Identity and modernity

Prague, Budapest and Vienna. Three metropolises within the same country, the Austro-Hungarian double monarchy, with Vienna as the capital of the Habsburg part, and Prague as that of the historic kingdom of Bohemia. But as Bohemia was actually an Austrian province, Prague was subordinate to Vienna. This would evolve into a source of increasing frustration and political tension. After all, following the 1867 ‘Ausgleich’ (= compromise), in which the double monarchy was split into both an Austrian and an independent Hungarian part – to be sure, under the same king – many Czechs thought it time for Bohemia to achieve a similar status. However, the Habsburgers refused categorically to cooperate, especially as the indigenous Germans, who formed the second largest ethnic group in Bohemia after the Czechs, feared they would lose their privileged position. Therefore, alongside diplomatic campaigns, the Czechs concentrated increasingly on developing their own cultural identity during the following years. Thus, the Czech ‘rebirth’ was most especially a cultural renaissance intended as compensation for their lack of political influence.
As in Vienna, ‘modernity’ also played an important role in the Czech art scene. According to Otakar Hostinsky, the ‘music aesthete’, this was a synonym for innovation and progress. Following on from the thinking of the Neudeutsche Schule
(= New German School), Hostinsky interpreted the history of music as a linear evolution, in which the music of the future would improve on that of the present. Entirely in the spirit of Wagner and Liszt, he considered the music drama and the symphonic poem to be the most ‘modern’ musical genres of his time. According to Hostinsky, the operas and symphonic poems of Bedrich Smetana established the latter as the father of modern Czech music.
Generally, Antonin Dvo?ák is also ranked among the major representatives of the Czech national school. Nevertheless, at first Dvo?ák was reputed to be a conservative. After all, his symphonies were rooted firmly in the German symphonic tradition and, but for the example of Dvo?ák’s ‘discoverer’ and friend, Johannes Brahms, would never even have been written. Important evidence of Dvo?ák’s music transcending the borders of Bohemia is the fact that his symphonies and choral works quickly became popular throughout Europe and the United States. Following the success of his Symphony No. 6 in London, composition assignments just poured in from England. One of them was from the renowned Philharmonic Society, ordering a new symphony from the composer, the première of which he was invited to conduct in London. However, Dvo?ák had his doubts about this: his friends Johannes Brahms and Eduard Hanslick were urging him to move to Vienna for a while, in order to comply with the request of the Viennese Court Opera to write a German-language opera. According to them, this would be a better career step for him. Nevertheless, in the end Dvo?ák chose to write the symphony first, and set to work with enormous will power and self-criticism. The chance to write an important composition for a performance abroad created in him an urge to compose a symphony that would overshadow anything he had previously written. The many sketches, corrections and deletions in the manuscript bear silent witness to this desire. Even following the triumphant première on April 22, 1885, the composer still deleted about 40 bars from the Adagio, leaving the work “with not a single superfluous note”.
In the light of the Czech renaissance and the emerging sense of nationalism, an interesting incident took place between Dvo?ák and his publisher Simrock. After there had already been some discussion about the price requested by the composer for his symphony, a second altercation ensued concerning the choice of language used to present both composition and composer on the title page. The – Viennese – publisher insisted that the language would be German. However, Dvo?ák demanded – very cleverly – that the symphony be printed in both German and Czech, and that his own name be abbreviated to ‘Ant.’, which could refer to both the German ‘Anton’ and the Czech ‘Antonin’. On September 10, 1885 the composer explained his point of view to the publisher: “[…] what have we two to do with politics; let us be glad that we can dedicate our services solely to the beautiful art! And let us hope that nations who represent and possess art will never perish, even though they may be small. Forgive me for this, but I just wanted to tell you that an artist too has a fatherland in which he must also have a firm faith and which he must love.”
The Symphony No. 7 was still written in accordance with the tradition of absolute music, as defended by Brahms and Hanslick (including an almost verbatim quote from the slow movement of Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2). However, Dvo?ák surprised friend and foe alike in writing his four symphonic poems to ballads by Karl Jaromír Erben. Many supporters of the composer accused him of defecting to the enemy camp: i.e., programme music. Thus, Hanslick wrote that Dvo?ák had set out on a slippery slope with his symphonic poems. But was it not the ‘Godfather’ of programme music himself, Richard Strauss, who stated that programme music did not exist and that, although an extra-musical idea could inspire new formal structures, the music at all times should be based on its own patterns and laws. It was left to Dvo?ák’s ‘successor’, Leos Janá?ek, to demonstrate in an extensive analysis the musical autonomy of these symphonic poems.
Most likely, Dvo?ák observed all this commotion with amazement. After all, back in 1885 he had already set to music Erben’s ballad The Spectre’s Bride, for soloists, choir and orchestra. Now he had discovered in the same volume, entitled Kytice z povestí národních (= A garland of national myths) the inspiration for his four symphonic poems (although originally he had planned for more). In January 1896, Dvo?ák began work almost simultaneously on the first three: The Water Goblin, The Afternoon Witch, and The Golden Spinning Wheel. By the end of March, all three works had been completed, and on June 3, they were played through at the Prague conservatoire, after which the first performances took place that autumn in London. And during that same autumn, Dvo?ák wrote the last symphonic poem: The Wood Dove.
The Golden Spinning Wheel tells the story of a young king, who stops at a small shack during a hunt to ask for water. He is immediately smitten by the maiden Dornicka, who opens the door to him. She is busy spinning wool, awaiting her stepmother. A few days later, the king returns and orders the stepmother to bring the girl to the castle. She does as she is told, and duly sets out with her own daughter and Dornicka. Halfway to the castle, the two women chop off Dornicka’s hands and feet, and put out her eyes. They leave her body behind in the woods. The king then marries the other daughter, under the misapprehension that Dornicka had been torn apart by wolves. In the meantime, Dornicka’s body is found by an old man, who sends a youth to the castle to offer the queen a golden spinning wheel and spindle in exchange for Dornicka’s hands, feet and eyes. With these limbs, the old man manages to bring the girl back to life. Upon the king’s return from warfare, he asks his wife to spin him something on her new golden spinning wheel. However, the spinning wheel starts singing a song about the atrocities committed in the woods, whereupon the king leaves to search for the true Dornicka. He finally finds her and marries her, after feeding the false Dornicka and her mother to the wolves.
In his symphonic poems, Dvo?ák dealt with his literary examples in a highly individual manner, depicting the course of the narrative in great melodic lines. However, he went a step further in The Golden Spinning Wheel. All the musical ideas in this work were developed from the melodies and rhythms inherent in the words of Erben’s original text. The orchestral work follows the text of the poem word for word, bestowing upon the work the character of an extensive ‘Lied ohne Worte’. Indeed, it was this aspect that would appeal to the composer Leos Janá?ek. In his operas, he was to further perfect the technique of developing the musical lines from the spoken word, thus coming up with an entirely new musical idiom for the Czech people.

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