Country in central Europe. It was established in 1992 after the break-up of Czechoslovakia into two separate republics. Czechoslovakia had been created in 1918 out of the former Habsburg territories of Bohemia, Moravia and Slovakia. This reflects the composition of the 9th-century kingdom of Great Moravia. Slovakia fell to the Magyars in 906 (and remained part of Hungary and later the Habsburg Empire until 1918); Bohemia, with a strong line of Přemyslid princes and kings, became dominant and in 1029 formally incorported Moravia as a margravate. The teachings of Jan Hus gave the kingdom a largely Protestant character, eroded neither by five assaults by imperial and crusader armies (1419–31) nor by the election of a Habsburg as king in 1526. After the Battle of the White Mountain (1620), in which the Czech nobility were defeated by the Habsburgs, Bohemia and Moravia became virtual provinces of the Habsburg Empire and were forced to adopt its language and religion. Reaction to this culminated in the 19th-century national revival, which in turn led to independence and union with Slovakia in 1918. As a result of the Munich Pact (1938) various border territories were annexed to Germany, Hungary and Poland, and in 1939 the republic was dismembered with Bohemia and Moravia becoming a German protectorate and Slovakia an independent state. The country was liberated in 1945, largely by the Red Army, and in 1948 became a socialist state. Czechoslovakia became a federation of Czech and Slovak socialist republics in 1968. Following the fall of the communist regime in 1989, Czechoslovakia returned to democratic self-determination; in 1992 the two states separated into the Czech and Slovak republics.
JOHN CLAPHAM/JAN SMACZNY (I, 1), OLDŘICH PUKL/JAN SMACZNY (I, 2–3), L. TYLLNER (with KAREL VETTERL) (II, 1), MARTA TONCROVÁ (with OSKÁR ELSCHEK) (II, 2)
(iii) Growth of Czech nationalism.
Czech Republic, §I, 1: Art music: Bohemia and Moravia
Christianity is believed to have been brought to Bohemia by Bavarian evangelists early in the second quarter of the 9th century. In about 863 the Byzantine missionaries Cyril and Methodius came to the Great Moravian Empire to preach Christianity in the Slavonic tongue. Although their introduction of a Slavonic liturgy received papal approval, the Roman Catholic priests and their bishop opposed this vigorously and resolved to make the Latin ritual prevail; on the death of Methodius in 885 the Slavonic liturgy was banned by Pope Stephen V. Byzantine chant was sung during this time, but early in the 10th century Gregorian chant became predominant. In the 11th century, singing in Old Church Slavonic was forbidden in the churches, so that the earliest surviving Czech melodies, although religious, are not liturgical. One of the first of these, Hospodine, pomiluj ny (‘Lord, have mercy’) appears in Jan of Holešov’s tract of about 1397. The Svatý Václave (‘St Wenceslas’) melody, which was later used by Dvořák, Suk and Novák, occurs in a gradual of about 1473. With the founding of a university by the French-educated Charles IV in 1348 and his election to the imperial throne in 1356, mensural theory, based on the work of Johannes de Muris began to be studied. The first signs of mensural notation in settings are seen in Buóh všemohúcí (‘Almighty God’), in the so-called Jistebnice Cantional (c1420), along with the Vyšebrodský sborník, the earliest Bohemian collection of spiritual songs. Another feature of church music developing in Prague in the 13th and 14th centuries was liturgical drama associated with Easter.
Sources for secular repertory are far less prevalent, but clearly visits from Minnesinger and later Meistersinger were frequent from the 12th to the late 14th centuries when the influence of trouvčres began to emerge more strongly. Ceremonial music involving trumpets and drums also flourished through the 14th and 15th centuries and remained an important aspect of town music into the modern age. The simplicity of popular melody was clearly reflected in early 15th-century Christmas hymns in an age when congregational singing was becoming central to worship. Although some of the songs of the Hussites were original, a considerable number were adapted from Gregorian plainchant and vernacular sacred sources. The most famous of these melodies, Ktož jsú Boží bojovníci (‘Those who are God's warriors’), fervently sung by Žižka's army on the battlefield and meant to strike fear into the hearts of their enemies, became a powerful symbol of national identity for Czech composers in the 19th and 20th centuries. The Jistebnice Cantional contains 77 of these songs, including this celebrated melody. At the turn of the 16th century the puritanical Bohemian Brethren (Unitas Fratrum, who developed from the more extreme radical wing of the Hussites) began publishing numerous Protestant collections of hymns and psalms, as did the more moderate Hussite group, the Calixtines or Utraquists. Some of these hymnals lack tunes, including the earliest, the Písničky of 1501, containing 88 songs. One of the Bohemian Brethren's more important collections with tunes is the famous Písně chval božských (‘Songs in praise of God’, Szamotuly, 1561) prepared by Bishop Jan Blahoslav, the translator of the New Testament. Šimon Lomnický's Písně nové na evangelia (Prague, 1580) is the first of many Catholic hymnals prompted by the growing impetus of the Counter-Reformation. Šteyer and Božan were assiduous collectors of hymns, whereas Michna and later Holan Rovenský introduced newly composed items for several voices with figured bass accompaniment. The use of songs and hymns to vernacular texts as part of the mass, a practice recommended by Jan Hus, became widespread in the liturgy, especially the so-called ‘Rorate’ chants. The interpolation of vernacular elements in the form of independent songs and tropes remained a vigorous feature of Roman Catholic worship in the Czech lands into the 20th century. From 1620 onwards, during the Thirty Years War (1618–48), leading Protestants were forced to flee from persecution, and consequently Tranovský's Cithara sanctorum was published at Levoča, Slovakia (1636), and Bishop Komenský (Comenius) issued his important Kancionál … kniha … písni duchovních at Amsterdam (1659).
Bohemian composers were slow to adopt polyphonic styles, and even in the second half of the 15th century, as the Kutná Hora Gradual shows, they were still writing in the Ars Antiqua manner. Jan Franus’s Cantional (1505), however, includes some examples of the newer type of motet and even some five-part works. After this polyphonic music developed rapidly and before the close of the century Spongopaeus wrote a composition for eight-part double choir. Trojan Turnovský, Jiří Rychnovský and the nobleman and humanist Harant z Polžic a Bezdružic (beheaded in 1621) were the leading composers of the Renaissance. A single five-part mass, two motets and some motet fragments are all that survive of Harant’s work, but these provide ample evidence of his original talent.
During most of the 16th century (Habsburg domination began in 1526) the three emperors, Ferdinand I (1556–64), Maximilian II (1564–76) and Rudolf II (1576–1612), maintained splendid musical establishments. Rudolf, though essentially conservative where music was concerned, took over his father's chapel with its concentration of fine musicians from the Low Countries built up by Monte. He was particularly fortunate in having such composers as Jacob Regnart, Kerle, Alessandro Orologio and Stefano Rossetto to serve him at Prague castle, where he preferred to reside. Outside the court, Jacob Handl (Gallus) worked for the Bishop of Olomouc and moved to Prague in 1586 as choirmaster of St John na Břehu. Prague thus became one of the most important European musical centres. Following the example of the imperial court, the powerful Rožmberk family established a fine orchestra and library of music at Český Krumlov. In the 17th century the Kinskýs, Czernins and Fürstenbergs had singers and instrumentalists at their Prague palaces. There were important musical establishments at the Moravian castles of Tovačov, Vyškov, Holešov (where Holzbauer was the director of music) and Jaroměřice nad Rokytnou, the seat of Count J.A. Questenberg and the home of the Míča family. But the most important group of musicians was at Kroměříž in the chapel of the Prince-Bishop Karl Liechtenstein-Kastelcorn of Olomouc. The most important musician there was Pavel Vejvanovský; Biber was there from about 1668 until he left for Salzburg in 1670.
Jesuit colleges provided a thorough training for young church musicians, and monasteries and churches offered good opportunities for composers of sacred choral music, organ music, school and sepulchre dramas and Christmas pastorals. Michna, organist of one of these colleges, was in many ways the most original Czech composer of the early Baroque period. There are marked Italian influences, including aspects of the concertato style, in his music, but his use of indigenous elements has particular significance. His St Wenceslas Mass (c1668) is on a festive scale for six solo voices, six-part choir and an orchestra that includes trumpets. During the first half of the 18th century Zelenka was the most outstanding Czech composer. He studied with Fux and Lotti and became court composer at Dresden. Among his many compositions are three oratorios and an allegorical Melodrama de Sancto Venceslao, which he wrote in 1723 for the coronation of the Habsburg Emperor Charles VI as King of Bohemia (Fux wrote Costanza e Fortezza for this occasion; fig.1). Zelenka’s contemporary Černohorský, who was the minorite choirmaster of St Jakub, Prague, was known as ‘Il Padre boemo’ in Italy and was highly regarded at home.
Though opera had been known in Prague since 1627, when a performance of an unknown pastoral comedy was given by a Mantuan company at the coronation of Ferdinand III on 27 November, it did not become a major part of the city's musical life until the opening in 1724 of Count F.A. Sporck's theatre; regular performances of Italian opera, including works by Vivaldi, were given both here, organized by Antonio Denzio, and, from 1724, at Sporck's country estate of Kuks. La Libussa, given in Wolfenbüttel in 1692, was almost certainly the first opera on a Czech subject; the composer is unknown. It was followed closely by Albinoni's Primislao, primo re di Boemia (Venice, 1697). Bartolomeo Bernardi’s La Libussa was given in Prague in the 1703–4 season, the first opera on a native subject to be performed in the Czech lands. Another version of the same legend, Praga nascente da Libussa e Primislao, was performed at Count Sporck's theatre (Prague, 1734); the libretto was by Denzio and the composer may have been Antonio Bioni. Significant Czech composers of the 18th century showed no interest in native subject matter and composed opera to texts in Italian (Mysliveček, Gassmann and Johann Antonin Kozeluch), German (the Bendas) and French (Kohaut).
Czech Republic, §I, 1: Art music: Bohemia and Moravia
After Charles VI’s coronation in 1723 there was little incentive for noblemen to spend much time at their Prague palaces or on their Bohemian and Moravian estates except for hunting. For a century the imperial court had been permanently established in Vienna, and Prague had consequently declined to the level of a provincial city. Many Czechs had found the crushing defeat in 1620 hard to bear; they were forced to use the language of their conquerors, and Protestants (e.g. the Bendas) found the lack of religious freedom intolerable; an increasing burden of taxation was another factor in driving Czechs from their native land. But perhaps the most serious aspect of the situation for musicians was the limited number of worthwhile posts that they could fill. The conditions that prevailed led to an unprecedented migration of Bohemian and Moravian Czechs to many parts of Europe (where most of them became known under the forms of their names – usually Germanized – that were used locally).
Johan Stamitz, his sons Carl and Anton, F.X. Richter and Fils contributed to the development of the pre-Classical symphony at Mannheim. Georg Benda experimented with the new art of melodrama at Gotha and his violinist elder brother Franz was Konzertmeister to Frederick the Great at Berlin. Opera drew Mysliveček southwards to Italy, where he followed up a triumph at Naples with successes in several other Italian cities as a composer of stage and instrumental music, and virtuosos such as the horn player Giovanni Punto and the pianist-composer Jan Ladislav Dussek travelled widely. František Adam Míča spent his time in Austria and Poland, and J.B. Vanhal first studied in Vienna, then travelled in Italy and finally returned to settle in the Austrian capital. Many other Czech and Moravian composers made Vienna their home: F.I.A. Tůma was composer to the Empress Elizabeth (Charles VI's widow) and director of her Kapelle; J.A. Štěpán was court piano teacher and had the princesses Marie Antoinette and Caroline as pupils; after making his mark as an opera buffa composer in Italy, Gassmann followed Gluck as director of the imperial theatre; Leopold Kozeluch, noted for his expressive piano music, became court composer after Mozart, and was in turn succeeded by Franz Krommer from Moravia; Paul Wranitzky (the composer of Oberon, König der Elfen) and his brother Anton were important members of the imperial opera orchestra. The harpist and composer Krumpholtz played in Prince Esterházy's orchestra, but he later went to Paris, where Josef Kohaut and Antoine Reicha, whose pupils included Liszt, Berlioz and Franck, also established themselves. Pichl was director of music and composer to the Archduke Ferdinand at Milan for 21 years, and Rosetti, a double bass player, was Count Oettingen-Wallerstein's music director. A few Czech musicians of stature remained at home during the second half of the 18th century, among them F.X. Brixi, who directed the music at St Vít, Prague, and F.X. Dušek, a piano teacher, composer and friend of Mozart.
After the Thirty Years War it was normal for composers to write Latin church music and operas in Italian, German or French. Czech words were rarely set; an exception may have been František Václav. Míča's Italian opera L'origine di Jaromeriz in Moravia (1730) of which there was a contemporary Czech translation. At about this time Zelenka used the Kralice Bible translation for his setting of Psalm 1, written at Dresden, and in the early 1760s Felix Benda (1708–68), a Prague organist, composed two Czech dramas. In the more Germanized metropolitan centres there was little opportunity for Czech opera to flourish, but the native language, often in dialect form, was often used in rural areas for Singspiel-type operas of a topical or didactic nature. Czech was also used in pastorellas, a widespread and popular genre in central Europe comprising settings of texts celebrating the birth of Christ; vernacular pastorella texts were also used in the pastoral masses current in Bohemia and Moravia from the mid-18th to early 19th-centuries.
Czech Republic, §I, 1: Art music: Bohemia and Moravia
The strong literary and linguistic developments in Bohemia during the last decades of the 18th century represented a protest, by those who had read Rousseau and Herder, against the suppression of the Czech language. Dobrovský embarked on his vitally important philological and historical studies, and his literary work was continued by Jungmann. At Prague University a chair of Czech language and literature was founded in 1791. Thám published the first anthology of old and new poems in 1785 and in 1786 wrote a Czech play, Břetislav a Jitka, based on historical legend. The ‘discovery’ of the notorious ‘Dvůr Králové’ (Queen's Court) Manuscript over 30 years later was a more momentous literary event; supposedly dating from the 13th century, but now considered a forgery, it prompted numerous settings and a growing pride in the native literary tradition. Ryba succeeded in having a set of Czech songs published in 1800, and his example was followed several years later by J.E. Doležálek and Tomášek. Bilingual Czech-German performers of the so-called ‘Patriotic Theatre’ company staged the first Czech versions of German Singspiele in the early 1790s and gave a performance of Die Zauberflöte in Czech in 1794. Weigl's Schweitzerfamilie, given in a Czech translation in 1823, initiated a steady flow of translated works from abroad including operas by Mozart, Cherubini, Méhul and Rossini. Starting with The Tinker (1826), F.J. Škroup tried to establish himself as a composer of Czech operas composing two librettos based on historical mythology. But with competition from a strong Czech drama troupe and a superior German opera company, which Škroup also conducted, he felt obliged to turn to German texts.
Czech composers were pioneers of the salon piano pieces greatly favoured during the Romantic period. Tomášek published seven books of Eclogues from 1807, three books of Rhapsodies from 1810 and three Dithyrambs in 1818, while the Rhapsodies op.1 (1818) and more especially the Impromptus op.7 (1820) of his pupil Voříšek preceded and influenced those of Schubert. B.D. Weber was chosen to be the first director of the Prague Conservatory, which was opened in 1811, and when the Prague Organ School was started in 1830 for the express purpose of encouraging church music in Bohemia, Jan Vitásek became its head. Like Tomášek, Vitásek was a great admirer of Mozart, who had taken Prague by storm when he presented Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni and La clemenza di Tito and whose influence among the Czechs remained strong for many decades after his death. The Cecilská Jednota (Caecilienverein) and the Žofínská Akademie (Sophien Akademie), both Prague concert-giving organizations, began in 1840. A growing interest in folksong became apparent when František Sušil issued his first collection of Moravian songs (1835) and Karel Erben followed it with a book of Czech songs (1842); both initiated a long succession of volumes resulting in a huge collection of national songs available to musicians by the 1860s.
The transformation of the political situation caused by the Austrian defeats in Lombardy in 1859 led to great optimism about the future course of Czech music. Plans laid as early as 1844 for a Czech ‘stone’ theatre came to fruition with the opening of the Provisional Theatre for the performance of Czech opera and drama in 1862. In order to establish a native repertory of historical and comic operas, Count Harrach instituted a competition in 1861 for scores and librettos; the winning entry, Smetana's The Brandenburgers in Bohemia (first performed in 1866), also proved one of the most popular works in the early years of the Provisional Theatre. The crucial role in the national revival played by the partsong was reflected in the founding of a series of Hlahol (male-voice choral societies) in Nymburk (1860) Prague (1861) and Plzeň (1862). Following the distinguished lead of the Moravian Křížkovský, all major Czech composers contributed to a growing repertory of choruses. The Umělecká Beseda, a society composed of the leading personalities in each of the arts, was founded in Prague in 1863. Smetana's decision to compose operas on historical and legendary subjects culminated in Dalibor (1868) and the epic festival opera Libuše, which was held in reserve until 11 June 1881, for the festive opening of the National Theatre. Within two months of the opening, the roof, auditorium and stage were destroyed by fire, but the theatre reopened in 1883. Smetana's cycle of six symphonic poems Má vlast represents the continuation and completion of his aim to glorify the Czech nation in his creative work. His insistence that national art should adopt contemporary compositional methods and not be based on folksong led to opposition from traditionalists and misunderstanding by the public. They enjoyed The Brandenburgers in Bohemia, The Bartered Bride (1866; fig.3) and to a lesser extent The Kiss (1876), but failed to appreciate Dalibor. During his eight years as principal conductor of the Provisional Theatre (1866–74) Smetana broadened the repertory, mainly by reducing its Italian content and including several new Czech works by such composers as Šebor, Rozkošný, Bendl, Vojáček and Blodek; even so, the proportion of operetta in the repertory, much of it by Offenbach, also increased. With his own compositions he raised the quality of Czech music to a level of distinction, and at the same time established a style that has come to be seen as quintessentially Czech.
Smetana was an ardent patriot who had little interest in having his works performed abroad, and whose aim was to provide a repertory of Czech music. When Dvořák (his junior by 17 years) became known, the struggle to give Czech art and culture its rightful place in the life of the nation had been largely achieved. He too was by nature a patriot, although not an extreme one. His music may also be seen as genuinely Czech, but he was perfectly willing to let the outside world share it with his own people. His greatest successes were in fact in England and the USA. He was determined, however, to write a stage work that would win a permanent place in the hearts of the Czech people, and towards the end of his life he succeeded with Rusalka (1901), a fairy-tale opera of great lyrical beauty written partly on Wagnerian lines. His interest in Wagner and Verdi influenced his work at various times, but his admiration for Brahms also left a lasting impression. While he rarely quoted folksong, the rhythms of national dances often give his music a direct popular appeal; after 1875 the essentials of his personal style did not change fundamentally, even under the impact of the music he heard in the USA.
Melodrama was an important strand in later 19th-century Czech music and reached its apogee in Fibich's trilogy of full-length stage melodramas, Hippodamia (1890–91), which makes use of a complex leitmotif system. Karel Kovařovic, composer of the patriotic opera The Dog Heads (1898), and Otakar Ostrčil, who wrote the melodious one-act opera The Bud (1911), were both pupils of Fibich and distinguished conductors of the National Theatre, Prague. While there were major contributions to the traditional national operatic repertory in the 1890s, notably Fibich's Šárka (1897) and Dvořák's The Devil and Kate (1899), a growing interest in verismo subject matter led to such operas as Rozkošný's Stoja and J.B. Foerster's Eva (1899). None of these men was able to score a major international success such as Weinberger later had with Švanda dudák (‘Schwanda the Bagpiper’, 1927), though Dvořák's pupils Nedbal and Friml had active careers as composers of operetta in Vienna and the USA respectively.
Dvořák's Moravian friend Janáček waited 12 years for the Prague premičre of his Jenůfa (Brno, 1904), but this belated recognition encouraged him greatly and in the final years of his life he composed five more operas (The Excursions of Mr Brouček, Prague 1920, Káťa Kabanová, Brno, 1921, The Cunning Little Vixen, Brno, 1924, The Makropulos Affair, Brno 1926 and From the House of the Dead, Brno 1930), as well as the Glagolitic Mass, the Sinfonietta and his finest chamber music. Janáček was steeped in Moravian folk music; his extremely personal style, which relied greatly on the repetition of brief melodic and rhythmic fragments and resulted in a kind of musical mosaic, proved to be a potent vehicle for the expression of intimate and intensely passionate thoughts and emotions.
The music of Josef Suk (i), the second violinist in the Bohemian Quartet, acquired greater depth of feeling after the double blow of the death of his teacher Dvořák and of his wife, Dvořák's daughter Otilie. His masterpiece, the Asrael Symphony (1905–6), the symphonic poem Ripening (1912–17) and the Second String Quartet date from this period; he composed no operas. Vítězslav Novák, another of Dvořák's pupils, was an outstanding teacher whose pupils included Ladislav Vycpálek, Dobiáš, Jaroslav and Otakar Jeremiáš, Axman, Vomáčka, Jan Kunc, and Alois and Karel Hába, as well as the Slovak composers Cikker, Alexander Moyzes and Suchoň. Novák's operas have a strong national tone and include Karlštejn (1916) and The Lantern (1923). The themes that recur most frequently in his music, however, are nature, often associated with Slovakia, and love.
After the deaths of Janáček (1928), Suk (1935) and Ostrčil (1935), the remaining active 20th-century Czech composers of stature were Novák and Foerster. Their legacy formed the link for the mainstream of modern Czech music, which, while it was influenced by Impressionism and schooled in the works of Mahler and Strauss, and also took its inspiration from jazz, folksong and social poetry, basically did not exceed the bounds of the established Czech style. Among the composers in that style were Vycpálek, Karel, Otakar Zich, Otakar Jeremiáš, K.B. Jirák, Křička, Vomáčka and others. The organizational links between them were primarily Prague institutions, the Spolek pro Moderní Hudbu (Society for Modern Music, 1920–39), the Umělecká Beseda (1863–1973, re-established in 1990) and its journal Listy Hudební matice, later renamed Tempo. Above all this group of composers enriched the Czech tradition of choral song and raised its musical quality; they also developed symphonic and chamber music.
The Czech inter-war avant garde split away from this movement; one important group was formed by Alois Hába and his pupils, including Karel Hába, Šrom and Reiner. They took their inspiration from the Expressionists and moved towards the techniques of the Second Viennese School. Their music is characterized by atonality, an athematic style and Hába’s micro-intervallic system (quarter-tone, sixth-tone etc.). Hába’s experimentation and the construction of quarter- and sixth-tone instruments (including the piano, the harmonium and the clarinet) was a Czech contribution to the development of composition and resulted in the establishment in 1923 of a special Hába composition class at the Prague Conservatory. In 1935 the society for contemporary music, Přítomnost (‘The Present’), was founded by that sector of the Czech avant garde with the journal Rytmus as their official publication. The strong tendency of Hába’s group to social criticism attracted to Přítomnost a further group of Czech composers, also active in the communist proletarian movement, Svaz DDOČ. Those composers (e.g. Vít Nejedlý and Schulhoff) were orientated towards Soviet music and the German Kampflied and subordinated their art to the demands of the working class and the struggle against fascism.
At the other end of the spectrum of the Czech avant garde were a number of composers, among them Martinů, who were receptive to contemporary trends, in particular neo-classicism. Both Martinů and Schulhoff, an excellent pianist, also showed a strong interest in jazz in the 1920s. Other members of this group, organized within Mánes Music Group, were Bořkovec, Iša Krejčí and Ježek. Hlobil and E.F. Burian, whose works synthesize most of the tendencies of the inter-war avant garde, were loosely connected with this group.
In Moravia it was Janáček who significantly advanced the development of music through the quality of his composition and the establishment of the Brno Organ School in 1882. His pupils, including Vladimír Ambros, Kvapil and Petrželka, formed the Klub Moravských Skladatelů (Club of Moravian Composers, 1922–49) in Brno. Some composers in his circle were influenced by the late Romantic style of Mahler and Reger, and by Impressionist music, while others, notably Kaprálová, were French-orientated. Only Haas and Harašta, who explored a method of modal composition and the rhythmic layering of structures, productively assimilated Janáček’s compositional technique.
A group of German-speaking composers, which included Finke and Ullmann, also played a progressive role. This group was drawn primarily towards Expressionism and the Second Viennese School; they were organized in Prague as the Verein für Musikalischen Privataufführungen and published the journal Der Auftakt. In the 1930s they cooperated with Czech-speaking artists, in particular with Hába’s circle and Přítomnost. Under the artistic directorship of Zemlinsky and Szell, the Neues Deutsches Theater in Prague became an important institution with a repertory that pioneered works by Janáček, Schoenberg, Shostakovich, Milhaud and Krenek, among others.
Several artistic institutions played an important role in Czech musical life at the end of the 1930s: in the National Theatre the classics of the Czech repertory were much enhanced by distinguished performances by Ostrčil, who also introduced operas by Debussy and Szymanowski; his high standards were maintained by his successor Talich, who augmented the repertory with works by, among others, Martinů. As conductor of the Czech PO Talich created a repertory representative of Czech music (mainly Smetana, Dvořák, Novák and Suk), while in Brno the Moravian Municipal Theatre gave premičres of almost all Janáček’s operas, as well as works by Martinů, Ostrčil, E.F. Burian and non-Czech composers such as Prokofiev. In Ostrava, Vogel and Schulhoff created the conditions for the growth of modern music and Stravinsky, Prokofiev and Hindemith gave premičres of their own works there. Professional musicians were trained in Prague and Brno and in the university extension ‘masters schools’. The network of societies for chamber music and the hundreds of choral societies affiliated to the organization Pěvecká Obec Československá (Czechoslovak Choral Council, 1868–1951) made concerts possible in virtually all the larger towns in Czechoslovakia. The Czechoslovak radio extended this network with its stations in Prague (1923), Brno (1925), Ostrava (1929) and later Plzeň (1946). This gave wide publicity to the most famous performing bodies and soloists in Czechoslovakia.
The departments of musicology at the Charles University in Prague and at the Masaryk University in Brno facilitated the study of musicology. Conservation of musical materials (mainly at the music department of the National Museum, Prague, and at the Moravian Museum, Brno) and instrument making achieved a high standard. There were several established private publishers (in Prague, the Urbánek family, 1871, F. Chádim, 1906, Melantrich, 1936 and the Umělecká Beseda, 1871; in Brno, the Pazdírek family, 1911). As in the 18th and 19th centuries, Czech musical life in the 20th century was characterized by continuity across the generations, notably in the case of the Suk and Jeremiáš families. In general, between the wars Czech music had a well-developed institutional basis that not only satisfied its own demands but was open to international contacts, the most prominent of which were those with central, western and south-eastern Europe.
The 1935 festival of the ISCM foreshadowed the onset of fascism. Originally to have been held in Berlin, it was moved (after political disputes within the German section of the ISCM) to Karlovy Vary (Karlsbad). German pro-Nazi members, in the majority in the Karlovy Vary council, withdrew their cooperation at the last minute; the festival was therefore organized from Prague and passed off successfully.
The Munich Pact (1938), the formation of the independent Slovak state (1939) and the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia (1939) complicated and progressively limited Czech musical life, which during World War II was conducted within the framework of Hitler’s Reich (1939–45). The inter-war avant garde was dispersed and individual European national cultures were isolated. Czech music suffered grave losses: Martinů fled to the USA, and Kaprálová (1940) and Ježek (1942) died in exile in the West; Zdeněk Nejedlý emigrated to the USSR. Many professional Czech musicians, including Vít Nejedlý, died in the free Czech army. Karel Reiner, E.F. Burian, Karel Ančerl, the musicologist Vladimír Helfert, the singer Karel Berman and many others suffered in Nazi prisons and concentration camps; Rudolf Karel and the musicologist Zdeněk Němec among others died in prison. Many artists of Jewish extraction who did not choose or were unable to emigrate in time died in concentration camps, among them the composers Schulhoff, Krása, Haas, Gideon Klein and Ullmann, the jazz performer and arranger Fritz (Bedřich) Weiss and others. The closing of the universities made the study of musicology difficult. The Czech opera theatres in Prague, Brno, Ostrava, Plzeň and Olomouc were closed. Many Czech artists reacted to the Nazi occupation with violent opposition, illegal activities (many works with anti-Nazi themes were written) or passive resistance. The music written during the occupation shows a marked simplification of musical language as well as a dependence on national folk materials. Some artists continued their struggle even through the Nazi campaign against entartete Kunst: Hába continued his composition class at the Prague Conservatory; quarter-tone and athematic compositions were still performed at concerts of Přítomnost; and the Prague festival on the 120th anniversary (1944) of Smetana’s birth was a highly successful manifestation of Czech musical culture, in spite of the opposition of the occupying forces.
With the liberation of Czechoslovakia in 1945 new perspectives opened for Czech musical life. The suspended international contacts were re-established. In 1946 the annual music festival Prague Spring was begun in Prague, bringing renewed contacts between Czechoslovak musicians and those of both the West and the East. Similar traditions of regular festivals with international participants were established elsewhere in Czechoslovakia (Brno Music Festival, Ostrava Musical May, the Chopin Festival in Mariánské Lázně etc.).
With the establishment of a socialist state in 1948 a new phase began in the country’s musical life. The process of nationalization began with the Czech PO (1945), and in the 1950s several new symphony orchestras were established. State philharmonic orchestras were founded in Brno (1956), Ostrava (1954, from 1971 the Janáček PO), in Olomouc (Moravian PO, 1951), in Zlín (Gottwaldov) (Workers’ PO, 1958), in the west Bohemian spa towns (Karlovy Vary, 1951, Mariánské Lázně, 1954), and in north and east Bohemia. All the existing theatres passed into state hands, including the new Czech opera houses which had been taken over from the Germans in 1945 (Neues Deutsches Theater in Prague and the houses in Opava, Liberec, Ústí nad Labem and Teplice). All the Prague theatres became part of the National Theatre organization: the Estates Theatre (renamed the Tyl Theatre in 1945) was devoted to plays and Mozart’s operas; the Grand Opera of the Fifth of May (Velká Opera 5. Května), which had taken over from the Neues Deutsches Theater, became the Smetana Theatre.
Instrument making, previously in private companies, was concentrated into a few well-known factories, for example Petrov pianos, Amati wind instruments and Krnov organs. The former Ultraphon and Esta gramophone companies were merged into Supraphon (1946). The nationalized Czechoslovak film industry with studios in Prague-Barrandov and Gottwaldov acquired the Film SO (1945), and the radio stations in Prague, Brno, Ostrava and Plzeň also had orchestras. The television network was established in Prague (1953), Ostrava (1955) and Brno (1961). The music schools, museums, libraries, archives and collections were taken out of private hands. The publishing houses and music printers were centralized into large state publishing institutions (Státní Nakladatelství Krásné Literatury, Hudby a Umění). Private concert agencies were replaced by Pragokonzert (from 1962, after succeeding the Musical and Artistic Exchange in Prague, 1948–57).
The total rebuilding of the organization of Czech musical life meant abandoning old organizations. The network of choral and musical societies was abolished (the Czechoslovak Choral Council, the Sokol and working-class choral bodies etc.). The Syndicate of Czechoslovak Composers (1946–9) was replaced by an ideological organization, the Czechoslovak Composers’ Union (1949–70) with branches in Brno, Ostrava and later Plzeň, which had at its disposal the musical information media in Prague and Brno, the journal Hudební rozhledy (joined after 1969 by the Brno journal Opus musicum), the Czech Musical Fund (1953, to safeguard continuing musical creation) and later the publishing house Panton (for scores, books and gramophone recordings, from 1958). Along with the musical societies and their network the function of church music in the life of society was much reduced. A central music archive was established in the music department of the National Museum in Prague and the Moravian Museum in Brno from the libraries of the monasteries and church organizations and private archives. Museums devoted to the foremost composers were established (in Prague the Smetana and Dvořák Museums, in Brno the Janáček Archive of the Moravian Museum).
All music education came under state control. A new system of specialist schooling was created with primary schools (from 1960 the so-called Folk Schools of Art), secondary schools (from 1960 the music conservatories with centres in Brno, Ostrava and Plzeň), and universities (from 1946 the Academy of Musical Arts in Prague, and from 1947 the parallel Janáček Academy of Musical Arts in Brno). Music teaching was studied at university level at institutes with departments of music education (Prague, Brno, Ostrava, Olomouc, Plzeň, České Budějovice, Ústí nad Labem, Hradec Králové). The study of musicology was based at the arts faculties of the universities of Prague, Brno and Olomouc. The basic methodological approach in theory, musicology and education became the Marxist–Leninist philosophy, Pavlov’s theory of the conditioned reflex and in particular Asaf'yev's theory of intonation, developing Kurth’s concept: Nejedlý, Sychra and Jiránek were considered the foremost exponents. Czech musicology had its research basis in the Musicology Institute (1962–71), and, from 1972, in the Institute for the Theory and History of Art in the Czech Academy of Sciences; important periodicals are Miscellanea musicologica and Hudební věda.
While composers in the West were concerned with the Second Viennese School, in Czechoslovakia the development of music was determined by the aesthetic of socialist realism and distinguished by the principles of socialist content and popular form. The style was essentially late Romantic, emphasizing programmatic elements, the expression of new socialist ideals, the simplification of musical language and the stylization of traditional folk materials. It consequently isolated itself from modernist tendencies and new developments in Western music. The function of music was seen as an ideological lever for the achievement of current political goals (the composition of mass songs, častušky, folk cantatas etc.). Most composers in Czechoslovakia went through this evolutionary stage (c1950–65): Dobiáš, Kapr, Jan Seidel and E.F. Burian. Those associated with the Composers Collective of JAMU, a young group at the Janáček Academy of Musical Arts in Brno (1951–4), composed in this spirit. At Prague Conservatory Hába’s department of quarter-tone composition was disbanded once again in 1950. Jazz was excluded as a possible source of artistic inspiration, and formalistic tendencies were noted in the work of Czech composers living abroad (Martinů, Jirák, Husa).
By the beginning of the 1960s a number of distinct tendencies were noted. One group comprised composers who had never severed their connection with Czech tradition (e.g. Řídký and Horký). But the largest group consisted of those whose styles had been influenced by non-serial 20th-century composers (e.g. Eben, Kalabis, Pauer, Sommer, Hurník, Jirko, Kovaříček, Bárta, Dvořáček, Gregor, Matys). A third group consisted of composers who developed their style independently of the influence of socialist realism (O.F. Korte, Hanuš, Jaroch, Slavický, Doubrava); some of them leant towards experimental music and created conditions for its realization in Czechoslovakia (Burghauser, Rychlík, Vostřák, Kabeláč). Kabeláč also taught the youngest generation of Czech composers the techniques of electronic music and musique concrčte (Klusák, Loudová, Jan Málek, Miroslav Hlaváč, Zdeněk Lukáš, Rudolf Růžíčka, Josef Slimáček etc.).
A movement towards re-establishing contacts for the development of Czech music with the international mainstream is evident from the first half of the 1960s, when Czech artists once again entered the international music forum. Their participation at international festivals of new music was significant, for example at Warsaw and the Darmstadt summer courses; in Prague an annual international jazz festival was established in 1964 as an adjunct to Prague Spring. Apart from the Novák Quartet the performers of such new music were young groups who also performed at ISCM festivals: in Brno, Musica Nova (1961) and Studio Autorů (1963); in Prague, Musica Viva Pragensis (1961), Chamber Harmony (1960), Sonatori di Praga (1964) and the QUaX Ensemble (1967). Of considerable importance was the founding and construction of the studios for electronic music and musique concrčte at the Czechoslovak radio in Plzeň (1964), followed by the workshops at JAMU in Brno and at the film laboratories at Prague-Barrandov. Studios were begun at the conservatory in Ostrava (1966) and at the Czechoslovak radio in Prague (1968) but never finished.
Thanks to these foundations, Czech composers made a substantial contribution to the composition of experimental music. New creative groups were established: in Brno, Group A (1963; Josef Berg, Ištvan, Jan Novák, Piňos, Pololáník, Pavel Blatný, Kohoutek, Miloš Štědroň and Parsch) and in Prague, the Prague New Music Group (1965; Vostřák, Vladimír Šrámek, Komorous, Kopelent). Kučera worked in the artistic group Syntéza (‘Synthesis’), Ladislav Simon in the Sonatori di Praga, Milan Báchorek was active as a composer of experimental music in Ostrava. In the mid-1960s several composers adopted serial technique. Czech composers of electronic music and musique concrčte (e.g. Kučera, Lukáš) preferred French methods to the systematization of the German Cologne School; Komorous and Kotík used live electronic techniques in combination with aleatory music in the style of Cage, while Kabeláč and Rychlík used a synthesis of several techniques. Herzog, Lébl and Kohoutek are among the most significant writers on new theories; important periodicals include Hudební rozhledy and Opus musicum, with Konfrontace (1968–70) and the collection Nové cesty hudby (‘New paths of music’, 1964, 1970) being devoted to experimental music.
After the federation of Czechoslovakia into the Czech and Slovak Socialist Republics in 1968, the Czechoslovak Composers' Union was dissolved (1970); for Bohemia and Moravia, its functions were assumed by a new Union of Czech Composers and Concert Artists, with its headquarters in Prague and branches in Brno, Ostrava and Plzeň.
Although no major figures emerged in Czech opera, the 1970s and 80s saw a number of premičres, including works by Kašlík and Jiří Pauer. In 1983 Prague's National Theatre reopened, after a six-year refurbishment, with a performance of Smetana's Libuše; next to it was constructed the New Stage (Nová Scéna), sometimes used for small-scale opera. After the pioneering efforts of the conductor Munclinger, the harpsichordist Růžíčková and Venhoda, the founder of the Prague Madrigalists (1956), early music began to flourish, and annual courses of the Early Music Society of Czechoslovakia were held at Kroměříz and later Valtice. With the death of Nejedlý (1962), musicology gradually became less ideologically based and began to reflect a growing interest in a broader historical range of Czech music. Major projects undertaken in the 1970s and 80s included the publication of the complete correspondence of Dvořák, the complete works of Janáček and a series of catalogues of major Czech and Moravian historical music collections.
After the fall of communism at the end of 1989 and the establishment of an independent Czech Republic in 1992, the introduction of free-market economics had a marked effect on musical life. Many organizations, used to large government subsidies, have been forced to look for sponsorship and there has been a significant increase in the commercial exploitation of music, particularly in the proliferation of music festivals. The large state companies, notably Supraphon, have been broken up and parts have been sold to foreign concerns. Numerous small recording and publishing companies have emerged in an enterprising if volatile market. The National Theatre plays a significant, albeit somewhat diminished, role in the musical life of the nation, and with the change from the Smetana Theatre to the Prague State Opera in 1992 is now in competition with its former ancillary stage. Among composers, the only one to have developed a genuinely international profile with consistent performances abroad is Petr Eben. The fall of the communist regime also meant that a number of distinguished composers and performers returned to contribute to Czech musical life, including the composer Karel Husa, the pianist Rudolf Firkušný and the conductors Zdeněk Macal and Rafael Kubelík.
See also Brno; České Budějovice; Kroměříz; Liberec; Olomouc; Opava; Ostrava; Plzeň; Prague; Teplice; Ústí nad Labem.
A General histories. B To 1900. C 20th century. D Special studies.
AdlerHM (‘Tschechoslowakien’)
ČSHS
DlabacžKL
SČHK
C. d'Elvert: Geschichte der Musik in Mähren und Oesterr.-Schlesien (Brno, 1873)
J. Srb-Debrnov: Dějiny hudby v Čechách a na Moravě [History of music in Bohemia and Moravia] (Prague, 1891)
O. Hostinský: Hudba v Čechách [Music in Bohemia] (Prague, 1900)
J. Borecký: Stručný přehled dějin české hudby [A brief outline of Czech music history] (Prague, 1906, 2/1928)
R. Newmarch: The Music of Czechoslovakia (London, 1942/R)
J. Pohanka: Dějiny české hudby v příkladech [History of Czech music in examples] (Prague, 1958)
V. Štěpánek and B. Karásek: An Outline of Czech and Slovak Music (Prague, 1960–64)
M. Očadlík and R. Smetana, eds.: Československá vlastivěda [Czechoslovak national history], ix/3 (Prague, 1971) [incl. bibliography]
T. Volek and S. Jareš: Dějiny české hudby v obrazech [History of Czech music in pictures] (Prague, 1977)
E. Chvála: Čtvrtstoletí české hudby [A quarter of a century of Czech music] (Prague, 1888)
V. Helfert: Hudební barok na českých zámcích [Baroque music at Czech castles] (Prague, 1916)
E. Axman: Morava v české hudbě XIX století [Moravia in Czech music of the 19th century] (Prague, 1920)
J. Racek: Morava v barokní hudbě [Moravia in Baroque music] (Brno, 1942)
J. Racek: Česká hudba od nejstarších dob do počátku 19. století [Czech music from the earliest times to the beginning of the 19th century] (Prague, 1949, enlarged 2/1958)
Z. Nejedlý: Dějiny husitského zpěvu [A history of Hussite song] (Prague, 1954–5) [collected edn of 3 bks, orig. pubd 1904–13]
J. Němeček: Nástin české hudby XVIII. století [Outline of 18th-century Czech music] (Prague, 1955)
Z. Pilková: ‘K dějinám českých reprodukčních těles v 19. století’ [The history of performing bodies in the 19th century], HV, x (1973), 146–50 [with Ger. summary]
J. Mraček: ‘Sources of Rorate Chants in Bohemia’, HV, xiv (1977), 230–40
S.E. Murray: ‘Bohemian Musicians in South German “Hofkapellen” during the Late 18th Century’, HV, xv (1978), 153–74
F. Pokorný: ‘Mährens Musik in Mittelalter’, HV, xvii (1980), 36–52
J. Snížková: ‘Málo známí čeští skladatelé konci 16. století’ [Little-known Czech composers from the end of the 16th century], HV, xvii (1980), 53–9
Hudba v českých dějinách: od středověku do nové doby [Music in Czech history: from the Middle Ages to the modern era] (Prague, 1983, 2/1989)
V. Gregor: Obrozenská hudba na Moravě a ve Slezsku [Revivalist music in Moravia and Silesia] (Prague, 1983)
J. Sehnal: ‘Lidový duchovní zpěv v českých zemích v době klasicismu’ [Spiritual folk singing in the Czech lands in the age of Classicism], HV, xxii (1985), 248–58
J. Kotek: ‘Český hudební folklór 19. století’ [Czech musical folklore in the 19th century], HV, xxiii (1986), 195–216
C. Hogwood and J. Smaczny: ‘The Bohemian Lands’, Man & Music: the Classical Era, ed. N. Zaslaw (London, 1989), 188–212
J. Ludvová: Česká hudební teorie novější doby 1850–1900 [Czech music theory in the later period] (Prague, 1989)
D.E. Freeman: The Opera Theatre of Count Franz Anton Sporck in Prague (Stuyvesant, NY, 1995)
V. Helfert: Česká moderní hudba [Czech modern music] (Olomouc, 1936/R)
V. Helfert and E.Steinhard: Geschichte der Musik in der Tschechoslovakischen Republik(Prague, 1936, 2/1938 asDie Musik in der Tschechoslovakischen Republik)
E. Hradecký: ‘Na prahu XX. století’ [On the threshold of the 20th century], Dějiny světové hudby slovem, obrazem a hudbou, ed. J. Branberger (Prague, 1939), 639–72
M. Očadlík: ‘Nová hudba’ [New music], Dějiny světové hudby slovem, obrazem a hudbou, ed. J. Branberger (Prague, 1939), 674–718
B. Štědroň: ‘Česká hudba za nesvobody’ [Czech music during the occupation], Musikologie, ii (1949), 106–46
M. Očadlik: Svět orchestru: průvodce tvorbou orchestrální, ii: Čeští klasikové [The world of the orchestra: a guide to orchestral pieces, ii: Czech Classics] (Prague, 1953)
Č. Gardavský and others: Skladatelé dneška (Prague, 1961; Eng. trans., 1965, as Contemporary Czechoslovak Composers)
J. Smolka: Česká hudba našeho století [Czech music of this century] (Prague, 1961)
J. Kozák: Českoslovenští koncertní umělci a komorní soubory [Czechoslovak concert artists and chamber ensembles] (Prague, 1964)
P. Eckstein: Die tschechoslowakische zeitgenössische Oper/The Czechoslovak Contemporary Opera (Prague, 1967)
J. Bek: ‘Mezinárodní styky české hudby 1918–38’ [International connections in Czech music], HV, iv (1967), 397–419, 628–48; v (1968), 3–48
Dějiny české hudební kultury 1890–1945 [History of Czech music culture] (Prague, 1972) [incl. extensive bibliography and discussion of sources]
J. Šeda: ‘Česká hudba 1945-1980’, HV, xviii (1981), 195–237
J. Ludvová: ‘Schönbergovi žáci v Čechách’ [Schoenberg's pupils in the Czech lands), HV, xx (1983), 322–43
Čeští skladatelé současnosti [Czech contemporary composers] (Prague, 1985)
S. Bodorová: ‘Tvůrčí tendence nejmladší české skladatelské generace’ [Creative tendencies in the youngest generation of Czech composers], HV, xxii (1985), 134–54
J. Ludvová: Česká hudební teorie 1750–1850 [Czech music theory] (Prague, 1985)
J. Karas: Music in Terezín (Stuyvesant, NY, 1985)
Z. Strejc: ‘Funkce hudby v současnem Čéskoslovensku’ [The functioning of music in contemporary Czechoslovakia], HV xxii (1985), 291–321
J. Havlík: Česká symfonie 1945–1980 (Prague, 1989)
M. Kuna: Hudba na hranici života: o činnosti a utrpení hudebníků z českých zemí v nacistických koncentračních táborech a věznicích [Music at the frontier of life: concerning the activities and sufferings of musicians from the Czech lands in Nazi concentration camps and prisons] (Prague, 1990)
J. Hutter: Česká notace [Czech notation] (Prague, 1926–30)
P. Nettl: Beiträge zur böhmischen und mährischen Musikgeschichte (Brno, 1927)
R. Quoika: Die Musik der Deutschen in Böhmen und Mähren (Berlin, 1956)
E. Herrmanová and V. Lébl, eds.: Soupis české hudebně dramatické tvorby [Catalogue of Czech operas] (Prague, 1959)
K. Jalovec: Češti houslaři [Czech violinists] (Prague, 1959; Eng. trans., 1959)
K.M. Komma: Das böhmische Musikantentum (Kassel, 1960)
V. Mikota: ‘Hudební nakladatelství v ČSR mezi dvěma válkami 1918–38’ [Music publishing in Czechoslovakia between the wars], HV, iii (1966), 343–51, 503–18
J. Smolka: Česká kantáta a oratorium (Prague, 1970)
J. Bek, J. Fukač and I. Poledňák: ‘Česká hudební věda 1945–1975’ [Czech musicology], HV, xiii (1976), 3–26 [with Ger. summary]
M. Beckerman: ‘In Search of Czechness in Music’, 19CM, x (1986–7), 61–73
J. Berkovec: České pastorely [Czech pastorellas] (Prague, 1987)
J. Smolka: Fuga v české hudbě [Fugue in Czech music] (Prague, 1987)
J. Tyrrell: Czech Opera (Cambridge, 1988)
J. Smaczny: ‘The Czech Symphony’, A Guide to the Symphony, ed. R. Layton (London, 1993, 2/1995), 221–61
Traditional music of the Czech Republic falls broadly into two types: the instrumental music of the western areas and the vocal music of the eastern. In Bohemia and the adjoining part of Moravia, bordering on Germany and Austria, melodies have strong western European features; in Moravia and Silesia, bordering on Slovakia and Poland, melodies, harmonies and rhythms suggest west Carpathian influences. These stylistic differences have arisen as a result of cultural and economic exchange during the 17th and 18th centuries. With the onset of the Counter-Reformation after the Thirty Years War, Bohemian traditional music was influenced by the Baroque and Classical musics of western Europe while the eastern regions of Moravia and Silesia, particularly the mountain regions, had almost no contact with the West.
Czech Republic, §II: Traditional music
Throughout its history, traditional music of Bohemia has interacted with and been influenced by other musical forms. When Christianity took hold in the 9th century, exisiting musics were influenced by religious music, as the 11th-century religious folksong, Hospodine pomiluj ny, illustrates.
The earliest evidence of traditional melodies dates from the 14th century. The Czech reformation of the 15th century and, above all, the Hussite movement in Bohemia, resulted in a hitherto unparalleled cultivation of religious song. It also contributed to the rapprochement between village and town leading to the development of 16th-century song-types such as lyrical, political and students' humorous songs. The same melody was often used for more than one song text. From that time a three-part repetitive song form emerged with melodic features and structural characteristics that remained part of the traditional music repertory until the 20th century.
During the Counter-Reformation, traditional musicians played in churches and in Baroque ensembles for the aristocracy. An example of the way in which different musics interweaved is the institution of the kantor, a village school teacher responsible for the organization of musical activities. This individual played church music, looked after the choir, and played classical music for the aristocracy as well as traditional music at village dances.
The majority of traditional songs and dances collected in the 19th century consist of rural material, selected from a much wider repertory. Most of them had survived from the 18th century with melodic types frequently rooted in instrumental dance music. Only a few types are of earlier origin. Among these are the koledy (see Kolęda), ritual carols performed at Christmas, New Year and Easter. They are accompanied by rites to secure longevity and fertility, ceremonies which suggest a pre-Christian origin. Melodic features related to those of koledy may also be found in harvest and wedding songs. Collections of these songs are housed in the archives of the Institute of Ethnography and Folklore of the Academy of Sciences in Prague and Brno.
Bohemian traditional song has been influenced by instrumental music and characteristic features are chordal motifs together with the elongation of a single syllable over several beats (ex.1). It uses a declamatory vocal style and has links with dance, trumpet signals, military marches, Gregorian chant and other types of church singing. It has also been influenced by melodies and song texts of neighbouring ethnic groups as well as by secular composed music.
Song melodies from Bohemia and west Moravia are dominated by the major triad. Modulation in the strict sense of the word is exceptional. Most songs are monophonic, though in some cases a second voice is added in 3rds or 6ths. The overall structure, mainly based on the repetition of identical phrases (either at the same pitch or in sequence) consists of 16 bars divided into four four-bar phrases; these can be further subdivided into two-bar sections. The opening of the second section of a melody, contrasting with the first, is usually a repetition of the third and fourth bars (occasionally also the seventh and eighth). In south Bohemia, close to the Moravian border, there also occur songs of 10, 12 and 14 bars.
The first half of the 19th century saw the development of the ‘social song’. These were composed songs that expressed bourgeois tastes. Their texts were epic, patriotic and lyrical; melodies were based on traditional ones and they soon became part of the general song repertory in rural as well as in urban areas. The broadside ballad was an urban product with its printed text usually suggesting performance to the tune of a well-known song. Workers' songs emphasized social and political themes and drew on the traditions of both rural and urban musics. These songs gave rise to the ‘songs of the people’ which were intended to form the basis of the song repertory for the ‘new society’ of postwar Eastern Europe. Instead it was the lidovka that served this funtion. This sentimental, popular song form was accompanied by orchestras, eventually consisting mostly of brass instruments, and drew on the lyrics and melodies of traditional songs including broadside ballads. A well-known example of lidovka is Jaromír Vejvoda's ‘Beer Barrel Polka’.
Camp-fire songs, trampská písen, became popular during the 1920s and 30s.
In the earliest manuscript collection of folksongs from Bohemia (1819–20), more than 80% are dance-songs or songs sung to dance.
Circle dances are accompanied by songs in triple time during which the ‘held back’ dance step emphasizes the first and third beats set against the syncopated rhythms of the melody. The influence of bagpipes is seen in the way that melodies slide down to the lowest attainable bagpipe tone and in the absence of the lower minor third, which is beyond the range of Czech bagpipes. During the 20th century, the circle dance became influenced by the music of brass bands, examples of which survive in south-west Bohemia. These dances are also related to the umadum, a German dance from west Bohemia, or the Serbian reja.
By the end of the 18th century there were an increasing number of couple-dances. With the growing popularity of the polka, melodies in duple time became more common and this trend continued into the 20th century. The prototype of duple-time dance is the obkročak (‘circular step’), in which dancers turn on the ball of each foot, this figure being interrupted by a short hop. Other dances derive from the obkročak, either by transforming the hop into an upwards leap (vrták, ‘drill step’) or by performing two leaps, skočná (‘hopping step’) or třasák (‘trembling step’).
Dances in triple time developed more independently as, for example, the sousedská (a quasi-ländler) and do kolečka (round-dance). Great popularity was achieved by the rejdovák and the rejdovačka (‘romping’ dances), generally performed in succession, the rejdovak in 3/4 at a moderate tempo and the rejdovačka in 2/4 time at a very lively pace (ex.2). This combination became so popular that it became the chief rival of the waltz and the galop.
Dances which mix metres by alternating duple-time and triple-time, the mateník (‘muddling’ dances), use steps from the obkročak or ländler. There are connections between Bavarian dances (especially hochfalz, zweifachen, dreher-walzer) and those performed by Germans in Bohemia. Both share the furiant, the text of which concerns an ostentatious small farmer, and which consists of sections of two-syllable metric feet in which the dancers' steps consistently follow the 3/4 metre of the melody. The ländler, a round dance for individual couples, with its slow 3/4 metre, strains consisting of eight bars and tendency towards arpeggio figures, shows the influence of traditional Alpine song. The Alpine dudler and jodler were transformed into the jukačka in the south-east Bohemian borderland. After 1830 the polka made its way into Europe from Bohemia, while Bohemia imported the waltz. Since then these two dances have formed the basis of the rural and urban dance and song repertory.
Early Czech instruments include the wooden shepherds' pipe, the cow- or ox-horn used by night watchmen to signal the time, and the mušle or conch-shell trumpet, sounded in rituals to prevent rain. There were also transverse and end-blown flutes, less common in Bohemia than in Moravia, as well as panpipes and the elliptical ocarina.
The character of a melody is to a certain extent determined by the instruments on which it is played. The most widespread instrument is the dudy (bagpipe; fig.5), known in Bohemia since the 13th century. It was used to accompany singing, either solo or with other instruments. The tuning of the chanter originally expressed indigenous tuning patterns. When the Western tempered scale was adopted in the 17th and 18th centuries the pattern changed and the tonic stabilised around E. The smaller bagpipe with a tonic of g' or a' and the larger instrument with a double chanter were the most common. At the turn of the 20th century bagpipes with bellows came to Bohemia from Germany and France.
The skřipsky, a home-made fiddle which had three or, in its larger version, four strings, survived, together with the skřipkařsky bas, in Jihlava district, but disappeared during World War II. The short-necked violin is found in south and west Bohemia, and is adjusted for playing with clarinet and bagpipe by the ‘capo tasto’ technique. The double bass began to be used relatively recently, probably during the 19th century. This expensive instrument was made by amateur instrument makers and usually had three strings. Professionally-made double basses were not used until the end of the 19th century. The basset was used until the 1930s. This small, three-string instrument reminiscent of the bass viol was fitted with a leather strap that enabled the player to stand or walk. Less common in traditional music was the sharp, strident string instrument trumajt. The niněra, a popular medieval instrument, was capable of producing more than one note simultaneously and sounded similar to the bagpipe. It disappeared after the Middle Ages experiencing only a temporary revival in the 18th century when it was played by travelling musicians and beggars. Reference is made in 1738 to the use of the dulcimer for wedding music and its popularity is also apparent from folksong texts. German-speaking inhabitants of Bohemian cities also favoured this box zither. During the first decades of the 19th century, it fell into disuse. It was revived after 1945.
The most common instrumental combination was the bagpipe and violin, later complemented by clarinet as a ‘small barn band’. This combination is still used in the Chod district of west Bohemia. Later, the double bass was added and some instruments were doubled up. A combination of strings, dulcimer, flugelhorn and transverse flute has been documented in Polabí at the beginning of the 20th century. In the second half of the 20th century, different combinations of traditional instruments were used by both amateur and professional ensembles. Brass bands, introduced in the first half of the 19th century, are still popular today. In addition to large professional and semi-professional ensembles, there are smaller bands consisting of two flugelhorns, clarinet, tenor horn, baritone, accompanying trumpet in F, tuba and percussion. Their repertory is based on the lidovka, and on arrangements of folksongs, polkas and waltzes.
Czech Republic, §II: Traditional music
Moravia and Silesia are divided musically by the river Morava: musics performed west of the river share features with those in Bohemia; those living east of the river are closer to the musics of neighbouring Slovakia. Music of western Moravia has been influenced by the major and minor scale system of western European classical music. Melodies are largely in triple time and have regular rhythms. Eastern Moravian music tends to be independent of the western tonal system. Among the scale-types encountered are those that contain a tritone or minor 7th above the tonic. The relationship between text and melody is close and many melodic rhythmic structures derive from textual rhythms. Characteristic forms include ‘long-songs’ performed in a rubato style. The most common dances are ‘spinning’ dances or rotating-dances.
The earliest references to traditional musics come from 12th-century Church prohibitions against singing and joking on graves. Similar bans were issued in Moravia until 1674. Specific songs were recorded in the 15th and 16th centuries as incipits in hymn books or as secular melodies with religious texts. Longer fragments and entire songs are recorded elsewhere. The city of Brno magistrates' records from the 16th century, for example, document the text of a love song, while the Košetický Collection of the late 17th century includes a Valach brigand song. The arrival of Valach shepherds in the eastern region during the 16th and 17th centuries influenced local musics, as did Baroque and Classical styles through folk musicians who played at the homes of the aristocracy, mainly in western Moravia.
The earliest conscious attempt to survey the traditional musics of the Austrian monarchy regions was carried out in 1819 and recorded not only rural traditions but also composed items and musics that were fashionable in urban areas. Later collections, dating from the 19th century onwards, focussed on song repertories from rural areas. These were carried out both by individual collectors, for example František Sušil, and institutions, such as Das Volkslied in Österreich headed in Moravia by Leoš Janáček. Much of the material collected is held by the Institute of Ethnology of the Czech Academy of Sciences in Brno. This collection comprises over 70,000 song transcriptions, cylinder recordings from 1909–12, later audio recordings and performances on video. Many theoretical studies were published in the periodical Národopisné aktuality (later renamed Národopisná revue).
Performers divide vocal music into songs that accompany dance and those that do not. Songs are predominantly monophonic, but duets performed in parallel 3rds and 6ths are common in southern and eastern Moravia. Features of older songs include: a small ambitus and the repetition of melodic and rhythmic motifs.
Moravian and Silesian songs are characteristically arranged in stanzas and have regular rhyming patterns. The greatest part of the repertory consists of love songs; this theme also crosses over into other genres such as military songs, wedding songs and ballads. Songs that were traditionally performed outside include: children's pastoralist songs or yodels (halekačky or hojakačky); pastoralists' songs from the Beskydy mountains (salašnické); harvest songs sung by both men and women (kosecké, žatevní); and women's hay-making songs from eastern Moravia (trávnice).
Epics, which have lyrical elements, include legends and ballads depicting family and social life. Brigand songs found in eastern Moravia suggest links with the musics of the Carpathians. Many of the numerous military and conscription songs date back to the start of obligatory military service in the 18th century. Some of the military songs refer to famous battles and Turkish conquests. The more descriptive reporting of events was left to broadsheet ballads and street songs gave information on current social and political events. Ritual songs included koledy, post-harvest songs, feast and wedding songs and, from eastern Moravia, rare instances of funeral laments.
The spinning-dances of eastern and north-eastern Moravia are accompanied by a number of different songs. In Moravian Slovakia, these dances include vrtěná (‘drilling dance’), danaj, skočná (‘skipping dance’), sedlcká or sedlácká (‘farmer's dance’), starosvětská (‘old world dance’), and hrozenská (‘dance of Hrozenkov’); in Valachia gúlaná or točená (‘round-dance’) and valaský (Valach dance); and in Silesia ověnžok (‘garland dance’) or taněc (‘dance’). Polonaise-like walking-dances form an important part of the repertory. They have a characteristic three-beat rhythm and are known as zavádka (‘ushering’), cófavá (‘stepping-back dance’) or starodávný (‘old time dance’). Solo ‘leaping’ dances (verbuňk, odzemek or skok) are performed by men.
Dance-songs have fixed forms and metres. In eastern and southern Moravia, many dance-songs are performed in a ‘drawn-out’ manner with rhythmic variations. In general, the ‘drawn-out’ songs are determined by the physical movements of the dancers, for example ‘walking songs’ (chod'ácké) are performed at a walking pace and ‘harvest songs’ (kosecké) match the rhythms of working. However, they are also influenced by contexts, such as performing in the open air, and by the role of the lead singer.
Early iconography depicts a pipe and small drum, and, from the 13th century onwards, the bagpipe (gajdy; fig.6), which was widely used for both solo performances and in ensembles. Pipes and signal horns were played solo by pastoralists. Other traditional instruments include the fiddle, double bass and dulcimer.
The gajdoš or fiddle and bagpipe duo, in which the fiddler played the melody and the bagpiper provided richly decorated ornamentation, was found until the 1950s around the Silesian town of Těšín, an area influenced by Slovak and Polish mountain bagpipe music. The bagpipe died out in western and central Moravia in the mid-19th century and in eastern Moravia survived until the end of the century. It was mostly replaced by dulcimer and different variations of string bands of the first fiddle, a small double bass (initially with three strings) and a second fiddle, which enabled the progress of a more lively harmonic thinking. These instruments produced rhythmic tension by accenting the second and fourth quavers of each bar while the first fiddle decorated the vocal melody. When string bands consisted of first and second fiddles, double bass and, from the 18th century, clarinet, the first fiddle played a richly ornamented melody, the clarinet played a second melodic line and the second fiddle and bass provided a harmonic accompaniment. When accompanying spinning-dances in 2/4 time, the second fiddle and bass used the duvaj or ‘double stroke’ technique, that is, smooth bow strokes emphasizing light, even beats. Accompanying parts consisted of melodic lines frequently based on parallel 3rds, 4ths and 5ths.
The dulcimer was either placed on a table or hung from the player's neck. In Moravia it became so popular that it came to be included with string instruments and clarinet in ensembles. In some regions of southern Moravia, the instrument was still used in traditional contexts until the 1930s when the large Hungarian dulcimer or cymbalom was introduced into Moravia by Slovaks and became popular in organized folklore ensembles.
In the second half of the 19th century traditional bands began to play the ‘Streich’, in which string instruments were completed by wind or brass instruments. In some regions, such as Moravian Slovakia and Silesia, wind bands, usually consisting of two clarinets, bugle, bass bugle, two trumpets and helicon, replaced dulcimer bands. Wind bands flourished in the mid-19th century when musicians returned from military service where they had played in military bands. In the Haná region wind bands were considered to represent national traditional music from the mid-19th century. These bands had a double effect: their technical limitations led to simplifications in both the melodies and harmonies of traditional melodies, but their widespread popularity in some regions enabled the continuing survival of traditional forms.
A tradition of skřipkařská or ‘fiddlers’ bands' was documented only in Velký Beranov near Jihlava until the 1950s and was formerly also performed in German-speaking areas. The players used home-made instruments, which resembled medieval fiddles in shape. The Beranov band comprised two small fiddles, a big fiddle and a bass fiddle.
The fiddle tradition has been perpetuated by professional and amateur string bands. Other bands, comprising from three to six musicians, performed at celebrations such as weddings. They used a variety of instruments, for instance the fiddle, accordion, double bass and percussion instruments, including the ozembouch (‘hit the ground’), which consists of a staff surmounted by a bow hung with various kinds of rattles.
As in the past, the current repertory is not homogeneous but comprises both traditional and ‘folkloric’ items. Song styles have been influenced by many different genres including music-hall songs, popular hits, operetta and film music. These genres influenced the musics of western and central Moravia more rapidly than eastern Moravia, where more of the traditional repertory has been retained, supplemented by composed items in traditional style.
The present repertory consists of traditional Moravian and Slovak songs, songs arranged and performed by folklore ensembles and brass bands, songs composed in ‘folk’ style (such as those by Fanoš Mikulecký), urban music and trampské písně (camp-fire songs). Vocal ensembles are formed by different local, professional and interest groups, with popular folksongs or lidovky comprising a major part of the repertory. Since the 1970s the professional arrangements of the Brno-based ensemble Moravanka, which focus on the songs of Moravian Slovakia and western Slovakia, have been popular with local people of all ages and even beyond the region's borders.
Trampské písně, with guitar accompaniment (the most popular instrument also for accompanying popular songs and folksongs), are mostly composed songs with lyrics inspired by the American West, and music – in minor keys and sentimental in feel – influenced by postwar Czech popular musics such as jazz, cabaret, operetta and brass bands. Originating in the 1920s, they have been transmitted orally and are the antecedents of contemporary urban folk and country musics.
Young people prefer music transmitted by the mass media, including modern dance music and urban folk music. Since 1989, because of a lack of standardized music syllabuses in schools, music teaching has been influenced by local music traditions. Repertories vary also according to age group and changing fashions. For instance, the folksongs popularized by Moravanka in the 1970s had been replaced by the 1990s by urban folksongs such as those composed by the Nedvěd brothers.
At the end of the 20th century traditional music, songs and dances were performed only in a few small regions of southern and eastern Moravia. Contexts of performance for folkloric ensembles include folklore festivals, such as Strážnice (founded in 1949), Rožhoštěm (1969), Velká and Veličkou (1959), and Dolní Lomná (1969).
Czech Republic, §II: Traditional music
A General. B Collections and editions: (i) Bohemia (ii) Moravia and Silesia. C Recordings.
Č. Zíbrt: Bibliografický přehled českých národních písní [Bibliographic overview of Czech folksongs] (Prague, 1895)
Č. Zíbrt: Jak se kdy v Čechách tancovalo [The way they used to dance in Bohemia] (Prague, 1895, rev. 2/1960 by H. Laudová)
O. Hostinský: ‘Česká světská píseň lidová’ [Czech secular folksong], O hudbě (Prague, 1906); repr. in M. Nedbal, ed. (1961), 299–410
A. Sychra: Hudba a slovo v lidové písni [Music and word in folksong] (Prague, 1948)
L. Janáček: O lidové písni a lidové hudbě [About folksong and folk music], ed. J. Vysloužil (Prague, 1955)
J. Markl: Česká dudácká hudba: partitury Ludvíka Kuby [Czech bagpipe music: Ludvík Kuba's scores] (Prague, 1962)
J. Markl: Dudy a dudáci: o jihočeských písních a lidové hudbě [Bagpipes and bagpipe players: on south Bohemian songs and folk music] (České Budějovice, 1962)
B. Václavek: O lidové písni a slovesnosti [About folksong and narrative folklore] (Prague, 1963)
V. Karbusický: Mezi lidovou písní a šlágrem [Between folksong and hit song] (Prague, 1968)
A. Melicherčík, ed.: Československá vlastivída, iii:Lidová kultura [Czechoslovak local history, iii: folk culture] (Prague, 1968)
D. Holý: Probleme der Entwicklung und des Stils der Volksmusik: volkstümliche Tanzmusik auf der mahrischen Seite der Weissen Karpaten (Brno, 1969)
K. Vetterl: ‘Lied und Gesang in tschechischen Urkunden des 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts’, SMH, xiii (1971), 289–95
L. Kunz: Die Volksmusikinstrumente der Tschechoslovakei (Leipzig, 1974)
V. Karbusický: Anfänge der historischen Überlieferung in Böhmen (Cologne and Vienna, 1980)
L. Trojan: Moravská lidová píseň [Moravian folksong] (Prague, 1980)
J. Markl: Nejstarší sbírky českých lidových písní [The oldest collection of Czech folksongs] (Prague, 1987)
L. Tyllner: Úvod do studia lidové písně [Introduction into the study of folksong] (České Budějovice, 1989)
L. Tyllner: ‘Dudy a nástrojové sestavy lidové hudby v Čechách’ [Bagpipe and instrument combinations in Bohemia], Českýlid, lxxix/1 (1992), 47–60
J. Kotek: Dějiny české populární hudby a zpěvu 19. a 20. století (do roku 1918) [History of Czech popular music and singing in the 19th and 20th centuries (to 1918)] (Prague, 1994)
Lidové tance z Čech, Moravy a Slezska [Folk dances from Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia] (Strážnice, 1994–7) [incl. 14 videos]
D. Stavílová: Lidové tance v guberniálnim sbírku zroku 1819 [Folk dances in the government collection from 1819] (Prague, 1996)
J. Fukač and J.Vysloužil, eds.: Slovník české hudební kultury [Dictionary of Czech music culture] (Prague, 1997)
M. Pavlicová and L.Uhlíková, eds.: Od folkloru k folklorismu [From folklore to folklorism] (Strážnice, 1997)
J. Kotek: Dějiny české populární hudby a zpěvu (1918–1968) [A history of Czech popular music and singing, 1918–68] (Prague, 1998)
J. Nečas and others: Nejstarší zvukové záznamy moravského a slovenského lidového zpěvu (z folkloristické činnosti Leoše Janáčka a jeho spolupracovníků)/The Oldest Recordings of Moravian and Slovak Folk Singing (on Folkloristic Activities of Leoš Janáček and his Collaborators) (Brno, 1998) [incl. CD]
J. Rittersberk: České národní písně [Czech folksongs] (Prague, 1825)
K.J. Erben: Prostonárodní české písně a říkadla [National Czech songs and proverbs], (Prague, 1842, 2/1862–4, rev., enlarged 3/1886–8)
K.J. Jaromír: Pjisně národní w Čechách [Folksongs in Bohemia] (Prague, 1842–5, 3/1862–4 as Prostonárodní české písní a říkadla [Czech songs and proverbs], rev. 6/1984–90 by Z. Mišurec)
O. Hostinský: 36 nápěvů světských písníě českého lidu z XVI. století [36 secular song tunes of the Czech people from the 16th century] (Prague, 1892, rev. 2/1957 by J. Markl)
Č. Holas: České národní písníě a tance [Czech folksongs and dances] (Prague, 1908–10)
J. Vycpálek: České tance [Czech dances] (Prague, 1921)
K. Weis: Českýjih a Šumava v lidové písní [South Bohemia and Šumava in folksongs] (Prague, 1921–41)
F.L. Čelakovský: Slovanské národní písní [Slavonic folksongs], ed. K. Dvořak (Prague, 1946)
J. Jindřich: Jindřichův chodský zpěvník [Jindřich's Chod song book] (Prague, 1947–55)
V. Karbusický andV. Pletka: Dělnické písně [Workers' songs] (Prague, 1958)
M. Venhoda and O.Elschek: Antologie autentických forem československého hudebního folklóru [Anthology of authentic forms of Czech music folklore] (Prague, 1963)
Z. Bláha: Antologie chodské lidove hudby [Anthology of Chod folk music] (Prague, 1972)
České lidové písně: cestami českých sběratelů [Czech folksong: in the steps of Czech collectors] (Prague, 1984)
L. Tyllner, ed.: Böhmische Nationalgesänge und Tänze (Prague, 1995)
F. Sušil: Moravské národní písně [Moravian folksongs] (Brno, 1835); Moravské národní písně: sbírka nová [Moravian folksongs: new collection] (Brno, 1840);Moravské národní písně s nápěvy do textu vřaděnými [Moravian folksongs with melodies] (Brno, 1853–9, 3/1941/R with addns by B. Václavek and R. Smetana)
F. Bartoš, ed.: Nové národní písně moravské [New Moravian folksongs] (Brno, 1882)
F. Bartoš: Národní písně moravské, v nově nasbírané [Moravian folksongs newly collected] (Brno, 1889, rev. 2/1901 with L. Janáček)
J. Černík: Zpěvy moravských Kopaničářů [Songs of the Moravian Kopaničáři] (Prague, 1908)
L. Janáček and P. Váša: Moravské písně milostné [Moravian love songs] (Prague, 1930–37)
J. Poláček: Slovácké pěsničky [Folksongs of Moravian Slovakia] (Brno and Prague, 1936–60)
J.N. Polášek and A. Kubeša: Vałaské pěsničky [Vallachian songs] (Milotice nad Bečvou, 1939–46)
K. Vetterl and Z.Jelínková, eds.: Lidové písně a tance z Valašskokloboucka [Folksongs and dances from the Valašské Klobouky district] (Prague, 1955–60)
J. Gelnar and O. Sirovátka: Slezské písně z Třinecka a Jablunkovska [Silesian songs from the Třinec and Jablunkov districts] (Prague, 1957)
J. Poláček: Lidové písně z Hané [Folksongs from the Haná region], i (Brno, 1966); ii (Kroměříž, 1975)
J. Pajer: Marie Procházková (1886–1986): zpěvačka ze Strážnice [Marie Procházková: the singer from Strážnice] (Prague, 1986)
Podluží v lidové písni [Podluží region in folksong] (Brno, 1988)
K. Vetterl: Guberniální sbírka písní a instrumentální hudby z Moravy a Slezska z roku 1819 [Government collection of songs and instrumental music from Moravia and Silesia from 1819] (Strážnice, 1994)
Folklore Festival Strážnice 1946–1995, Supraphon, Prague (1994)
Gajdovali gajdoši … z Moravy a Slezka [The bagpipers played … from Moravia and Silesia], Písnička, Hukvaldy (1998)
Dalekonosné husle: muzika Jožky Kubíka a zpěváci z Horňácka [Jožka Kubík's band and singers from the Horňácko region], Český rozhlas, Brno (1998)