September – December 2001

Bohuslav Martinů

The International Bohuslav Martinů Society The Bohuslav Martinů Institute

40 Years with the Name Martinů

Martinů in a Different Light

Martinů Events

Martinůand his Homesin Nice Today

News

Boston’s Martinů on Tour

Where Martinůis at Home

40 Years with the Name Martinů

Martinů in a Different Light

Martinů Events

Martinůand his Homesin Nice Today

News

Boston’s Martinů on Tour

Where Martinůis at Home

Thirdissue

2

CONTENTSWELCOMEKarel Van Eycken ................................................. 3

40 YEARS WITH THE NAME MARTINŮThe Bohuslav Martinů Piano Quartet will Celebratea Major Anniversary Next SeasonEmil Leichner ...................................................... 4

A BLUE DOMAINStuart Wilson ...................................................... 5

MARTINŮ EVENTS 2001 ........................6 - 8

BOSTON’S MARTINŮ ON TOURGregory Terian .................................................... 7

MEMBERS’ DIARY ................................................ 8

ANNOUNCEMENTGramophone Award for Magdalena Kožená ............... 8

MARTINŮ IN A DIFFERENT LIGHTThe Musical Film for Television as a Form of InterpretingChamber Stage Works by Bohuslav MartinůJiří Nekvasil ....................................................... 9

MARTINŮ AND HIS HOMES IN NICE TODAYKarel Van Eycken and Marcel J. Schneider ................12

FROM GREG TERIAN’S MARTINŮ REVIEWin The Dvořák Society Newsletter ...........................13

NEWS ............................................... 14 - 15

DUOS AND TRIO FOR STRINGS ReviewSandra Bergmannová ..........................................15

BOHUSLAV MARTINŮ’S CORRESPONDENCEIN THE MUSEUMOF NATIONAL LITERATURE IN PRAGUEKateřina Maýrová ...............................................16

LONDON CONFERENCE ON 20TH CENTURY MUSICGregory Terian ...................................................17

WHERE MARTINŮ IS AT HOMEThe Bohuslav Martinů Memorial in PoličkaLudmila Sadílková ..............................................18

THE 2001 INTERNATIONALBOHUSLAV MARTINŮ MUSIC FESTIVALIN BASLE ..........................................................19

THE BOHUSLAV MARTINŮFESTIVAL 2001 IN PRAGUE ...................................20

3Bohuslav Martinů Newsletter 2001 - Third issue

WelcomeWelcomeDear Member,Here we are with our latest Newsletter. As always, it includes announcements of events and articles on various topics.First of all, I should like to devote substantial at-tention to the Bohuslav Martinů Festival 2001 in Prague coming up in December. Go to the last page of this Newsletter to find out about the program. If you look at the works to be performed you will find a most exciting “suite”; look also at the names of the artists and I can imagine that a trip to Prague could be a major event for you. I shall surely go myself, and we shall use the opportunity to hold our an-nual general meeting of the Society during this festival - on December 10 at the Bohuslav Martinů Institute.Did you know that the Martinů Quartet has already been in existence for thirtynine years? See the article about this ensemble by Emil Leichner, the quartet’s pianist andan eminent Martinů connoisseur. See also the commentsof Mr. Schneider about his investigations in the south of

AUSTRALIAHowland Vernon

AUSTRIAČeška EmilGeroldinger Franz

BELGIUMAdagio - BrusselsArty Pierre, Mr. & Ms.Baily, Mr. & Mrs.Beurms DaniëlDe Boitselier GuidoBontridder, Mr. & Mrs. De Bourlé Jean-PierreBuelens WillyChatel, Mr. & Mrs.Chauveau MoniqueCoussement Anne-MarieCréteur Agnes Dechamps Claude Demeure Jean-PierreDesmedt Marie Bernadette Desprechin Brigitte Donnet Hadelin, Mr. & Mrs.Doucet Danielle Draelants Raymond Duponcheel Christian Eeckeloo Johan Eggert Kurt Fenelly LiamFocroulle Bernard Van Gassen, Mr.Geldhof Pol Verbruggen L.Goddere, Mr. & Mrs.Haza PavelVan Hoof Rudy Jakou RaoulKaufmann MartinKlastersky Jean, Mr. & Mrs.Van Liesbeth ArieLindsay Benjamin Masset Yves Nelissen Julien

Peres Jean-Pierre Prometheus-ensemblePuttemans PierreRegout Eric Ronvaux NathalieSannen An Schneider M. J. Swinnen Camille Symoens GilbertThiron AnnieValach Jan Verdin Thierry Vlaeminck Jos Wasseige M. Franois-XavierWauters GuidoWauters JoëlleWeger JanWyffels Magda

BRAZILCoelho Lauro Machado

BULGARIAGeorgiewa Stefanka

CANADAFontana IreneFontana Luca

CZECH REPUBLICGabrielová Jarmila Klener PavelLedeč JanMaýrová Kateřina Morsa Michèle & Johnston Chris

JAPANSawa YukikoTanaka Hideyuki Yanagihara Hideto

LUXEMBOURGPiper Geoff

NETHERLANDSJonker J. P. B.Kuipers, P. J. Oosterhof FeddeVaneker HansWelvaadt Raads

NORWAYKornstad Tor

POLANDStompel Józef Prof.

SWEDENThiele Günter

SWITZERLANDKellerhals Max - honorary memberRybář Petr Schweizerische Martinu GesellschaftKupper RolandUchtenhagen Ulrich

UNITED KINGDOMArculus Julian Arnold JohnBabb John

Tempo Publishing PraguePalák MilanSvatoš Tomáš Veber Petr Vičar JanVíšek Tomáš

DENMARKAlbrechtsen Preben

FRANCEBarbier Pierre-EmileCanino PatriciaCentre Tchèque de ParisChevy PatriceLevi Laurence& Coussement AlexisErismann GuyFestival d’Ile de FranceFreling Jean-Claude Leduc JeanStoianova Ivanka

GERMANYBornscheuer StefanBostock DouglasPhilippi DanielaWoesler UlrichWolf Eugen S.

HONG – KONGvan Es Kees

ITALYSieber Jürgen

INVITATIONSitting

of the boardof directors IBMS

10th December 2001 10 a.m.

The Bohuslav Martinů Institute

Náměstí Kinských 3CZ - 150 00 Prague 5

All members are in-vited to a discussion

about the futureof the society.

France: the spirit of Martinů is still alive there!A more serious article is provided by Mr. Nekvasil about Martinů and operatic films. We know that Martinů was a real avant-gardist by virtue of his ballets and operas using film, or where film- a new medium at the time - was a real part of

the composition.On this page you will also find a list of members of the So-ciety. This is, I think, a real portrait of the current Martinů family. Notice that the word “international” is not meant only for the members of the board! I think we can be proud that we have such a large number of members after only one year of existence. Of course, if we could do more than write the Newsletter and present compact discs to each member we could be even more numerous. Financially, we remain very grateful to the Bohuslav Martinů Foundation for sup-porting us. I hope that every one will be stimulated to find new friends for the Society.

Karel Van Eycken

INTERNATIONAL BOHUSLAV MARTINŮ SOCIETYThe Actual List of Members Sorted by Countries

BOARD OF DIRECTORSVan Eycken Karel - President

Halbreich HarryBřezina AlešLippold Gerd

Mabary JudithTerian Gregory

Tokuda MariCoussement Walter

Beith Richard Billinge Dave and Carole Boswell Phillip C. Brocklehurst Steven Burton Anthony Crump Mike Davies Colin Frazer Tony Grenfell-Baines MilenaHerbert Peter Hogwood Christopher Lambert Patrick Large Brian J. Linney-Drouet C. A. Mackerras Sir CharlesMarsden Bill & Vera Melville-Mason Graham Pavier EdnaPenna Adrian Perry Ted Pullman Shawn Reeve Malcolm Rickards GuyRosenfelder Alan Schuringa Christoph Seager Robin Slater Graham Smaczny JanTodd Mark Vernon D. Young Roger

USAChalfant Randolph W. Entwistle ErikFiehler Judith Marie Goren Neal Grundy David M. Harvat Marie J. Herring LaffayetteKadlec Edward O. King Robert and MaryRybka F. JamesSmetana FrantišekWeltzien Robert T., Jr.

We would like to ask you to pay your member-ship dues for next year (2002) until the end of December 2001! Some of you have not paid the dues for this year yet, so please, pay them together with the dues for next year. Otherwise, you are not going to receive the promised‘99 BM Festival CD and you will not be considered members of the IBMS for the year 2002.

If there are any changes in your addresses or you have new e-mail addresses, please, let us know - the new e-mail address of the office is ibms@martinu.czAlso, if you find any mistakes in the spelling of your names or addresses - please, tell us!Thank you very much in advance.

Jindra Jilečková, secretary of the IBMS

Dear members,

The history of the Bohuslav Martinů Piano Quartet reaches far back into the past and is closely connected with the name of violinist Emil Leichner, Sr. If I want to explain the roots of our Quartet’s origin I must say a few words about another chamber ensemble - the Czech Nonet.

In 1924 my father and colleagues of his founded the Czech Nonet. At that time there was practically no literature for this instrumental combination: its programming had to rely mainly on the Nonet of Louis Spohr, Beethoven’s Septet, and Schubert’s Octet. However, the Czech Nonet took advantage of the blossoming of culture during the interwar period and called upon many important composers to write new works, yielding splendid results. My father headed the ensemble as first violinist and spiritual leader for forty years, during which he established contacts with many classics of twentieth-century music including Prokofjev, Hindemith, Lutoslawski, Foerster, Hába, and of course also Bohuslav Martinů. More than two hundred original works were composed on commis-sion for the Czech Nonet and dedicated to it, and thus the ensemble wrote an important chapter in the history of modern music.

In the mid-1960s my father parted with the Czech Nonet. But he was a man filled with energy and soon began to miss artistic and managerial work. At that time a copy of the manuscript to Martinů’s Piano Quartet came into my hands. It was given to me - along with many other composi-tions - by the composer’s friend Karel Šebánek, who knew of my warm relation-ship to Martinů’s music and was later, along with Dr. Miloš Šafránek and Dr. Karel Mikysa, among our greatest advocates and pro-moters. In playing through the score we found this tobe a work of absolutely extraordinary qualities, and this led us to the idea of creating an ensemble dedicated to performing piano quartets. The histori-cal literature for this instrumental combination is amazingly rich, containing masterpieces of the classical style (Mozart, Beethoven, and early Czech masters), romanticism (Mendelssohn, Schumann, Weber, Dvořák, and Brahms), and more recent times (Suk, Fauré, and especially Martinů). Thus it was actually a chance encounter with the score of Martinů’s Piano Quartet that stimulated the origin of our ensemble.

In 1963 I was just completing my studies at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. I called in another two young colleagues from the school(J. Čurda, A. Duda). The elder of the Leichners took the position of leader as violinist and manager, and a permanent Piano Quartet had been born. The music of Martinů became the core repertoire for our newly-founded ensemble.

Based on written permission from the composer’s widow Mrs. Charlotte Martinů (see next page), we named ourselves the Martinů Piano Quartet.

My father exerted a strong influence on us young members, in the first place in regard to inter-pretation and the specifics of chamber playing. He also led us to perform Czech music, because he said that a Czech musician without Czech music is unthinkable and that for this repertoire he or she will always be an authentic performer in demand. However, his input consisted not only in creatinga relation to the classical heritage and to earlier Czech music, but also in our orientation toward contemporary music. Along with systematic atten-tion to the music of our patron Bohuslav Martinů, this has been one of the determining themes throughout the four decades of the ensemble’s existence. Following the model of the Nonet, we approached many contemporary Czech as well as foreign composers who wrote original works for us. Let us mention only as a representative sampling Jan Kapr, Karel Reiner, Václav Kučera, Jan Tausinger, and Matsushita from Japan.

This helped us greatly in finding concert op-portunities. At that time there were many festivals devoted to contemporary music, for example in Stuttgart, Vienna, Berlin, and Cologne, and we were not absent in them. We also collaborated with many European radio stations. Systematic performance of contemporary music rounded out the ensemble’s image. Thanks to my father’s contacts, very soon we appeared in numerous concert halls abroad - in Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain, and Scandinavia.

But we also had serious problems. These were not simple times: the lack of po-litical freedom had a strong affect on cultural life. And the name Martinů, which we bore in our title, was on the list of emigrants from Czechoslovakia. But it’sbetter not to remember that.

When my father died in 1973 it was a hard blow for us. Actually the ensemble dissolved. At first I couldn’t imagine continuing in his

4

40 YEARSWITH THE NAME MARTINŮ

Emil Leichner

Emil Leichner, Sr.

1960s

Around 1980

The Bohuslav Martinů Piano Quartet will Celebrate a Major Anniversary Next Season

5Bohuslav Martinů Newsletter 2001 - Third issue

ProfileProfilework without him. But two years later came a request from the Supraphon and Eterna labels to record all four of Beethoven’s piano quartets. So I approached Josef Vlach, Josef Koďousek, and Viktor Moučka - members of the Vlach Quartet - and we made the recording. It was received exceptionally well and it occurred to us to revive our ensemble. But unfortu-nately before we could realize this plan health problems on the part of two of the prospective members made it impossible.

Despite all the problems, in 1978 we managed to bring the ensemble back to life. With violinist Antonín Novák, violist Karel Špelina, and cellist Viktor Moučka we soon continued in the tradition of the first decade both in the sense of intensive promotion of music by Martinů and in stimulating the composition of new works which we then performed. Additional works were written for us by Zdeněk Lukáš, Jan Hanuš, and Dalibor Vačkář. We also continued in undertaking concert tours. And here I must mention our regular participation for example in concert life in Geneva, where we performed besides the Piano Quartet and both Piano Quintets of Martinů also new programming discoveries like the Piano Quintets of Webern and Bartók, Schoenberg’s Chamber Symphony, Op. 9 as arranged by Webern, Ginastera’s Quintet, and other works - all this in the prestigious chamber series of the Geneva Conservatory where we performed regularly alongside such ensembles as the Juilliard Quartet, the Tatray Quartet, the Tokyo Quartet, and the Beaux Arts Trio.

The initiator of this excellent series was Prof. M. Vaněk, who was an amaz-ing man - first an organizer of musical events in Prague during the time of the First Republic and the Protecto-rate, then secretary to President Edvard Beneš,a diplomat, after the war long imprisoned by the communist regime, andfinally after emigrating an employee of the United Nations in Geneva and

professor at the university there. This highly respected and extraordinary man wasa friend of our ensemble and played an important role in its history.

Time passed very quickly, and with a concert in the Prague Spring Festival our fellow players of many years Antonín Novák and Viktor Moučka bade farewell to us. Violinist Bohumil Kotmel - concertmaster of the Czech Philharmonic - and cellist Miroslav Petráš became new

members and wonder ful successors to their pre-decessors. In recent years besides giving concerts the Martinů Piano Quartet has expanded its discography to include recordings of works by Dvořák, Suk, Fauré, Lukáš, Kalabis, Husa, and others. Not least, we must mention our devotion to the music of our patron, with recordings of chamber and solo works by Martinů (for example my almost-complete eight-hourrecording of his piano works).

The ideals with which the Martinů Quartet was founded many years ago are still valid today and form the pillars of its existence. We are happy if we can bring people joy in the form of beautiful music. In this sense we are looking forward very much to our fortieth anniversary.This article resulted from a conversation of Emil Leichner with Karel Špelina and Aleš Březina. The anniversary is announced ahead of time at the request of Prof. Emil Leichner.

Stuart Wilson is 42, Scottish, and works asa teacher and translator in Central Italy. His poem, A blue domain, dealing with the earthquake which hit Marche and Umbria in September 1997, won second prize in the 1999 Keats/Shelley poetry competition – the first line in fact comes from a sonnet by Keats. The poem also pays homage to the music of Martinů, which, during the year of aftershocks that followed the big quake, helped to relieve some of the stress of the situation.

A blue domainBlue! tis the life of heaven, the domain

that cradles us in scattered light, the blue sustain of my wife’s eyes

(she’s dashing round the terrace,flurrying water at brittle plants),

our cat’s eyes, blue, intense,her own glad-not-to-be-abandoned tune

a low strum below the almost treadable yenof a Martinů cello adagio.

Returned home, recovering calm fromtwo months’ earthquake (a local priest, glum:

Punishment for greed,it lays us bare from waste we do not need!

Churches scaffolded shut, Nostradamus and Valerian sold out),I’m trying to breathe in time, slow,

counting the salmon-pink belfry’s nested pigeons – a tower (presumably smaller) than this

music’s infancy: winding the clock, ringing the angelus, receiving a toy drum, a violin,

from father, cobbler and tower-warden,keening his country’s folk songs as he made and mended.Ticking clock. Tower bells. Distant organ’s chordal mass;

then expelled with the cumulus sound-space of childhoodinto promiscuous exile – brass

jazzily jaunting along the Eastern plaint,the blue air (translucent, iridescent)

that he grew within’s shaped, soaring need(light through powdered crystal)

BOOM! tower slams pigeons shimmies (God!)the world’s walls thrum we are weightless still

we do not fallexhale

Piano Quartet, H. 287Viktor Kalabis: Ludus for Piano Quartet

Karel Husa: Variations for Violin, Viola, Cello, and PianoArco Diva UP 0027-2 131

Martinů’s works Recorded bythe Bohuslav Martinů Piano Quartet

Cinq pièces breves(Piano Trio No. 1 for Violin, Cello and Piano), H. 193; Piano Trio No. 2 in D minor, H. 327;Piano Quartet, H. 287Supraphon 1111 3369 G

Dedication„To Young Leichner from Martinů“

Permission from Charlotte Martinůwith using Martinů’s name

6

2001-2002Martinů EVENTS

We give only a selection from Martinů’s works.

EventsEvents

CONCERTS

The Prague SymphonicOrchestra FOK (CZ)

16 October, 7 30 p.m. Smetana Hall, Municipal House - PraguePavel Peřina - viola, T. Hanus - conductorRhapsody - Concerto for Violaand Orchestra, H. 337

23, 24 October, 7 30 p.m.Smetana Hall, Municipal House - PragueHana Kotková - violinSerge Baudo - conductorConcerto for Violinand Orchestra No. 2, H. 293

Czech Radio SymphonicOrchestra (CZ)

9 October, 7 30 p.m.Majakovskij Hall - Prague Petr Holman - violaPetr Vronský - conductorRhapsody - Concerto for Violaand Orchestra, H. 337

27 November, 7 30 p.m.Dvořák Hall, Rudolfinum - Prague Jan Simon - pianoTadeusz Strugala - conductor Concerto for Pianoand Orchestra No. 2, H. 237

Janáček’s Philharmonic Ostrava(www.jfo.cz)

Sydney Symphony Orchestra (Australia)

(www.sso.com.au)7 October , 3 00 p.m.

21 March 2002, 7 30 p.m.Soňa Krivčíková - piano, Luděk Cap - violinStanislav Macura - conductorConcerto for Violin,Piano and Orchestra, H. 342

The Prague Philharmonia (CZ)(www.pkf.cz)

10 February 2002, 7 30 p.m.Dvořák Hall, Rudolfinum - Prague Alexander Besa - violaPetr Valášek - clarinetJiří Bělohlávek - conductorRhapsody - Concerto for Violaand Orchestra, H. 337

Berg Chamber Orchestra (CZ)

30 October, 2 November 2001Kurt Andreas Friner - fluteConcerto for Flute,Violin and Orchestra, H. 252

New York PhilharmonicMembers (USA)

(www.newyorkphilharmonic.org)

10, 11 January 2002, 7 30 p.m.Banqueting Hall, Vítkovice - Ostrava N. A. King - oboe, K. I. Eto - conductorConcerto for Oboe, H. 353

7 February 2002, 7 30 p.m.Banqueting Hall, Vítkovice - Ostrava Festival Concert at the Jubileeof Prof. Otakar TrhlíkJan Hališka - cello, O. Trhlík - conductorSymphony No. 4, H. 305

21, 22 February 2002, 7 30 p.m.Banqueting Hall, Vítkovice - Ostrava Eugen Indjič - pianoChr. Arming - conductorFantaisies symphoniques(Symphony No. 6), H. 343

North-Bohemian Philharmonic Teplice (CZ)

(www.severoceskafilharmonie.cz)

22 November, 7 30 p.m.Alexander Besa - violinPaulo Gatto - conductorTheatre behind the Gate - Suitefrom the Opera, H. 251 A

22 October, 7 00 p.m.24 October, 7 30 p.m.Suk Hall, The Music House - PardubiceJiří Stárek - conductorSinfonietta La Jolla, H. 328

23 October, 7 30 p.m.The Great HallAdalbertinum - Hradec Králové Jiří Stárek - conductorSinfonietta La Jolla, H. 328

22 April 2002, 7 00 p.m.23, 24 April 2002, 7 30 p.m.Suk Hall, The House of Music - PardubiceMichal Kaňka - celloDouglas Bostock - conductorSonata da Camera for Cello and Chamber Orchestra, H. 283

15 October, 7 30 p.m. Martinů Hall,Lichtenštejn Palace - PragueSonata da Camera for Cello and Chamber Orchestra, H. 283

31 October, 7 30 p.m.Martinů Hall, Lichtenštejn Palace - PragueSerenade No. 4 for Violin, Viola and Chamber Orchestra, H. 215

15 December, 7 30 p.m. Martinů Hall, Lichtenštejn Palace - PragueConcerto da camera for Violinand Chamber Orchestra with Pianoand Timpani, H. 285

Chamber Philharmonic Pardu-bice (CZ)

(www.chamberphilpar.cz)

Berne Symphony Orchestra(Switzerland)

(www.bernorchester.ch)

N E W Y O R K

PHILHARMONICKURT MASUR, MUSIC DIRECTOR

18 November, 4 00 p.m. Merkin Concert Hall, New York Quartet for Oboe, Violin,Cello and Piano, H. 315

2 December, 3 00 p.m. Merkin Concert Hall, New York Trio for Flute, Cello and Piano, H. 300

Orquesta Filarmónicade la Universidad Nacional

Autónoma de México (Mexico Autonomous University Phil-

harmonic Orchestra)

6, 7 OctoberPedro Ribeiro - oboeCarlos Miguel Prieto - conductorConcerto for Oboeand Small Orchestra, H. 353

20, 21 OctoberKenneth Montgomery - conductorLa Bagarre, H. 155

24, 25 NovemberJoann Falletta - conductorMemorial to Lidice, H. 296

26, 27 JanuaryHoracio Gutiérrez - pianoRonald Zollman - conductorDouble Concerto for Two String Orchestras, Piano and Timpani, H. 271

16, 17 February 2002Marc Tardue - conductorSymphony No. 5, H. 310

Norddeutsche Sinfonietta (D)Quiet City:Czech and American Composersin New YorkSextet for String Orchestra, H. 224

3 October, 5 00 p.m. Rendsburg, Christkirche

6 October, 8 00 p.m.Plöner Musikherbst

7 October, 11 00 a.m.Familien-Konzertmatinée, KielRudolf-Steiner-Schule

7 October, 5 00 p.m.Elmshorn, St. Nikolai

St. Jamess Church - Sydney Music for Spring: Ravel, Martinů, PoulencFrancesco Celata - conductorThe Kitchen Revue, H. 161

ANOTHER ORCHESTRAL CONCERT

11 October, 7 30 p.m. Bohuslav Martinů Philharmony Zlín (CZ)Soňa Krivčíková - pianoLuděk Cap - violinTomáš Koutník - conductor Concerto for Violin,Piano and Orchestra, H. 342

OTHER CHAMBERCONCERTS

14 October, 7 00 p.m. SPH Auditorium (Singapore)Pan East TrioTrio for Flute, Cello and Piano, H. 300

24 October, 8 00 p.m.Buendner Kunstmuseum, Chur (Swit-zerland)Piano Recital - Robert KolinskySonata No. 1, H. 350

27 October, 8 00 p.m.Gasteig Kammermusiksaal, Munich. (D)Duo Zappa-Mainolfi Sonata for Cello and Piano No. 1, H. 277

31 October, 5 00 p.m.Bertramka - Prague (CZ)Škampa QuartetString Quartet No. 5, H. 268

5 November, 7 30 p.m.Dvořák Hall, Rudolfinum - Prague (CZ)Martinů QuartetString Quartet No. 3, H. 183

27 November, 7 30 p.m.Lichtenstein Palace Gallery - Prague (CZ)Letter to Frances IIFrom the correspondence between Bohuslav Martinů and Frances JežkováTwo Songs to the textsof Negro folk-poetry, H. 228Songs on One Page, H. 294

29 January 2002, 7 30 p.m.Suk Hall, Rudolfinum - Prague (CZ)Trio ConcertantePiano Trio No. 2 in D Minor, H. 327

5 February 2002, 7 30 p.m.Suk Hall, Rudolfinum - Prague (CZ)Martinů CollegiumBergerettes, H. 275

19 February 2002, 7 30 p.m.State Philharmonic Brno (CZ)Twelfth Anniversary of Philharmonic EnsemblesPhilharmonic Wind Trio, Fagoti BrunensesSextet for Pianoand Wind Instruments, H.174

7Bohuslav Martinů Newsletter 2001 - Third issue

EventsEvents

27 September, 7 30 p.m. Concert Hall B. MartinůIgor Ardašev - piano recitalThree Czech Dances, H. 154

29 September, 7 30 p.m.Concert Hall B. MartinůJupiter quartetString Quartet No. 7, H. 314

4 October, 7 30 p.m.National HouseSouth Bohemia Chamber Philharmony České BudějoviceJacques-Francis Manzone - conductor Sinfonietta La Jolla, H. 328

Beethoven Festival1 October, 8 00 p.m. Church of St. Margareta, Bruehl (D)Prague Chamber ChoirPavel Kühn - ConductorFour Marian Songsfor Mixed Chorus, H. 235

The 2001 International Bohu-slav Martinů Music Festival in Basle (Switzerland)18 November – 2 DecemberDetailed program see page 19

The Bohuslav Martinů Festival 2001 in Prague (CZ)7 – 13 December 2001Detailed program see page 20

FESTIVALSAutumn Festival in Trutnov (CZ)21 September – 4 October

21 September, 7 30 p.m.Concert Hall B. MartinůSmetana TrioVariations on a Theme of Rossinifor Cello and Piano, H. 290

23 September, 7 30 p.m. Concert Hall B. MartinůInstrumental Ansamble Variace, Olga Čechová - mezzosoprano, guests:Jana Štěpánková - recitation, Roman Janál - baritone, Jitka Čechová - pianoString Trio No. 2 for Violin, Viola and Cello, H. 238, Two Ballads to Folk-song Texts for Contraalto and Piano, H. 228, Three melodramas, H. 82, H. 83, H. 84, Vokalise - Etude for Middle Voice and Piano, H. 188, Three Songs for the Cabaret “Červená sedma”, H. 129, Sextet for Two Violins, Two Violas and Two Cellos, H. 224

24 September, 9 00 and 11 00 a.m.Concert Hall B. MartinůConcert for high school studentsJan Holena - cello, Jiří Holena - pianoSonata No. 2 for Cello and Piano, H. 286

25 September, 7 30 p.m. Concert Hall B. MartinůMilan Buerger - bassVáclav Loskot - pianoTwo Polkas fromEtudes and Polkas, H. 308

OPERAS

A new production of the opera Plays about Mary,H. 236 opened at the Municipal Theater in Ústí nad Labem at 7 00 p.m. on 2 March 2001. It was mounted in collaboration

with Prague’s Academy of Performing Arts. This production came to the National Theater in Prague, where we could see it on October 8.

The Voice of the ForestBarka Theatre – Brno (CZ)

11 October, 7 00 p.m. - premiere Other performances14, 16, 17 OctoberBrno ConservatoryJakub Klecker – conductorAlena Vaňáková – directorStage design and costumes Kateřina Kerndlová

The Soldier and the DancerState Opera Prague (CZ)

(www.opera.cz)5, 10 January 2002, 7 00 p.m.

The AMEROPA 2001 international music courses and chamber music festival (www.ameropa.org) were held in Prague this year for the eighth time, from 29 July to 11 August, in the premises of the Jan Neruda Musical Secondary School and the Prague City Music School in the Žižkov district of Prague. They were in-augurated in 1993 by Vadim Mazo, an American conductor, violinist, and violist of Russian origin. In the first years the participants in the courses were almost exclusively American teachers who brought their pupils to Prague to study and play chamber music together during a week-long stay including joint concerts with Czech artists.

Almost ninety students ranging from twelve to seventy-eight years old from fourteen countries rehearsed more than sixty chamber works of the most varied instrumentation and size from duo to octet. Each year works by Czech compos-ers, above all Antonín Dvořák and Bohuslav Martinů, figure prominently in the literature played. One whole afternoon was devoted to Martinů - beginning with a lecture by Prof. Ivan Štraus, followed by a concert of works by Martinů for two pianos played by Marc Clinton and Nicole Narboni (and recorded by them on a compact disc), then an evening projection of the film Martinů and America. Public concerts by students included the following pieces by Martinů: the Fantasy for Two Pianos, the Serenade No. 3 for Oboe, Clarinet, Four Violins, and Cello, and the Sonata for Violin, Flute, and Piano.

Áda Slivanská

AMEROPA 2001

Plays about MaryThe National Theatre - Prague

www.narodni-divadlo.czMunicipal Theatre Orchestra

Ústí n. Labemwww.operabalet.cz

Norbert Baxa - conductor

Another Event25 November 2001 - Martinů Society Japan - video presentation of the film Martinů and America and Dr. Hideo Sekine‘s lecture in Tokio.

Events preparedby Jindra Jilečkováand Jana Honzíková

London, Royal Albert Hall, 25 August 2001The Boston Symphony Orchestra has come and gone leaving Martinů’s 6th Symphony resounding in its wake. It must be unprec-edented for a world class orchestra to take a major Martinů work on an extended tour and to perform it at each of its prestigious venues, but it seems to have paid off with a near capacity audience at the Promenade concert in London and the Edinburgh concert sold out weeks in advance.The reception of the performances was gratifying although Haitink’s more melow symphonic vision of the work contrasted markedly with Charles Munch’s more dramatic fantasy of forty years ago. But if any Martinů work is open to differing interpretations it is surely the Sixth Symphony.It must be said that the Boston sound is not as it was half a century ago. In a pre-concert talk in London the orchestra’s timpanist Everett Firth, whose tenure stretches back to the Koussevitzky era, mentioned that in those days half the orchestras members came from France giving it a very distinctive orchestral timbre.Apart from the French and American elements the orchestra included almost every conceivable European nationality

BOSTON’S MARTINŮ ON TOURGregory Terian

Boston Symphony Orchestra Principal Guest Conductor Bernard Haitink led the BSO and Tanglewood Festival Chorus in a 10-concert tour of European music festivals from August 25 to September 6, including performances in London, Edinburgh, Lübeck, Hannover, Lucerne, Brussels, and Amsterdam.

(including Czech). This was the orchestra with which Martinů was most closely associated after his arrival in America and he became friendly with many of its members with whom he could converse in French.Haitink deserves great credit for including the Symphony in the tour programme and promoting the Martinů cause in Europe.It is just a pity that the orchestra’s historic RCA recording

under Munch was not re-issued for the occasion.In connection with the 100th anniversary of Symphony Hall Boston, the orchestra will be issuing a 12 CD set of performances drawn from its archives and coveringthe years 1943 - 2000. Martinů will be represented by the Double Concerto for two String Orchestra, Piano and Timpani as performed by Rafael Kubelík on 13 Janu-ary 1968 which will no doubt prove to be another of his powerful and impressive readings. The album does not draw on

works specifically associated with Boston performances of which are preserved in the orchestras archives. These include the Parables and Sixth Symphony under Munch and the First Symphony as performed under Václav Neumann in 1982. Perhaps these will be made available at some future date.

8

EventsEventsConcert against Racism

On September 19 a Concert against Racism was held at the Kölner Philhar-monie. The Junge Sinfonie Köln played works of Grieg, Martinů and Dvořák. Many young persons attended. The proceeds will be used to send about a hundred young people (mainly pupils) to Lidice during the autumn holiday in October. They will help the local gardeners renew the rose garden and plant thousands of roses, and also learn about the ter-rible and inconceivable deeds of the German army during the war. Meetings with the inhabitants of Lidice will surely make a strong impression on the young people.

For me of course the highlight of the concert was Martinů’s Memorial to Lidice. When it ended everyone remained silent for a very long time. The horns played the theme from Beethoven’s Fifth Sym-phony as impressively as the trombones inThe Last Judgment - with great urgency.

Ulrich Woesler

This year the GRAMOPHONE AWARDS, the most prestigious prizes for recordingsof clasiccal music worldwide - often called the Oscars of classical music - celebrated their twenty-fifth anniversary. This was an extraordinary event for the Czech Re-public as well, because in the category of solo vocal recordings the winner was the Czech mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená for her recording titled Love Songs. In addition to vocal gems by Antonín Dvořák and Leoš Janáček, her compact disc offers pieces by Martinů (see the preceding issue) including the world premiere recording of Four Songs to Texts from Moravian Folk Poetry, which were not discovered until 1996. This honor is all the more significant in that Ms. Kožená was the first Czech in history to receive it; she was preceded by international stars of such renownas Bryn Terfel, Anne Sofie von Otter, Thomas Hampson, and Ian Bostridge.

A selection from the reviews

...For us Czechs it is probably hard to grasp what a breakthrough the inclusion of songs by Martinů is for Deutsche Grammophon. DG “yielded” to pressure from the singer and the Czech branch of Universal, and in its catalogue for the year 2000 (!!!) we finally find the name of Martinů. For this firm headquartered in Hamburg, Czech music is no longer only Dvořák, Janáček, and Smetana.The performance by this mezzo-soprano from Brno is simply perfect. I can’t imagine a more heartfelt performance of Martinů’s “Lullaby” and “Pious Song” from the Four Songs, for example - or actually of any of the Martinů songs. Mainly for this reason her recording is one of Harmonie’s “Tips”...

Luboš Stehlík, HarmonieAugust 2000

Concert Cycle2002

With ravishingly beautiful singing that de-fies competition in this repertory, Kožená and Johnson are outstanding evangelists, particularly for Martinů... The Czech mez-zos most valuable contribution to the recorded repertoire is her championship of Bohuslav Martinůs neglected songs: in two of his New Slovak Songs, in his Mélodies pour une amie de mon pays – a f irst recording of settings from Karel Erbens Czech Folk Songs and Rhymes – Kožená reveals the authentic Czech voice of this bewilderingly eclectic, stylistically cosmopolitan composer. Martinůs New Miniatures and Songs On One Page are delectable short songs which deserve much wider recognition. Kožená and her sympathetic accompanist, Graham Johnson, are wonderful evangelists for Martinů the song-writer in this outstand-ing, superbly recorded recital. A must for all lovers of song.

Hugh Canning, GramophoneAugust 2000

As we have mentioned in the last Newsletter (p. 8), the Czech Center in Paris in collaboration with the Bohuslav Martinů In-sti-tute in Prague are preparing cycle of Martinů concerts. Below you can see the program of four concerts, which will be held bet-ween January and April 2002:

Concert No. 1January (date not specified)Calliopée nota bene ensemble

Bohuslav MartinůLes Rondes for Oboe, Clarinet, Bassoon, Trumpet, Two violins and Piano, H. 200Sonate for Cello and Piano No. 3, H. 340 La revue de cuisine, H. 161Béla BartókKontrasts for Clarinet, Violin and Piano

Concert No. 2February (date not specified)Calliopée nota bene ensemble

Bohuslav MartinůLes Rittournelles for Piano, H. 227Piano Quartet, H. 287 Madrigals for Violin and Viola, H. 313Leoš JanáčekPohádka for Cello and Piano

Concert No. 3March (date not specified)Calliopée nota bene ensemble

Bohuslav MartinůString Trio No. 2, H. 238Piano Trio No. 2, H. 327Musique de chambre No. 1, H. 376Igor StravinskijL‘Histoire du soldat - Suite for Clarinet, Violin and Piano (arranged by the composer) 1919

Concert No. 42 April, 2002Šárka Čurdová – fluteDavid Mimra – violinPetra Matějová – piano

Bohuslav MartinůPromenades for Violin,Flute and Piano, H. 274Sonata for Flute and Piano, H. 306Sonata for Violinand Piano No. 3, H. 303Madrigal Sonata for Flute,Violin and Piano, H. 291

Concert programs subject to change

For more details contactthe Czech Center Paris:Tel: +33-1-57 53 00 27E-mail: ccparis@czech.cz

s. b.

MEMBERS’ DIARYThe 2001 Flanders FestivalThe gala opening concert in Brus-

sels on 5 September 2001 was a special one for all Martinů lovers. We had the opportunity to hear the Boston Sympho-ny Orchestra under Bernhard Haitink perform Bedřich Smetana’s symphonic poem From Bohemia’s Fields and Forests, the Sixth Symphony of Bohuslav Martinů (Fantaisies symphoniques), and the Sec-ond Symphony by Johannes Brahms.

Haitink started quickly, imposing Smetana’s heavy chords in the brass sec-tion. The typical sound of the orchestra came to us in all its variety due to this work’s colorful orchestration. The horn theme was played outstandingly and was a highlight of the performance.

Martinů’s Sixth Symphony is some-thing apart in various aspects: for Martinů, it was “a very personal thing” as he explained in the program notes for the world premiere. For the orchestra it was - and still is - a successful symphony which was dedicated to them and their conductor Charles Munch. For the audi-ence it is a whole world, the world of Martinů, opening up for them.

Haitink proved to be well-acquainted with the architecture of the symphony and he took the orchestra with him to bring off a brilliant performance. Everybody in the Henri Leboeuf Hall was fascinated by the music: all were sitting on the edges of their seats. There

was an unusual atmosphere in the hall: people who knew the music of Martinů enjoyed the way it was played and they were moved - just as must be the case with music. People who were not yet familiar with Martinů’s music opened their ears and were moved just like everyone else present. For them it was a real discovery.The concert concluded with Brahms. The orchestra played this work, which is certainly part of the standard reper-toire, well. Personally I missed a “bit of surprise” in the interpretation, but the quality of both orchestra and conductor is of such a caliber that we can speak of a very good performance. All together, it was an exciting and magnif icent evening and an extraordinary start for the festival.

Karel Van Eycken

ANNOUNCEMENT

Magdalena Kožená

Love Songs...The true discoveries on this disc are the songs of Bohuslav Martinů - there are 22 of them here, most of minia-ture proportions - revealing him as a master of the form…

www.barnesandnoble.com

...Magdalena Kožená is a young Moravian mezzosoprano with movie-star looks…Her fist solo album for Deutsche Grammophon, called Love Songs, features an imaginatively presented sequence of 42 items by Dvořák, Janáček and Martinů… For most people, the principal surprise of the album will be the Martinů songs, which display an astonishing range of musical and emotional expres-sion, from the sophisticated wit of the „Songs on One Page“ to the rapt simplicity of the „Lullaby“.

Music Shelf (www.kusc.org)October 2000

Martinů with Ch. Munch,Paris 1956

Martinůs, Darien USA 1943

GRAMOPHONE AWARDBARBICAN, London 19 October 2001

9Bohuslav Martinů Newsletter 2001 - Third issue

OPERA AS TELEVISION FILMSPECIFIC CONSIDERATIONS REGARDING THE GENRE

AND CHOICE OF WORKS FOR TREATMENTFor more than ten years I have been working as a director for Czech

(formerly Czechoslovak) Television in creating musical programs. I have had the opportunity to direct many types of musical programs and forms - video recordings and broadcasts of concerts and opera performances, chamber concerts, musical journalism, documentary films, and musical films like the stylized documentary on the composer Erwin Schulhoff titled My Teeth Are Chattering in the Rhythm of a Shimmy. In addition I have directed several treatments of operas and one ballet that have been intended specifically for the medium of television or film.

• • •Being primarily a theatrical artist, I can say that for me opera as film rep-

resents another important possibility for expression and creative treatment. Over the last decade we can note a general retreat from traditional large-scale television productions and films of operas. Apart from the high cost of these projects, and unfortunately the smaller space devoted to classical music and opera in television broadcasts worldwide, producers are attempting to newly define the possibilities in rendering musical-dramatic works for the televi-sion screen. With broadcasting technology having reached a high degree of perfection, capable of recording or broadcasting opera performances with high video and audio quality as an almost flawless conveyance of the experi-ence, we are able to accept an extraordinarily long program on television: many operas last three hours or more. However, this time span, considered a matter of course for operatic theater or its direct conveyance, is a problem in a form specifically intended for television, especially in these days of rapid movement from one thing to another as evidenced in video clips. For me, then, a television production of an opera requires above all that one be aware of time in a sense specific to television, on two levels - the actual duration of the work and also its internal rhythm with a view toward its latent visual potential, which of course need not be the same as the outward “visual diversity” of the libretto.

I think the choice of works for projects is of fundamental importance

when producing operas for television: works of short and medium length have the best chance - works that are less suitable for theatrical performance for this very reason. An evening of one-act operas (even if they are remark-able works) is considered by everyone - from programmers through stagers and performers to audiences - to be something less valuable and thus less desired. Thus many remarkable works find themselves on the periphery of interest, condemned to less frequent performance and in the case of chamber scoring most likely to occasional studio or student productions. Here I see a great chance for those who choose operas for television films. Awareness and definition of the visual potential of a work is the key to the success of any production. (In assessing this potential one must of course take into consideration the abilities and inclinations of those who will be involved in the production.) The dominant expressive means of contemporary operatic film are editing, detail, and the possibility of visual stylization of a completely different sort than in theater. I also think that one cannot stage an opera or musical film mechanically or treat it purely in the language of film (the language common in acted films) or in the form of a television production (which is now almost outmoded). On the contrary, operatic film requires a certain unique stylization which is close to theatrical expression, despite the fact that it uses the above-mentioned specific attributes of film. Here, at least for me, is felt the affinity to the form of the music video clip. (This applies especially to its highly aestheticized and polished form achieved in the 1980s. Today, when the video clip has became an almost obligatory byproduct of the music industry, there are substantially fewer of these truly inspiring and sophisticated, highly visually stylized and thus also relatively expensive miniature films. Their inspiration for film and theatrical artists especially in the 1990s is indisputable.) One must always be aware that music and the sung word are in essence something unnatural, highly stylized, and therefore require a stylized, special visual component and overall manner of conception.

• • •Three years ago, in the summer of 1998, I had the opportunity to direct

two chamber stage works of Bohuslav Martinů for Czech Television - the opera Tears of aKnife and the mechanical ballet The Amazing Flight - as the begin-ning of a free film series titled Bohuslav Martinů - Scenic Bibelots. In 2000 a film treatment of the radio opera The Voice of the Forest was added. Presently

Martinů in a Different LightThe Musical Film for Television as a Form of Interpreting

Chamber Stage Works by Bohuslav MartinůJiří Nekvasil

FilmFilm

The Amazing FlightPhotos:

Václav Beneš

10

I am working on scenarios for two more films - a treatment of the opera What Men Live By and the puppet ballet On tourne (We’re Filming). The project plans to additional works including two operatic fragments and an evening-length opera film of The Three Wishes. The present essay represents a sort of non-comprehensive commentary on what has been finished to date, but also an aesthetic balancing and contemplation before approaching additional works - and an indication of my theoretical ideas on the genre of musical film as I am trying to create it, this time mainly as a form of interpreting remarkable (and not very often performed) stage works by Bohuslav Martinů.

BOHUSLAV MARTINŮCREATOR OF OPERATIC EXPERIMENTS

The whole stage output of Bohuslav Martinů (1890-1959) is a sort of discussion of the form and possibilities of contemporary musical theater. It is a discussion that is still very topical today, even though more than seventy years have transpired since the earliest works were composed. Martinů’s operatic output, numbering fourteen completed works, pres-ents in each of them a completely different opinion on the form of modern opera and its expressive possibilities. Each of them is an experiment, beginning with the choice and construction of the libretto - a journey from the music drama of neo-romanticism to theater that is epic, more demonstrative than experienced, sometimes transgres-sing the boundaries of the genre - by using elements of jazz and dance music, combinations of opera, ballet, and pantomime, and chamber form, by returning to the roots and sources of folk drama, and by utilizing new media - in two radio operas and two television operas. On the one hand we have large works like Juliette and both fully-valid versions of The Greek Passion, which thanks to excellent productions in recent years has taken a place among the most treasured heritage of world opera literature of the twentieth century, and besides another three evening-length operas (of which Plays about Mary is moreover an episodic work with more than one story) there remain short and medium-length works. For me the composer’s systematic efforts have interpenetrated with my own ideas regarding suitable subjects for systematic work in the area of musical film. And so the original idea and dream of filming Tears of a Knife grew into a free series of film treatments of chamber stage works by Martinů including besides operas some ballets. The principle of all the films is (in conformity with my opinion on opera films in general) that those who sing the solo parts in the recording should also act them before the film camera.

TEARS OF A KNIFE

The idea of a film treatment of Martinů’s second opera, Tears of a Knife, occurred to me more than thirteen years ago when I staged this work for the “Disk” Theater in Prague. This surrealistic-dadaistic operatic trifle from 1928 is on a chamber scale not only by virtue of its length (twenty-seven minutes) but also in its scoring - three soloists and an orchestra of only fourteen players. The opera was composed to a text by the French writer Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes, “the most dadaist of the dadaists”. It was written in nine days for a festival in Baden-Baden held in the summer of that year. The outlandish, entirely fantastical plot involving a hanged man caused the opera not to be presented in the festival, and it remained unperformed for forty-one years. Its stage premiere was not given until 1969 in Brno. With its provocative multiple meanings, unrealizable stage directions, and bizarre text the work poses ever new questions to stagers - what does it all mean, if it means anything? In its overall approach the film elaborates and completes the idea on which I based my theatrical production in 1988 (only the third production of this work). The story of the Mother and her Eleonora begins and ends in bed during an afternoon - two lazy women, from the

vague boundary between the periphery and the demimonde, in their un-derwear. Eleonora eats sweet pastries, and the Mother nibbles on a sausage(a particular type of sausage called in Czech a “Drowned Man”). Then they see the Hanged Man. From some sort of stale bourgeois boredom full of sexually unsatisfied restlessness develops a stream of strange escapades with the suspended corpse and with Satan, who continuously changes his form. The bourgeois atmosphere and the interior crammed with heavy furniture are a part of another interior. It stands on the floor of a decorated dance hall. In

the film we do not abandon the environment of this hall, but the space changes its expressive and spatial hierarchy with the interpretational development of the story. This principle is more-or-less shared by all three of the films in the series completed so far.

THE AMAZING FLIGHT

This work was written in 1928 and is subtitled “A Mechanical Ballet”.It is Martinů’s most daring theatrical experiment - a theatrical performance without actors - or better said a ballet without dancers - in which the spectacle (i.e. the visual component) is provided only by moving sets and props. The librettist of Tears of a Knife, Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes, stood behind the idea of this project. He drew the composer’s attention to the new Parisian theater of Madame Beritzi, which was to present avant-garde operas, ballets, and other musical works of an experimental nature. Before The Amazing Flight made it to the stage the theater went bankrupt, and the score was lost until it was discovered in the 1990s in the State Library in Berlin. The film treatment is the first visualization of this work: the delayed premiere was only in a concert version.

Martinů took the subject for this remarkable work from an event in real life. On 8 May 1927 the French pilots Nungesser and Coli took off on a flight across the Atlantic Ocean. But they never reached the shores of America. Their plane was never found. In preparing the scenario for The Amazing Flight we faced a fundamental problem of how to communicate this idea of a ballet without dancers in the form of a television film, because we were aware ofa fundamental danger: whereas in the theater the viewer can assess the size of things that are seen, on the television screen or film screen with the absence of human beings there is no way of measuring: we can’t tell how big things are or whether we are seeing animation or some other technological trick, and the magic of the author’s intention is thus lost. Martinů left us several sketches of stage designs and stage instructions (a sort of outline scenario) for this work, which we took as one of the inspirations and attempted to real-ize in one of the plans for the structure of the film. Nevertheless the use of live actors is part of the stylized system here. The characters are conceived primarily in relation to things. A trick method of filming predominates: the characters tend to be a part of the mechanism, providing a scale for the non-living objects. The characters are deployed on three levels - two boys [see photo p. 9] (portraying flying as a game and a child’s dream, working with planes and props, mainly as toys), two adults (representing human beings

Tears of a Knife

Tears of a Knife

11Bohuslav Martinů Newsletter 2001 - Third issue

controlling or controlled by mechanism), and finally two nude young women [cover photo] (symbolizing the souls of the pilots in the last part of the film). Here the human body is elevated above mechanism, but the manner of filming and especially the overall editing composition and use of various tricks makes the naked bodies of the girls into something like artifacts, in contrast to the cool metallic world of fragments of mechanisms or stylized props realizing the composer’s idea of mechanical theater. At the same time, even in this very stylized and multi-layered form we tried to communicate the basic story of the work. Paintings by René Magritte provided a strong visual inspiration.

THE VOICE OF THE FOREST

Martinů composed the opera The Voice of the Forest, subtitled “A Radio Opera”, between 12 March and 3 May 1935. This work of roughly half an hour was intended for radio and was so-performed on 6 October 1935; however the composer did not exclude the possibility of staged performance. The libretto is by the poet Vítězslav Nezval. It is a hor-ror story with a happy ending - a story of the love of a young rural woman, the Bride, who loses her way in the forest where she goes to bid farewell to her lover, the young Game Keeper. She falls into the hands of robbers who are holding the Game Keeper prisoner. He is unyielding and for this reason the robbers condemn him to death. The lot falls to the Bride, disguised as a robber, and she is to carry out the verdict. She leads him off into the forest, hears his story, and then frees him. The poetic text has the form of a sort of folk fairy tale with echoes of folk art. This outward

aspect of the libretto, however, is only one of the layers of the work, which in its overall treatment has a distinctive poetic strength. The fairy tale grows into a metaphor. We sense here a strong surrealistic inspiration where the naivete of folk art represents subconscious longing and the horror story is a dream. “Because every human being has gotten lost in a for-est,” says the narrator in the introduction to the opera. We all will some day find ourselves in a nighttime labyrinth; may this wandering lead to a fairy-tale happy end. The musical expression is relatively unified and yet highly varied - from the naive fairy tale and echoes of folklore and folk tunes toa lyricism that is almost erotic.

The film treatment of this opera set itself the goal of ex-pressing all these levels (i.e. not only illustrating the story but in a collage manner presenting a poetic image appropriate to the musical world of the opera and its positions). The form of treatment can be called surrealistic collage, which is inspired outwardly by visual art of the period. Also empha-sized is a specific trait of Czech surrealism: lyricism. The film’s visual treatment is thus based on surrealistic expressions of the Czech avant-garde in the visual arts in the 1930s, but not as a historical reconstruction - rather as a strong inspirational

source for the language of a contemporary musical film based on the period atmos-phere, spirit, and substance of the work.

The fact that Martinů was working for the then-new medium of “home theater without the visual component” led him especially to work with dra-matic time differently than in works intended for the theatrical stage. He stops the action with lyrical interludes, works again with collage form, and juxtaposes against each other the naivete of a folk fairy tale, the color-print story, dream, and extreme lyricism. At the beginning of the opera the narrator challenges the audience to experience individually the mysterious fairy tale story in its ambiguity - a world between fairy tale, game, and dream, with fairy tale predominating - a strange lyrical collage hard to decipher at first.

This transpires in rapidly-alternating shots like a direct association of what is heard with the eyes touching in passing on the surroundings. This also recalls a little my fleeting impressions from childhood years in listening to fairy tales being read - the world of fairytales heard with half-closed eyes. Usually it is

already dark outside and only a small table lamp shines, and strange shadows have inhabited the room. Strange ideas different from the daytime ones come to life in the fantasy of the child looking at the half-dark objects. The objects in the room take on a different dimension in combination with the magical stories of the fairy tales heard.

Hence the basic starting situation of the young woman (the Bride) listening to a radio alone in a room at night. Here, too, an associative series of images based on the same fundamental interior situation arises. It is not the girl who enters into the forest: the forest enters into her.

POSTSCRIPTAll three of these films were made in cooperation with

Radim Smetana and Vítězslav Sýkora’s team at Czech Televi-sion in cooperation with Supraphon. They have been warmly received both in the Czech Republic and abroad and have been shown at many festivals. At the Golden Prague international television festival in 1999 Tears of a Knife and The Amazing Flight won the main prize, the “Czech Crystal”, as well as the prize of the Student Jury. Tears of aKnife also won the Grand Prix and the Prize for the Most Original Method of Directing at the Screening Stage Arts Prize festival in Brussels.

Continuation of the whole series is entirely in the hands of Czech Television.

Stage director Jiří Nekvasil works at the Prague State Opera as artistic manager, stage director, and programming director. In June 2002 he will become head of the opera of the National Theater in Prague.

FilmFilm

The Voice of the Forest

The Voice of the Forest

The Amazing Flight

12

Karel Van Eyckenand Marcel J. Schneider

Last year Mr. Schneider asked me if he could becomea member of our society. He gave me not only his name and address but also a short curriculum vitae, from whichI could see that he is a real connoisseur of Martinů’s music.

Now retired, Mr. Schneider lives in Nice - the world--famous resort in the south of France. It occurred to me to ask him (assuming he would have some time to devote to the project) to seek out the places in Nice where Martinů lived and even conduct some investigations - determining what the buildings are today and perhaps speaking with witnesses. We had some correspondence about this matter and Mr. Schneider accepted. In what follows you will notice that we are dealing with a good detective, someone who is persevering and moreover a skilled photographer!

Before we let him speak it will be well to present the itinerary the Martinůs followed starting 22 June 1948 - the day they returned to the old continent for the first time since their escape from France in 1940.

Martinů intended to become a professor in Pragueand had to discuss this matter in Europe, more precisely in Switzerland. A flight from New York brought the Martinůs to Paris, the city where they had lived for seventeen years and which had became Bohuslav’s second home. Then they traveled on to Vieux Moulin where Charlotte’s family lived. The south of France had a special attraction for the Martinůs; during the summer they were at Cassis and lived in Marseille with the Ebrard family in their house called “Rose du Ciel”, which stood near the Rue Sainte. After visiting Paul and Maya Sacher in Switzerland the Martinůs returned, via Paris, to New York. It was impossible to go back to Prague, and Bohuslav accepted a professorshipat Princeton in the USA.

Then he returned to Europe many times until September 1953, when they started to live in Nice. They occupied an apartment with two rooms on the second floor of a building situated on the Chemin de Brancolard on the Cimiez mountain. The building was called “Point Clair”. In September 1954 the Martinůs moved to a house called “L’Isba - Le Beau Site”at No. 17 on the Boulevard du Mont Boron on the Boron mountain. They took a rest.

The year 1955 was marked by some tourist visits to Italy and Austria and a visit to the Sachers in Switzerland before the Martinůs flew to New York in October.

In March 1956 the Martinůs said goodbye to America definitively. They traveled a lot in Europe and in the sum-mer of 1958 the Martinůs took a holiday at Royan and La Baule. Then he returned to Nice. On 1 September they where back on the Mont Boron. A little excursion to Basel passed rather well but then the first signs of stomach complaints appeared. Bohuslav thought it was not important and they went back to Nice. But on 7 November 1958 he had to undergo a stomach operation and he stayed for a long period in Basel. Nevertheless the south of France beckoned and Bohuslav wanted to return to Mont Boron; they arrived there on 1 April 1959. They were not able to enjoy their little paradise for long, however. Already on 26 May we find them in Schönenberg again. It was the end of the great journey for Bohuslav: he died in the Liestal hospital on28 August 1959.

• • •After this long introduction, we come to 2001 and

the report from Mr. Schneider. For him this story has notyet ended - he still has some investigations to do. Here is

what he has to say:It is almost a miracle that in a city where everywhere new buildings have

been erected we find the places where Martinů lived and composed in the same condition as he knew them.

No. 94 on Avenue de Brancolar is the only green island on this part of the street. Below the street level in the middle of the property we find a big house with three levels. At the halfway point in a stairway of a hundred steps is the entrance to the house “Point Clair”. From the road on, passing by a small fence, a

path winds to the first level. Then come steps. A staircase along the house gives access to the second floor where Bohuš was the guest of the painter Josef Šíma. It was certainly not easy to bring a piano into the room.

The villa was constructed in 1935. The present inhabitant, who has been the owner for about twenty years, uses only the second floor. He is the only occupant of the whole building. It seems that the owners before 1980 wereof Russian origin. The present owner knows nothing about Šíma or about Martinů. The garden is in a wild state, just as Bohuš foundit in his time. From the big salon on thesecond floor where the piano was there isa magnificent panorama of the city of Nice

Martinů and his Homesin Nice Today

The terrace of “Le Beau Site” and“L’Isba” with the wood imitation made

of concrete. Magnificent view of theharbor and the city. Bohuslav allowed

himself to be photographed here.

Entrance to the house“Point Clair” halfway down the stairs leading into the valley.

Bohuš and Charlotte’s bedroom.Photograph taken with a wide angle so that

the room looks much bigger then it is.

13Bohuslav Martinů Newsletter 2001 - Third issue

looking through the valley to the west. The reason why the house is still there is that the property is a part of a zoning district intended for high-standing villas and the surface is not yet prepared for that purpose. It is possible that the house will still last some time, but eventually the past will be swept away and we will have only a descrip-tion and some photographs.

Mr. Schneider’s investigations regar-ding the other house in Nice also bore fruit:

My f irst encounter with No. 17 andNo. 17bis on the Boulevard du Mont Boron made me feel very uncomfortable. This long, uninteresting, cheerless, almost dilapidated facade - so this was the villa “Le Beau Site” and “L’Isba”?

While waiting for the bus to return homeI questioned some passers-by who seemed to be from this quarter and a lady said she thought the house was occupied. There wasa door bell but it all looked very sinister to me.

Some days later a friend said to me “Let’s go see the villa!” We came via the same bus and rang the bell. After some time a man opened the door. I explained briefly our reason for disturbing him and showed some papers with the name of Martinů on it in big letters. He explained that he was very busy and asked that we contact him later to arrange a proper meeting.

Right beside the villa “Le Beau Site” is a belvedere from which one has a view of the sea, the harbor, and the city. There is a path that allows one to descend directly to the shore. Then you pass the Boulevard Carbone, also called “Basse Corniche”. From here I could take some photographs, and from the shore on Boulevard Franck Pilatte we can see the “sentinelle”. This is the bedroom of “L’Isba” - the bedroom of the Martinůs.

One afternoon I was received courteously by Mr. Patrick Le Nezet who lives in “Le Beau Site”. He let me into the “Sa-lon de Musique” (as I call the music room), removed the cloth cover from the piano and, going out and passing a terrace, brought me to “L’Isba”, the little house adjacent to “Le Beau Site”. He still had things to do and gave me some papersI could look at and said: “I’ll give you time to immerse yourself in the place where Bohuš and Charlotte lived.”

The music room in the “Le Beau Site” is rather large and can seat seventy people. The piano is the only instru-ment that remains, just as Guy Erismann described it in his

biography Martinů, un musicien à l’éveil des sources. A few yards from this room we seea charming little house made of concrete in imitation of wood. It is on the property of “Le Beau Site” but nevertheless independent. As we enter the door we find ourselves in a small dining room that joins on the left with a salon where Bohuslav liked to rest in one of his armchairs. These where made higher by a local craftsman using wooden spheres; Bohuslav had some difficulties rising from low chairs after his terrible accident in the U.S. Behind the salon we find a kitchen. A small staircase leads to the upper floor which is at the street level. There is a small resting place and a little room connected directly to the street at No. 17bis.

From the bedroom there is a vast 180° panorama of the sea and Nice. In the back-ground you can see Cap d’Antibes and if the weather is bright and windy you can also see the ochre summits of the Massif de l’Estoril. There are spectacular sunsets. I have had the opportunity to visit Bohuslav’s home in Polička a few times and I understand very well the connection he made between the tower there and the eagle’s nest here in Nice: inside everything very small, outside an unlimited view!

In the salon I saw some music paper and some postcards sent to Miss Gisèle Tissier, the owner during Bohuš’s time. She was a friend

of many artists. It was by visiting No. 17 that I found out about this great lady Madame Tissier. I’d like to come back and speak to Mr. Le Nezet to find out more about her and her work. She became the owner of the house in 1948 and carried out much restoration work. Later she met Mr. Le Nezet and together with him they founded the Association des amis de Mme Gisèle Tissier to promote the artistic and cultural legacy of “Le Beau Site”. After the death of Madame Tissier in 1988 the house was donated to the Institut de France as was her wish. It houses a collection of harps and old instruments. In 1990 some concerts were given at “Le Beau Site” for the hundredth anniversary of Martinů’s birth.

We think that Mr. Schneider has not yet finished his investigations. He feels challenged to find out more than we knew until now, and we are sure that he will do everything he can to promote Martinů and his music. We know that he takes initiatives and gets positive results. Perhaps there will be another article in the near future.

IntroductionJürgen Seiber who is the expert authority on

the Martinů discography has unearthed some more fascinating rarities. The Lidice item brings to mind the immediate post-war period when the American Forces Network in Germany broadcast a daily or-chestral concert from the USA transcribed on disc. Some of the technology was quite advanced including the use of unbreakable vinylite (V-discs) and also33 1/3 16-inch records. Many of the 1940s tapes which surface today are derived from these sources

Greg Terian

One of the rarest Martinů ShellacsRodzinski plays Memorial to Lidice

For domestic and overseas radio use the US Office for War Information in the Second World War produced different record series. In series No. 5 we find ‘Contemporary European Music’ and under Record No. 0WI 13-W-21 the f irst recording of Martinů’s Lidice with New York Philharmonic under

Artur Rodzinski (combined with Darius Milhaud’s Suite Provençale performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra under Eugene Ormandy). Probably the Martinů wasa direct recording of the New York premiere on28. 10. 1943 – but certainly the first record production of an orchestral work by Martinů.

I discussed this years ago with an AFN archivist in Frankfurt but he could find nothing about it in his files. Many years later, after his retirement, he wrote to me and enclosed the item reproduced above. In 1988I found this production once more in a US record shop, but for a price of $ 2,400!!!

Field Massinterpreted by the US Army Chorus and Band

Two years ago, I found in a US record catalogue a promo recording on LP, featuring the United States Army Chorus and Band (S 19731), presenting an American sung interpretation of Martinů’s Military Mass, con-ducted by Captain Allen C. Crowell. One of the sleeve photos shows him with Prime Minister Edward Heath

and US President Richard Nixon before a state din-ner in Washington.

I am convinced by this rare document in the Eng-lish version (very well sung and played) but I am not sure when it was recorded. For Martinů enthusiasts, side A is a super-rare collectors’ item; side B contains spirituals, folk and pop music.

Jürgen Sieber

PostscriptMartinů’s profile must be on the up.A new musical series is being broadcast on

Radio 4 on Tuesdays, called ‘The Patrons’. The first two programmes were devoted to Paul Sacher and Serge Koussevitzky respectively, both of whom were closely involved with our composer.

Greg Terian

Reprinted from the The Dvořák Society for Czech and Slovak Music Newletter No. 55 (April 2001)

From Greg Terian’s Martinů Review in The Dvořák Society Newsletter

VisitVisitPatrick le Nezetposing before“L’Isba”.Mr. Schneidertook thesepictures,including thoseof the interior,with hispermission.

Period photo of Martinůin front of the house (1954-55)

14

The long-awaited interactive catalog of the works of Bohuslav Martinů is planned for presentation at the end of November on the web pages of Bohuslav Martinů. This first version of the catalog is based on information from published catalogs which is corrected or made more precise based on new findings, especially in the area of current location and existence of autographs. The catalog will include up-to-date information on publishers’ rights to Martinů’s works. It will be available at:

http://www.martinu.cz/dilobm.htm• • •

This year’s Martinů Festival in Prague will include (on December 8) the world premiere of Martinů’s Czech Rhapsody for violin and piano as arranged for violin and orchestra. Here are some comments by composer Jiří Teml, who orchestrated the work:As regards my work on Bohuslav Martinů’s Czech Rhapsody, orchest-ration of music by the classics has never been my hobby and I have always come to it rather by accident. This was the case when, in plan-ning the concert season in Plzeň, it was discovered that there was no orchestration of Dvořák’s Gypsy Melodies available. After rather long hesitation I did it and this version is still played. Similarly, I was asked at the last moment to orchestrate Martinů’s Songs on One Page fora concert in the Golden Prague television festival. That didn’t turn out badly either. Now I’m drowning in uncertainty before the premiere of the Czech Rhapsody for Violin and Orchestra - a task incomparably more complicated than was the case with the Songs. About the technical problems I’ll say nothing for now; I’ll only mention that Professor Ivan Štraus had an unusually important share in the resulting form of this orchestration via his valuable advice and corrections of my first draft. A letter of Martinů to his friend Frank Rybka dated 24 June 1945 provides a certain legitimacy for this orchestration: “For Kreisler [the American violinist Fritz Kreisler, originally from Vienna] I’ve written a Czech Rhapsody, for the time being with piano.”

• • •A non-commercial compact disc recording from the Bohuslav Martinů Festival 2000 is planned for release by the end of this year. From the rich offering of recordings of four festival concerts (the closing orches-tral concert not being included for purposes of the CD), the following compositions by Martinů have been selected: Sonata for Cello and PianoNo. 2, H. 286 and Variations on a Slovak Folk Song for Cello and Piano, H. 378 in splendid renditions by Hungarian musicians Miklós Perényi (cello) and Dénes Várjon (piano), and Concerto da camera for Violin, Piano and Orchestra, H. 285 with the Prague Chamber Orchestra, violinist Régis Pas-quier, and pianist Avner Arad.

• • •Around the same time you can also look forward to release of the long-planned non-commercial CD set with compositions by Martinů representing a cross section of his whole output, titled Selected Masterpieces.The four CDs, published by the Bohus-lav Martinů Foundation in Prague, present the best recorded perfor-mances of key works by Martinů. The set is structured in such a way as to appeal even to listeners who

don’t know Martinů’s music well, and is accompanied by extensive, authoritative commentary from the pen of its editor O. F. Korteand Aleš Březina.

NewsMartinů

In August 2001 the Academia publishing house released a book that has been in preparation fora long time: Zdeněk Zouhar’s Sborové dílo Bohuslava Martinů (The Choral Works of Bohuslav Martinů). It is in the Czech language and contains short German and English summaries.

• • •The Carolinum Press of Charles University in Prague is planning to publish Jaroslav Mihule’s major study Martinů - osud skladatele (Martinů - The Fate of a Composer) around the end of this year.A shorter study by the same author in English is also being prepared for publication in the near future by an English publisher.

• • •A list of Koresponden-ce Bohuslava Mar tinůs Českou akademií věd

a umění (Martinů’s Correspondence with the Czech Academy of Sciences and Arts) by KateřinaMaýrová may be found in the Czech journal Hudební věda (Musicology), No. 1-2/2000, Volume XXXVII, published by the Institute for Musicology of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. The article includes an English summary.

• • •French put Halbreich’s catalogue on the InternetFrench language sites seem to be marching ahead in the Czech music field these days. A recent entry to the field has placed part of Harry Halbreich’s Martinů catalog on the Internet atpatachonf.free.fr/musique/txt/Kmartinu.docPeter Herbert from The Dvořák Society Newsletter No. 55

BOOKS

In August a piano-vocal score of the f irst version of The Greek Passion (from 1957) edited by Aleš Březina was published by Universal Editionin Vienna.

• • •The British musicologist and con-ductor Sharon Choa has prepared a newly-revised edition of the Fourth Symphony. Negotiations regarding its publication by Boosey and Hawkes are now underway.

• • •Conductor Christopher Hogwood has prepared for publication the complete music for the ballet A Kitchen Revue, which is different from the already published suite.

• • •Editio Bärenreiter in Prague is plan-ning to publish a revised edition of Martinů’s Fourth String Quartet in December 2001. Preparations have also begun for publishing the fifth and sixth quartets. Adam Klemens (fifth quartet) and Ivan Štraus (fourth and sixth quartets) collaborate with Aleš Březina in the editorial work for these publications.

SCORES DISCOVERYIn June the Swiss collector Roland Kupper donated a color copy ofa previously-unknown letter of April 1943 to the Martinů Institute, which thus acquired one of the additional letters from Martinů to his friend Marcel Mihalovici, one of the members of the “École de Paris” group of composers. The letter tells of the composer’s per-sonal crisis shortly before compo-sition of the Third Symphony.

INTERESTING NEW ITEMSFROM THE BOHUSLAV MARTINŮ

INSTITUTE AND FOUNDATION

NewsNews

û

15Bohuslav Martinů Newsletter 2001 - Third issue

NewsNews

In recent years Martinů’s chamber music has enjoyed much attention on the part of performers and recording companies. However, among the dozens of recordings we often find only selections of certain works by this composer or even more often individual works in combination with music by other Czech composers or Martinů’s contemporaries. The French firm Praga Digitalis, however, seta higher goal in issuing this com-pact disc - to present to the musical market Martinů’s complete works for violin, viola, and violoncello. One wonders whether this pro-gramming idea may have come from the performers themselves, which is not unusual today. I have in mind one member of this group of three performers in particular: cellist Michal Kaňka, who already

Bohuslav MartinůDuos and Trio for Strings(complete set)

REVIEW

Pavel Hůla, violin; Josef Klusoň, viola; Michal Kaňka, violoncello.Text in English, French, and German. Recorded 2000-01 in the Church of Saint Lawrence in Prague. DDD. 1 CD Praga Digitalis PRD 250 155(distributed by Harmonia mundi)

recorded a compact disc for Praga Digitalis this year featuring small pieces by Martinů for cello and piano (with pianist Jaromír Klepáč): PRD 250 143. But whoever is responsible for this complete recording, we owe them our gratitude.Martinů composed a total of eight works for combinations of violin, viola, and violoncello, of which this disc presents six; the discrepancy in the number will be explained below. The chronological arrangement helpsthe listener grasp the stylistic devel-opment in Martinů’s chamber music, although it led the author of the booklet to engage in overly-detailed biographical description.The first work is the Duo for Violin and Violoncello No. 1, H. 157 from 1927. It should be preceded by the String Trio No. 1, H. 136 from 1923, but that work is now missing, so we are not surprised

that the only work for trio here is the String Trio No. 2, H. 238 from 1934a two-movement work in Martinů’s Parisian style. The Three Madrigals for Violin and Viola, H. 313 are sometimes also called Duo No. 1 and come from 1947 when Martinů stood firmly on “American artistic turf”. We could place the Duo No. 2 for Violin and Viola,H. 331 from 1950 into the same stylis-tic period. The Duo No. 2 for Violin and Violoncello, H. 371 from 1958 shows compositional maturity and the poetics of the composer’s late period - a return

to late romantic tendencies but set fully into the compositional lan-guage he built over the course of his whole life. A curious feature is a sort of period at the end of the whole recording - the instructive Piece for Two Violoncellos, H. 377 from 1959, lasting a minute. Michal Kaňka re-corded both cello parts separately and they were then mixed.In enumerating these pieces we have counted only seven works. Apart from the above-mentioned String Trio No. 1, now lost, the performers did not record the Sere-nade No. 2 for Two Violins and Viola from 1932, which is com-monly available but whose scoring would require enlisting another violinist, which the performers probably intentionally did not do.In closing, a few words about the players’ performance quality - be-cause this is truly worthy of note. The fresh and very suggestive play-ing is enhanced by into-national purity and unusual timbral con-sistency among the instru-ments. The nature of the playing by all three musicians attests not only to their maturity as soloists but also to their tremendous sense for playing in a chamber ensemble, which creates problems for some soloists.

Sandra Bergmannová

CDsIn November in Prague conductor Johannes Moesus, the Talich Chamber Orchestra, and the German trio Parnassus will record Martinů’s Concertino for Piano Trio and String Orchestra, H. 232 from 1933 and his Concerto for Piano Trio and String Orchestra, H. 231 from the same year. These two works were long regarded as one and the same piece. Martinů first composed the Concerto for Piano Trio and String Or-chestra on commission for the Trio Hongrois in March. He sent the score to the Schott publishing house, which however had certain reservations about the piece and did not accept it. Therefore during a mere ten days he created a new composition. The original score was not found until the 1960s and remains a very little-known composition to this day.

• • •You can find more news about CDs on the web pages of the Martinů Foundation and the Martinů Institute:http://www.martinu.cz/recordings.htmPaul Kaspar is planning to record Martinů’s complete piano works for the Tudor label. The first compact

disc will include Fantasy and Toccata, Three Czech Dances, Dumka, Sonata, Fenetre sur le Jardin, and Trois equisses.

• • •The Emperor Quartet of England is planning to record Martinů’s complete string quartets for the BIS label; this ensemble will also appear in this year’s Martinů Festival in Prague, playing the fourth and fifth quar-tets. The first CD will be released in 2002.

ADDITIONAL ITEMSThe 2002 Bregenz Festspiele is scheduled to include a new production of the opera Julietta with stage director Katjy Cellnik, set designer Vera Bonsen, and conductor Dietfried Bernet. The opening is planned for 17 July 2002 and will be accompanied by several other events including a conference, a workshop, and an exhibit. More detailed information will be given in the next issue.

• • •The South Bohemian Theater in České Budějovice is preparing a production of the opera Den dobročin-nosti (Day of Good Deeds), H. 194. This is a fragment of two acts of an opera to a libretto by G. Ribemont--Dessaignes from 1931 which has never yet been performed. The idea of mounting its first perfor-mance came from the late conductor Václav Nosek, who in the 1960s and 1970s premiered a whole series of operas Martinů composed during his Parisian period. This task has been taken over by the obo-ist Milan Kaňák Copies of the autograph score andpiano-vocal score are available at the Martinů Institute along with the libretto in German and French.

• • •A conversation with Max KellerhalsAt 1 PM on 28 September a conversation with Max Kellerhals, the chaplain who married Bohuslav and Charlotte Martinů and was present at the composer’s burial, was broadcast on the Vltava radio station. The conversation is ninety minutes long. A recording is available in the library of the Institute and was pub-lished in an English version in the last issue of the Bohuslav Martinů Newsletter. Also broadcast was the Quintet No. 2 for Two Violins, Viola, Cello, and Piano, H. 298, as rendered by the Stamic Quartet with Igor Ardašev at the piano.

• • •Visit the revised web pages of the IBMS at the ad-dress: http://www.martinu.cz/ibms.htm

News prepared by Jana Honzíková

16

STANISLAV AUGUSTA (1915 - 1990) the Czech poet 1 copy of Martinů’s letter(probably Rome, 10 March, 1957)

Martinů expresses his thanks for Augusta’s dedication of his collection of poems from the Czech-Moravian Highlands.

EDUARD BASS (1888 - 1946)the Czech writer and journalist 1 Martinů‘s letter (Paris, 16 April, 1933)

Martinů writes to Bass about his letter including the promised article and asks about the conditions of his work for the newspaper Lidové noviny.

MILOSLAV BUREŠ (1909 - 1968) the Czech poet and writer 1 copy of Martinů’s letter (7th January, 1958)

Martinů is returning the poet‘s greetings for the New Year, remembering their days spent together in Rome. He looks forward to the performance of the cantata Romance of the Dandelions, he was unable to receive the broadcast of his other cantata Legend of the Smoke from Potato Fires. He sends his greetings to the composer Václav Trojan, who sent him a kind letter and his recordings. He is delighted with the progress of the cantata The Opening of the Wells. He asks for some of Dvořák‘s music from the publisher Artia, Prague, and for a comedy written by V. K. Klicpera.

PAVEL EISNER (1889 - 1958)the Czech literary critic, publicist, poetand translator (of German-Jewish origin) 1 Martinů’s letter (10 December, 1957)

Martinů expresses his thanks and delight in reading Eis-ner’s book “Chrám a tvrz” (The Temple and the Citadel), received as a Christmas present from the author.

OTOKAR FISCHER (1883 - 1938)the Czech literary and theatre critic, literary historian, poet, essayist, playwright, professor of German literatu-re at Charles University, Prague, and translator 2 Martinů’s letters(8 May, 1920)

Martinů describes to Fischer a new scenario for the opera on a Japanese subject, which he intends to compose and asks for Fischer’s opinion of this new libretto.

(24 July, 1920, Polička)

He again requests help in finding Japanese poetry for his new opera libretto.

RUDOLF KEPL (1876 - ?)the Czech journalist and editor 3 copies of Martinů’s lettersfrom the years 1924 - 1935

The first, a visiting-card from July 1924, thanks Kepl for lending books, the second, a post-card from Polička to Kepl in Paris, (21 August, 1925) with best wishes for his vacation and memories of Paris, the third, a letter from Prague to Kepl in Geneva, (2 March, 1935) informing him of the successful premiere of Martinů’s opera The Plays about Mary in Brno‘s National Theatre (23 February, 1935). He tells Kepl about his new Paris flat, with a garden at Malakoff, and new style of life in this capital. He has many plans for the future, but does not know if

he is able to realize them all in quiet and peace. He also mentions his friends who stayed in France and hopes to meet them again in Paris.

JAROSLAV KVAPIL (1868 - 1950)the Czech theatre-producer, playwright and poet 1 Martinů’s letter (Polička, 23 September, 1928)

Congratulating the famous librettist of Dvořák‘s opera Rusalka on his 60th birthday.

STANISLAV MOJŽÍŠ-LOM (1883 – 1967)the Czech playwright and theatre-critic4 Martinů’s letters from 1933(3 March, 29 March, 8 April, 25 June)There are also 3 copies of Lom’s replies(7 March, 3 April, 16 May 1933)

Their letters illustrate an important moment in the composer‘s middle creative period, throwing new light on the circumstances under which he intended to write a new opera on Czech folk texts. This correspondence with Lom documents a new fact, that the creation of the opera cycle The Plays about Mary was preceded by an idea for the composition of the opera in the style of legends, to be composed in collaboration with Mojžíš-Lom. Martinů wanted to use Lom‘s play Saint Wenceslas originally written in connection with the celebrations for the 1000th anniversary of the martyrdom of the religious and spiritual patron of the Czech lands in the year 1929. Martinů‘s letters show new information that in 1933 he had already found, and wanted to use, some legends on death from Brittany for his intended opera.

Bohuslav Martinů’s Correspondence in theHeld in the Estates of the Following People (in alphabetical order)

Kateřina Maýrová

and the draft of the scenario for the operaThe Plays about Mary.

Most of the letters concern their collaboration. Nezval cooperated on the origin of the first part - the Prologue of the composer‘s opera The Plays about Mary, when he set old French text on The Wise and Foolish Virgins into Czech and created the libretto for Martinů‘s radio-opera The Voice of the Forest. The last from 1956 contains Martinu’s request for the

VÍTĚZSLAV NEZVAL (1900 -1958)Martinů‘s friend, the Czech poet,playwright and translator8 Martinů’s letters covering years 1926 -1956 (Paris, 2 March 1926; Paris, 25 June 1933;Paris, without date, probably 1933; probably Malakoff, 7 May, 1935; Paris, 22 May 1935;Paris, probably 6 May 1935; probably Nice;6 January 1936; Roma, 18 December 1956)

release from jail of the Czech poet and translator Dr. Josef Palivec (1886 -1975). He turns to Nezval with a strong appeal to intervene for Palivec’s liberty. There is a letter from Nezval’s wife Františka, sent to Martinů (1 March 1959) with a sorrow for her dead husband, who did not succeed in this matter. Because of the unclear address Martinů never obtained the letter.

“VARIA” collection1 letter from the young Martinů, not giving any precise address, name, location or date.

According to the added notes by the previous owner of this letter: Mr. R. Havel - it most probably comes from 1906. Its recipient was probably Martinů‘s previous teacher at Polička, Adolf Vaníček, who helped him to study at Prague Conservatoire.

“UMĚLECKÁ BESEDA“ archivethe artists society1 Martinů’s letter to the society‘s publishinghouse Hudební Matice Umělecké Besedy(Paris, 23 June, 1934) and concerning thepiano-cycle of easy pieces (without any official title), which Martinů intended to revisefor their future publication.

The piece is difficult to determine, because from 1933 - 1935 in the thematic catalogue of Martinů‘s works there is no evidence of a similar cycle of piano compositions to be published by Umělecká Beseda - Childern‘s pieces,H. 221 (?) (ed. note).

18 Martinů’s letters from 1943 -1948 to thelawyer and music writer Dr. JAN LÖWENBACH(1880 - 1972), and their 4 repliesfrom 1944 - 1945.

As the Cultural Adviser of the Czech Information Service for the Czech Consulate in New York, he collaborated with the Czech Press Agency and the weekly newspaper “The Czechoslovak”, giving information on the composer’s

Martinů‘s letter to Lom (3 March, 1933)

V. Nezval

17Bohuslav Martinů Newsletter 2001 - Third issue

New ResearchNew Research

London Conference on 20th Century MusicGregory Terian

The 2nd Biennial Conference on 20th Century Music took place at Goldsmiths College at the end of June. The first session was devoted to exile and suppresed music and was devised by Matthias Wurz ( University of New York), an aspiring conductor to whom credit is due for promoting a stimulating event.

Mr. Wurz is engaged in research on Austrian and Czech exiled composers, notably the conductor/ composers Georg Tintner and Vítězslava Kaprá-lová to whom his lecture was devoted. It must be said that although both left their countries in 1938, in other respects there could not be a greater disparity in their circumstances. Tintner ended his life in 1999 at the age of 82 while Kaprálová died in 1940 at the age of 25 after a short illness. She had no opportunity of returning to her homeland.

Kaprálová was studying compo-si-tion with Martinů in Paris and readers will be familiar with the details of her short and tragic life. They may be interested in the following account by Martinů of her concert at the 1938 ISCM Festival in London which Mr. Wurz included in his paper:

“...The very first item in the pro-gramme of the festival was the Milita-ry Sinfonietta by Vítězslava Kaprálová - an opening with great promise for both the festival and the composer. Her performance was awaited with interest as well as some curiosity - a girl with a baton is quite an unusual

phenomenon - and when our “little girl conductor” (as wrote English newspapers) appeared before the or-chestra, she was welcomed by a suppor-tive audience. She stood before the orchestra with great cou-rage and both her work and performance earned her respect and applause from the excellent BBC Orchestra, the audience and the critics (...) Vítězslava Kaprálová’s in-ter-national debut is a success, promising and encouraging.”

(English translation by Karla Hartl courtesy of the Kaprálová Society)

Aleš Březina’s lecture which fol-lowed was concerned with the plight of Bohuslav Martinů during the enforced years of exile. He contended that even in the turbulent 20th century it would be

difficult to find another artist who had to adapt to so many regimes or forms of state system, inasmuch as Martinů lived for many years in France (whose citizen he considered himself to be), in the USA ( whose citizen he actually became), and frequently visited Western Europe after the Second World War (mostly France, Italy and Switzerland).

Although Martinů avoided any sort of political involvement after the war, as is wel known, he was regarded with extreme suspicion by the communist regime in Cze-choslovakia although they made efforts to woo him back to his homeland. Mr. Březina threw new light on the composers situation in the United States, suggesting that in the era of McCarthyism the Ameri-

can authorities also viewed him with suspicion because of his absences abroad, his continuing contacts with musicians in Czechoslovakia and the fact that his music was being perfor-med there.

Eric Lévi (Royal Holloway Colle-ge) was concerned with the Nazi suppres-sion of modernism in music after 1933 following up with the contentious assertion that the refugee composers continued to be descriminated against after their arrival in Britain.

In the case of Hans Krása for example, who like Martinů studied with Albert Roussel in Paris, his Sym-phony was performed by Koussevitzky in Boston as long ago as 1927. George Szél knew Krása well and commis-sioned and performed the premiere of his opera Betrothal in a Dream at the German theatre in Prague in 1933 where Krása was his assistant. The distinguished cellist Raphael Som-mer was also iterned at Terezín andas a boy sang in performances of Brun-dibar at the camp. Yet Krása hardly rates a mention in the pre- 1990 reference books.

Other composers have suffered periods of neglect after their deaths. Gustav Mahler’s symphonies did not achieve a regular place in British concert programmes until the 1960s. In the case of the Terezín composers perhaps it has simply taken halfa century for the pendulum to swing.

Museum of National Literature in Praguefirst performances in the United States.As an expert in law for OSA (Czech Authors Organisati-on), he helped Martinů to enter the American Union of Authors - ASCAP.During the years 1946 - 1947 he also supported Marti-nů’s idea for his return home and intervened with Mr. Stránský, Minister for Education, for the composer’s promotion to a professorship at the new Academy of Music in Prague, which has never been realized.Martinů’s first letter to Jan Löwenbach from Darien, (30 June, 1943) tells about his hard work on the Symphony No. 2. In the following letters, from the forties, he writes about his work on the Symphonies No. 3, 4 and 5, the Sonata for flute and piano, String quartet No. 6, the Oboe quartet and the Piano Concerto No. 3.Martinů’s letter, (September 10, 1947) addressed to „Dear friends“, tells about his composition lessons for Jan Novák. He says he is a very industrious and gifted pupil.His last letter to Löwenbach, (11 February, 1948) is very important, because it provides evidence of his effort to return home to Czechoslovakia just a fortnight before the Communist coup. He expected to return definitely at the end of April, asking Löwenbach about the results of obtaining a flat in Prague, and had not decided if he would give lessons in composition, or just compose. Besides this correspondence, there are also the typed copies of Martinů’s Czech articles “Stáňa” (about his

friend Stanislav Novák) and “1938 - 1945” (an auto-bi-ography about his life and work during those years). The collection of the “Umělecká Beseda” also contains four articles by Jan Löwenbach on Bohuslav Martinů. The first (10 March, 1944) entitled “The New Violin Concerto by B. Martinů” tells about the performance of this work for the weekly “The Czechoslovak”, the second (June 1944) “O Bohuslavu Martinů” describes his composition style, the third “Bohuslav Martinů goes to Prague” is a reaction to the Prague Conservatoire’s invitation to teach in Prague (Prof. Václav Holzknecht) the fourth “Třetí symfonie B. Martinů provedenav Bostonu” describes the third Symphony‘s premiere(12 October, 1945).

JAN ZRZAVÝ (1890 - 1977)the painter2 letters and two post-cards from the composer‘s sister Marie, from 1942 - 1954 , and many letters from the composer‘s wife, Charlotte, to Zrzavý from 1961 - 1975.

The first letter from Martinů’s sister Marie (3 January, 1942) expresses many thanks to the painter for his fi-nancial support of the family at Polička, the second (19 January, 1942) tells Zrzavý about the arrival and visit of the painter Alén Diviš in New York and the composer‘s musical activities in Boston.

Martinů with V. Kaprálováand her father, Tři Studně 1938

The letter to S. Mojžíš-Lom and photo of V. Nezval is pu-blished with kind permission of the Museum of National Literature in Prague.

Martinůs, Zrzavýand Nezval, Paris 1934

The author Kateřina Maýrová has devoted many years to study of Martinu’s correspondence.(See also News - Books, page 14)

Translation by David Freeman

18

THE ARCHIVEThe most valuable part of the Me-

morial is undoubtedly the archive. Museum employees began assembling its extensive source materials already in the 1930s; at that time the collec-tions consisted mainly of newspaper and ma-gazine articles, reviews, and programs. The year 1957 was a milestone in the history of the Memorial when the com-poser’s sister Marie Martinů depos-ited in the museum the first extensive col-lection of autographs of Martinů’s works, primarily autographs from his early pre-Parisian period. In 1977 Char-lotte Martinů transferred this collection into the permanent owner-ship of the Municipal Museum and also donated additional autographs by the composer. Since the 1950s the museum has also been acquiring valuable Martinů sources from other individual donors and via purchases.

The archive’s various collections contain in all about 1,500 autographsof Bohuslav Martinů including musical autographs, correspondence, various contemplations, commen-taries, librettos written in Martinů’s hand, etc. The Museum owns letters of Bohuslav Martinů addressed to many persons and insti-tutions: to his family in Polička and to Miloslav Bureš, Stanislav Novák, Karel Novák, Miloš Šafránek, Karel Šebánek, the Melantrich publishing house, persons and institutions in Polička, etc. Also found in the archive are letters received by Bohuslav, Charlotte, and Marie Martinů from various persons and institutions such as for example Karel Ančerl, Miloslav Bureš, Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, Mischa Elman, Rudolf Firkušný, Rafael Kubelík, Rudolf Kundera, Charles Linbergh, Charles Munch, Georges Neveux, Václav Talich, Nikos Kazantzakis, the Boosey and Hawkes firm, the Basel Chamber Orchestra, the Czech Nonet, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, the Vienna Concert Hall Association, the Zürich Municipal Theater, the Czech Philharmonic, and Israeli Music Publications.

Additional extensive collections in the archiveof the Bohuslav Martinů Memorial include:- facsimiles of musical autographs- part of Martinů’s library (mainly donated by Charlotte Reber in 1997) - original photographs of Bohuslav Martinů with members of

the Martinů family, Charlotte Martinů, friends, performers of Martinů’s works, and places where the composer lived or stayed

- personal documents, school reports, diplomas, official communi-cations, and other significant documents pertaining to Bohuslav Martinů and members of his family

- clippings, programs, and posters from 1910 to the present - written materials and photographs pertaining to stage works - costume and set designs (both two-dimensional and three-dimensional), poster designs- printed editions of works by Martinů - specialized library of materials about Bohuslav Martinů - collection of videocassettes, compact discs, audiocassettes, films

on reels, and reel tape recordings- three-dimensional objects from the possessions of the Martinů family- originals of librettos

Most of the autographs are available in the form of facsimiles at the Bohuslav Martinů Institute in Prague. The same goes for photographs, which are now available in digitalized form.

Also deposited in the archive of the Bohuslav Martinů Memorial are col-lections from the estates of Charlotte Martinů, Marie Martinů, Miloš Šafránek, and Karel Šebánek. Additional collec-tions are devoted to Miloslav Bureš, Vítězslava Kaprálová, the Activity of the Bohuslav Martinů Memorial, and Musical Life in Polička.

THE PERMANENT EXPOSITIONThe first permanent exposition

devoted to Bohuslav Martinů was es-tablished in the museum in 1945 and ceremonially opened on the composer’s fifty-fifth birthday, 8 December 1945. This exposition was significantly ex-panded in 1957 when it was divided into several parts. One part was devoted to the composer’s life and others to ballet works, opera, chamber music, piano

and orchestral works, vocal works, and (with special emphasis) Martinů’s relation to Polička. The present exposition, mounted in 1984 primarily from the rich archival collections of the Memorial, offers a cross-section of the composer’s life and work presented via photographs, slides, drawings, set models, and costume de-signs. Since 1990 an audio-visual room has also been available allowing visitors to view biographical documentary films about Martinů and listen to recordings of his music.

MARTINŮ’S BIRTHPLACEIN THE TOWER OF ST. JAMES’S CHURCH

Martinů and his homelandMartinů and his homeland

WHERE MARTINŮ IS AT HOMEThe Bohuslav Martinů Memorial in Polička

Ludmila SadílkováThe Bohuslav Martinů Memorial is a separate division of the Municipal Museum in Polička,

which was founded in 1880. The beginnings for the division were established already in 1934,when a display case devoted to the Polička native Bohuslav Martinů was added to the museum.

The Bohuslav MartinůNewsletter is pub-

lishedby The International

Bohuslav Martinů Society in

collaboration withThe Bohuslav Martinů

Institute in Praguewith the financial

support ofThe Bohuslav Martinů

Foundationin Prague

Editor:Jana Honzíková

Associate editor:Sandra Bergmannová

Translation:David Beveridge

Photos:Archive of the

Bohuslav Martinů Institute

Graphic design:Attila Belák

Printing:Agentura KřídlaNám. Barikád 3

Prague 3, 130 00

The Bohuslav MartinůNewsletter is printed

on recycled paperIt is published

three times a year

The Cover:Photo from the filmThe Amazing Flight

by Václav Beneš

Seat:The International

Bohuslav Martinů SocietyAcacialaan 28

B 1820 SteenokkerzeelBelgium

Tel. /Fax: +320-16-65 50 57Karel Van Eycken

presidentE-mail:

karel.vaneycken15@yucom.be

Price fornon-members of IBMS:

CZK 50, 70 Bfrs,4 DM, 2 $, 2 Euro

Office of IBMSand editorial office:

The Bohuslav Martinů Institute

Nám. Kinských 3150 00 Prague 5

Tel: +420-2-57 31 31 04Tel/Fax: +420-2-57 32 00 76e-mail: martinu@martinu.cz

www.martinu.cz

Secretary of IBMS:Jindra Jilečková

e-mail: ibms@martinu.cz

The precedingissue:

Contact: The Bohuslav Martinů MemorialTylova 114, 572 01 Polička, Czech Republic

Tel./Fax: +420-463-72 40 56Tel.: +420-463-72 57 69

E-mail: bmartinu@policka-city.czInternet: www.muzeum.policka.net

Final Grade Report

The small room where Bohuslav Martinů was born has been open to the public since 1947, when the Martinů family donated the furnishings of this room, mostly original, to the museum. The same painting patterns were also used on the walls of the room - according to preserved paper stencils. Recently the entire fur-nishings were restored with financial support from the Bohuslav Martinů Foundation.

Internationale MusikfesttageB. Martinů

Vom 18. November bis 2. Dezember 2001 in Baselunter der künstlerischen Leitung von Robert Kolinsky

Sonntag 18. November, 19.00 h, im Stadtcasino, Hans Huber Saal

Dimitri Ashkenazy, Klarinette und Robert Kolinsky, Klavier

spielen Brahms, Hajdu (Uraufführung), Martinu und PoulencAnsprache durch Josef Suk, Schirmherr der Int. Musikfesttage B. Martinu

Mittwoch 21. November, 20.30 h, im Stadtkino Basel

„Paul Sacher - Portrait dumécene en musicien“

ein Film von Edna PolitiAnschliessend Gespräch mit Edna Politi und Jürg Erni

Sonntag 25. November, 19.00 h, im Stadtcasino, Hans Huber Saal

„Panocha Quartett“ spielt Smetana, Martinů und Dvořák18.15 h Einführung durch Dr. Jakob Knaus, Redaktor Radio DRS 2

Mittwoch 28. November, 19.00 h

Kinderkonzert im Museum Jean TinguelyKonzept Sylwia Zytynska, Leitung Kaspar Zwicky, Moderation Rica-Maria Cathomen

Sonntag 2. Dezember, 19.00 h, im Museum Jean Tinguely

„Ensemble Basilisk“ spielt Milhaud, Novák, Stravinsky,Martinů unter der Leitung von Peter-Lukas GrafEinführung durch Ales Brezina, Direktor des Instituts Bohuslav Martinu, Pragˇ ˇ

Information: www.martinu.ch. Vorverkauf: Musik Hug Basel,Tel. 061 272 33 95 oder BaZ am Aeschenplatz, Tel. 061 281 84 84

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