Page 315 - Weiss, Jernej, ur./ed. 2025. Glasbena interpretacija: med umetniškim in znanstvenim┊Music Interpretation: Between the Artistic and the Scientific. Koper/Ljubljana: Založba Univerze na Primorskem in Festival Ljubljana. Studia musicologica Labacensia, 8

summaries
Viktor Velek
Musical Interpretation: Specifics of Working with Textual Statements and Other Aspects
This article explores the issue of musical interpretation through a range
of examples. The interdisciplinary approach spans ethnomusicology, op-
era interpretation and source authenticity, with all the examples firmly
rooted in Czech musical culture. The first section revisits the earliest re-
cordings of the songs of the Lusatian Serbs (1907) and addresses the cor-
rect approach when working with amateur musicians. In contrast, the sec-
ond section focuses on historical recordings of operatic performances and
subsequent reviews of live presentations. The example chosen here is the
world-renowned Czech opera tenor Richard Kubla (1890–1964) and his
problematic relationship with the music critic Milan Balcar. Their personal
history complicated an objective assessment of Kubla’s performances. This
section also covers another Czech opera star who achieved outstanding in-
terpretive results both at home and abroad in the first half of the 20th cen-
tury. Eva Hadrabová-Nedbalová, during her time in Vienna, suffered from
various vocal indispositions, which affected her performances. The study
uses handwritten notes from a frequent visitor to the Vienna State Opera to
demonstrate the unreliability of certain reviews. During the Second World
War, the soprano performed at the Nuremberg Opera, but her desire to
leave led her to intentionally sing off-key – a fact that critics, of course, were
unaware of, so they inadvertently judged her as past her prime and incom-
petent, evaluating a “simulation” rather than the real situation. For read-
ers unfamiliar with the full context, these reviews could seem like a credi-
ble source of information. The third section discusses the issue of selecting
a musical source. Mediaeval song repertoires often have various versions
recorded, raising questions such as which one is the oldest or closest to
the original. In the case of one of the most important Bohemian mediae-
val musical works, the Hussite war hymn Ktož jsú Boží bojovníci (Ye Who
Are Warriors of God), the situation is even more complex. The song first
became a musical symbol, as well as a musical quotation, in its later ver-
sion, published in 1530, and this version was incorporated into the musical
culture of the late 19th century by Bedřich Smetana, the founder of mod-
ern Czech national music. A dilemma arose with the discovery of an earli-
er version from around 1420 (in the Jistebnice Cantionale). The coexistence
of both versions sparked debate over which version of the score is most suit-
able, particularly when used as a musical quotation.
Keywords: music, interpretation, opera, Lusatia, music criticism

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