1987,wingfield - janaček's 'lost' ks

Janaček's 'Lost' Kreutzer SonataAuthor(s): Paul WingfieldSource: Journal of the Royal Musical Association, Vol. 112, No. 2 (1986 - 1987), pp. 229-256Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Musical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/797940Accessed: 29/01/2009 11:06

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Janacek's 'Lost' Kreutzer Sonata Janacek's 'Lost' Kreutzer Sonata Janacek's 'Lost' Kreutzer Sonata Janacek's 'Lost' Kreutzer Sonata Janacek's 'Lost' Kreutzer Sonata

PAUL WINGFIELD

INTRODUCTION

ON 18 July 1896 the 41-year-old Leos Janacek left his native village of Hukvaldy in north-eastern Moravia to visit Russia. At the end of the first day of travelling he noted in his copy of Frantisek Vymazal's Rusky v deviti ulohdch (Russian in Nine Lessons; TelE, 1896):1

12. hod. v noci Granica. Konecne citim stat slovansky! ... Jaci sohaji, cisti, uihledni, usluzni, zpufsobni pri draze. S uzkosti jel jsem Halici. A ted' mi tak veselo: probuzeni, vykriseni! Otroctvi setrasam. Vyjizdime - Rusko!

(12 o'clock at night Granitsa. At last I can sense what it feels like to be in a Slav state! ... These railwaymen are such fine lads: clean, tidy, obliging, polite. As I travelled across Galicia I was full of anxiety. Now I am light-hearted: awakening, resurrection! I shake off slavery. Off we go - Russia!)

Janacek's obvious excitement here at the prospect of arriving in Russia evidences his espousal of pan-Slavic ideals in the years preceding the First World War. The pan-Slavic movement had grown up in Czechoslovakia as a reaction against three centuries of Austrian

oppression, and it had propagated the concept of a union of all the Slav peoples under the benevolent guidance of Mother Russia to such an extent that this idea had suffused the national consciousness by the end of the nineteenth century. It is thus hardly surprising that a person as patriotic as Janacek seems to have viewed his first journey to Russia as a pilgrimage to the spiritual centre of the Slavic world to which he belonged.2 In fact, the composer's fascination with Russia can be traced back as far as his twentieth year, when he bought his first Russian grammar book and embarked on a study of the Russian language that was to occupy him for the remainder of his life.3

The concrete results ofJanacek's pan-Slavic sympathies can be seen in his promotion of Russian culture in Brno, the south-Moravian town

' Janacek's copy of this book is now kept in the Janiaek Archive (hereafter the JA), which is

housed in the Music History Division of the Moravian Museum in Brno. It has the classmark III - 55. The English translation of its title and all subsequent English translations of Czech in this article are my own.

2 A detailed account of Janiaek's initial visit to Russia can be found in Piemysl Vrba, 'Janackova prvni cesta do Ruska roku 1896' ('Janacek's First Journey to Russia in the Year 1896'), Slezsky sbornik, 57 (1959), 464-72 (p. 494).

3 This book was Josef Kolir's Mluvnice ruskiho jazyka v prikladech a rozmluvdch (A Practical and Conversational Grammar of the Russian Language; Prague, 1873). Janacek's copy is in the JA under the classmark 111-53.

PAUL WINGFIELD

INTRODUCTION











PAUL WINGFIELD

INTRODUCTION











PAUL WINGFIELD

INTRODUCTION











PAUL WINGFIELD

INTRODUCTION











where he lived and worked for most of his career, and in his use of Russian texts and subject matter as the basis for vocal and programmatic instrumental works. In the year following his first Russian visit he co-founded in Brno a 'Rusky krouzek' ('Russian Circle'), of which he was the president from 1909 until 1915 (when it was forced to disband by the Austrian administration) and again after the First World War from 1919 until 1921.4 This club held regular meetings, and it owned a collection of books in Russian which could be borrowed by members. Janacek made full use of the borrowing facility and over the years he also built up a substantial Russian library of his own. A large part of his personal collection is extant and is now kept in the JA. It consists of five Russian grammar books, a Russian dictionary and a varied selection of nineteenth-century Russian literary works in their original language and/or in translation.5 The best-represented Russian author in Janacek's personal library is Tolstoy. In fact, one of the composer's earliest purchases seems to have been the 1900 St Petersburg edition of Tolstoy's short novel The Kreutzer Sonata, a work which had sent shock waves through the upper echelons of Russian society when it first appeared in 1890, on account of its strong condemnation of the institution of marriage. This novel was not, however, the first by Tolstoy that Janacek was to make use of musically. In 1907 he wrote a few pages of sketches for an opera based on Anna Karenina but, like a number of other operatic projects begun in that year, this was quickly abandoned.6

In 1908 Tolstoy reached his eightieth birthday and Janacek was commissioned to write a piece for a concert to be held in honour of the author by the Russian Circle in conjunction with the 'Klub pratel umeni' ('Friends of Art Club'), another Brno society with which the composer was closely associated.7 He responded to this request by using Tolstoy's The Kreutzer Sonata as the programmatic basis for a Piano Trio, which was completed in the autumn of 1908. The work was then revised before its premiere, which was given at the Brno Organ School on 2 April 1909 by Pavel Dedecek (violin), Ruzena Fialova (piano) and Rudolf Pavlata (violoncello).8 As was common at

4 The composer's connections with the Brno 'Russian Circle' are considered in Premysl Vrba, 'Rusky krouzek v Brne a Leos Janacek' ('The Russian Circle in Brno and Leos Janacek'), Slezsky sbornik, 58 (1960), 71-85 (p. 71). Additional information can be found in Bohumir gtcdroii, 'Leos Janacek a Rusky krouzek v Brne' ('Leos Janacek and the Russian Circle in Brno'), Program [Stdtniho divadla v Brn], 44 (1972-3) and 45 (1973-4).

5 For a useful, but by no means complete or wholly accurate inventory of Janacek's Russian library see Piemysl Vrba, 'Janackova ruska knihovna' ('Janacek's Russian Library'), Slezsky sbornik, 58 (1960), 242-9 (p. 242).

6 Janacek's uncompleted operatic projects are listed and described in Theodora Strakova,

'Janackovy operni namety a torsa' ('Janacek's Operatic Projects and Fragments'), Musikologie, 3 (1955), 417-49 (p. 417).

7 For a detailed account of Janacek's connections with this club see Ludvik Kundera, Janacek a klub pratel umini (Jand&ek and the Friends of Art Club; Olomouc, 1948).

8 The genesis of the Piano Trio and the circumstances of its premiere are described briefly in Korespondence Leoie Janacka s Artusem Rektorysem (Leos Jandaek's Correspondence with Artus Rektorys; Prague, 1934, enlarged 2nd edn 1949), ed. Jan Racek, 116. Racek's information is taken from an

































230 230 230 230 230 PAUL WINGFIELD PAUL WINGFIELD PAUL WINGFIELD PAUL WINGFIELD PAUL WINGFIELD

JANACEK'S 'LOST' KREUTZER SONATA JANACEK'S 'LOST' KREUTZER SONATA JANACEK'S 'LOST' KREUTZER SONATA JANACEK'S 'LOST' KREUTZER SONATA JANACEK'S 'LOST' KREUTZER SONATA

this relatively early stage of Janacek's career, the first performance of the Trio was given from manuscript parts. More surprising, however, is the fact that the piece was never published. Moreover, the autograph material for it has since vanished and the strenuous efforts of several musicologists (including myself) to locate it have proved fruitless.

More than 14 years after the premiere of the Trio Janacek received a request from the Bohemian Quartet for a new work.9 On 13 October 1923 he remarked in a letter to his wife:'l

Ceske kvarteto mne pozadalo, abych pro ne neco slozil.

(The Bohemian Quartet have asked me to compose something for them.)

His execution of this commission appears to have been swift. As soon as 7 November he had dated his final autograph of the new piece, which is now known as his First String Quartet." The Quartet, like the Trio, is based on Tolstoy's The Kreutzer Sonata and it also has the name of Tolstoy's book as its subtitle. This work was first performed by the Bohemian Quartet in Prague on 17 October 1924 and, unlike the Trio, it was actually published (on 22 April 1925).12

Earlier commentators on Janacek's First Quartet have considered in detail only the relationship between Janacek's music and Tolstoy's novel.'3 Virtually nothing has been written about possible connections between the Quartet and the Trio, even though these two compositions derived from a single programmatic source. The disap- pearance of the autograph material for the Trio seems to have discouraged previous musicologists from examining this issue: they have been content simply to quote the composer's own recorded remarks on the subject.

Nevertheless, there exist several further sources of evidence about the relationship between the Trio and the Quartet. This evidence can be divided into three main categories: eye-witness accounts; Janacek's

advertisement for the premiere printed the day before the concert took place in the Brno daily newspaper Lidovi noviny (1 April 1909) and from the entries about the Piano Trio in the records of the music section of the Friends of Art Club, which were written by one of the members, Zdenka Illnerova. Janacek's connections with the Brno Organ School are described in detail in Ludvik Kundera, Jandckova varhanickd skola (Jandcek's Organ School; Olomouc, 1948).

9 The Czech composer Josef Suk (1874-1935) was the Quartet's second violinist at the time. 10 This letter, which is in the JA under the classmark A 3837, is also quoted on p. v of Milan

Skampa's 1975 'Critical Edition' of Jan6aek's First String Quartet (Supraphon, H 5591). l The autograph of this Quartet is in the JA and has the classmark A.7443. The First Quartet

was actually the second that Janacek wrote, but the earlier piece, composed in 1880, has been lost.

12 The date of publication given here for the Quartet is based on evidence to be found in a letter from the printing firm Hudebni matice to Jan6aek, which was posted on 20 April 1925 JA D 198). In it, the firm informs Janicek that the full score of the Quartet will be printed by the following Wednesday (22 April) and that the parts will be available by the end of the month.

13 Perhaps the most useful introduction to the work can be found in Jaroslav Vogel, Leos Jandiek: Leben und Werk (Prague, 1958; English translation, 1962, rev. 2nd edn 1981; Czech original, 1963), 291-4. (All of the references to Vogel's book in this article give page numbers from the revised English translation.)





















































231 231 231 231 231

correspondence about the Trio; and the musical material for both works. The first category comprises a review of the concert in which the Trio was premiered and a description of that piece's content written by the violinist in the first performance. The second category is made up of 20 letters to and from Janacek written in the period 1909-22. And the third category includes no less than five different sources of evidence: the sole surviving page of musical material from the Trio; the extant page of sketches for the Quartet; several early drafts of the Quartet; the autograph score of that work; and certain stylistic and formal aspects of the published version of the same piece. The aim of this article will be to examine both Janacek's remarks and all the other evidence, and to show that we can ascertain much more than is generally assumed about the content of the 'lost' Trio and the extent to which that work served as a model for the Quartet. In fact, as I shall demonstrate, two movements of the first version of the Quartet seem to have been transcribed directly from the Trio.

JANACEK'S OWN COMMENTS

Janacek's remarks about the connections between the Trio and the Quartet are recorded in Max Brod's biography of the composer, which was written in 1923 and early 1924 to commemorate Janacek's seventieth birthday (on 3 July 1924).14 During 1923 Brod asked the composer several times to supply him with the information for a complete list of works, but Janacek (who was preoccupied with creative matters) grudgingly gave him only a few essential details.'5 Consequently, Brod's list of works is not particularly informative. The entry about the Piano Trio reads as follows:16

KLAVfRNI TRIO. - Komp. 1908. - Prov. v hud. odboru Klubu pratel umeni 1909. - Rukopis. - Janacek: 'Z nekolika myslenek odtud povstalo kvarteto.'

(PIANO TRIO. - Composed 1908. - Performed in the music section of the Friends of Art Club 1909. - Manuscript. - Janacek: 'The Quartet was based on a few ideas from this.')

Janacek's statement here that he used only 'a few ideas' from the Trio in the Quartet has been accepted by all subsequent biographers and musicologists.17 However, the composer's remarks about the influ- ences on and the genesis of his music were often either contradictory or inaccurate.18 As a result, we are justified in examining the remaining evidence to see if it corroborates Janacek's statement.

14 Max Brod, Leos Janicek: zivot a dilo (Leos Janacek: Life and Works; Prague, 1924; German original, 1925, rev. 2nd edn 1956). 15 A fuller account of the problems that Brod encountered when writing his biography is given in Charles Susskind, Jandcek and Brod (New Haven, 1985), 78-9.

16 The list is on pp. 73-6 of Brod's biography. The entry about the Trio can be found on p. 75. 17 See, for example, Vogel, Leo Jandcek, 292. 18 An extreme example of Janacek's inconsistency in this respect is pointed out in Vogel, Leos

Jandcek, 351.









Jandcek, 351.









Jandcek, 351.









Jandcek, 351.









Jandcek, 351.


JANAtEK'S 'LOST' KREUTZER SONATA JANAtEK'S 'LOST' KREUTZER SONATA JANAtEK'S 'LOST' KREUTZER SONATA JANAtEK'S 'LOST' KREUTZER SONATA JANAtEK'S 'LOST' KREUTZER SONATA

THE LIDOVt NOVINY REVIEW AND PAVEL DtDECEK'S TESTIMONY

The earliest account of the Trio is a review of its premiere which appeared in the Brno daily Lidove noviny on 8 April 1909.19 According to this, the Trio had three movements, and the third of these was the most popular with the audience. We can thus assume that at least one of the First String Quartet's four movements was newly composed in 1923, irrespective of whether Janacek based the other three on material from the Trio or not. Unfortunately, however, the review does not contain any detailed description of the actual music in any of the Trio's three movements, and so we cannot draw any further conclusions from it about the relationship between that work and the First String Quartet.

The other description of the Trio's content, written by the violinist in the first performance, is a little more detailed. In 1947, nearly 40 years after the Trio's first performance, the Czech musicologist Jan Racek attempted to discover what had become of it. In the course of his research he wrote to Pavel Dedecek, who was then 62 years old. Dedecek's reply to Racek's letter is dated 26 December 1947 and is now in the JA.20 In his letter, Dedecek apologizes for the fact that he can barely remember the piece, which is because he played so many works in Brno around 1909. He then offers the following description of the Trio:

Pamatuji se dobre na pocatek prvni vety se sextolami v prvnich houslich i violoncellu a pokud mam jest! v pameti, byl psan v taktu 2/1 (dvoucelovem). Tazali jsme se tehdy s Pavlatou Janacka na to, co timto pocatecnim rytmem lici a rekl nam, ze je to duneni vlaku v pohybu ... Zacatek skladby odpovidal liceni Tolsteho. Jinak bylo v prvni vete, pokud se matne pamatuji, dosti tematicke uisecnosti. Druha veta v as moll byla zpevna a zda se mne, ze v lichem taktovem rozdeleni. Byla ta veta velmi krasna, zpevna a pamatuji se, ze od prvniho taktu housloveho partu v prvni poloze sul G, vyrustala melodie az k vysokym poloham struny E.... Pokud jde o zaver tria, tu mne jiz pamel selhava a na finalni takty se jiz nepamatuji.

(I remember well the beginning of the first movement with sextuplets in the first violin [sic] and violoncello and as far as I can still recall, it was written in 2/1 time (two semibreves per bar). Pavlata and I asked Janacek at that time what the opening depicted and he told us that it was the rumbling of a train in motion.... The start of the work corresponded to Tolstoy's description [the novel begins in a railway carriage]. Otherwise, there was in the first movement, as far as I dimly remember, a fair amount of thematic brevity. The second movement, in Ab minor, was melodious and it appears to me that it was in triple time. The movement was very beautiful and melodious and I remember that from the first bar of the violin part the melody, which started on the G string, climbed gradually up





















19 This review is also described briefly in Racek, Korespondence, 116. 20 Dedecek's letter has the classmark B 1715.





233 233 233 233 233

to the E string.... As far as the end of the Trio is concerned, my memory already fails me and I can no longer remember the closing bars.)

It appears at first sight that Dedecek's remarks about the first two movements of the Trio support Janacek's claim that only 'a few ideas' from it were used in the Quartet. Certainly, neither the first nor any other movement of the Quartet is in 2/1 time and none starts with a sextuplet figure. Moreover, no movement in the Quartet answers Dedecek's description of the second of the Trio. But if the violinist's letter is analysed closely, it does seem to contain at least a few hints that the relationship between the first movement of the Trio and the first of the Quartet might be more complex. For instance, even though the first movement of the Quartet is not in 2/1 time, it is still in duple time (2/4), and Janacek might therefore have adapted the first movement of the Trio for quartet in 1923 simply by changing the instrumentation and by reducing the note values. This theory is made more plausible by the fact that a substantial number of the composer's other pieces had their note values halved or quartered during their geneses (song X of the song cycle The Diary of One Who Disappeared (1917-21), for example). As far as the first movement of the Quartet is concerned, this may indeed have had its note values reduced by a factor of four. But the first movement of the Trio might have had only half as many barlines as the first of the Quartet and, despite its 2/1 time signature, its main unit of pulse may have been a minim, not a semibreve.21 Consequently, the note values might have been only halved in the Quartet.

A second important clue in Dedecek's letter is the fact that he describes in detail only the opening of the first movement of the Trio, as this of course means that the remainder of that movement may have been related to the first of the Quartet. The latter certainly does contain 'a fair amount of thematic brevity'. It is even possible that in 1923 Janacek merely removed an initial introduction to the first movement of the Trio which contained sextuplet figuration and used the rest of that movement in the Quartet, without making any alterations other than those required by the change of forces. This hypothesis seems all the more likely, because the original version of the first movement of the Violin Sonata had an 18-bar introduction, which was discarded and replaced by one of only three bars before the piece was published in 1922.22 Furthermore, the first movement of the Quartet does contain two passages with sextuplet semiquavers: bars 57-70 and 149-61. These passages - with their continuous sextuplet movement (shared by the two violins at first and later by the second violin and viola) and their use of a repeated one-bar melodic figure (in

21 Even in the final versions of several of Janacek's pieces the time signatures and the principal units of pulse conflict.

22 Janacek's original version of the whole of the Violin Sonata is in the JA under the classmark A.33.743.






















235 235 235 235 235 JANACEK'S 'LOST' KREUTZER SONATA

Example 1

JANACEK'S 'LOST' KREUTZER SONATA

Example 1


Example 1


Example 1


Example 1

Violin I

Violin II

Viola

Cello

Violin I

Violin II

Viola

Cello

Violin I

Violin II

Viola

Cello

Violin I

Violin II

Viola

Cello

Violin I

Violin II

Viola

Cello

A 11 m2-' A 11 m2-' A 11 m2-' A 11 m2-' A 11 m2-'

Vivo

(4(") S 1 ! I ! 2

./ - _ '-o** ^ A

) J_ J _J // / K2Z~~~~~E i9!

Vivo

(4(") S 1 ! I ! 2

./ - _ '-o** ^ A

) J_ J _J // / K2Z~~~~~E i9!

Vivo

(4(") S 1 ! I ! 2

./ - _ '-o** ^ A

) J_ J _J // / K2Z~~~~~E i9!

Vivo

(4(") S 1 ! I ! 2

./ - _ '-o** ^ A

) J_ J _J // / K2Z~~~~~E i9!

Vivo

(4(") S 1 ! I ! 2

./ - _ '-o** ^ A

) J_ J _J // / K2Z~~~~~E i9!

f .0 f h

n ; I

J-

! .i'J^, _ ...tl . A

~~?r?~

f .0 f h

n ; I

J-

! .i'J^, _ ...tl . A

~~?r?~

f .0 f h

n ; I

J-

! .i'J^, _ ...tl . A

~~?r?~

f .0 f h

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J-

! .i'J^, _ ...tl . A

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f .0 f h

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J-

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etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.

' ' ' ' '

the viola initially and afterwards in the violoncello) - look and sound as though they could have been intended to represent 'a train in motion'. (Bars 57-61 are reproduced in Example 1.) It is conceivable that these sections are largely identical with the passage described by Dedecek and that either Dedecek made a mistake about the position of the sextuplet passage within the first movement of the Trio, or Janacek changed the order of his themes when he transcribed the movement for quartet. (Such alterations were common during the genesis of the composer's music.) Thus, we should reserve judgment about the significance of Dedecek's remarks on the content of Janacek's Piano Trio until the other surviving evidence has been examined.

If Dedecek's letter tells us little about the actual music in the Trio, it tells us even less about what became of the manuscript material after the premiere. All that Dedecek has to say on that subject is:

Noty z pultu odnasel, jak se mne zda, tehdejsi skolnik pan Simandl. Nevim ovsem co se s triem dale delo.

(It appears to me that the then caretaker Mr Simandl took the music off the stands. I do not know, of course, what was done with the Trio after that.)

















if of i IF-JIT1 F if of i IF-JIT1 F if of i IF-JIT1 F if of i IF-JIT1 F if of i IF-JIT1 F - - - - -

On the basis of these comments one can conclude only that the caretaker gave the score and parts straight back to Janaek after the concert. In order to discover how much material for the Trio was in existence in 1909 and to find out what happened to it subsequently, we need to consult the remaining letters about the work, all but one of which are also in the JA.

JANACEK'S 1909-22 CORRESPONDENCE

The earliest surviving correspondence about the Trio (from January and February of 1909) is concerned with the problem of finding a

pianist to play in the premiere. Jan Herman, Ludmila Propokova and Emanuel Polak all declined invitations to play before Fialova accepted.)23 The first letter that refers to the actual manuscript material is dated 6 March 1909 and was sent by Janacek to his friend Artus Rektorys, the Prague critic:24

Mily priteli! Nema se to hrat!

Snad je to jen nacrtek, snad, az to za nejakou dobu znovu prehlednu, vzrostou myslenky jinak.

Tedy nikomu to nedavejte. Az piijedu do Prahy tak si to odnesu.

(Dear friend, It [the Trio] is not to be played!

Perhaps it is only a sketch; perhaps, when I take a look at it again after some time, the ideas will develop differently.

Therefore, do not give it to anybody. When I come to Prague I will take it away.)

This letter is quoted here almost in full. It is significant, because it not only indicates that Janacek decided to revise the Trio as late as March 1909 (less than a month before the premiere), but also demonstrates that on 6 March of that year a score of the original version of the piece was still in Rektorys's possession. (The composer seems to have sent this to Rektorys in late 1908 so that it would be available for inspection by any Prague pianist whom Rektorys invited to play in the

premiere.) Despite the composer's declared intention to retrieve the score of the Trio from Rektorys, however, he does not appear to have been in any hurry to go and collect it. On 17 March Janacek wrote to Rektorys to inform him that he had postponed a planned visit to

23 There are seven letters in all on this subject: Janiaek to Jan Branberger (6 January 1909), Branberger to Janacek (10 January), Janacek to Artus Rektorys (between 10 and 21 January), Rektorys to Janacek (21 January), Janacek to Rektorys (22 January and 1 February) and Rektorys to Janacek (5 February). The first of these letters is in the JA (B 1437) and has not been published; the second is in a private collection and is not available in print; and the remaining five are all also in the JA and have been published in Racek, Korespondence, 103-7.

24 See Racek, Korespondence, 109.



























































Prague.25 Moreover, Janacek continued to put off this trip, and as late as 8 April he wrote to Rektorys:26

Mily priteli! Trio, jehoz nacrtek vlastni mate snad u sebe jeste, jsem dopracoval a vycistil.

Davano bylo 3. dubna a zanechalo hluboky dojem. Do Prahy prijedu asi od soboty za tyden. Tesim se jiz na to.

(Dear friend! I have reworked and cleaned up the Trio, my sketch of which you possibly still have at your place.

It was performed on 3 April and left a deep impression. I will probably come to Prague a week on Saturday. I am already looking

forward to that.)

The composer did finally go to Prague on the day specified in his letter of 8 April and perhaps he did collect his score then. Nevertheless, this letter clearly indicates that he revised the Trio without using the score that he had sent to Rektorys, because the score was obviously in Rektorys's hands until just over two weeks after the premiere at the very least. Janacek must, therefore, have had his first version copied before it was posted. It is not clear from his letters whether he sent his own autograph score or the copy to Rektorys. But one of those was certainly used as the basis for the March 1909 revision, and a copyist's score and parts for the second version must have been made in the second half of March 1909. We can thus determine from the surviving correspondence that there existed at the time of the Trio's premiere an autograph score, two copies and one set of copyist's parts for the work. Furthermore, either the autograph or the earliest copy must have had two layers: the first containing the original version and the second containing the revised version in the composer's own hand.

The remaining letters about the Trio show that the later copyist's score and the parts were extant for another 13 years, as these appear to have been borrowed for concerts in Boskovice (14 August 1910), Prague (March 1911), Kromeriz (June 1912), Pribram (August? 1914), Prague (December 1917?) and Prague again (8 April 1922).27 Of course, Janacek might have destroyed all of the manuscript material

25 Ibid., 113. 26 This letter (JA B 1496) has been published in Racek, Korespondence, 115-16. Janacek dated it

9 April and Racek reproduces that date in his book. However, the envelope is clearly postmarked 8 April and it thus seems obvious that the composer made a mistake. Janacek's date for the first performance of the Trio (3 April) is also wrong (the concert took place on 2 April).

27 There are ten extant letters about these performances in the JA: five from Antonin Vfana to Janacek (A 3428, A 3430, A 3431, A 420 and A 3810; dated 28 July 1910, 16 August 1910, 13 November 1910, 21 May 1914 and 2 July 1914 respectively), three from Jaroslav Elgart to Janiaek (B 339, B 342 and A 4536; the first two dated 19 March 1912 and 22 March 1912 respectively and the third undated), one from the secretary of the 'Osvetovy svaz' ('Cultural Union') in Prague to Janacek (A 682; dated 4 December 1917) and one from Bohuslav Sich to Janaek (B 448; dated 3 March 1922). Vogel also records on p. 224 of his biography that a further performance of the Trio was planned to take place in Prague in 1916. This concert was eventually cancelled.






forward to that.)











forward to that.)











forward to that.)











forward to that.)






237 237 237 237 237

in 1922, but this is unlikely for two reasons. First, pieces that the composer was thoroughly dissatisfied with were destroyed close to their dates of composition or were not performed more than once. If he considered a work to be worth keeping in manuscript for several years, he would invariably revise it and eventually have it published. The first version of the Violin Sonata, for example, was completed in 1914, but the piece was not published until 1922. Second, the surviving correspondence suggests that the Trio was a success wherever it was performed: Janacek's letter to Rektorys of 8 April 1909 testifies that the premiere was greeted favourably by the public, and the organizer of the concert in Boskovice wrote to Janacek that the work had had 'bourlivy uspech' ('thundering success') there.28 Why would the composer have destroyed a piece that had achieved such public acclaim? In fact, concrete evidence that some manuscript material still existed in 1923 can be found in Brod's 1924 biography (see above, p. 232).

THE TRIO MANUSCRIPTS AFTER 1922

Brod's entry about the Trio in his list of works (see above, p. 232) contains the word 'rukopis' ('manuscript'). Wherever else this word appears on its own in the list of works it indicates that the piece in question was in manuscript in 1923, and each of these compositions was indeed published at a later date. If a work had been destroyed by the time Brod made his catalogue, this fact is stated explicitly. There thus appears to be little doubt that in late 1923 at least some of the material for Janacek's Piano Trio was still in existence. Indeed, given that the composer tended to hoard manuscripts, all of it was probably extant at that time. There is no evidence, however, that the material survived beyond 1923. Consequently, even though Janacek stated that only 'a few ideas' from the Trio were used in the Quartet, the documentary evidence would seem to indicate a very different scenario.

The Piano Trio was performed, as were many works written before the composer's final decade, from manuscript parts for 13 years. The material then probably remained in Janacek's possession until he received a commission for a new piece from the Bohemian Quartet in October 1923. Perhaps as a result of having recently revised and had printed the Violin Sonata and several other long unpublished works, the composer turned his attention once again to the Trio and transcribed all, or a substantial part of it, for string quartet. He then probably revised the Quartet and disposed of the manuscript material for the Trio shortly after this revision had been completed (apparently on 7 November 1923). Such a course of events would explain the lack of recorded references to the Trio after 1923 and would also account

















28 JA A 3430 (from Antonin Vinia to Janiaek). 28 JA A 3430 (from Antonin Vinia to Janiaek). 28 JA A 3430 (from Antonin Vinia to Janiaek). 28 JA A 3430 (from Antonin Vinia to Janiaek). 28 JA A 3430 (from Antonin Vinia to Janiaek).



for the fact that the piece appears not to have survived. IfJanacek had used much more music from the Trio in the Quartet than he was subsequently prepared to admit, he would no longer have needed the autographs, copies and parts for the earlier work once the autograph of the later one was finished. The composer did not acknowledge the extent to which the Quartet was based on an earlier piece probably because he wanted the members of the Bohemian Quartet to think that it had been written specially for them. Of course, more precise information about the actual content of the Trio is required if this hypothesis is to become more than an interesting speculation. This evidence can be discovered in the extant material for both the Trio and the Quartet.

THE EXTANT SHEET OF MATERIAL FOR THE TRIO

A single sheet of music from the Piano Trio has been preserved amongst the sketches for another work, the cantata Cartdk on Soldn (1911; revised 1920).29 This mixture of material has come about as a result of Janacek's rather unusual working methods. When the composer was writing preliminary sketches for a piece he would often write on only the recto of each sheet. The versos were left blank and were often used later for a subsequent redraft of that work or for the sketches or a draft of another piece. As a result, it is relatively common to discover material for one composition amongst that of another.30 The sketches for 6artdk on Solan contain rejected passages from two additional pieces: the opera Mr Broucek (1908-17) and A Fairy-Tale for violoncello and piano (1910; revised 1923).

The Trio fragment was discovered as early as the 1960s by John Tyrrell when he was writing his doctoral thesis on Janacek's operas.31 However, he did not have time to transcribe it; this task was completed by the Czech composer and musicologist Jarmil Burghauser, one of the main editors of the new Complete Critical Edition of Janacek's music.32 Burghauser wrote a short composition based on his transcription, which was performed at a Janacek festival in Brno in 1968, but neither he nor anyone else has been able both to identify correctly the stage of the Trio's genesis to which the page of material belongs and to discover any relationship between this fragment and the final version of the First String Quartet. In the Cartdk on Solan volume of the Complete Critical Edition the fragment is described as a 'zlomek skici' ('fragment of a sketch').33 But this sheet

29 The sketches, early drafts and final autograph of eartdk on Soldi are all in the JA and have the same classmark (A.30.392).

30 Janacek's working methods are described in more detail in Paul Wingfield, "'On an Overgrown Path": A Re-appraisal of the Sources of, and the Editorial Problems in, the Music of Leos Janacek' (M.Phil. dissertation, University of Cambridge, 1984), 8-22.

31 'Janacek's Development as an Operatic Composer as Evidenced in his Revisions of the First Five Operas' (D.Phil. dissertation, University of Oxford, 1969).

32 L. Janacek: souborni kriticki vyddni (L. Jandaek: Complete Critical Edition), ed. Jiri Vyslouzil et al. (Prague, 1978-).

33 See p. 59 of vol. 4 of the edition (1981), which was edited by Jan Hanus and Milos Stedroi.





































239 239 239 239 239

PAUL WINGFIELD PAUL WINGFIELD PAUL WINGFIELD PAUL WINGFIELD PAUL WINGFIELD

Example 2 Example 2 Example 2 Example 2 Example 2

H[ousle]

Cello

Kla[vir]

H[ousle]

Cello

Kla[vir]

H[ousle]

Cello

Kla[vir]

H[ousle]

Cello

Kla[vir]

H[ousle]

Cello

Kla[vir]

[Con moto]

o 1- T r r - I -' '-' I '-' I

Ped Ped [Ped]

(F ,. j_

[Con moto]

o 1- T r r - I -' '-' I '-' I

Ped Ped [Ped]

(F ,. j_

[Con moto]

o 1- T r r - I -' '-' I '-' I

Ped Ped [Ped]

(F ,. j_

[Con moto]

o 1- T r r - I -' '-' I '-' I

Ped Ped [Ped]

(F ,. j_

[Con moto]

o 1- T r r - I -' '-' I '-' I

Ped Ped [Ped]

(F ,. j_

r -T

Il , , m . i]

[.l)'] i'T t "'T '"

_4 ~iri '

Ifr-.-! i-- fli -" i-

r -T

Il , , m . i]

[.l)'] i'T t "'T '"

_4 ~iri '

Ifr-.-! i-- fli -" i-

r -T

Il , , m . i]

[.l)'] i'T t "'T '"

_4 ~iri '

Ifr-.-! i-- fli -" i-

r -T

Il , , m . i]

[.l)'] i'T t "'T '"

_4 ~iri '

Ifr-.-! i-- fli -" i-

r -T

Il , , m . i]

[.l)'] i'T t "'T '"

_4 ~iri '

Ifr-.-! i-- fli -" i-

[Ped] [Ped] [Ped] [Ped] [Ped] [Ped] [Ped] [Ped] [Ped] [Ped]

does not look like Janacek's preliminary sketches for any other work. Those are extremely untidy, the music in them is usually written on systems containing two or three staves at the most, and the staves themselves have obviously been drawn freehand. In addition, the musical content is generally a series of short thematic sketches, which are rarely continuous. The fragment of the Trio, on the other hand, is much neater: it is written in full score; it consists of two systems of continuous music; and the staves have been ruled. (A transcription of the sheet is offered in Example 2.) The surviving page of the Trio therefore seems to belong to a complete draft of the piece. Of course, it is unlikely ever to have been part of the final version, because that was still being performed in 1922, whereas the Trio fragment was considered dispensable as early as 1911.34 It therefore either belonged to the 1908 draft or was written and rejected as part of the March 1909 revision and was presumably considered redundant before April 1909. The fact that the sheet was superfluous at such an early date raises an obvious problem: why did Janacek wait until 1911 to use its verso? After all, the material for Mr Broucek and A FaiTy-Tale that can be found

34 Cartdk on Solda was probably commissioned in December 1910 and was written between January and March of 1911 (see p. XI of vol. 4 of the Complete Edition).









240 240 240 240 240

JANACEK'S 'LOST' KREUTZER SONATA 241

Example 3


Example 3


Example 3


Example 3


Example 3

Violin I

Violin II

Viola

Cello

Violin I

Violin II

Viola

Cello

Violin I

Violin II

Viola

Cello

Violin I

Violin II

Viola

Cello

Violin I

Violin II

Viola

Cello

(Con moto)

(sul pont.)

_rL *_-. . .---=

I^^Q' ' '

(nf cresc.) f

(Con moto)

(sul pont.)

_rL *_-. . .---=

I^^Q' ' '

(nf cresc.) f

(Con moto)

(sul pont.)

_rL *_-. . .---=

I^^Q' ' '

(nf cresc.) f

(Con moto)

(sul pont.)

_rL *_-. . .---=

I^^Q' ' '

(nf cresc.) f

(Con moto)

(sul pont.)

_rL *_-. . .---=

I^^Q' ' '

(nf cresc.) f

;e $ _ .ff;ff -.

_

_ _ _

dim.

[ i _r

4i^ 'N~~~~~~~~~ntrl etc. '

sul ponticello .-L,E 19 - J/

I

_J_L-, , ' ^ ~~~~I? . ab

Wha~S'cffiffl- 9*it-t

;e $ _ .ff;ff -.

_

_ _ _

dim.

[ i _r

4i^ 'N~~~~~~~~~ntrl etc. '


I

_J_L-, , ' ^ ~~~~I? . ab


;e $ _ .ff;ff -.

_

_ _ _

dim.

[ i _r

4i^ 'N~~~~~~~~~ntrl etc. '


I

_J_L-, , ' ^ ~~~~I? . ab


;e $ _ .ff;ff -.

_

_ _ _

dim.

[ i _r

4i^ 'N~~~~~~~~~ntrl etc. '


I

_J_L-, , ' ^ ~~~~I? . ab


;e $ _ .ff;ff -.

_

_ _ _

dim.

[ i _r

4i^ 'N~~~~~~~~~ntrl etc. '


I

_J_L-, , ' ^ ~~~~I? . ab


f f f f f

tiL.bl I r- _f tiL.bl I r- _f tiL.bl I r- _f tiL.bl I r- _f tiL.bl I r- _f

amongst the sketches for (artdk on Solan all dates from 1910 at the earliest.35

A possible solution to this problem can be found in Janacek's letter to Rektorys of 8 April 1909 (see above, p. 237). At this stage, Rektorys still had in his possession a score of the first version of the Trio. That score may have been Janacek's own autograph rather than the copy, and the surviving sheet from the Trio might have been part of that autograph, which may not have been returned to Janacek until 1911. The composer might thus have used the blank versos of the autograph score for sketches of other works, including eartdk on Soldin, as soon as he had retrieved it.

There are two flaws in the theory just outlined, however. First, it is not likely that Janacek would have sent his own untidy autograph to Rektorys when a neat copy was available. And second, the hypothesis does not explain why only a single page of the 1908 draft has survived. If one looks closely at the fragment, though, it is possible to formulate a more feasible theory. This sheet has no page number, even though it was Janacek's habit to write continuous ink numeration sequences on his drafts. As a rule, unnumbered sheets of material for Janacek's works are not parts of finished drafts, but rather they contain music that was rejected before any pagination was inserted. The sheet from the Trio was probably discarded during the composition of either the 1908 draft or the 1909 revision and put to one side. The reason for its verso remaining unused until 1911 may be that Janacek placed it in his famous painted trunk, in which he stored both complete and incomplete drafts and final autographs, as well as sketches, partly used leaves and wholly unused sheets of paper. It may have remained there until he rediscovered it in 1911.

The relationship between the music on the sheet and the First Quartet is much easier to determine. Example 3 contains bars 20-31 of movement III of the Quartet. Though some of the note values in the Quartet passage have been halved and some have been reduced by a factor of four, the themes and the harmonic structure are the same in Examples 2 and 3.36 Furthermore, Janacek even rescored this passage in the simplest possible manner: the violin and violoncello parts of the Trio were allotted to the first violin and violoncello in the Quartet, the right hand of the piano part was given to the second violin and the left

35 The sketches for Mr Broucek cannot have been written earlier than 18 February 1910; for further details see John Tyrrell, 'Mr Broucek's Excursion to the Moon', Casopis Moravskiho musea: vedy spolecenski, 53-4 (1968-9), 89-124 (pp. 109-10). Similarly, A Fairy-Tale was not begun until early 1910; see Vogel, LeosJanacek, 200.

36 The fact that the note values are shorter in the third movement of the Quartet than they are in the Trio fragment supports the theory put forward on p. 234 above that the note values of the first movement of the Trio may have been reduced in 1923. This fact also raises an interesting analytical point. The note values of a Janacek theme are often gradually diminished over the course of a movement in a finished work. In the sources of the Trio and the First Quartet we can see this process being employed not only within the final version of a movement, but also throughout its whole genesis.



























Example 4


Example 4


Example 4


Example 4


Example 4

Violin

Piano

Violin

Piano

Violin

Piano

Violin

Piano

Violin

Piano

(Presto)

)- -!-- . !l, - I J ̂ lp- I \W' p dolc 0-- --- -- rf 0

ff^'fth) A?- ^* =n --- ̂ ?* *? ^ ^m~w

(Presto)

)- -!-- . !l, - I J ̂ lp- I \W' p dolc 0-- --- -- rf 0

ff^'fth) A?- ^* =n --- ̂ ?* *? ^ ^m~w

(Presto)

)- -!-- . !l, - I J ̂ lp- I \W' p dolc 0-- --- -- rf 0

ff^'fth) A?- ^* =n --- ̂ ?* *? ^ ^m~w

(Presto)

)- -!-- . !l, - I J ̂ lp- I \W' p dolc 0-- --- -- rf 0

ff^'fth) A?- ^* =n --- ̂ ?* *? ^ ^m~w

(Presto)

)- -!-- . !l, - I J ̂ lp- I \W' p dolc 0-- --- -- rf 0

ff^'fth) A?- ^* =n --- ̂ ?* *? ^ ^m~w

Example 5

Con moto J= 144

lehae, pla r leggiero con timidzcsa]

Example 6

(Con moto)' a tempo A 11--- \ lt ll_ _ ffi __N

Violin I 6 hR 1 L- etc.

pth e he

to the viola. The fact that Janacek divided the piano part of the Trio between the second violin and viola in the Quartet accounts for an anomaly in the final version of the later work. In Example 2, the third note of the four-note motif in the right hand of the piano is doubled at the octave each time it is repeated. The last statement of this motif includes the notef, which of course is too low for the violin to play. As a result, in bars 30-1 of the second violin part in movement III of the Quartet the note f has been altered to g, which produces an unexpec- ted variation of the motif.

The main musical idea in both the Trio fragment and its equivalent section in the Quartet is, of course, a quotation from the second subject of the first movement of Beethoven's 'Kreutzer' Sonata for violin and piano. Example 4 gives the first eight bars of Beethoven's second subject and Examples 5 and 6 show the first two statements of Janacek's principal theme in movement III of the Quartet. This quotation is quite blatant and it is pointed out in most published accounts of the First Quartet. The surviving sheet from the Trio thus demonstrates clearly that Janacek's quotation from Beethoven's famous violin sonata dates from 1908, not from 1923. Indeed, this reference was very appropriate in its original context, as Beethoven's 'Kreutzer' Sonata was performed in the concert in which Janacek's Trio was premiered.37 The fact that the Trio fragment was rejected at

Example 5

Con moto J= 144


Example 6



pth e he



Example 5

Con moto J= 144


Example 6



pth e he



Example 5

Con moto J= 144


Example 6



pth e he



Example 5

Con moto J= 144


Example 6



pth e he



37 See Racek, Korespondence, 116. 37 See Racek, Korespondence, 116. 37 See Racek, Korespondence, 116. 37 See Racek, Korespondence, 116. 37 See Racek, Korespondence, 116.

some point during that piece's development also means that the sheet which replaced it probably contained music which was yet more like that in Example 3. Thus, Janacek may well have changed only the scoring, not the content, of this passage when he transcribed it for quartet in 1923. In the light of these discoveries, it is worth examining all the material for the Quartet, in order to discover whether the relationship between that work and the Trio goes deeper.

THE QUARTET SKETCHES

What seems to be the earliest surviving material for the Quartet is written on a piece of paper that has been cut out of the back of a large brown-paper envelope.38 The recto bears the heading 'IV' and two main themes have been sketched on both the recto and the verso. One of these themes is written on a single stave and is almost identical with the theme that first appears in the violins in bars 96-7 of movement IV of the Quartet's final version. (Example 7 gives the published form of this theme.) The other theme is sketched on a system consisting of three staves (see Example 8). Though the second violin part here is obviously similar to the second violin part in Example 7, the melody in the viola does not appear in any version of the fourth movement. In fact, this is much more like the opening theme of the second movement, which is also in the viola (see Example 9). We therefore seem to have sketches for parts of both the second and the fourth movements on the same sheet. Naturally, the very existence of these sketches indicates that some sections of the Quartet were freshly composed in 1923, but it is strange that so few sketches have survived.39 To discover why only one sheet of sketches is extant, we need to consult the early drafts and the final autograph of the First Quartet.

THE QUARTET MANUSCRIPT

The rest of the surviving material for the Quartet is all in the JA and it has the classmark A.7443. There are 111 separate sheets, the first of which is the title-page and is written on a piece of grey card. The rectos of the other 110 sheets contain a complete autograph of the Quartet, except for bars 1-8 of movement I. Presumably the first leaf of the autograph was given away by Janacek to a friend as a souvenir, or else it was taken by an autograph hunter after the composer's death. (I have so far been unable to trace this missing sheet.) Many of the versos of the Quartet manuscript also have music on them, which has been deleted in red pencil. These versos are parts of a number of earlier drafts. Janacek's usual procedure for writing second and





















38 This sheet is kept in the JA with the autograph of the work. 39 19 pages of sketches are extant for the Second String Quartet (1928), for instance.







Example 7


Example 7


Example 7


Example 7


Example 7

[Violin I] [Violin II]

[Viola]

[Cello]


[Viola]

[Cello]


[Viola]

[Cello]


[Viola]

[Cello]


[Viola]

[Cello]

L 0P r -. r L 0P r -. r L 0P r -. r L 0P r -. r L 0P r -. r

Piu mosso h = 138 r3' - t





:^ L% I p-it

I istJ v fc

pizz. e. ,-3.

etc.

/ 11, - smf

:^ L% I p-it

I istJ v fc

pizz. e. ,-3.

etc.

/ 11, - smf

:^ L% I p-it

I istJ v fc

pizz. e. ,-3.

etc.

/ 11, - smf

:^ L% I p-it

I istJ v fc

pizz. e. ,-3.

etc.

/ 11, - smf

:^ L% I p-it

I istJ v fc

pizz. e. ,-3.

etc.

/ 11, - smf

[<] ^ rl-,lluO wi t i-F "jU JL J i





b11 1 1- b11 1 1- b11 1 1- b11 1 1- b11 1 1-

Con moto J = 84

A 1 7 Lr 5

y9. 6. 'I-t~ ' '

~ '

i"' .-

Con moto J = 84

A 1 7 Lr 5

y9. 6. 'I-t~ ' '

~ '

i"' .-

Con moto J = 84

A 1 7 Lr 5

y9. 6. 'I-t~ ' '

~ '

i"' .-

Con moto J = 84

A 1 7 Lr 5

y9. 6. 'I-t~ ' '

~ '

i"' .-

Con moto J = 84

A 1 7 Lr 5

y9. 6. 'I-t~ ' '

~ '

i"' .-

Violin I Violin I Violin I Violin I Violin I

Violin II Violin II Violin II Violin II Violin II



Violin I

Violin II

Viola

Cello

Violin I

Violin II

Viola

Cello

Violin I

Violin II

Viola

Cello

Violin I

Violin II

Viola

Cello

Violin I

Violin II

Viola

Cello

F "

I) n B r --- n-L F

" I)

n B r --- n-L F "

I) n B r --- n-L F

" I)

n B r --- n-L F "

I) n B r --- n-L

-__ gl 1 */. _ -__ gl 1 */. _ -__ gl 1 */. _ -__ gl 1 */. _ -__ gl 1 */. _

r... . .. ?1 1i A.i JAI R [] 6' ] _ - r... . .. ?1 1i A.i JAI R [] 6' ] _ - r... . .. ?1 1i A.i JAI R [] 6' ] _ - r... . .. ?1 1i A.i JAI R [] 6' ] _ - r... . .. ?1 1i A.i JAI R [] 6' ] _ -

subsequent drafts was to use the previous one as the basis for the next. Most pages of the previous draft were revised and some were rejected altogether, their blank versos being used for new material. As many works were redrafted twice or more, some sheets would eventually have rejected music on both sides and these would be discarded. (A few such leaves have survived, but more often they appear to have been destroyed.) Janacek's final autograph of the First Quartet is thus, characteristically, a hybrid collection of several partial drafts.

The task of sorting out the various layers of a Janacek manuscript is complicated and so far musicologists have avoided it. Despite the difficulties involved in such an undertaking, however, it is always possible to distinguish the layers of an autograph, even if several weeks of hard work are required to complete the task. The number and content of the earlier drafts can be determined through the detailed study of musical continuity, ink types, ink blots, graphology and paper types.4 The fact that Janacek rarely used printed manuscript paper for instrumental works after about 1900 is also of help to the musicologist. In particular, the autograph of the First Quartet is written on separate sheets of plain paper, on which the staves have been ruled by the composer himself. Frequently there are wide disparities between the total spans of the systems on contiguous pages, a fact which seems to indicate that those pages are parts of different drafts. Furthermore, although most of the staves on both the rectos and the versos of the sheets were drawn with a rastrum, a few pages have had each line of each stave ruled separately. All of the music on the pages with the less common type of staves appears to have been composed at the same time.

The initial draft of Janacek's First Quartet can therefore be constructed. When the task has been completed, it soon becomes obvious that many of the pages that make up the preliminary draft are exceptional in Janacek's output. As a rule, the composer's first drafts are untidy and many passages appear to have been corrected as soon as they were written. These drafts contain few dynamics, expression markings, tempo indications or metronome marks. At this stage of a piece's genesis Janacek was generally working at great speed and had only a brief sketch of the outline of each movement to compose from. The earliest drafts of the first and third movements of the First Quartet, however, are much more like the composer's final autographs of other works. They are surprisingly detailed and even contain a large number of metronome markings. Moreover, Janacek seems always to have known how much space he would need for each bar and there are few corrections within the first layer itself. These drafts thus appear to have been copied from extremely neat exemplars. In contrast, the first drafts of the second and fourth movements seem to have been written













40 An in-depth account of how modern musicological methods can be applied to the sources of Janaiek's music can be found in Wingfield, "'On an Overgrown Path"', 23-51.







more hastily. They contain a significant number of deletions and rewritings, and they appear to have been compiled from only a few untidy sketches.

There are three likely explanations for the curious way in which the first version of the Quartet is made up. First, Janacek may have sketched movements I and III and may then have drafted these, employing a few musical ideas from his Piano Trio, but largely composing new music. He might next have written sketches for movements II and IV and he might then have drafted the whole piece, recopying neatly the two movements already composed and compiling the remaining movements from the sketches (which have survived). After this, he presumably destroyed the first, partial draft and the sketches for it, since none of these sources is extant. However, if Janacek did construct his initial score of the Quartet in this manner, he was diverging from his usual compositional methods and was wasting, uncharacteristically, a lot of time and paper. This theory thus seems to be the least plausible of the three.

A second hypothesis is slightly more probable. Janacek may have sketched and drafted (and perhaps redrafted) the whole piece. He might then have decided to make a neat copy. When he was writing this he may have been happy with movements I and III, but he may have become dissatisfied with movements II and IV. Thus, he possibly wrote new sketches for movements II and IV (which appear to have survived) and then redrafted them as part of what was originally intended to be his neat copy. Afterwards, he presumably destroyed all the material (including the sketches) for the first draft, which may or may not have been closely modelled on the Trio.

There is a problem with this theory, however: why has no material for the early draft(s) survived? After all, for almost every other Janacek work at least some of the sheets from the first draft are extant. The solution to this problem might be that Janacek revised his preliminary draft to such an extent that both sides of each sheet were eventually written on. He therefore presumably started to write his neat copy on fresh sheets of paper and threw away all the earlier material when the new score was complete. This solution seems highly unlikely, though, when the time-scale of the Quartet's genesis is looked at closely. It appears that Janacek received the commission just before 13 October 1923 and he does not seem to have started the work before that date (see p. 231 above). The last page of the earliest surviving draft in the manuscript (JA A.7443) is clearly dated 28 October 1923. Thus, the second explanation of the present structure of A.7443 requires us to believe not only that Janacek destroyed every trace of both his earliest sketches for and his score of the Quartet, but also that he sketched, composed and wrote out in their entirety at least two versions of the piece before 28 October 1923. This explanation is at best uncon- vincing.

The third hypothesis about how the first draft of the First Quartet was composed is the most plausible. Janacek probably wrote this draft





















247 247 247 247 247

by transcribing the first and third movements directly from the final version of the Piano Trio and by composing the second and fourth movements from only a few sketches (of which the sheet of sketches that has survived was probably the earliest). This theory explains why there are no extant sketches for movements I and III and why the preliminary drafts of these parts of the work are so neat. In addition, it provides a more realistic framework for the development of the piece as far as dates are concerned: the sketches and the first draft were probably written in the fortnight up to and including 28 October 1923 and the revisions were presumably carried out between 28 October and 7 November, when the last page of the final version was dated. Furthermore, an analysis of the layout of the actual music in the first draft of the Quartet would appear to support the third theory about the way in which that draft was composed.

It was observed on pp. 242-3 above that the surviving fragment from the Trio was transcribed for quartet simply through the trans- ference of the Trio's violin and violoncello parts to the first violin and violoncello in the Quartet and through the division of the piano part between the second violin and the viola. Janacek seems to have used this method of transcription to compile the entire first version of movement III of the First Quartet. Throughout the earliest draft of that movement there are three layers in the musical structure: two instruments act independently and the other two share material. The two instruments that act as a single unit are generally the second violin and violoncello, although the first violin and viola and the second violin and violoncello are occasionally paired to provide some textural variety. Much of the thematic material that is shared between two instruments is even unidiomatic in its quartet form: for example, the figuration allotted to the second violin and the viola in bar 35 of the final version is awkward to play at Janacek's designated speed (J. = 76) and is far more suited to the piano. (Examples 10 and 11 give the First Quartet version of bar 35 and a theoretical transcription of it for piano trio respectively.)

The first two-thirds of the preliminary draft of movement III of the Quartet are virtually identical with bars 1-59 of the final version, and so the movement's origins as a piece for piano trio are still evident in the printed score.41 The last third of the first draft, however, was completely rewritten and expanded over the course of its three revisions. The instrumental writing is therefore much more idiomatic and the texture is more varied in bars 60-103 of the printed version; there is even a genuine four-part layout in most of the climactic section (bars 67-88), and when two instruments are eventually paired in bars 83-8 they are the two violins, not the second violin and viola.

The earliest version of movement I also relies on the three-part texture with two instruments acting as a single unit that can be found

















41 Of course, the 'sul ponticello' markings at several points in the final Quartet version have changed the actual sound of the music considerably.







Example 10

Vivo . = 76

Violin I b r "

Viola LQ1 f t 7 pizz.

Cello ~ r Yr -

Example 11

Vivo J.- 76

A r . fl?- bt *i r


Example 10

Vivo . = 76

Violin I b r "


Cello ~ r Yr -

Example 11

Vivo J.- 76

A r . fl?- bt *i r


Example 10

Vivo . = 76

Violin I b r "


Cello ~ r Yr -

Example 11

Vivo J.- 76

A r . fl?- bt *i r


Example 10

Vivo . = 76

Violin I b r "


Cello ~ r Yr -

Example 11

Vivo J.- 76

A r . fl?- bt *i r


Example 10

Vivo . = 76

Violin I b r "


Cello ~ r Yr -

Example 11

Vivo J.- 76

A r . fl?- bt *i r Violin

Cello

Piano

Exai

Violin I

Violin I

Viola

Cello

Violin

Cello

Piano

Exai

Violin I

Violin I

Viola

Cello

Violin

Cello

Piano

Exai

Violin I

Violin I

Viola

Cello

Violin

Cello

Piano

Exai

Violin I

Violin I

Viola

Cello

Violin

Cello

Piano

Exai

Violin I

Violin I

Viola

Cello

b L i (I I

pizz.

b (

F^--- F L i

,-

rl 2!n mple r12 r F '

mple 12

b L i (I I

pizz.

b (

F^--- F L i

,-


mple 12

b L i (I I

pizz.

b (

F^--- F L i

,-


mple 12

b L i (I I

pizz.

b (

F^--- F L i

,-


mple 12

b L i (I I

pizz.

b (

F^--- F L i

,-


mple 12

I I I I I


Example 13

Adagio A - .

Example 13

Adagio A - .

Example 13

Adagio A - .

Example 13

Adagio A - .

Example 13

Adagio A - .

Violin I

Violin II

Viola

Cello

Violin I

Violin II

Viola

Cello

Violin I

Violin II

Viola

Cello

Violin I

Violin II

Viola

Cello

Violin I

Violin II

Viola

Cello

(con sord.)

- m l . I

(con sord.)

- m l . I

(con sord.)

- m l . I

(con sord.)

- m l . I

(con sord.)

- m l . I 0*J -) 4 - w-

(con sord.) f- = ' - u _ I I

0*J -) 4 - w-

(con sord.) f- = ' - u _ I I

0*J -) 4 - w-

(con sord.) f- = ' - u _ I I

0*J -) 4 - w-

(con sord.) f- = ' - u _ I I

0*J -) 4 - w-

(con sord.) f- = ' - u _ I I

-con sord.-. con sord.

?l:Ai8\^lcl ftR`' Fft-^\^










- w #LIJ I _ -- _ - w #LIJ I _ -- _ - w #LIJ I _ -- _ - w #LIJ I _ -- _ - w #LIJ I _ -- _


Adagio Adagio Adagio Adagio Adagio

Violin

Cello

Piano

Violin

Cello

Piano

Violin

Cello

Piano

Violin

Cello

Piano

Violin

Cello

Piano

Con moto Con moto Con moto Con moto Con moto

mf lhe [leggieroJ

.-A . ______ -

mf lhe [leggieroJ

.-A . ______ -

mf lhe [leggieroJ

.-A . ______ -

mf lhe [leggieroJ

.-A . ______ -

mf lhe [leggieroJ

.-A . ______ -

Ped ! t _1 _i , Ped ! t _1 _i , Ped ! t _1 _i , Ped ! t _1 _i , Ped ! t _1 _i ,

Adagio Adagio Adagio Adagio Adagio Con moto Con moto Con moto Con moto Con moto

flehce [lggierol

gn .,i ,,.rr,1 e - oI - - 1-. etc.

.)^ 1 . l s 4I ii

....... ...

' f3^^ =: ^

flehce [lggierol

gn .,i ,,.rr,1 e - oI - - 1-. etc.

.)^ 1 . l s 4I ii

....... ...

' f3^^ =: ^

flehce [lggierol

gn .,i ,,.rr,1 e - oI - - 1-. etc.

.)^ 1 . l s 4I ii

....... ...

' f3^^ =: ^

flehce [lggierol

gn .,i ,,.rr,1 e - oI - - 1-. etc.

.)^ 1 . l s 4I ii

....... ...

' f3^^ =: ^

flehce [lggierol

gn .,i ,,.rr,1 e - oI - - 1-. etc.

.)^ 1 . l s 4I ii

....... ...

' f3^^ =: ^

throughout the first draft of movement III. Even passages that seem to be more idiomatically scored in their initial versions are slightly clumsy and were rearranged in later revisions. One such passage is the opening of movement I. In its final version, the first theme of the work exploits double-stopping and tremolos successfully (see Exam- ple 12, which reproduces the second statement of that theme).42 But

42 This example gives the second rather than the first statement of this theme because the first page of the Quartet manuscript is missing (see p. 245 above).









250 250 250 250 250


the initial form of the theme was less convincing (see Example 13); indeed, that version looks suspiciously like a transcription of a theme originally composed for piano, and in fact the whole opening section of the first version of the Quartet could be rewritten for piano trio without any problems. (Example 14 offers such a hypothetical reconstruction of bars 1-14 of movement I.)

Just as the instrumentation in the first version of movements I and III of the Quartet suggests clearly that these are awkward transcrip- tions of models scored for piano trio, so the layout of the initial drafts of movements II and IV indicates that these parts of the work were intended for string quartet from the outset. As early as the opening of movement II there is a real four-part texture - this passage is more or less the same in all versions (the final one is given in Example 9) - and the rest of the first draft of this movement contains a greater variety of textures and a faster rate of textural transformation than the earliest versions of movements I and III. Similarly, movement IV is idiomatic even in its first version and that draft could not easily be rearranged for piano trio.

Both the musical content and the layout of the earliest versions of movements I and III ofJanacek's First String Quartet thus support the theory that these were modelled closely on two movements from the composer's earlier Piano Trio. The later stages of the development of the whole Quartet would also seem to confirm this hypothesis. For while movements I and III were changed very little during the Quartet's genesis, movements II and IV were altered so radically that the first and final versions of each of these movements are essentially different pieces. It therefore appears that Janacek had spent a considerable amount of time polishing movements I and III even before he wrote their first extant drafts, whereas it seems that he had conceived only the basic outlines of movements II and IV when he started to draft them for the first time. Of course, the uncomplicated geneses of movements I and III of the Quartet both support the theory that these movements were originally composed for piano trio and make it relatively easy to reconstruct their first drafts. The original Trio versions of movements I and III of the Quartet could also be reconstructed without any great difficulty.43 It is not possible, however, to determine from the Quartet manuscript alone either the content of the missing third movement of the Trio or the exact position in the Trio of the two movements later adapted for quartet. But if Pavel Dedecek's testimony (discussed in full on pp. 233-6 above) is now re-examined in the light of all the other evidence, a plausible basic structure for the Trio can be evaluated.

It was established on pp. 234-5 above that Dedecek's description of the first movement of the Trio could fit the first of the Quartet. It was also suggested that the note values may have been halved or

















43 My reconstruction of the Trio version of movement III of the Quartet was performed on 31 July 1986 in the Queen Elizabeth Hall.





251 251 251 251 251

quartered in the later work. This seems even more likely when the initial draft of the Quartet's first movement is closely scrutinized, as that draft contains some bars notated in 2/2, despite the prevailing 2/4 time signature. These errors on Janacek's part might be explained satisfactorily if he had indeed copied the draft from an exemplar notated either in 2/2 or 2/1 with half the number of barlines. Dedecek's account is therefore at least partly supported by other evidence and the first movement of the Trio appears to have been largely the same as the first of the Quartet. Some further sections of Dedecek's testimony also seem to be corroborated by the manuscript material. For instance, his description of the second movement of the Trio does not match any version of any movement in the Quartet, and the Quartet autograph does in fact reveal that one movement of the Trio must have been discarded and replaced by a new movement when the piece was adapted for string quartet. Consequently, the rejected movement was probably the second of the Trio. This hypothesis seems yet more likely when one considers that Dedecek claims in his letter that the second movement of the Trio was in Ab minor, because that is also the key of the second movement of the Quartet. As far as the third movement of the Quartet is concerned, since that is not in Ab minor and does not answer Dedecek's description of the first or the second movement of the Trio, it was probably a transcription of the final movement of the Trio.

STYLE AND FORM IN THE PUBLISHED VERSION OF THE QUARTET

Many stylistic and formal aspects of the printed version of the First Quartet would appear to support all the theories expounded so far about that piece's genesis. Of course, such evidence is unreliable if used in isolation, but it can be employed to check hypotheses formed on the basis of detailed source study. The last part of this article will consider some salient stylistic atd structural oddities in the published version of the Quartet and will demonstrate that the formal procedures in the printed version which are apparently characteristic of Janacek's late style were added only after the first draft of the Quartet had been written.

A major anomaly in the final version of the Quartet is the use of key signatures for all four movements. These were abandoned in the operas as early as Mr Broucek (completed in 1917) and their use in the other works written in the second decade of this century became increasingly sporadic: in the song cycle The Diary of One Who Disappeared (published in 1921), for example, only two songs have key signatures. Furthermore, they are not employed at all in the wind sextet Youth, which was begun in 1924, the year in which Janacek added the finishing touches to the First Quartet. Consequently, if the Quartet is viewed as a work that was largely composed in 1923, it is difficult to explain why the composer employed key signatures throughout the piece. But, on the other hand, if two movements of the Quartet were



















indeed transcribed from a Piano Trio written nearly 15 years earlier, this anomaly would be accounted for.

Perhaps the least adventurous movement ofJanacek's First Quartet in structural terms is the first, which is in sonata form. In spite of the idea perpetuated in the literature that the composer's sonata-form movements depend on melodic contrast rather than tonal tension,44 this movement contains very conventional tonal conflicts and resol- utions. The exposition establishes the dominant as the rival tonality, which is only slightly unusual in a minor-key movement: one needs to look no further than the first movement of Beethoven's 'Kreutzer' Sonata for a precedent, a further connection between that work and Janacek's own 'Kreutzer' sonatas that is surely not coincidental. All of the material first played in the dominant of the dominant and the dominant itself in Janacek's exposition is recapitulated, as one would expect, in the tonic. Far less conventional is the tonal scheme of the initial sonata-form movement of the Violin Sonata, which was first drafted as early as 1914. Here, doubt is created as to whether Db or Ab is the tonic - a conflict that is not resolved until the closing bars of the movement - and modal elements add further ambiguity. Both of these devices are characteristic of Janaiek's later instrumental movements, whatever their formal prototypes. On purely stylistic grounds it therefore seems reasonable to assume that the first movement of the Violin Sonata postdates the opening one of the First Quartet, which is exactly what the source evidence also suggests.

In Janacek's operas, his treatment of tonality is instinctive and he gravitates towards his favourite keys of Db and Ab . Most of the late instrumental works, on the other hand, have integrated key structures that are reinforced by the cyclical return in the finale of material from the first movement. The wind sextet Youth (1924) and the Sinfonietta (1926) have this type of structure. The use of a clear tonal scheme and the return of material from movement I in the finale are thus two features of the final version of the First Quartet that would seem to connect it with the composer's other late instrumental works. Never- theless, it seems obvious from all the available evidence that the finale of the Quartet was newly composed in 1923 and that the three- movement Trio did not employ cyclic procedures. Furthermore, if we return to the Quartet manuscript, it soon becomes clear that the key scheme of the Piano Trio must have been haphazard and that the integration of the Quartet's tonal plan was effected only in the later revision layers.

If the order of the movements in the Trio proposed on pp. 251-2 above is correct, Janacek's key scheme in that piece was probably E minor - Ab minor - Gb minor. His tonal plan in the earliest draft of the Quartet is equally arbitrary: the four movements are in E minor,

44 This view of Janiaek's sonata-form movements is offered in, for example, Miroslava Kaikova, 'Sonatova forma v dile Leose Janacka' ('Sonata Form in Leos Janacek's Works'), Opus musicum, 14 (1982), 135.





















253 253 253 253 253


Example 15

Adagio .al. . r. .

-3. _ AJI Mo. 6o . .. .

~ .1

Example 15

Adagio .al. . r. .

-3. _ AJI Mo. 6o . .. .

~ .1

Example 15

Adagio .al. . r. .

-3. _ AJI Mo. 6o . .. .

~ .1

Example 15

Adagio .al. . r. .

-3. _ AJI Mo. 6o . .. .

~ .1

Example 15

Adagio .al. . r. .

-3. _ AJI Mo. 6o . .. .

~ .1

Violin I

Violin II

Viola

Cello

Violin I

Violin II

Viola

Cello

Violin I

Violin II

Viola

Cello

Violin I

Violin II

Viola

Cello

Violin I

Violin II

Viola

Cello

? --- - h -'' _ ~ , _f .l

O - LV L r

A \ ^ ^ 7 _ j1

20 ) . I f^ 6 . ^ ^'! ,

~t r ?1 ~tf~Lo :

'Vb~~~~~d 2 IJ)--

? --- - h -'' _ ~ , _f .l

O - LV L r

A \ ^ ^ 7 _ j1

20 ) . I f^ 6 . ^ ^'! ,

~t r ?1 ~tf~Lo :

'Vb~~~~~d 2 IJ)--

? --- - h -'' _ ~ , _f .l

O - LV L r

A \ ^ ^ 7 _ j1

20 ) . I f^ 6 . ^ ^'! ,

~t r ?1 ~tf~Lo :

'Vb~~~~~d 2 IJ)--

? --- - h -'' _ ~ , _f .l

O - LV L r

A \ ^ ^ 7 _ j1

20 ) . I f^ 6 . ^ ^'! ,

~t r ?1 ~tf~Lo :

'Vb~~~~~d 2 IJ)--

? --- - h -'' _ ~ , _f .l

O - LV L r

A \ ^ ^ 7 _ j1

20 ) . I f^ 6 . ^ ^'! ,

~t r ?1 ~tf~Lo :

'Vb~~~~~d 2 IJ)--

tiroce [largamentel

=_- . , tiroce [largamentel




=_- . ,

f tv L ,, ,, . f"pi r.-rT F r r- pizz. arco = '

2fiK DC*L ?Tr f Z


2fiK DC*L ?Tr f Z


2fiK DC*L ?Tr f Z


2fiK DC*L ?Tr f Z


2fiK DC*L ?Tr f Z

A T ' r7

fg ̂ "----l "D

pizz. arco pizz.

*: J^ t ' I T r ,F V '

A T ' r7

fg ̂ "----l "D

pizz. arco pizz.

*: J^ t ' I T r ,F V '

A T ' r7

fg ̂ "----l "D

pizz. arco pizz.

*: J^ t ' I T r ,F V '

A T ' r7

fg ̂ "----l "D

pizz. arco pizz.

*: J^ t ' I T r ,F V '

A T ' r7

fg ̂ "----l "D

pizz. arco pizz.

*: J^ t ' I T r ,F V '


Maestoso J ~S44- Maestoso J ~S44- Maestoso J ~S44- Maestoso J ~S44- Maestoso J ~S44-

Violin I

Violin II

Viola

Cello

Violin I

Violin II

Viola

Cello

Violin I

Violin II

Viola

Cello

Violin I

Violin II

Viola

Cello

Violin I

Violin II

Viola

Cello

Ab minor, G b minor and Eb minor respectively. In the second draft of the Quartet, however, the composer seems to have been concerned almost exclusively with the integration of the key structure. For example, the finale acquired a new ending centred around Ab minor. That key thus now became the tonic of the last three movements, an excursion to Gb and Eb being framed by two substantial sections in






254 254 254 254 254

Ifb(S) :.t 7 r , " LJ-- f^ C - r Ifb(S) :.t 7 r , " LJ-- f^ C - r Ifb(S) :.t 7 r , " LJ-- f^ C - r Ifb(S) :.t 7 r , " LJ-- f^ C - r Ifb(S) :.t 7 r , " LJ-- f^ C - r I

i-

I

i-

I

i-

I

i-

I

i-

JL- I; - T-. 1 II JL- I; - T-. 1 II JL- I; - T-. 1 II JL- I; - T-. 1 II JL- I; - T-. 1 II

.- . *S .- . *S .- . *S .- . *S .- . *S


A b . The fact that the first movement is still in E minor in the second draft may seem to be a problem, but the new ending for the finale does in fact represent a resolution of the E minor - A b minor conflict. The final section of movement IV in the second draft is very similar to bars 127-89 of the printed version. This passage begins with a prolonged E in the violoncello, which moves by way of E b to A b in bar 170. As a result, the tonal plan of the Quartet is summarized in the closing bars.

Janacek's attempts to integrate the key scheme of the second draft did not end here. In the first draft there is a reference to A b minor in the opening movement, but this is very short: it lasts only two-and-a- half bars and is equivalent to bars 43-5 (first half) of the final version. In the second draft Janacek has added the equivalent of bars 38-42 of the published work, which means that the A b minor section is now three times longer and thus far more prominent. (Example 15 gives the final version of bars 38-45.) At the same time, the composer inserted the material that now forms bars 40-2 of movement I also between the equivalent of bars 122 and 125 of the published version of the finale. (Example 16 gives the final version of bars 121-6 of movement IV.) Consequently, it seems that Janacek was trying to establish a direct link between bars 38-45 of movement I and bars 121-6 of movement IV. The importance of this connection is not difficult to evaluate. When the opening theme of the work is stated in Ab minor in the exposition of movement I, it is structurally dissonant and this dissonance is not resolved within that movement. The next time in the course of the piece that this theme is heard in its entirety in Ab minor is in bars 121-6 of the finale, which constitute the climax of the Quartet. Janacek thus resolves the A b minor passage of movement I in the finale, and by doing so confirms Ab minor as the tonic of the Quartet as a whole. The move from E to A b in the violoncello in bars 127-89 of movement IV consolidates the resolution of the piece's tonal conflicts that takes place in bars 121-6.

In conclusion, since much of the music in the First Quartet is untypical of its supposed period of composition and since the features of the work which seem to suggest that it was newly composed in 1923 were all added after the first draft had been written, the preliminary draft of the piece is even more likely to have been partly a transcription of an earlier composition.

CONCLUSION

Janacek's First String Quartet, subtitled The Kreutzer Sonata, has always been claimed to be the result of an extraordinary burst of creative energy. Every published account of the work's genesis states that it was completed in little more than a week. Of course, even though the autograph of the Quartet is dated 30 October - 7 November 1923, the first draft was definitely completed by 28 October and therefore the piece cannot have been composed in less than two weeks (see p. 247 above). But if the Quartet's development is examined in detail, it




CONCLUSION





CONCLUSION





CONCLUSION





CONCLUSION


255 255 255 255 255

256 PAUL WINGFIELD

becomes obvious that the only reason why the work appears to have been finished so quickly is that two movements of its first version were transcribed directly from the composer's earlier Piano Trio with the same subtitle. As a result, the genesis of Janacek's First Quartet, far from representing an almost miraculous burst of inspiration, actually spanned a period of nearly 17 years, from 1908 (when the first notes of the Trio were written) until 1925, the year of the Quartet's publication.

King's College, Cambridge

256 PAUL WINGFIELD



256 PAUL WINGFIELD



256 PAUL WINGFIELD



256 PAUL WINGFIELD



1987,wingfield - janaček's 'lost' ks

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