Orchestra
SKU:
BA.BA06861
Sinfonie
(1923-1928). Composed
by Leos Janacek. Arranged
by Leoš Faltus and
Miloš Štedron. This
edition: complete
edition, urtext edition.
Linen. Complete Critical
Edition of the Works of
Leos Janacek H/3.
Complete edition, Score,
Set of parts. Duration 40
minutes. Baerenreiter
Verlag #BA06861_00.
Published by Baerenreiter
Verlag (BA.BA06861).
ISBN 9790260104211.
34.3 x 27 cm
inches.
Leoš
Janácek’s
symphonic fragment Dunaj
(The Danube) dates from
the period of the
composition of
“Katya
Kabanovaâ€. The
composer was not
concerned with a
musical-picturesque
description of a river
landscape, but with the
mythical link between
women’s destinies
and
water.
“Pale
green waves of the
Danube! There are so many
of you, and one followed
by another. You remain
interlocked in a
continuous flow. You
surprise yourselves where
you ended up – on
the Czech shores! Look
back downstream and you
will have an impression
of what you have left
behind in your haste. It
pleases you here. Here I
will rest with my
symphony.†Thus
Leoš Janácek
described the idea behind
the composition project
which occupied him in
1923/24. However, after
further work, it remained
incomplete in 1926. His
“symphonyâ€
entitled Dunaj has
survived as a
continuously-notated,
four-movement bundle of
sketches in score form.
It is one of the works
which occupied him until
his death. The scholarly
reconstruction by the two
Brno composers Miloš
Štedron and Leoš
Faltus closely follows
the original
manuscript.
A
whole conglomeration of
motifs stands behind the
incomplete work. What at
first seems like a
counterpart to
Smetana’s Vltava,
in fact doesn’t
turn out to be a musical
depiction of the Danube.
On the contrary, the
fateful link between the
destiny of women, water
and death permeates the
range of motifs found in
the work. It seems to be
no coincidence that
Janácek, whilst
working on the opera
Katya Kabanova, in which
the Volga, as the river
bringing death plays an
almost mythical role,
planned a Danube
symphony, and that its
content was linked with
the destiny of women: in
the sketches, two poems
were found which may have
provided the stimulus for
several movements of the
symphony. He copied a
poem by Pavla
Kriciková into the
second movement, in which
a girl remarks that
whilst bathing in a pond,
she was observed by a
man. Filled with shame,
the young naked woman
jumps into the water and
drowns. The outer
movements likewise draw
on the poem
“Lola†by the
Czech writer Sonja
Špálová,
published under the
pseudonym Alexander
Insarov. This is about a
prostitute who asks for
her heart’s
desire: she is given a
palace, but then goes on
a long search for it and
is finally no longer
wanted by anyone. She
suffers, feels cold and
just wants a warm fire.
Janácek adds his
remark “she jumps
into the Danube†to
the inconclusive
ending.
To these
tangible literary models
is added Adolf
Veselý’s verbal
account which reports
that the composer wanted
to portray “in the
Danube, the female sex
with all its passions and
driving forcesâ€.
The third movement is
said to characterise the
city of Vienna in the
form of a
woman.
It is
evident that in his
composition, Janácek
was not striving for a
simple, natural lyricism.
The River Danube is
masculine in the Slavic
language –
“ten Dunajâ€
– and assumes an
almost mythical
significance in the
national character,
indeed often also a role
bringing death. The four
movements are motivically
conceived. Elements of
sound painting, small
wave-like figures in the
first movement, motoric,
driving movements in the
third are obvious
evocations of water. And
the content and the
literary level are easy
to discover. The
“tremolo of the
four timpaniâ€,
which was amongst
Janácek’s first
inspirations, appears in
the second movement. It
is not difficult to
retrace in it the fate of
the drowning bather. The
oboe enters lamentoso
towards the end of the
movement over timpani
playing tremolo, its
descending figure is
taken over by the flute,
then upper strings and
intensified considerably.
The motif of drowning
– Lola’s
despair – returns
again in the fourth
movement in the clarinet,
before the work ends
abruptly and
dramatically.
One
special effect is the use
of a soprano voice in the
motor-driven third
movement. The singer
vocalises mainly in
parallel with the solo
oboe, but also in
dialogue with other parts
such as the viola
d’amore, which
Janácek used in
several late works as a
sort of “voice of
loveâ€.
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Vltava - Bedrich Smetana
