Page 25 - 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
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oi: https://doi.org/10.26493/978-961-7023-72-5.23-49
Janáček’s maestoso
John Tyrrell
Univerza v Cardiffu
Cardiff University
Unlike his contemporary Gustav Mahler, Janáček was unadventurous in
his use of expression marks. He used very few, almost always preferring
Italian to his native Czech. The most common words he used were espressi-
vo, dolce and dolcissimo, which occur when he wanted to characterize par-
ticularly tender music. The only other expression mark he commonly used
is the term maestoso [majestic]. As will be shown below, the occasions on
which he employed the term can be easily classified – until his final opera Z
mrtvého domu [From the House of the Dead], where he appears to use it in
rather different contexts and, if one bears in mind the meaning of the word,
in a strange way. The object of this paper is to explore this phenomenon and
suggest some interpretations.
The term maestoso has been current since the Baroque as an indication
of mood or as a tempo designation. An early definition was given by J. G.
Walther in his Musicalisches Lexicon oder Musicalisches Bibliothec (Leip-
zig, 1732), who described the term as “ansehnlich und langsam, iedoch mit
einer lebhaften Expression” [stately and slow, but with a lively expression].
In his Musikalisches Lexikon (Frankfurt am Main, 1802) H. C. Koch stated
that, like con gravità, maestoso could imply the use of overdotting. This can
be found, for instance, in Haydn’s slow introductions, especially the middle
symphonies (e.g. no. 50 (1773): Adagio e maestoso; no. 53, “Imperiale” (1773):
Largo maestoso; and no. 54 (1774): Adagio maestoso) though as David Wyn
Jones has pointed out, while all Classical composers used maestoso, this
23
Janáček’s maestoso
John Tyrrell
Univerza v Cardiffu
Cardiff University
Unlike his contemporary Gustav Mahler, Janáček was unadventurous in
his use of expression marks. He used very few, almost always preferring
Italian to his native Czech. The most common words he used were espressi-
vo, dolce and dolcissimo, which occur when he wanted to characterize par-
ticularly tender music. The only other expression mark he commonly used
is the term maestoso [majestic]. As will be shown below, the occasions on
which he employed the term can be easily classified – until his final opera Z
mrtvého domu [From the House of the Dead], where he appears to use it in
rather different contexts and, if one bears in mind the meaning of the word,
in a strange way. The object of this paper is to explore this phenomenon and
suggest some interpretations.
The term maestoso has been current since the Baroque as an indication
of mood or as a tempo designation. An early definition was given by J. G.
Walther in his Musicalisches Lexicon oder Musicalisches Bibliothec (Leip-
zig, 1732), who described the term as “ansehnlich und langsam, iedoch mit
einer lebhaften Expression” [stately and slow, but with a lively expression].
In his Musikalisches Lexikon (Frankfurt am Main, 1802) H. C. Koch stated
that, like con gravità, maestoso could imply the use of overdotting. This can
be found, for instance, in Haydn’s slow introductions, especially the middle
symphonies (e.g. no. 50 (1773): Adagio e maestoso; no. 53, “Imperiale” (1773):
Largo maestoso; and no. 54 (1774): Adagio maestoso) though as David Wyn
Jones has pointed out, while all Classical composers used maestoso, this
23
