Page 41 - 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. 41
janáček’s maestoso
parted (the rest of Act 1 will see their reconciliation and finally elopement).
The drama of the situation is furthermore heightened by the last eight bars
(the maestoso marking is repeated) in which the texture thins down to
tremolo violins, playing a triple forte version of the theme on which the
maestoso passage before was based. Voices are heard only in the final two
bars, after which normal conversation between the group (Míla and Živný
and two others) resumes, the tempo now changed to moderato.
Janáček used the maestoso indication three times at the end of Act 3 of
Fate. In response to the students’ invitation to describe the opera to be giv-
en that evening Živný begins a long narration which, as he explains the plot,
also reveals his personal involvement – it is in fact his story, and by the first
maestoso (at Scene 3, bar 47) his utterances have become incoherently pas-
sionate and visionary, the transcendental mood emphasized by the wide-
spaced orchestral accompaniment to his words. The students to whom this
is addressed register their horror but Živný continues (Scene 4 with the
maestoso seemingly continuing) describing the vision of his dead wife until
he collapses in a faint, a total of thirty-four bars. A second maestoso comes a
little later (Scene 4, bar 53) as the anxious students try and calm Živný, who
attempts to echo the notes that he hears his dead wife singing. But when
the student Verva suggests that this is from the missing last act of the opera
Živný sits up and declares robustly “To jest v rukou božích a zůstane tam!”
[That is in the hands of God and will stay there!]. These words are sung un-
accompanied and maestoso. Then follows eleven bars of purely orchestral
music that concludes the opera in high drama.
While the final maestoso in Fate can be regarded as a Structural I
maestoso the other uses in this act help to underline the visionary, tran-
scendental state that takes over Živný in his increasingly personal descrip-
tion of the opera.
This use of maestoso to create a strange, otherworldly atmosphere can
be found outside Janáček’s operas. In the second movement (bar 131) of his
Sinfonietta the previously brisk tempo is halted by a strange maestoso with
held wind chords, high violin and viola figuration pierced by Janáček’s
trumpets and then trombones in one of Janáček’s more unusual time sig-
natures (13/8). The uneven metre, and wide-spread orchestration combined
with the maestoso marking contributes to a feeling of time standing still.
It gives way to a Più mosso until arrested again by another maestoso with
similar effects (though varied means). This strange maestoso section con-
39
parted (the rest of Act 1 will see their reconciliation and finally elopement).
The drama of the situation is furthermore heightened by the last eight bars
(the maestoso marking is repeated) in which the texture thins down to
tremolo violins, playing a triple forte version of the theme on which the
maestoso passage before was based. Voices are heard only in the final two
bars, after which normal conversation between the group (Míla and Živný
and two others) resumes, the tempo now changed to moderato.
Janáček used the maestoso indication three times at the end of Act 3 of
Fate. In response to the students’ invitation to describe the opera to be giv-
en that evening Živný begins a long narration which, as he explains the plot,
also reveals his personal involvement – it is in fact his story, and by the first
maestoso (at Scene 3, bar 47) his utterances have become incoherently pas-
sionate and visionary, the transcendental mood emphasized by the wide-
spaced orchestral accompaniment to his words. The students to whom this
is addressed register their horror but Živný continues (Scene 4 with the
maestoso seemingly continuing) describing the vision of his dead wife until
he collapses in a faint, a total of thirty-four bars. A second maestoso comes a
little later (Scene 4, bar 53) as the anxious students try and calm Živný, who
attempts to echo the notes that he hears his dead wife singing. But when
the student Verva suggests that this is from the missing last act of the opera
Živný sits up and declares robustly “To jest v rukou božích a zůstane tam!”
[That is in the hands of God and will stay there!]. These words are sung un-
accompanied and maestoso. Then follows eleven bars of purely orchestral
music that concludes the opera in high drama.
While the final maestoso in Fate can be regarded as a Structural I
maestoso the other uses in this act help to underline the visionary, tran-
scendental state that takes over Živný in his increasingly personal descrip-
tion of the opera.
This use of maestoso to create a strange, otherworldly atmosphere can
be found outside Janáček’s operas. In the second movement (bar 131) of his
Sinfonietta the previously brisk tempo is halted by a strange maestoso with
held wind chords, high violin and viola figuration pierced by Janáček’s
trumpets and then trombones in one of Janáček’s more unusual time sig-
natures (13/8). The uneven metre, and wide-spread orchestration combined
with the maestoso marking contributes to a feeling of time standing still.
It gives way to a Più mosso until arrested again by another maestoso with
similar effects (though varied means). This strange maestoso section con-
39
