Page 31 - 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. 31
janáček’s maestoso
more loudly as they approach and finally fortissimo and maestoso as the
act’s conclusion.
Example 2: Janáček: Výlety pánĕ Broučkovy: Výlet pana Broučka do XV. století, Act 1. © With
kind permission by Universal Edition A.G., Wien. www.universaledition.com
This is not the only maestoso marking in the Fifteenth-Century Excur-
sion. Soon after the beginning, a drunken Mr Brouček loses his way in the
cellars of Vikárka pub and imagines that he has been transported back to
the fifteenth century and into the jewel-chamber of King Václav [Wence-
slas] IV. There is a maestoso marking (against grandiose music) when Mr
Brouček manages to light a lamp and gets a glimmering of where he has
ended up. Soon after, the author of the Brouček novels, Svatopluk Čech, is
brought on stage to sing an invocation to the decisive day of battle (“Slunce
velkého dne” [Sun of the great day]), once again marked maestoso.
A more ambiguous moment comes in Act 2 when Kunka, the daugh-
ter of Brouček’s fifteenth-century host and protector Domšík, returns shat-
tered from the battlefield. The mainly orchestral music is marked maesto-
so, which hardly seems to fit the initial despondent mood, but against this
an ascending figure suggests a hopeful outcome to the battle, soon con-
firmed by a jaunty victory march and by another Hussite choral (“Dítky, v
hromadu se senděme”) [Children, let’s get together], again marked maesto-
so, sung by Kunka’s lover Petřík and the chorus.
Janáček began composing his three-movement “rhapsody for or-
chestra” Taras Bulba, in 1915, in the early stages of the First World War in
reaction to encouraging news from the front with early Russian victories
29
more loudly as they approach and finally fortissimo and maestoso as the
act’s conclusion.
Example 2: Janáček: Výlety pánĕ Broučkovy: Výlet pana Broučka do XV. století, Act 1. © With
kind permission by Universal Edition A.G., Wien. www.universaledition.com
This is not the only maestoso marking in the Fifteenth-Century Excur-
sion. Soon after the beginning, a drunken Mr Brouček loses his way in the
cellars of Vikárka pub and imagines that he has been transported back to
the fifteenth century and into the jewel-chamber of King Václav [Wence-
slas] IV. There is a maestoso marking (against grandiose music) when Mr
Brouček manages to light a lamp and gets a glimmering of where he has
ended up. Soon after, the author of the Brouček novels, Svatopluk Čech, is
brought on stage to sing an invocation to the decisive day of battle (“Slunce
velkého dne” [Sun of the great day]), once again marked maestoso.
A more ambiguous moment comes in Act 2 when Kunka, the daugh-
ter of Brouček’s fifteenth-century host and protector Domšík, returns shat-
tered from the battlefield. The mainly orchestral music is marked maesto-
so, which hardly seems to fit the initial despondent mood, but against this
an ascending figure suggests a hopeful outcome to the battle, soon con-
firmed by a jaunty victory march and by another Hussite choral (“Dítky, v
hromadu se senděme”) [Children, let’s get together], again marked maesto-
so, sung by Kunka’s lover Petřík and the chorus.
Janáček began composing his three-movement “rhapsody for or-
chestra” Taras Bulba, in 1915, in the early stages of the First World War in
reaction to encouraging news from the front with early Russian victories
29
