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