiala, Karel Noll, SašaRašilov, Josef Rovenský. Xena Longenová),but in Brno the actors to hand were inexperi-enced. After the actors of the Brno NationalTheatre refused to work with them and thedirectors forbade members of the companyto do so, the Longens relied on the help ofamateurs until the police authorities prohibit-ed amateur involvement in professional per-formances. This complicated and still notentirely illuminated chapter in Brno theatrehistory was certainly one of the first signs ofstriving for another Brno theatre companyand venue independent of the conservativelyminded National Theatre. A group of young

VOJEN DRLÍK

8 | history | czech music 5 | 2003

Brno artists (including Křapa and Chalupa)formed around the Longens. We cannot saywith any certainty whether Pavel Haas wasone of them, but his contribution to the pro-duction of Woyzeck is certainly evidence ofcontact. The intermediary may well have beenthe playright and later repertory director ofthe Brno Theatre Lev Blatný, whose playKokoko-dák had been presented by theRevolutionary Stage in 1922.

Following his production of Tonka Šibenicewith Xena Longenová in the leading role, asuccess with audiences, on the 5th of March1923 Longen presented Georg Buchner’sWoyzek. Since its modern premiere in Viennain 1914 in Vienna, Woyzeck had attracted theattention of all avantgarde artists. The qualityof the Prague production at the RevolutionaryStage in 1920 was said to have been betterin quality than the version at the Prague Ger-man Theatre. In Brno the production was giv-en stage music by Pavel Haas. The survivingmusical material shows that the composerhad been offered a relatively major opportu-nity both in terms of the size of the orchestraand the number of musical pieces (numbers).

and bind the whole thing together.” J. B.Svrček nonetheless favoured the composerof the music with a specific mention “…thecomposer Mr. Pavel Haas wrote stage musicfor the play in the spirit of simple folk music,and it went well with the mood of theaction…” At this point nobody could haveguessed that soon the same drama in thetreatment of Alban Berg would be provokinga storm of outrage from part of the public.

In September 1922 Jiří Mahen resigned hispost as repertory director. Pavel Haas left foran engagement in Ostrava for the 1923/24season. Under the repertory directorship ofVilém Skoch he was to get no chance of astage music commission, and in fact there isno mention of any composer of stage musicfor the 1923/24 season at all, while for the1924/25 season there is evidence only forminimal dance accompaniment to thedances in Sache Guitry’s play The Illusionist.It was only when Lev Blatný took control ofrepertory (from the 1925/26 season), thatstage music returned to the scene in greatermeasure. Various young composers took ahand, Osvald Chlubna, J. Kubina, Karel Hil-sza, and once again Pavel Haas.

The Russian dramatist Nicolai Yevreyin’sbrief one-act play Merry Death, quite oftenperformed at the period, was subtitled a Har-lequinade and deliberately based on ele-ments of the commedia dell arte. The surviv-ing score shows that Haas made full use ofthe opportunity, composing a total of sevenmusical numbers for a one-acter (Prelude,Harlequin begins to play, Doctor’s song,Columbine’s song, Dance of love, Harlequin’ssong, Death dances – ballet). Merry Deathhad its premiere on the 6th of November1925 in a double-bill with Achard’s play DoYou Want to Play with Me?. Once again thedirector was Rudolf Waltr, who also playedthe role of Harlequin, with Zdeňka Grafováas Coumbine, Antonín Turek as Pierot, OttoČermák as the Doctor and Marie Walrová asDeath. As so often before, there was noword of reaction to the musical element fromthe critics.

Pulcinello’s Victory, by a member of the Brnoopera company Bedřich Zavadil, was similarin inspiration. Zavadil had come to Brno in1906 and remained faithful to the Brno the-atre with a few short interruptions up to hisdeath in 1942. In the opera he was usuallycast in buffo-roles, and later he directed aswell. He translated a series of opera andoperetta librettos, and Pulcinello’s Victorywas the first and last stage play of his thatthe Brno theatre presented. Although a com-edy in verse, and definitely influenced bypoeticism, it gave the composer surprisinglylittle scope, since to judge by the text bookonly one song of Harlequin was designed formusical arrangement. The musical materialhas so far proved impossible to track down,and so we have the least information aboutthis particular piece of Haas’s work for

For the production in the Reduta, Haas usedan orchestra consisting of flute, oboe, clar-inet, two trumpets, trombone and percussion(triangle, piati, tambourine and large drum).He thus entirely excluded strings and key-board instruments. The score contains sixparts (March, Polka, Lively, Adagio, Freely,Pain-Murder – Adagio), and the survivingmaterial also includes a sketch of the polkafor piano. Artistically important though theywere, the guest appearances of the avant-garde ensemble found almost no responsein the Brno public, but the press concededthe seriousness and sincerity of Longen’sproduction. Criticism was directed at faults instage design, to some extent at Longen’sperformance and above all at technicalshortcomings of the staging. Here theLidové Noviny critic “it would not have disap-pointed … if the stage machinery had notbeen so excessively visible, with only themusic employed to cover it…” agreed with J.B. Svrček from Rovnost “…but the primitivecharacter of the stage structure this timebroke up the unity of the flow of action andthe stage music, although very appropriate,did not have the power to over-arch the gaps

Title of Haas’ Black Troubadour

czech music 5 | 2003 | history | 9

stage. It was premiered on the 21st of Jan-uary 1926, directed by Ladislav Pech in theVeveří Theatre, and provoked mixed reviews.The Lidové noviny critic was generallyfavourable about the play and the produc-tion. J. B. Svrček in Rovnost wrote that“…Pulcinello’s Victory only got to be stagedbecause Mr Zavadil is a theatre inspector…”But he didn’t forget the composer “…Thestage music, sweet and nostalgic, was com-posed for the play by Pavel Haas.”

We are in a similar situation with music for aplay that had its premiere shortly before, butat the Vinohrady Theatre, on the 25th ofNovember 1925. It is no surprise to find thatHugo Haas was acting in the play, Primus,the first drama from already well-knownwriter Zdeněk Němeček. Fraternal help isalmost certain to have been behind the elderHaas’s commission in this case, but we can-not judge the nature of the musical contribu-tion to this comedy set in the world of diplo-macy because the musical material has com-pletely disappeared. On the other hand, thefact that Pavel Haas did not work with theVinohrady Theatre in subsequent years sug-gests that this time his music was too “avant-garde” and complicated for the specificneeds of the production.

Haas’ final venture in stage music was thenow newly discovered stage score for a playthat was a response (if a superficialresponse) to the rise of new musical move-ments and American culture in general.Raphael Samuelson’s The Black Troubadouruses the setting of music-hall and jazz, buthis theme is basically the classic clashbetween two generations, a father and son,and the power of family tradition. The specif-ic conflict is built on the contrast of differentmusical and social traditions. On the onehand there is orthodox Jewish culture with tsdistinctive musical idiom, whose bearer is thesynagogue cantor, and on the other there isthe religiously neutral liberal society with themodern musical idiom of jazz. This was atheme for which Pavel Haas may have felt aclose personal affinity, since he himselfcame from a family that kept up the Jewishtradition, while he was also a composer striv-ing for a contemporary musical idiom. Direct-ed by Vladimír Šimáček, The Black Trouba-dour had its premiere on the 18th of August1928 with Ladislav Pešek in the leading role.The small orchestra consisting of saxophone,trumpet, violin, harmonium and piano wasconducted by František Lukas. The survivingscore for the stage music contains Jack’ssong about Mother in the Distance, shortrevue music and an offstage foxtrot. In thematerial there is also a voice part for theJewish song Kol nidre. Comments in thedirector’s book show that there were actuallymore musical numbers. In the introductionthere was supposed to be an old Jewishsong, then Jack’s song, Funny Mummy, vari-ations on the Jewish song Eju kelohenuNothing in the World Puts Me Out, then the

song Friends, Friends it Was a Hard Day, thefinale to the 2nd Act with foxtrot melody off-stage, then the song Mother in the Distance,and the finale to the 3rd Act Kol Nidre. Theplay itself did get beyond the conventional,even though it was put in modern garb andverbally it brought audiences he most recentmusical fashion, American jazz. Haas’s musicactually had nothing in common with it, andput the emphasis on the opposite pole asso-ciated with traditional Jewish ritual music.The radical J. B. Svrček was unsparing…“The religious songs were unending and youfelt you were in a synagogue rather than atheatre.” Further evidence that the musicalelement was richer than would be suggestedjust by the surviving material is provided bythe more diplomatically worded reactions ofthe Lidové noviny critic, who commentedthat… “The musical inserts by Pavel Haas,which could only be judged by a musician asfar as their internal content is concerned,were a little long in an action-packed play.”

This quote incidentally explains why we oftenhear so little about stage music in reviews.Critics specialising in spoken drama did notfeel competent enough to judge what wereanyway quite rare pieces of stage musicwhile music critics did not usually concernthemselves with plays. This practice gradual-ly changed as music became a more fre-quent part of stage productions. Indeed, theBrno theatre itself was now beginning tomake more use of its own, domestic forcesfor the purpose, for example in the 1926/27season there were musical contributionsfrom Antonín Kincl, Ota Zítek and VilibaldRubínek, in the 1927/28 season from Ota

Zítek and Vilibald Rubínek and in the1928/29 season Ota Zítek and Pavel Haas.But the latter was also the season whenHaas’s work with the Brno theatre ended.The appointment of Jindřich Honzl as Brnorepertory director meant a shift of focus, butthe theme of America and jazz lived on in theBrno theatre, as shown by productions likeBroadway (1928), Jazz (1929) and ultimate-ly even the Beggar’s Opera (1930), Bar Chic(1930) and the Jazz Five (1931). As hasbeen said, the composer himself – onceagain with the help of his younger brother –obtained three commissions for film music(Život je pes [Life is a Dog], Mazlíček [ThePet] and Kvočna [The Hen]), and he returnedto the stage only once, as an opera compos-er (The Charlatan, premiered on the 2nd ofApril 1938 in the Na hradbách Theatre).

Petr Haas’s did not write a great deal ofstage music, and in many ways this part ofhis output was occasional in character. Nev-ertheless, it had a certain importance for thecomposer’s understanding of the principlesand mechanisms of drama and to this day itis redolent of the unique atmosphere of thenineteen-twenties.

The author is the repertory director of theNational Theatre in Brno. He is also a jour-nalist and translator.

From Black Troubadour

10 | interview | czech music 5 | 2003

konvergence

PETR BAKLA

The composers’ association KONVERGENCE is one of a number of groups of young musicians ori-

entated to contemporary music that are particularly appealing because they give concerts that

strike a balance between music written by their members and music by other “outside” composers.

All these groups have been creating platforms that are relatively independent of official and estab-

lished structures. The effect has undoubtedly been to enrich the music scene with performance of

works by relative unknowns at the beginning of their careers, and also by famous names whose

music has for one reason or another almost never been played here.

Konvergence was founded in the spring of 2002 by students at HAMU (The Music Faculty of the

Academy of Performing Arts in Prague): Roman Pallas, Tomáš Pálka, Jan Rybář and Ondřej Štochl.

Since their first concerts at the Forfest in Kroměříž they have achieved a great deal, and they still

seem to be forging ahead.

On the one hand you play pieces bymembers of the association, and onthe other pieces by other composers?Which other composers?OŠ: For our concert programmes we draw onthree sources. First our own pieces, and thenmusic by interesting young composers whoare completely unknown to us personally, butwhom we know of from composing courses,for example, and whose work appeals to us.The third source is music by well-knowncomposers rarely performed in this country.For example, our concerts have includedmusic by L. Berio, P. Boulez, G. Crumb, M.Feldman, G. Ligeti, some of the pieces per-formed for the first time in this country. Forinstance we were the first Czech group toplay Feldman’s Piano and String Quartet andCrumb’s Black Angels.

What is the connecting link betweenyou as composers? Would it be mean-ingful to think of you as having somekind of common programme or direc-tion?TP: The interface is simply in our joint con-cert activities. Otherwise we each haverather different musical interests, but thathas a positive effect in the sense that theindividual concerts don’t follow the same sty-listic line all the time. We try to make surethat every concert has a slightly differentfocus within the framework of what we allagree on. OŠ: There are points of contact between any

two of us. You definitely couldn’t say thatthere was any one of us who nothing in com-mon with any of the others. But on the otherhand we certainy don’t have some commoncompositional programme we would all putour names to and commit ourselves to forfuture years. For example, for me and forTomáš Pálka, Morton Feldman has been astrong influence: we’ve played him and weshall certainly go on playing him, and most ofhis pieces have never yet been performedhere. Me and Jan, on the other hand, share afondness for Holan. JR: I like Xenakis, for example, and so I’vepersuaded the group to rehearse a piece ofhis for this year’s season. Another composerwho is important to me is Ligeti, and we’veplayed him at our concerts as well. RomanPallas likes G. Crumb, for instance, and sowe’ve also played some of his music. So yousee each of us has his preferences, and onthe basis of these we try to put togetherconcerts that work (the different piecesmustn’t be at odds with each other) but arealso diverse and don’t consist of pieces thatare all from one school of composition, whichwould be a mistake.

Do you see gaps in the work of otherCzech contemporary music ensemblesthat you would like to fill? OŠ: The gap we see is precisely in the wayconcerts are put together. We try to ensurethat concerts are compact and coherent andhave a certain line of development, that the

pieces played at a concert should have oneor more common denominators, in subject,stylistic affinity and so on. We want our con-certs to give the impression of a naturalwhole with a comprehensible dynamic struc-ture, and not just a random display in whichthe pieces get in each other’s way and ulti-mately none of them sound the way theydeserve to sound.

Do you really believe that the structureof concerts, as you describe it, is quiteso important? Is it really necessarythat the pieces should somehow followon from one another and make up awhole? Doesn’t that approach involvea certain lack of respect for the individ-ual pieces, and undermine their inde-pendence and right to be heard ontheir own terms?OŠ: I think that’s the whole point. Music ofthis kind is something that audiences oftenfind remote, and if the listener is to have thechance to penetrate a little way further intoits work and enjoy it properly, it is absolutelyessential that we should keep on marinadinghim in a single substance for a reasonablelength of time. Ultimately, pieces are alwaysplaced in some order or other at concertsand there is no reason not to try and turn thefact to advantage.

When you have these kinds of educa-tional and even missionary tendencies,do you try in any way to project them

czech music 5 | 2003 | interview | 11

for example into your programmematerials, perhaps in the form of adeeper and more informed commen-tary than is usual?OŠ: We do try. When we played the Pianoand String Quartet, the programme con-tained about a page of material not just onwhen and how the piece was written, butalso with comments on what the listenershould and should not expect from themusic. This is music that expresses a state,and not a process, and the listener shouldknow that and not keep waiting for somemajor change, for example. For Black AngelsProf. Václav Kučera has written us an out-standing commentary – information on thebackground of the piece, what it was react-ing to, quotations, what it contains and so on.I think listeners will appreciate it.

Let us stay with your activities to date.I seem to remember that apart fromnormal concerts you have worked withCzech Radio.TP: That was a concert broadcast live onStudio 1, in April, with the programme madeup of our pieces and Feldman’s I Met Heineon the Rue Fürstenberg. It was actually akind of presentation of Konvergence to awider audience, and included an interview on“who we are and what we want”. OŠ: Apart from that we have done four pro-grammes with Wanda Dobrovská, where weplayed recordings of our pieces and talkedabout them. It’s probably only a matter of

time before we do more radio work. Theproblem is that there are only two pro-grammes that we could appear on (Studio 1and Musica moderna), and of course we’renot the only people who are interested in thechance.

What are you planning this year?OŠ: We are concentrating mainly on ourconcert series in Prague. We’re rehearsingfor a total of four concerts, and one willpresent a spatial composition by membersof the association and Gerald Resch, arecent graduate of the Vienna Academywho works somewhere betweenstructuralism and spectral music. As far asmore famous names are concerned, as wehave said already we are rehearsingsomething by Xenakis, Roman has pluckedup courage and is planning to rehearseCrumb’s Makrokosmos II, and DavidKalhous will be playing at least the firstbook of Ligeti’s Etudes. We shall also beplaying Feldman’s Viola in my Life at the“spatial” concert I mentioned, Lutoslawski’sGrave, Kopelent’s 5th String Quartet andP. Manoury’s Trio. TP: Otherwise, we shall be appearing inBratislava, for example at the Melos-Étosfestival orgainised by the students of compo-sition there (apart from a piece by Jan Rybářwe shall be playing string quartets byV. Janárčeková and M. Kopelent) and weshall also be playing in Brno at the Exposi-tion of New Music, where we shall probably

be repeating Black Angels, among otherthings.

Are there any young composers whosemusic you like to play but who are out-side the association?OŠ: We have played a quartet by JanaKmiťová, a piece by Marián Lejava, and aninteresting composition by Katarína Rosen-berger. The Pole Michal Pawelek is also veryinteresting, and now seems to be beginningto make a name for himself outside his owncountry. We shall definitely be returning tothese names in the future and we arealready preparing something along thoselines for the coming season. We are alsoplanning to work with the Austrian associa-tion Gegenklang, which was founded by thesame G. Resch we mentioned before. TP: We are also including music by theyoung composers that we meet on coursesin Český Krumlov. This is an importantsource of contacts.

You are all able instrumentalists, butyou still often need other performers.Are you trying to create a kind of circleof people who work with you on a clos-er basis?OŠ: Without a doubt. For this year we havealready formed an ensemble that will appearunder the name Corona and consists of flute,clarinet, string quartet, percussion and piano.If we need other instruments we have a cir-cle of friends who are willing to co-operate,

12 | interview | czech music 4 | 2003

and we are also prepared to exploit therepertoire of friendly soloists, for example inlast year’s season the clarinettist KarelDohnal appeared at one of our concerts andplayed Berio’s Sequenza IX.

Finally, I’ll try and provoke you a little.I don’t seem to meet many students ofcomposition at concerts of contempo-rary music (not even to speak of othermusic students). You might naivelythink that almost everyone would go tonearly everything… So who exactly issupposed to go to the concerts, whenthey don’t even interest the proces-sionals?JR: Anybody at all, and especially peopleoutside the field.OŠ: It naturally depends a great deal onresources for publicity – we more or lesscope as far as the concerts are concernedwith foundation money, but there isn’tenough for any really large scale promotion.In any case, although we want to make themusic we play accessible to the ordinary lis-tener, there are limits. We would certainlynever do any sort of variety show withdancers, floodlights and so on. In otherwords, we’re not prepared to lure audienceswith something that is actually irrelevant tothe music.

(Note: R. Pallas was also present at theinterview and generally murmured agree-ment with his colleagues)

Roman Pallas (1978)Studied piano and composition at the con-servatory in Teplice, and since 1999 hasstudied composition at HAMU (Music Facul-ty of the Academy of Performing Arts) in theclass of I. Loudová. He also works as thechoirmaster of the Litoměřice girls’ choirPuellae cantantes. His sources of inspirationinclude the minimalists, G. Crumb and F. Zappa.

Tomáš Pálka (1978)After secondary school he studied composi-tion at the Brno Conservatory underP. Novák, and he is currently studying atHAMU under M. Kopelent. He performs asa pianist in the orchestra of the NationalTheatre in Brno, and as violinist with theMusica Figuralis orchestra, and is also activein the Prague Philharmonic choir. He inclinesto a static flow of musical events at lowerdynamic levels.

Jan Rybář (1981)He studied piano and composition (Vl. Tichý)at the Jan Neruda High School in Prague,and is now a master’s student at HAMU inM. Slavický’s composition class. He is inter-ested in the different types of modal tech-nique and in putting them together with sonicqualities, and pays particular attention tocomposition for voice.

Ondřej Štochl (1975)Studied viola at the Prague Cconservatory,where he also started to study composition.In 2003 he graduated in composition atHAMU as a pupil of M. Kopelent. He nowworks as a teacher at a Basic Arts School inHostivar and at the conservatory in Teplice.His musical idiom rests on an atonal verticaland emphasis on timbre, and his aim is theexpression of a state through music – theillusion of musical timelessness.

czech music 5 | 2003 | event | 13

krumlov composition classesPETR BAKLA

In 1996 Marek Kopelent started the Interna-tional Composition Classes at ČeskýKrumlov, to remedy the fact that unlike allthe neighbouring states the Czech Republicstill had no courses of the kind. Since thenthe classes in Český Krumlov have beenheld every year with great interest from stu-dents at home and abroad. Students frommore than twenty countries all over the worldhave now used the chance to meet col-leagues and important figures of contempo-rary music, and to present and get reactionsto their pieces outside the limit circle of theirschools.The classes last a week, with two foreignlecturers being invited each year and M.Kopelent being the permanent fixture. Overthe eight years those taking part haveincluded famous composers (I mention atrandom S. Gubajdulina, V. Globokar, P.Manoury, and M. Smolka) and performers,since for the first five years the classesincluded seminars for performers focused oncontemporary music and accompanied byconcerts (but then the money ran out…).This has meant appearances in Krumlov byK. Zlatníková (dulcimer), K. Doležal (clarinet),T. Ondříček (multipercussion), V. Globokar(bassoon) and the singer Sigune von Osten.What is more, each year one Czech compos-er of the middle generation comes to lectureon his or her work (most recently itwas M. Marek).This year the classes were attended by 13students (6 from abroad). L. Thoresen and

H. Oehring were the visiting lecturers.The Norwegian composer Lasse Thoresen(*1949) is highly versatile. His music hasbeen successively characterised by Neo-Romanticism, micro-intervals and spectralapproaches, and inspiration from NorthEuropean folk music. His current work isa synthesis of all these elements (but alsooften uses a synthesiser). Out of the piecesby Thoresen that I had the chance to hear inKrumlov, I was particularly interested byThus, composed specially for the New Band,which is an ensemble that keeps up thelegacy of Harry Partch – its range of instru-ments makes it possible to hold a real micro-interval orgy. By the way, fans of aliquot reg-isters will be intrigued to hear that one ofThoreson’s basic folklore inspirations isa kind of equivalent to our Czech “halekání”(a form of yodelling), where the phrasing isformed by a twelfth interval raised by per-haps a quarter tone. As well as being a com-poser with a rich and varied output, Thoresenis also a teacher and theoretician who hascreated and elaborated a theory of the typol-ogy of musical objects and analytical meth-ods based purely on the sound perception. “Composing doesn’t interest me so much.My music is blood, tears, violence, hatred,death, love. But what does my music soundlike? It is dark, morbid, operatic, dramatic,hard, schizophrenic, sick, androgynnous, fullof longing, realistic as a nightmare.” No idyllor salon fiddling, then. Although provokingterror is one of the hardest effects to

14 | event | czech music 5 | 2003

Lasse Thoresen

achieve in music, the work of HelmutOehring (*1961) is genuinely remarkable,just like his life story. He was born to deafand dumb parents and says that until hewas twenty he was almost unaware of theexistence of music. Then he encounteredthe New Music and set out on the path ofthe composer. The most striking elementof his output is his use of the voices of thedeaf and dumb, and he has even writtenseveral operas for deaf and dumb singers.Oehring’s music does not pretend to beanything but German – it is as if it contin-ues the tradition of extreme expressionism,but using quite different techniques. It isalso interesting that in its atmosphere hismusic of the eighties is akin to the workof M. Chadima (you have rightly guessedthat Oehring is from the former GDR). The profile of the students was verydiverse. By some happy accident of fateeach was orientated to a different style offashion and both more progressive andmore traditional movements were repre-sented. This stylistic variety was veryrefreshing. (And another pleasant discov-ery was that students who want to join theclasses need not present official proof ofstudying composition). It was, however,

a slight pity that this favourable constellationwas not used, for example, as a basis for dis-cussion of the problems of inclination toa certain style, dependence on particularmodels and the need (?!) to find new paths.Let me make myself clear: I don’t consider itto be a problem when one person’s pieceresembles another one or has borroweda phrase from somewhere else. The problemis that nobody talks about it. It is as if thiswere not longer a valid theme, or an actuallyimmoral theme. Of course, this is not a lacu-na exclusive to the Krumlov courses, and thequestion of originality strikes me as beingsomething of a taboo everywhere. WhatI don’t know, however, is whether this is justa matter of laxity or whether it is the begin-ning of the end of modernity. Most appear-ances and discussions were, moreover,marked by a certain lack of interest in“kitchen” matters such as what a piece ismade from and why, and “which composition-al problem the composer has addressed”.Perhaps it’s no longer interesting, but whatelse can be sensibly talked about? Everyone would like to live in ČeskéBudějovice, but it’s really pleasant in ČeskýKrumlov. Especially this way at the end of thesummer…

krumlov composition classes

Helmuth Oehring

With this double album of previously unreleasedPavel Richter home recordings, Indies is payingone of many publishing debts. After the break-upof the legendary band Švehlík in 1983, Richter(who is above all a guitarist and composer, but alsoplays keyboards, clarinet and electronic instru-ments and has an interesting singing voice),together with his fellow traveller Luboš Fidler andthe folk-orientated musician Oldřich Janota,formed a group called High Fidelity (or Džafiri),combining folk with minimalist sound experiments,put in a brief appearance on the first Dunaj album(Iva Bittová and Dunaj, Panton 1988) and finallyformed his own Richter Band. The total number ofgroups in which he has played and still plays is,however, much greater. The booklet of the presentcollections lists them in alphabetical order: Amal-gam, Dunaj, Elektrobus, Guru Band, Janota-Fidler-Richter, Richter Band, Sanctus Musicus, Švehlík,and Wooden Toys. For completeness we mighthere add groups not represented on the doublealbum, i.e. Stehlík, F. O. K., Chadima’s groupFimfárum or the Forgotten Orchestra of the Landof Dreamers. And the title of the collection? It isalso the name of Richer’s private publishing com-pany.

Since the double album is a selection, the follow-

ing text will be more an enumeration than a review.

One reservation I have is that four of the twenty-

three tracks have already been released and so

take up space that could have been given to previ-

ously unheard music, especially when Richter’s

”non-public” output (recently he has given only

sporadic concerts and devoted most of his time to

recording) is quite substantial. Specifically, my

complaint relates to the inclusion of Elektrobus

(Black Point 2001), Švehlík from the early Eighties

(Black Point 2002) and its reincarnation from the

middle of the last decade (Rachot / Béhémot

1995) and Dunaje. The recording of Janota’s song

Pleteš [You are Knitting] has also already come out

in a different version (Indies 2001), but the piece

Všechno se dá [Everything is Possible] is a valu-

able document of the unfinished recording of the

“posthumous” High Fidelity album in 1995.

The first CD of the double album ranges over the

period from 1976 and 1995. Among the previously

unpublished pieces on the CD we find two Švehlík

songs to which time has not been kind, but the gui-

tar solo from the Marek’s Amalgam concert (19th

May 1978 on the sixth of the Prague Jazz Days in

the Lucerna) has stood the test of the years. The

real surprise comes with the two recordings made

using tape recorders and gramophones in the

improvised conditions of a home studio. Pro tebe,

má lásko [For you, my love] interestingly exploits

the possibilities of changing the speed of an LP of

the eponymous poem by Prévert against the back-

ground of stage music for a Kolotoč theatre pro-

duction (one of the members of the Prague Five)

played backwards. Do práce! [To Work!] is a collage

of tape recordings of various exhortations, which

reacts with icy sarcasm to the socialist „cult of the

worker”, offering looped slogans like “Sweat out

the ideas”. The first line-up of the Richter Band

(Richter, Antonín Hlávka, Štěpán Pečírka) uses

undertones of world music and the interesting

sound of what is known as a fidlerophone, sets of

jars struck with plastic strainers.

The second CD opens with the improvisation

group Sanctus Musicus offering a reminder of its

short life. Here Richter complements the “dreamer”

Jaroslav Kořán (percussion), the wind and key-

boards player Bharata Rajnošek and the bass gui-

tarist Petr Knotek. The recording from the Delta

club was made in 1996 and is essentially tradition-

al rock improvisation with overtones of jazz. The

czech music 5 | 2003 | review | 15

pavel richter_____richtig music

second version of the Richter Band (Richter,

Rajnošek, Michal Kořán – sampler), which gave

concerts only sporadically, is recalled with the

already released track Slow Train Coming but

since this comes from an album that was kept rela-

tively dark …to, co lidi sytí… […that which satiates

people…] (Richtig Music 1998), it is exempted

from the complaint that it takes up space unneces-

sarily. The Guru Band (Richter, Hlávka, Rajnošek,

Jana Koubková) offers two improvised pieces on

the borders of ethno, alternative and rock, and the

Wooden Toys cut (already minus the founder Ian

Wood) is dominated by didjeridoo. But the high

points are once again the “home” recordings. The

tender songs for a theatre production based on

motifs from Tolkien’s Hobbit are a bewitching sur-

prise. The almost folk Hola, hola! captivates us by

the arrangement of several layers of vocals and

the sound of the harpsichord (Rajnošek), while

Pavouci [Spiders] is more eerie and provides a bril-

liant demonstration of Richter’s potential as a

singer. The sixteen-minute Better Times is a darkly

ambient piece with slowed automatic percussion,

while the concluding Ra-ta-ta with guest Anna

Homler (who is said to have slept through most of

the recording) is a joyful reminder of Richter’s rock

times with Rajnošek giving an appropriate period

performance on saxophone.

One of the many excellent features of the hand-

somely presented double album is an interview

conducted with the editor Jaroslav Riedel. If I am

not mistaken, this is the first interview offering a

retrospective overview of Richter’s musical career.

What about releasing some Richtig Music 2 in the

same style?

PETR FERENC

Indies records

16 | review | czech music 5 | 2003

controlled emotion. Outwardly a tranquilmeditation inspired by Foltýnová’s strongattachment to Turkey, it evokes Near Easternvocal melodics with its quarter tones, longphrases and scales, but this is definitely nota question of mere superficial imitation –more an intensively lived influence. The compositions by Barbara Škrlová andMarkéta Dvořáková impressed me muchless. Škrlová’s Let mouchy [Flight of the Fly]for cello and piano was too rhapsodic for mytaste and structurally unbalanced, whileDvořáková’s Nezelený muž [Ungreen Man]for tenor and piano on a text by Hans Arphas a heavy-handed feel, despite the com-poser’s declared efforts to play with it “in thespirit of a Dadaist vision”. Even so, the CDcan be regarded as a success. It presentsthe Hudbabas as comprehensively as possi-ble, its internal arrangement of the piecesworks well and the photographs of the Hud-babas from the atelier of Vasil Stanek as wellas whole design of the booklet enhances theoverall professional and representativeimpression made by album. In our environ-ment this is no mean achievement.

TEREZA HAVELKOVÁ

taki ochi

The composer and ethnomusicologistVlastislav Matoušek is one of those enter-prising spirits who explores non-Europeanmusic not just from the outside, but above allfrom the inside. He not only knows how towrite about it with insight and erudition; heknows how to play it as well. Furthermore, itwould be an error to think that this playing isjust a matter of gaining technical under-standing by mastering one instrument, espe-cially when Matoušek’s main non-European

hudbaby:hudbaby[Musicrones]

The Hudbaby [Musicrones] group of youngfemale composers, formed six years ago atthe JAMU [Janáček Academy of PerformingArts) in Brno, has published its fi9rst album.It contains pieces by four out of the fivemembers of the group, two each from Kateři-na Růžičková and Lenka Foltýnová, and oneeach from Barbara Škrlová and MarkétaDvořáková. The distribution of forces turnsout to have been a good move. The composi-tions by Kateřina Růžičková and LenkaFoltýnová are among definitely the stronger. The most rewarding from the listener’s per-spective are probably the two pieces for per-cussion, all the more so because they areperformed by the brilliant JAMU PercussionEnsemble. Vedlejší příznaky [Side Effects] byLenka Foltýnová are charming and wittyminiatures inspired by the short stories ofWoody Allen, Kolem nuly [Around Zero] byKateřina Růžičková is a more intellectual andworked through piece, but no less effective. The second Růžičková piece, Romance prokřídlo [Romance for a Wing], alternates calmand dreamy passages with the fast androbust. The tranquil introduction sounds likea dulcimer, an effect that can be partly attrib-uted to a piano that was slightly “battered”and out of tune. But what sounds like a veryeffective accidental spell here can only dis-turb in the faster passages. As performed byAlice Rajnohová, the fast motoric passagesare charged with energy, and what I foundespecially effective was the moment when aquasi-ragtime figure emerges from themotoric current and for a while we find our-selves on the borders of jazz. In Jiří Bárta’s interpretation, the concludingSafranbolu by Lenka Foltýnová is a study of

instrument is the Japanese shakuhachi flute.As Matoušek himself writes in the booklet,until the mid-19th century the shakuhachiwas not so much a musical instrument as areligious aid used by zen buddhist monks,who did not think of themselves as musi-cians. “The activity that might seen to theuninitiated like playing on the flute was infact just another form of zen – meditationconducted by means of playing esotericallyhanded down special pieces, actually breath-ing and concentration exercises transformedinto “music”.” Matoušek’s own play on theshakuhachi cannot be divorced from thisspiritual dimension. Taki ochi – Waterfall, oneof the old basic pieces for shakuhachi, andsuccessively presented in three different ver-sions, cannot be listened to “with your headin your hands”, like Beethoven. It is more aquestion of “with your head in the clouds”.The long drawn out phrases played with asingle breath, the subtlety of intonation andsound colour, and the omnipresent impres-sion of airiness and floating… all encouragea kind of perception closer to intuition thanto reason, and nearer to open acceptancethan to rational control. It is therefore notsurprising that the album also contains arecording from the place where Taki ochiwas originally born, the Asahidaki Waterfall.The recording came our of a spontaneousidea, the distant tones of Matoušek’sshakuhachi mingle with the sound of waterand birdsong, above all depicts the experi-ence of a moment. Its value is symbolic, andnot musical in the European sense of theword. The last piece on the CD, Matoušek’sV kruhu [In a Circle’, brings togetherMatoušek the composer and Matoušek theshakuhachi player. At this point it becomesclear that Matoušek’s view of the world oftraditional Japanese shakuhachi is the viewof European, despite all “authenticity”. Itcould not be otherwise.

TEREZA HAVELKOVÁ

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