Martinu and His World
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Martinu and His World
A collection of essays and documents illuminating the work of Bohuslav Martinů, published in collaboration with the Bard Music Festival.
Bohuslav Martinů was one of the most extraordinary and prolific composers of the twentieth century. Martinů and His World offers a portrait of the composer in all his complexity. Born in the present-day Czech Republic, Martinů was rendered stateless as a result of events around World War II and the Communist takeover of Czechoslovakia. He lived for more than a decade in the United States, where he had great success, and died in Switzerland.
Martinů composed more than four hundred works in all genres of instrumental and vocal music, and infused each with a special combination of the lyrical and the dramatic. Alongside an unerring sense of form, his works draw on a kaleidoscope of elements from such sources as Dvořák, American jazz of the 1920s, English Renaissance madrigals, the late Baroque concerto grosso, French Impressionism, Czech and Moravian folk songs, and the contemporary music of his day.
This volume pays special attention to Martinů’s little-known operatic works and presents for the first time both a recently discovered personal diary and a series of interviews with important figures who were part of his American years.
Martinů and His World reveals the composer as an essential voice of his time, an original thinker about music past and present, who lived through the political complexities of the twentieth century and stood up to them both as a human being and as an artist.
Bohuslav Martinů was one of the most extraordinary and prolific composers of the twentieth century. Martinů and His World offers a portrait of the composer in all his complexity. Born in the present-day Czech Republic, Martinů was rendered stateless as a result of events around World War II and the Communist takeover of Czechoslovakia. He lived for more than a decade in the United States, where he had great success, and died in Switzerland.
Martinů composed more than four hundred works in all genres of instrumental and vocal music, and infused each with a special combination of the lyrical and the dramatic. Alongside an unerring sense of form, his works draw on a kaleidoscope of elements from such sources as Dvořák, American jazz of the 1920s, English Renaissance madrigals, the late Baroque concerto grosso, French Impressionism, Czech and Moravian folk songs, and the contemporary music of his day.
This volume pays special attention to Martinů’s little-known operatic works and presents for the first time both a recently discovered personal diary and a series of interviews with important figures who were part of his American years.
Martinů and His World reveals the composer as an essential voice of his time, an original thinker about music past and present, who lived through the political complexities of the twentieth century and stood up to them both as a human being and as an artist.
Table of Contents
Permissions and Credits
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Martinů and His Worlds
MICHAEL BECKERMAN
Part I. Operatic Perspectives
Office for Dreaming—or the Simple Future
JIŘÍ GRUŠA
TRANSLATED BY SUSAN H. GILLESPIE
“We Have No Railway Station”: Juliette or the Renunciation of Memory
ALEŠ BŘEZINA
Byzantine Music in Martinů’s Opera The Greek Passion
MARIOS CHRISTOU
Meditation on the First Ave Maria of Bohuslav Martinů’s Sister Paskalina
JON KANTOR MEADOW
Ambiguous Historicism in Martinů’s The Marriage
MARTIN NEDBAL
The Long Shadow of Juliette: Martinů’s Late Musical Aesthetic and the Fantaisies symphoniques (Symphony No. 6)
IVANA RENTSCH
TRANSLATED BY SUSAN H. GILLESPIE
Part II. Experiments in Instrumental Music from Baroque to Jazz
Martinů and the Reduction of Music in the 1920s
GISELHER SCHUBERT
TRANSLATED BY SUSAN H. GILLESPIE
Negotiating the “Concerto Grosso type” in Paris and Princeton: Martinů’s Multi-Soloist Concertante Works from a Generational Perspective
BRIAN S. LOCKE
“I changed practically nothing”: Bohuslav Martinů’s Collaboration on La Revue de cuisine
ALEŠ BŘEZINA
TRANSLATED BY ADAM PRENTIS
Part III. Escapes and Arrivals
Martinů, Benjamin, and the Changing Experience of Historical Time
AXEL KÖRNER
“To My Countrymen—Workers of Cleveland”: The World Premiere of Bohuslav Martinů’s Symphony No. 2
MARKÉTA KRATOCHVÍLOVÁ & MAREK PECHAČ
TRANSLATED BY ADAM PRENTIS
Challenging Modernism: Bohuslav Martinů’s Works at the Venice International Festival of Contemporary Music
VINCENZINA C. OTTOMANO
TRANSLATED BY COURTNEY QUAINTANCE
Part IV. Documents and Editions
More Than Just Corrected Notation: The Bohuslav Martinů Complete Edition
ALEŠ BŘEZINA
TRANSLATED BY ADAM PRENTIS
On the Complete Edition of Bohuslav Martinů’s Correspondence
VÍT ZOUHAR
Martinů’s Notebook of Dreams
INTRODUCED AND ANNOTATED BY MICHAEL BECKERMAN
Martinů in the U.S.A.: Interviews with the Composer’s American Friends and Students
CONDUCTED BY ALEŠ BŘEZINA
EDITED AND INTRODUCED BY MICHAEL BECKERMAN AND ALEŠ BŘEZINA
Part V. Coda
Music and Politics in the Twentieth Century: The Parallel Lives of Bohuslav Martinů and Rudolf Firkušný
LEON BOTSTEIN
Index
Notes on the Contributors
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Martinů and His Worlds
MICHAEL BECKERMAN
Part I. Operatic Perspectives
Office for Dreaming—or the Simple Future
JIŘÍ GRUŠA
TRANSLATED BY SUSAN H. GILLESPIE
“We Have No Railway Station”: Juliette or the Renunciation of Memory
ALEŠ BŘEZINA
Byzantine Music in Martinů’s Opera The Greek Passion
MARIOS CHRISTOU
Meditation on the First Ave Maria of Bohuslav Martinů’s Sister Paskalina
JON KANTOR MEADOW
Ambiguous Historicism in Martinů’s The Marriage
MARTIN NEDBAL
The Long Shadow of Juliette: Martinů’s Late Musical Aesthetic and the Fantaisies symphoniques (Symphony No. 6)
IVANA RENTSCH
TRANSLATED BY SUSAN H. GILLESPIE
Part II. Experiments in Instrumental Music from Baroque to Jazz
Martinů and the Reduction of Music in the 1920s
GISELHER SCHUBERT
TRANSLATED BY SUSAN H. GILLESPIE
Negotiating the “Concerto Grosso type” in Paris and Princeton: Martinů’s Multi-Soloist Concertante Works from a Generational Perspective
BRIAN S. LOCKE
“I changed practically nothing”: Bohuslav Martinů’s Collaboration on La Revue de cuisine
ALEŠ BŘEZINA
TRANSLATED BY ADAM PRENTIS
Part III. Escapes and Arrivals
Martinů, Benjamin, and the Changing Experience of Historical Time
AXEL KÖRNER
“To My Countrymen—Workers of Cleveland”: The World Premiere of Bohuslav Martinů’s Symphony No. 2
MARKÉTA KRATOCHVÍLOVÁ & MAREK PECHAČ
TRANSLATED BY ADAM PRENTIS
Challenging Modernism: Bohuslav Martinů’s Works at the Venice International Festival of Contemporary Music
VINCENZINA C. OTTOMANO
TRANSLATED BY COURTNEY QUAINTANCE
Part IV. Documents and Editions
More Than Just Corrected Notation: The Bohuslav Martinů Complete Edition
ALEŠ BŘEZINA
TRANSLATED BY ADAM PRENTIS
On the Complete Edition of Bohuslav Martinů’s Correspondence
VÍT ZOUHAR
Martinů’s Notebook of Dreams
INTRODUCED AND ANNOTATED BY MICHAEL BECKERMAN
Martinů in the U.S.A.: Interviews with the Composer’s American Friends and Students
CONDUCTED BY ALEŠ BŘEZINA
EDITED AND INTRODUCED BY MICHAEL BECKERMAN AND ALEŠ BŘEZINA
Part V. Coda
Music and Politics in the Twentieth Century: The Parallel Lives of Bohuslav Martinů and Rudolf Firkušný
LEON BOTSTEIN
Index
Notes on the Contributors