Page 205 - Weiss, Jernej, ur. 2018. Nova glasba v “novi” Evropi med obema svetovnima vojnama ?? New Music in the “New” Europe Between the Two World Wars. Koper/Ljubljana: Založba Univerze na Primorskem in Festival Ljubljana. Studia musicologica Labacensia, 2
P. 205
alois hába and slovene students of composition ...
sic. The beginnings of Osterc’s acquaintance with Hába coincided with the
period of the latter’s affirmation as a composer, when together with the pi-
anist Erwin Schulhoff (and with the considerable assistance of the Förster
company, one of the first piano makers in Czechoslovakia to build a quar-
ter-tone piano), he gave concerts of quarter-tone music in Prague.6 In the
early 1920s Hába was considered a relatively marginal avant-garde figure,
whose propagation of athematic music free of motivic and thematic repeti-
tions should, in theory, have set him far apart from the compositional ap-
proaches of the leading Czech composers of the day – Janáček, Suk, Novák
and, increasingly, Martinů.7 Despite this, his ideas were slowly gaining in-
creasing attention. In 1920 he completed his first microtonal composition,
the String Quartet No 2 (op. 7), which received its premiere performance on
28 November 1922 at the Hochschule für Musik in Berlin. Hába returned to
Prague in 1923, his head full of the ideas of Schreker and Busoni, and in Sep-
tember 1924 began to teach a course in quarter-tone and six-tone compo-
sition at the State Conservatory. As Lubomír Spurný notes in his foreword
to the catalogue of Hába’s music and writings, Hába had already published
Harmonické základy čtvrttónové soustavy (The harmonic principles of the
quarter-tone system) in Prague in 1922. This work represented the theoreti-
cal basis for his most influential work, the harmony textbook Neue Harmo-
nielehre des diatonischen-, chromatischen-, Viertel-, Drittel, Sechstel- und
Zwölften- Tonsystems (A new theory of harmony of the diatonic, chromat-
ic, quarter-tone, third tone, sixth tone, and twelfth tone systems) published
in Leipzig in 1927.8 Osterc was thus one of Hába’s first pupils, attending his
quarter-tone composition course in as early as 1926 and 1927, in other words
even before Hába was appointed a professor at the conservatory in 1934, the
moment that marked the official opening of his composition class, which
then continued until 1949. It would thus appear that Osterc did not have
the opportunity to get to know Hába’s harmony textbook during his time
in Prague, and was only acquainted with it later, via his own pupils. It was a
similar story with the musical poetics of Josef Suk, with whom Osterc nev-
er studied, unlike his pupils.
6 Horst-Peter Hesse, ed., Alois Hába. Harmonielehre des diatonischen, chromatischen,
Viertel-, Drittel-, Sechstel- und Zwölftel-Tonsystems (1942–1943) (Nordstedt, 2007),
557–558.
7 The apparent polarisation between these composers and Hába is dicussed in 1923
by the Czech musicologist Zdeněk Nejedlý. Zdeněk Nejedlý, “O čtvrttónové hudbě,”
Smetana 13 (1923): 17–20.
8 Lubomír Spurný and Jiří Vysloužil, Alois Hába: A Catalogue of the Music and Wri-
tings (Prague: Koniasch Latin Press, 2010), XI.
203
sic. The beginnings of Osterc’s acquaintance with Hába coincided with the
period of the latter’s affirmation as a composer, when together with the pi-
anist Erwin Schulhoff (and with the considerable assistance of the Förster
company, one of the first piano makers in Czechoslovakia to build a quar-
ter-tone piano), he gave concerts of quarter-tone music in Prague.6 In the
early 1920s Hába was considered a relatively marginal avant-garde figure,
whose propagation of athematic music free of motivic and thematic repeti-
tions should, in theory, have set him far apart from the compositional ap-
proaches of the leading Czech composers of the day – Janáček, Suk, Novák
and, increasingly, Martinů.7 Despite this, his ideas were slowly gaining in-
creasing attention. In 1920 he completed his first microtonal composition,
the String Quartet No 2 (op. 7), which received its premiere performance on
28 November 1922 at the Hochschule für Musik in Berlin. Hába returned to
Prague in 1923, his head full of the ideas of Schreker and Busoni, and in Sep-
tember 1924 began to teach a course in quarter-tone and six-tone compo-
sition at the State Conservatory. As Lubomír Spurný notes in his foreword
to the catalogue of Hába’s music and writings, Hába had already published
Harmonické základy čtvrttónové soustavy (The harmonic principles of the
quarter-tone system) in Prague in 1922. This work represented the theoreti-
cal basis for his most influential work, the harmony textbook Neue Harmo-
nielehre des diatonischen-, chromatischen-, Viertel-, Drittel, Sechstel- und
Zwölften- Tonsystems (A new theory of harmony of the diatonic, chromat-
ic, quarter-tone, third tone, sixth tone, and twelfth tone systems) published
in Leipzig in 1927.8 Osterc was thus one of Hába’s first pupils, attending his
quarter-tone composition course in as early as 1926 and 1927, in other words
even before Hába was appointed a professor at the conservatory in 1934, the
moment that marked the official opening of his composition class, which
then continued until 1949. It would thus appear that Osterc did not have
the opportunity to get to know Hába’s harmony textbook during his time
in Prague, and was only acquainted with it later, via his own pupils. It was a
similar story with the musical poetics of Josef Suk, with whom Osterc nev-
er studied, unlike his pupils.
6 Horst-Peter Hesse, ed., Alois Hába. Harmonielehre des diatonischen, chromatischen,
Viertel-, Drittel-, Sechstel- und Zwölftel-Tonsystems (1942–1943) (Nordstedt, 2007),
557–558.
7 The apparent polarisation between these composers and Hába is dicussed in 1923
by the Czech musicologist Zdeněk Nejedlý. Zdeněk Nejedlý, “O čtvrttónové hudbě,”
Smetana 13 (1923): 17–20.
8 Lubomír Spurný and Jiří Vysloužil, Alois Hába: A Catalogue of the Music and Wri-
tings (Prague: Koniasch Latin Press, 2010), XI.
203
