Page 49 - 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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janáček’s maestoso
Example 9: Janáček: From the House of the Dead, Act 1. © With kind permission by Universal
Edition A.G., Wien. www.universaledition.com
At the end of the opera Petrovič is released from prison. He looks for-
ward to his new life (“Nový život”) and at the same time the other prison-
ers celebrate his freedom by letting the eagle out of the cage, its wing now
healed. “Pusť ho Nikito!” they sing – repeating the words from Act 1 – and
this time the eagle can fly and does fly. “Zlatá svoboda!” [Dear freedom]
Petrovič sings to a repeat of the theme heard at the end of the Prelude. One
might have expected this to be marked maestoso – but it is not.
As is evident there are more occurrences of maestoso here than in all
of the previous three operas combined (eight compared with ten) and five
of these (C, D, F, G, H) include words, compared with three in the previ-
ous three operas. Only one of the House of the Dead examples is structural
(the main use in the previous three opera). Three of the occurrences (B, D,
H) include one of the main musical themes of the opera, the motto theme.
This theme opens Act 1 and recurs generally in association with painful
events, for instance at the arrival of Petrovič in the prison camp and later
during his brutal beating by the prison guards. It is heard when Skuratov
47
Example 9: Janáček: From the House of the Dead, Act 1. © With kind permission by Universal
Edition A.G., Wien. www.universaledition.com
At the end of the opera Petrovič is released from prison. He looks for-
ward to his new life (“Nový život”) and at the same time the other prison-
ers celebrate his freedom by letting the eagle out of the cage, its wing now
healed. “Pusť ho Nikito!” they sing – repeating the words from Act 1 – and
this time the eagle can fly and does fly. “Zlatá svoboda!” [Dear freedom]
Petrovič sings to a repeat of the theme heard at the end of the Prelude. One
might have expected this to be marked maestoso – but it is not.
As is evident there are more occurrences of maestoso here than in all
of the previous three operas combined (eight compared with ten) and five
of these (C, D, F, G, H) include words, compared with three in the previ-
ous three operas. Only one of the House of the Dead examples is structural
(the main use in the previous three opera). Three of the occurrences (B, D,
H) include one of the main musical themes of the opera, the motto theme.
This theme opens Act 1 and recurs generally in association with painful
events, for instance at the arrival of Petrovič in the prison camp and later
during his brutal beating by the prison guards. It is heard when Skuratov
47
