A brief history of the music of Czechia

Dr. Vladimír Hirsch

Czech music - throughout more than one thousand years old history - can be considered beneficial in both European and worldwide contexts, several times co-determined or determined a newly arriving era in musical art, above all in the music of the Classical era, as well as by original attitudes in Baroque, Romantic and modern classical music.

The musical tradition of Czechia arose from the first church hymns, whose first evidence was suggested at the break of the 10th and 11th centuries. The first significant pieces of Czech music include two chorales, which in their time performed the function of anthems: "Hospodine pomiluj ny" (Lord, Have Mercy on Us) from around 1050 (the authorship is sometimes ascribed to Svaty Vojtěch (St.Adalbert of Prague), bishop of Prague snd missionary, living between 956 and 997), unmistakably the oldest and most faithfully preserved popular spiritual song to have survived to the present, and the hymn "Saint Wenceslas" ("Svaty Václave") from around 1250. Its roots are in the 12th century and still belong to the most popular religious songs. In 1918, the theme was discussed as one of the possible choices for the national anthem.

The first documented personalities and records appear in Czechia in the 14th century, following the founding of a department of musicology operated from the very start of the Charles University in Prague in 1348, e.g. the composer of liturgical songs Závi? of Zápy or hymnographer Domoslav. They are several records of Czech love songs from the 14th century of courtly type "D?ěvo se listen odievá" (Trees Are Putting on Leaves) or "Ji?? mne v?ě radost ostává" (All My Joy is Waning). An example of the record of medieval notation can serve Gradual of Arno?t of Pardubice from 1363. Important insight into the beginnings of Czech music brings the Jistebnice hymn book from 1430, which contains a representative collection of liturgical, martial and spiritual songs created until that time, including Christmas carols. The Czech carol "Di est Leticia" was known in the Middle Ages all over Europe; another one, "Virgo part filium" (Narodil se Kristus Pán), is regularly sung even today. In the book, we can also find the famous Hussite battle hymn "Kto? jsú bo?í bojovníci" (Ye Who Are Warriors of God).?

The most important composers and musicians of the Czech Renaissance - predominantly of various forms of sacred music - were Ji?í Rychnovsky, using advanced renaissance vocal polyphony, ?imon Bar Madelka, Ond?ej Chrysoponus Jeví?sky, Jan Trojan Turnovsky, remarkable for his well-handled polyphony technique and careful work with words about music, Jan Simonides Montanus, Pavel Spongopaeus Jistebnicky, Kry?tof Harant of Pol?ice and Bezdru?ice, combining his music with older compositional techniques, and Jan Blahoslav, music theorist emphasizing the need for the musical rhythm to correspond with the chronometric system of the prosody of the verses.

Middle Ages, Renaissance and Baroque

Among the most notable Czech composers in the Baroque era - and also in general - belongs Adam Michna (all name Adam Václav Michna, Chevalier from Otradovice), working in early Baroque, also organist, choir leader and poet who initiated the development of Czech music and became a significant inspiration for Czech artists of future generations. His works contain pieces which cannot deny Renaissance echoes. His music acts with remarkable vivacity, comprising both humour and tragedy of daily life. About 230 of his compositions from three Czech and two Latin collections are known today. Best known are his 3 hymn cycles, ?eská mariánská muzika, Loutna ?eská and Svatoro?ní muzika. His poetry remains very vivid, with an intense influence on the senses.?

The essential Czech figure of the Baroque Period was the composer Jan Dismas Zelenka, a personality of great innovative spirit, following eras anticipating harmonic invention and mastery of counterpoint. He is called the "catholic counterpart" of Johann Sebastian Bach, who studied Zelenka's works and was influenced by him. Zelenka's opuses belong to, importantly, an extensive collection of sacred music (masses - above all, his last six, called "Missae Ultimae", oratorio and cantatas). Other notable works are his concertos and sonatas. The works of Zelenka remained unknown for a very long time because they were in the possession of the Saxon king. In the 19th century, Bed?ich Smetana copied some of them, but the genuine appreciation of the composer and his opuses started only in the 1960s with the boom from the turn of the 20th and the 21st centuries. Gradually, many of his compositions have been performed and recorded in world premieres by new Czech, German and Swiss ensembles and soloists, using the Baroque period's original instruments and vocal techniques with great success.

Among the other prominent Czech Baroque personalities belong trumpet virtuoso and composer of sonatas and other technically brilliant pieces with the central role of brass and wind instruments, Pavel Josef Vejvanovsky, the most important in the hymnal tradition of Czechia, composer and organist of Middle Baroque Václav Karel Holan Rovensky, whose magnum opus, "Cappella Regia Musical" from 1693, a massive collection of hymns and sacred songs (772 pieces) of the Roman-Catholic liturgy in the Czech language was continually reprinted throughout the ensuing centuries and has been the basis for many Czech hymnals and mainly, a representative of the late baroque style, composer and organist Bohuslav Matěj ?ernohorsky, profoundly influencing the musical evolution in Czechia not only as a composer but also as a teacher. His fugue "Laudeatur Jesus Christus" is cited by the Baroque Music Library as an excellent example; he composed fugues and toccatas for organ and vocal works. In Czechia born, Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber, a very beneficial composer of the violin in the instrument's history, cannot be forgotten.

Composer, stylistically of the late Baroque but also crucial for the development of early Classicism was Franti?ek Ignác Antonín T?ma. His sacred works, known to Haydn and Mozart, were noted by his contemporaries for their solidity of texture and chromaticism. Among them, we find some 65 masses, 29 psalms and five settings of Stabat Mater. He also composed instrumental music, predominantly trio and quartet sonatas, sinfonias and partitas with the preferred role of string instruments.?

Czech composers significantly contributed to the birth and development of Classicism in music. The style developed deep in the Baroque era from sources created by local musicians thanks to the exceptional activity of musical life at that time (the English music historian and traveller Charles Burney called Czechia a "European conservatory").?

Classical and Romantic era

Among all Czech contributive musical personalities, excelled symphonist and one of the founders of classicist composition Jan Václav Antonín Stamic (generally known by Germanized name Johann Stamitz), the father of the famous Mannheim school, the substantially innovating structure of symphonic works and sonata form. His main innovation is the four-movement structure of the symphony. He was the first composer to use it consistently - more than half of his 58 symphonies and nine of his ten orchestral trios are in four movements. He also contributed to developing the sonata form, often used in symphonic first movements but occasionally in finales and even slow movements.

Josef Myslive?ek, a pioneer in the composition of music for wind ensembles and the master of compositional models in the genres of?symphony, Italian?opera, and?violin concerto, called "Il Divino Boemo" (A Divine Czech)?or Antonín Rejcha, whose work directed from Classicism to Romanticism, but his innovative methods of composition, which he applied in a variety of works, leaving their mark on the works of Beethoven and Schubert, and techniques such as bitonality and polyrhythm, derived often from folk music, directly anticipates that of?modern composers far in advance.?

Also, Jan Ladislav Dussek (baptized Václav Jan Dusík) is considered a predecessor of the Romantic composers for piano, especially Chopin, Schumann and Mendelssohn. He composed large-scale piano sonatas, concertos, and the highly unusual chamber sonata with percussion, a scarce example of pre-20th-century chamber music that includes percussion.?

Other Czech composers who significantly contributed to the development of classical music belong Ji?í Antonín Benda bringing the musical form of melodrama to life, the author of over 70 symphonies and almost 100 sacred works, Jan K?titel Vaňhal (generally known as Johann Baptist Vanhal), being considered highly influential to Mozart, making use of many features, which appeared later in large scale of famous Austrian composer's works, being also substantially discoverable in symphonies, prefiguring Beethoven's works.

Later, Romanticism began the period which brought Czech music international fame. It was practically initiated by Bed?ich Smetana, the pioneer of a musical style which became closely identified with his country's aspirations for independent statehood. He founded the Czech national music school and is a genuinely Czech nationalist composer.

To his significant works belong the symphonic poem "Má Vlast" (My Country), operas with dominating themes from Czech legends, history and traditions, and above all ", Libu?e" and "Prodaná nevěsta" (Bartered Bride) and an extensive collection of solo piano works, including many folk dances, especially polkas. Smetana had been a virtuoso performer on the piano, and those compositions, augmented by the more mature piano pieces of his difficult last years, constitute an essential body of piano literature.

The most famous Czech composer and one of the leading world composers of all time was Antonín Dvo?ák. Dvo?ák's compositional style, usually denoted as Classical-Romantic synthesis, is considered the entire recreation of a national idiom with that of the symphonic tradition, absorbing folk influences and finding effective ways of using them.

Dvo?ák was also substantially influential in the growth of American classical music (being the director of Conservatory in New York between 1892-5), where he composed the most famous work "Symphony No.9 From The New World", in which he also showed the way how to work with genuine American music in classical rank. This symphony is among the most favourite compositions of this kind worldwide. Neil Armstrong took a recording of the New World Symphony to the Moon during the Apollo 11 mission, the first Moon landing, in 1969, and left it as a representative document of the culture of human civilization.?

Dvo?ák's most essential works also belong Symphonies No.7 & 8, the funeral mass "Requiem", considered to be one of the best compositions of that kind ever, oratorial work "Stabat Mater", the spiritual hymn "Te Deum", "Concerto for violoncello", two collections of "Slavonic Dances", string quartets and "Rusalka", the most famous operatic work.

The romantic era in works of Czech composers also started with Jan Václav Hugo Vo?í?ek by melodically inventive early Romantic idioms in his music, e.g. "impromptu", which term was used for the first time in his piano pieces and subsequently used by Schubert, Chopin and numerous other composers.??

Other famous late romantic composers were Zdeněk Fibich, the author of symphonic poems and scenic melodramas, and in Czechia born symphonist and one of the leading?conductors?of his generation Gustav Mahler. Also, some of the top composers of Czech Modernism, Josef Suk, Vítězslav Novák (both pupils of Antonín Dvo?ák) and Leo? Janá?ek, had their roots or beginnings in the Romantic era.?

Modern era

The period between the second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century can be considered the golden age of Czech music, represented mainly by the so-called "The Great Four" of personalities of already mentioned Bed?ich Smetana and Antonín Dvo?ák, also modernists Leo? Janá?ek and Bohuslav Martin?, but with the inconsiderable role of several other, lesser known, but for the development of modern and contemporary music essential composers.

Leo? Janá?ek, composer of an original, inimitable modern musical style, inspired by Czech (above all of Moravian and Silesian region of Czechia) and other Slavic folk music and musical characteristics of folk speech, which is a significant sign of his rendition of opera singing. He presented a previously unheard world of music, sometimes even almost from otherworldly spheres, which prominent example is his "Glagolitic Mass". Janá?ek's music employs a vastly expanded view of tonality, using unorthodox chord spacings, structures, and?modality. To his other distinctive works belong "Sinfonietta", operas "Ká?a Kabanová", "Jenufa"?and "The Cunning Little Vixen", rhapsody "Taras Bulba", string quartets, and other chamber works.

Bohuslav Martin?, a prolific modern symphonist and opera composer, moved in many distinctive directions with neoclassicism, expressionism and jazz music in his veins. He usually belongs to the so-called "Great Four" (as they are sometimes called altogether with Dvo?ák, Smetana, and Janá?ek). Martin? created over 400 musical works during his life, of which six symphonies, "Concerto for Violoncello and Orchestra", "Field Mass", "Gilgamesh" oratorial work, the extensive collection of piano concertos, and chamber music have to be mentioned. Operatic works stand out in "Juliette", "Plays about Mary" & "The Greek Passion".?

Josef Suk was influenced first by Late Romanticism. Still, in later pieces, he uses more extended harmonies to create a personal and complex style based on chromatic?polyphony?with a direction towards the freedom of?atonal?music. This concentration on dissonance created music which always showed tension due to the absence of any musical relaxation. To his best works belong the?symphony "Asrael", written in response to the deaths of his wife and Dvo?ák, "Fairy Tale Suite", the cycle of?piano?works "Things Lived and Dreamed", and the trilogy of symphonic poems A Summer's Tale", "The Ripening" and "Epilog". Suk won a silver medal at the Art competitions at the?Olympic Games?1932 Summer Olympics in?Los Angeles,?with his work "Into a New Life".

In the first half of the 20th century, he started his career as the discoverer and one of the significant world composers of microtonal music Alois Hába. The most influential personalities in the high modern era belong to original keys creator and symphonist Miloslav Kabelá? and a composer of contemporary sacred works (above all for organ) Petr Eben.

Musical events in Czechia

Already in the 13th century, Czech King Wenceslas II organized the first major musical event in the country, which was to draw the attention of all of Europe. He held a musical competition in Prague, inviting the most famous European musicians and the king also took part personally as a minstrel. The most famous music festival in the country today is the Prague Spring International Music Festival of classical music, founded in 1946, a permanent showcase for outstanding performing artists, symphony orchestras and chamber music ensembles of the world.

The wealth of musical culture in Czechia lies in the long-term high-culture classical music tradition during all historical periods, especially in the Baroque, Classicism, Romantic, and modern classical music and in the traditional folk music of Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia. Since the early eras of artificial music, Czech musicians and composers have often been influenced by genuine folk music (it has already been recognized in records of Czech music since the 14th - 15th century) and dances (e.g. polka, which originated in Bohemia).?