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Popularizace angloamerického rocku v Československu v době normalizace na příkladu brněnské scény

Author(s): Jan Blüml / Language(s): Czech Issue: 1/2020

The study examines the forms of institutionalized popularization of Anglo-American rock in the context of Brno music clubs at the time of normalization (1969-1989). Based on unpublished sources and oral historical research, the text shows the specifics of the rock scene in the south Moravian region, while contradicting the dominant interpretation of the history of rock music behind the Iron Curtain primarily as a political force.

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Vyhoštění Karla Weise z dějin české hudby

Author(s): Jiří Kopecký / Language(s): Czech Issue: 1/2020

Karel Weis (1861-1944) studied at the Prague conservatory and organist school, and received further training from Antonín Dvořák and Zdeněk Fibich. He played piano accompaniments for an excellent violinist František Ondříček, and having successfully applied for the Austrian state scholarship for artists multiple times, he strived for building his career exclusively on composing. Even though he made contributions to several areas (song, symphony, film music), his domain was musical theatre. He was the first Czech composer to make his debut in the National Theatre; his opera Viola addressed a Shakespearean theme, inspired by the Twelfth Night. It was premiered in the National Theatre in 1892. Following disagreements with the management of the National Theatre, Weis decided to offer his next opera to the New German Theatre in Prague, and his opera The Polish Jew premiered here on March 3, 1901. It soon became an opera hit at a number of foreign stages, and was performed even in the Metropolitan Opera in New York. The unexpected success of the artwork, but especially its staging elsewhere than the National Theatre resulted in a number of Czech musicians calling Karel Weis a traitor to the nation. As a result, the written history of the Czech musical culture of 1800s and 1900s omits the name of Karel Weis. This treatise aims to analyse the status quo around the year 1901 and point out unjust and superficial evaluations of Weis's personality and work from the vantage point of shallow national attitudes and patriotism.

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Die finanzielle Lage Bedřich Smetanas im Lichte der Quellen

Author(s): Olga Mojžíšová / Language(s): German Issue: 1/2018

The study investigates the financial situation of Bedřich Smetana and its fluctuations in the individual phases of his life. It is based especially on a detailed analysis of the composer's financial records preserved in various types of written sources (diaries, catalogues of his music institute, records of revenues from opera performances, correspondence, and other individual documents). With a few exceptions, Smetana kept regular and systematic records of his revenues from as early as the 1850s; as of the 1860s, his records also included family expenditures. These overviews provide rather detailed and credible information about the amount and structure of Smetana's finances in the individual periods. Apart from investigating the changes in the value and proportions of the incomes and expenses, the study also uses the above described sources to analyse the circumstances determining Smetana's financial situation and the way in which they interacted with his artistic and social activities, and to determine his actual economic situation in general. The supplemented tables summarize his annual income and expenses in the individual years, including the main items constituting their structure.

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Zur Rezeption der Opern Bedřich Smetanas in Prag in den Jahren 1884–1892

Author(s): Petr Kadlec / Language(s): German Issue: 1/2018

The period between Smetana's death (1884) and the International Exhibition of Music and Theatre in Vienna (1892) represents a specific phase in the reception of Smetana's work. Smetana's operas were already a stable part of the repertory of the National Theatre even before he became internationally renowned. The Czech critics established Smetana's works as a benchmark to which all new compositions were compared. Many of Smetana's admirers expected his opera works to succeed even beyond the borders of the Czech Lands and they intensively encouraged Czech institutions and listeners to maintain their interest in Smetana's compositions.

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Kein Ausgleich nach Noten – Die verkaufte e Braut in Wien 1893 und 1896

Author(s): Hubert Reitterer / Language(s): German Issue: 1/2018

The study is dedicated to the reception of the first German performances of the opera Prodaná nevěsta by Bedřich Smetana in Vienna - in 1893 in the Theater an der Wien, and later in 1896 in Hofoper. Smetana's comic opera came to the Viennese stage as late as almost thirty years after its birth. The work, which was already perceived in Bohemia as part of autonomous Czech music culture as well as a prototype of the national opera of that day, was performed in Vienna during a nationally and politically tense period when Czech society still felt disillusion after the collapse of the Austro-Bohemian compromise in the 1870s. The issue of the position of the Czech Lands within the monarchy had become topical once again by that time. The year 1890 saw a new (and until the outbreak of World War I also the last) attempt at strengthening the centralism, which was rejected by the (non-uniform) opposition in the Czech Lands. In this situation, the Czech National Theatre was visiting the International Exhibition of Music and Theatre (Internationale Ausstellung für Musik- und Theaterwesen) organized in Vienna 1892, where Smetana's Prodaná nevěsta clearly won. This performance was followed by the both above-mentioned premieres on the Viennese stages: first in Theater an der Wien, led by private lessors, and three years later on the official court scene. Based on documents from the archives of the Court Opera, the contemporary press and other sources, the study presents examples of the political context of both the premieres and their reviews by the contemporary satire.

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Smetana zwischen Operette und Oper. Die Sänger des Theaters an der Wien 1893 und an der Hofoper 1896

Author(s): Vlasta Reittererová / Language(s): German Issue: 1/2018

The director of the Theater an der Wien Alexandrine von Schönerer and her art advisor Franz Jauner used the success of Smetana's Prodaná nevěsta [The Bartered Bride] on the occasion of the visit of the Czech National Theatre at the International Exhibition of Music and Theatre (Internationale Ausstellung für Musik- und Theaterwesen) in Vienna in 1892. They organized the Viennese premiere of this opera, which was also its first enactment in German, in April 1893. This operetta-focused theatre thus used Smetana's opera as a precursor to the intended change in the repertory composition directed towards the genre of comic and later also serious opera. With the same intention, the Theater an der Wien presented a comic one-act opera by Vilém Blodek V studni [In the Well] in the following year. Two Czech operas were thus intended to stand at the beginning of the dramaturgy representing higher ambitions in theatre management. Three years later, the premiere of Prodaná nevěsta in the Court Opera (Hofoper) took place. The study is dedicated to biographies of the artists who participated in both of the premieres in Theater an der Wien and the Court Opera, and provides a further context.

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Experimental Design and Technical Tools for the Research of Musical Stimuli with Artificially Implemented Complexity Used in the Rehabilitation of Alzheimer's Disease Patients

Author(s): Lenka Dohnalová,Tomáš Fürst / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2017

This study focuses on identifying new and effective rehabilitation strategies for patients with Alzheimer's disease, which relies on the empirically confirmed effect of musical stimuli. The strategies were inspired by studies of new rehabilitation methods designed by Nicholas Stergiou (Biomechanics Lab, University of Nebraska in Omaha), based on signals that contain artificially incorporated physiological complexity (e.g. pink noise). The physiological signals of a healthy organism contain a certain degree of such complexity. The first phase of the research includes the creation of software in a MIDI format, which enabled the implementation of this complexity into recordings of classical music, and its piloting on a "healthy" population. The following phase will examine the effects of these recordings on patients with AD (in collaboration with neurologists in diagnostics).

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Sukův kompoziční vývoj v kontextu umělecko-estetických a eticko-filosofických akcentů doby

Author(s): Vladimír Kulík / Language(s): Czech Issue: 1/2017

This study is focused on the formation of Josef Suk's compositional language, contingent on inspiration originating in the social and cultural atmosphere at the turn of the 20th century, which was marked by the arrival of new poetic and literary trends, influenced by the philosophy and aesthetics of the period. Suk's creativity not only brings attention to an amount of new tendencies in the period style of composition, but in his artistic visions he also responds to a great numbers of latent philosophical statements contained in selected works of poetry and prose from the period. In the text, you can also find the idea that the logical development of Suk's musical language can more or less touch on the developing parallel of philosophic ideas recognisable in the ethical-philosophical projects of structuralism, existentialism, hermeneutics and psychoanalysis. The progressive philosophical meditation on the meaning of existence and the importance of artistic creation finally leads to Suk's inner satisfaction with his life expectations.

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K problematice tzv. diskoték v československé populární hudbě s přihlédnutím k olomoucké scéně

Author(s): Jan Blüml / Language(s): Czech Issue: 1/2016

Discotheques were one of the most important forms of Czechoslovak popular culture before 1989. These events mediated entertainment for a broad group of people, at the same time provided information unavailable in the context of the official media. For these reasons, discotheques quite soon became the focus of communist cultural politics. Its representatives attempted to form the given phenomenon under the direction of communist ideology, both administratively and in terms of education. The paper, which is based on an investigation of original sources including interviews with witnesses, deals with the aforementioned issues also with regard to the music scene of the main city of Central Moravia, Olomouc.

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Max Brod as a Music Critic

Author(s): Michał Jaczyński / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2016

The article is devoted to the presentation and interpretation of critical-musical works of Max Brod, Czech-born German-Israeli writer, composer and librettist, best known as a monographer of Franz Kafka. On the basis of the press articles (published, inter alia, in German-speaking daily "Prager Tagblatt"), the author analyzes and systematizes Brod's views on musical art. Significantly, in the center of the critic's interest were found to be such composers as Leoš Janáček, Gustav Mahler and Arnold Schönberg. The press articles concerning Jewish music, more specifically - the "Jewish element" ("Jewishness") in music are discussed in detail. The author also attempts to answer whether the Zionist element of Max Brod's worldview could have affected his professional evaluation of musical pieces. At the end of the article critical-musical skills of Max Brod are subjected to the technical analysis, and his artistic views (particularly on Neue Musik) are placed in a wider context of the thought of the era.

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Hudba a zpěv v olomouckých tělocvičných spolcích v letech 1918–19391

Author(s): Ingrid Silná / Language(s): Czech Issue: 1/2016

The study deals with performed music and singing within gymnastics clubs in Olomouc, i.e. Sokol, Orel, and Turnverein during the above mentioned period between the wars: 1918-1939. The clubs ranked among the most active in that branch. Their members devoted themselves, besides physical exercises, to playing theatre, or created instrumental ensembles. The clubs organized various celebrations, parties, and balls where their members took part, or some invited musicians and singers performed. The musical accompaniment could have been heard during public exercising, or, within the frame of exercising lessons, trainees were singing to march. Thanks to the clubs' providing the opportunity of the amateur music making by their own members, their musicality was developed and that contributed to their cultural experience. That kind of activity influenced larger public of various professions and helped with preserving of the music performed mainly in the Olomouc suburbs.

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Bridging Deep Chasms: The Soviet Third Direction in Aleksei Rybnikov's Rock Opera The Star and Death of Joaquin Murieta

Author(s): Alexandra Grabarchuk / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2015

Rock opera in the Soviet Union was a phenomenon with obviously Western roots yet inextricably tied up with and enabled by homegrown players and policies. Aleksei Rybnikov's The Star and Death of Joaquin Murieta (1976) is an early example of the merging of academic and popular music desired by the Composers' Union. An examination of the genesis, production, and reception of this Soviet rock opera will shed light on the philosophical and compositional movement called "The Third Direction" - and why it was considered desirable.

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Samson, wake up! Musical Prague and our recollections

Author(s): Zuzana Jurková / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2015

The article, based on the long-term research of music events in contemporary Prague, aims to find the ways whereby various Prague communities remember their pasts through music. The theoretical background comes from Jan Assmann (2011), according to whom communities are bound together by the co-called connective structure; its time dimension can be understood as a way of remembrance. In the first part of the article, the author aims to elaborate an analytical approach providing a categorization of types - "modalities" - of recollection. In the second part, three such modalities created by different communities are presented: an official modality of "national heroes", the dynamic modality of the underground, and the nostalgic modality of "the children of a socialist paradise".

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Kulturně politické determinanty československého progresivního rocku na přelomu šedesátých a sedmdesátých let dvacátého století

Author(s): Jan Blüml / Language(s): Czech Issue: 1/2014

While in the European countries outside the Eastern Bloc popular music was usually primarily classified on the basis of style or genre identity, Czechoslovak popular music was primarily divided into the categories of official and unofficial (or illegal) music. In the paper, progressive rock and its social functions is reflected through this prism. With regard to the above-mentioned facts, the article discusses the major trends of Czechoslovak progressive rock in the '70s. It includes folklore-based progressive rock (the album Odyssea, recorded 1969), progressive rock inspired by the Czech tradition of big band music (Nová syntéza, 1971) or progressive rock and poetry (Kuře v hodinkách, 1972).

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Smolka, Jaroslav: Jak jsem je znal: vzpomínky na některé osobnosti hudební kultury, zejména české

Author(s): Hana Špundová / Language(s): Czech Issue: 1/2014

Review of: Smolka, Jaroslav: Jak jsem je znal: vzpomínky na některé osobnosti hudební kultury, zejména české, Praha: Akademie múzických umění v Praze, 2014, 193 s.

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Nástin vývoje olomoucké rockové a alternativní scény v letech 1960–2010

Author(s): Jan Blüml / Language(s): Czech Issue: 1/2012

Although popular music in Olomouc is most often remembered in connection with folk, country and tramp songs, it also entered history with its achievements in rock and in alternative genres. A major group in this sense are the Bluesmen, who with their original sense of rhythm and blues won recognition on the Czechoslovak rock scene in the second half of the 1960s. During the so-called normalization period, clubs such as S-Club or music festivals such as Vlnobytí [Surf] came to be widely recognized in the field of Czechoslovak rock. An important Czech group in the unofficial culture was Elektrická svině [Electric Swine]. Beside the metal genres active at the turn of the 1980s and 1990s, Olomouc saw the development of heavy punk, which later grew into the culture of electronic dancing music of nationwide importance.

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Česká opera ve Vídni v kontextu doby – se zvláštním zřetelem k vídeňskému uvádění Blodkovy aktovky V studni

Author(s): Vlasta Reittererová,Hubert Reitterer,Viktor Velek / Language(s): Czech Issue: 1/2012

In the 19th century, opera in the Czech society was considered to be a representative genre through which the Czech-speaking culture could assume its national character. For this reason, works by Czech composers were staged in opera houses in Vienna. On the other hand, there was concern that they would not be well received and understood. The key events in the history of staging Czech operas and plays in Vienna include Dvořák's performance of The Cunning Peasant at the Court Opera House (1885), the guest performance of the Prague National Theatre at the International Musical and Theatrical Exhibition in Vienna (1892), the performance in Vienna of the Czech theatre company of Ladislav Chmelenský (1893), the Viennese premiere of The Bartered Bride by Smetana (1893), the one-act opera In the Well by Vilém Blodek (1894) at the An der Wien Theatre, the premieres of three operas by Smetana - The Kiss (1894), The Secret (1895), and Dalibor (1896), and finally Janáček's opera Jenufa (1918), all at the Court Opera House. Another important aspect of staging Czech operas in Vienna was their contribution to the social life of Viennese Czechs. The author's treatment of the cultural and political circumstances of the performances is based on his study of the period press and other sources. Particular attention has been paid to the reception of Blodek's opera In the Well.

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Orgel in der Olmützer Kathedrale nach dem 2. Weltkrieg im Lichte aktueller heuristischer Reflexion

Author(s): Petr Lyko / Language(s): German Issue: 1/2011

The paper reflects a newly discovered resource in the Olomouc branch of Municipal Archive in Opava - Revision of organ in Olomouc Metropolitan church since 1931 and older, ZA OpOl, sign.: MCO, card. n. 34, in the relation to the organ of the chapter house in Olomouc. The source mostly contains business correspondence between organ firms and Metropolitan chapter house in Olomouc or other church event. also secular authorities and institutions. Also internal church correspondence can be found here, where notifications of adopted steps concerning organ reparations are included, as well as demands for financial investments, approval of substantial decisions by superior authorities etc. A great amount of the letters is addressed mostly to the director of the Cathedral choir Gustav Pivoňka or is written by him.

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Das Graduale aus Česká Skalice 1567

Author(s): Lucie Brázdová / Language(s): German Issue: 1/2011

The Gradual of Česká Skalice, dating back to 1567, is a significant hand-written record kept in the Museum of Božena Němcová, which situated in Česká Skalice. This codex, which is written in Czech and is of a regional character, may be listed among all the other Czech sources. By analyzing it we may contribute to the recognition of the repertoire of utraquistic sources. However, the Gradual of Česká Skalice does not belong to such prestigious codices as the Gradual of Strahov, the Gradual of Chrudim, dating back to 1570, Franus' Hymnbook. The Gradual of Česká Skalice is merely a paper codex the decoration of which is very humble. When reviewing the repertoire of the graduals, it is obvious that the Gradual of Česká Skalice contains only the most basic information. The proprium de tempore is announced; that is the repertoire covering the period from the advent to the office for sins. Offices on sanctification, the Ascension of the Virgin Mary, Sunday and on the Apostles are added to this from the votive masses. The repertoire lacks proprium de sanctis, commune sanctorum, votive masses, cantiones, polyphonic songs and diapason patriamina. To add to that, the Gradual of Česká Skalice contains written-out antiphons about Low Sunday and introits about the fasting Sundays. It is without doubt that the Gradual of Česká Skalice is a matter of local character. The difference is also apparent in the very objective the source was created for. The origin of the Gradual of Česká Skalice was not stimulated by the effort to own an expensive and richly decorated hymnbook, but rather the effort to own such a codex, which would especially serve practical purposes. Therefore, we cannot add it to the prestigious codices when taking into consideration its external and internal characteristics.

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Securing a Place in History: The Promotion of Fibich's Melodramas

Author(s): Judith Mabary / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2010

In unserer Zeit ist die Relevanz der Melodramen Zdeňek Fibichs für die Geschichte der tschechischen Musik unbestritten. Dieser Stellenwert ist zum Teil bereits durch Fibichs Zeitgenossen und die zahlreichen kulturellen Organisationen gesichert worden, die Deklamationen poetischer Werke in ihre sonst musikalischen Programme aufnahmen. Bekannte Schauspieler und Schauspielerinnen, hauptsächlich vom Prager Interims- und Nationaltheater, wie etwa Otýlie Sklenářová-Malá und Jakub Seifert, haben Fibichs Konzert-Melodramen durch Aufnahme in ihre öffentlichen Programme gefördert. Diese und andere hervorragende Interpreten haben sich in der Folge für das Melodrama auch dadurch eingesetzt, dass sie die Hauptrollen in Fibichs Melodram Hippodamie während der langen Dauer von dessen Popularität übernommen haben. Auch die Tschechische Philharmonie hat unter einigen der wichtigsten Dirigenten ihrer Geschichte - darunter Václav Talich - seine Kräfte mit professionellen Theaterleuten zur Aufführung von Fibichs Melodramen vereinigt. Der Umstand, dass diese Werke vor einem ganz verschiedenartigen, städtischen und ländlichen, Publikum, gespielt wurden, die Häufigkeit ihrer Aufführungen und die erfahrenen Interpreten haben ihre Anziehungskraft noch vermehrt. Diese Faktoren sind auch wesentlich für die Erklärung der beispiellosen Popularität des Melodramas überhaupt in den böhmischen Ländern im letzten Viertel des 19. Jahrhunderts. Fibichs künstlerisches Renommee in Prag und seine bevorzugte Stellung als Zweiter Kapellmeister des Interimstheaters haben ebenfalls dazu beigetragen, dass seine Werke besonders gefragt waren.

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