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Article Excerpt
Milos Stedron (*1942) is one of the most important Czech musicologists and composers of today. His main interest as a musicologist is Leos Janacek (he has written numerous musicological studies, and for example contributed to the reconstruction of Janacek's unfinished Danube Symphony), but also the Renaissance and Mannerism (he is the author of the first Czech monograph on C. Monteverdi). As a composer he is associated primarily with the circle of Brno composers influenced by the principles of New Music in the 1960s, and one particular point of interest in this context is Stedron's involvement in "team compositions". He is also a sought after composer of stage music.
I shall start with what is perhaps a rather tired old question: what about the whole supposed musicality of Czechs? Are Czechs really particularly musical in some way? Or is the old saying, "If you're a Czech, you're a musician" just a myth we've constructed about ourselves?
I'd say yes to both questions. Yes it's a myth, but it's based on what has been a great deal of musical activity. Mikulas Bek's book, The Conservatory of Europe? which is essentially a sociological study of Czech musical culture, offers an enlightening answer. Bek describes how in the 1770s Charles Burney travelled across Europe, from Holland through France and England to Vienna, and all round Bohemia before returning through Germany. It was Burney who supposedly said that Bohemia was the conservatory of Europe. In fact, of course, he could never have said that, because in his time the conservatory didn't exist as an institution, except in Italy as an orphanage. Nonetheless, there was something about the idea. If we look at it historically, we see that the first defining moment for Czechs in music came during with the radical religious Hussite movement in the Middle Ages. The Hussite movement spread music more broadly across society, democratised it. In this sense Marxist interpretations were partly correct, since before that time there had never been laicisation and secularisation on the same scale, or such an advance in literacy among ordinary people. Another moment "in the stars", to put it metaphorically, came with the Baroque, with the breakthrough into Late Baroque, when it became clear that what most suited Czechs was the model of a melody or melodic line accompanied by something less complicated, more lucid.
How do you explain it?
It is hard to say. Some nations are more susceptible to melody, while some are more inclined to multiple lines. Of course this is a dangerous generalisation, more just a sort of theory. Among northerners what has always predominated is a feeling for structure. We can see this with the Low Countries, the Burgundians, the Northern French, people from Belgium and Flanders, who wherever they went managed to organise perfect polymelodic music involving many voices--five, seven or even more. The Italians added the poly-choral element but in fact in Italy considerations of melody always prevailed and were always the clearly dominant factor. The Italian approach suited the Czechs better and it is interesting that Italian influences have been more in evidence here than French influences, even back in the reign of Charles IV when you would have thought that the Luxembourg connections would have meant the import of the musical culture of France.
Let us go back to the Baroque. What happened then?
Here what is important is the transition from the Baroque to Classicism. Someone once said that Classicism is Baroque without ornament, that all the decorations were stripped off the facades so that only the strict lines remain ... This may mean on the one hand create something like a barracks, but it may also be very light, airy architecture--and if I compare music to architecture, which is an old idea, architecture is music in stone. In my view the model of the Late Baroque and Classicism particularly suited the Czechs. All over Europe the Baroque was attractive in music because the basic line of the melody, two violins or two trumpets, could be immediately reproduced and communicated by ear and to do so didn't require any great education or skill. This was why initially "Czech musicality" expressed itself in a rather mediocre way and only after 1600 did the phenomenon acquire features that made it comparable with the major musical diasporas. I mean that after the Netherlanders and Italians Czechs become the biggest group of musical migrants. In this sense Havlicek was right when he said that they filled up every corner of the world. But Czechs do not create great concepts, or do so only in exceptional cases. For example J. V. Stamic, who revolutionised High Classicism period by pushing through the sonata form and modern orchestra. J.A. Benda was another Czech who made a contribution of this magnitude. But generally Czechs have been migrating musicians who adapt perfectly to the local style, are in no way provocative but simply develop that style. A model 1.B Class, in fact, marvellous musicians, skilful composers and excellent fulfillers of the norm.
Which are the other periods when Czech music reaches a peak?
If we are going to talk about national Czech music, then it is something that emerges from the second phase of the Czech national revival, after 1848. All this is perfectly described by Vladimir Macura in his absolutely epochal book Znameni zrodu [The Sign of Birth], which shows how the National Revival had two phases. In the first phase it was a kind of game developed by a few dozen intellectuals, but after 1847 the masses became involved, and this produces crucial episodes such as the "discovery" of the Zelena hora and Kraluv Dvur Manuscripts, the supposed cycles of Old Czech poems from the 9th and 13th centuries that were unmasked as forgeries at the end of the 19th century. The wheels of nationalism start to turn because the tracks have already been laid. At first the Austrian government smiles, because it believes on past form that the phenomenon is trivial. But the smile on its face disappears when it sees the funeral of Rubes. A poet whom everybody knows from his Mlynarova opicka [The Miller's Monkey] or Cech a Nemec [The Czech and the German] or some little verse dies, and Frantisek Palacky gives the order, more or less a political appeal, for his memory to be honoured. Suddenly forty thousand people turn up, the rain is pouring down but Palacky speaks for a whole hour and everyone listens. Suddenly ideology, something completely new, enters the game. And we might perhaps see that as the fateful moment for Czech music as well, which becomes national in spirit. Czech musicians cease to be migrants, and are now people very much bound to a particular cultural instance. Smetana is a tragic but great example of this kind. Here we have a phenomenal world talent, and if he had chosen the path of the Romantic composer freely travelling and spending five years in Paris, and maybe ten years in some German centre, he would certainly be three times more famous than he is today. But he chose the path of Czech opera and gave himself up wholly to the nation. He devoted himself completely to the services of something that he didn't actually understand very well. This is crystal clear if we look at the ideas that inform his music, I mean his view on what he was actually setting to music. Significantly these we noticed by Adolf Hitler with his distorted vision, who praised Ma vlast [My Country] and considered it absolutely the most perfect chauvinistic glorification of landscape, history, nation, race and so forth. He wanted to hear it played authentically; he got his way, and the conductor...
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