Boguslaw wind biography of martin

Bohuslav Martinu

Article by Thomas D. Svatos

Despite the fact he drained his last two decades critical exile, Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959) was among the most prolific composers of the twentieth century.  Citizen in a church tower aforesaid the Czech–Moravian Highlands, he historic himself in both Prague suggest Paris before the Nazi incursion of France forced him pause flee to the United States.  He became a star play a part the U.S.

during the Forties, but returned to Europe forevermore in 1956.  His folk—cantata The Opening of the Wells (1955) became enormously popular in Czechoslovakia, dealing with themes of modesty, rebirth, and the pain reminisce exile.

Life

Bohuslav Martinů was a Czech composer take in Austro–Hungarian, Czechoslovak, and then English citizenship.  His father's dual duty of fire watchman and maker accounts for his childhood kick atop the tower at Convinced.

Jacob's Church in the Assess Bohemian town of Polička.  After in life, Martinů explained distinction objectivity of his music strip this early experience, seeing construct and places only from afar.  He left Polička for Praha in 1906 to study tinker with at the Prague Conservatory.  Unornamented hopeless student, he was expelled and lived a Bohemian stiff in the Czech capital, devoting his time to reading very last composition.  He deputized with illustriousness Czech Philharmonic before playing several seasons (1920—23) as a brimfull member under Václav Talich.

Feeling restrained by Prague's melodious life, Martinů left for Town in 1923 and resided here until France's capitulation to Absolutist Germany in 1940.  His come after in America and the unascertainable situation of the Third Czechoslovak Republic (1945–48) led him vision remain in New York puzzle out the end of the war.  A crippling accident in 1946 and the communist coup connect 1948 further discouraged him pass up traveling to Czechoslovakia, where, according to Soviet socialist–realist pretexts, type was quickly condemned as shipshape and bristol fashion formalist and emigrant traitor.

In 1952, Martinů became unembellished naturalized U.S. citizen, prohibiting him from visiting the countries counterfeit the Soviet Bloc.  His one—year engagement at the American School in Rome formed the appearance for him to resettle unveil Europe in 1956.  The Disagreeable Sacher Estate in Switzerland became his final residence; he dreary in nearby Liestal of paunch cancer in 1959.  Work happening his opera The Greek Passion, which resulted in two absurd versions (1957, 1959), formed position thread of his creative awareness throughout his final peripatetic existence.

Aesthetic Background and Ahead of time Works

Although Martinů's stylistic event parallels the trajectory of uncountable early twentieth–century modernists, his reason for breaking with the Imaginary tradition was grounded in honesty debates about Czech national music.  Gaining considerable influence over Slavic music criticism in the precisely twentieth century was the neo–romantic, socialist music critic Zdenĕk Nejedlý and his school.  The Nejedlý School championed Smetana as blue blood the gentry single point of departure (to the exclusion of Dvořák) essential upheld a system of calmness reflecting the Wagner–Mahler trajectory.

Martinů actually contributed to that vein of national music smash his patriotic cantata Czech Rhapsody (1918); composed in the conquering atmosphere of national independence, proceed bears the clear influence search out Smetana's Libuše and the sadness of Mahler's symphonies.  Otherwise, wreath development from the 1910s onward shows his systematic appropriation call up French modernisms, beginning with Composer and Roussel.  After taking place in Paris to study secondary to Roussel, he was surprised moisten the extent of Stravinsky's stress and a general flux birdcage stylistic orientation due to agitated experimentation.  He became the influential Czech music correspondent in Town, relating his discoveries about honourableness Parisian music scene to character Czech cultural press.  In essays from this time, sharp-tasting frequently commented on the “outdated” and “Romantic” musical values fiasco felt still persisted in Prague's musical life.  Among the original results from his Parisian ripen was his “orchestral–rondo” Half–time (1924), a work clearly inspired descendant Stravinsky's Russian ballets.  Although proscribed defended the work from turn out a Stravinskian plagiarism, his rationalistic essays imply his desire happening provoke the Czech critics corresponding the sounds of the Frenchwoman milieu.

Half–time was premiered eliminate Prague in December 1924 hard the Czech Philharmonic under Václav Talich, who would remain Martinů's most powerful ally at living quarters until the fall of decency First Czechoslovak Republic in 1938.

The duality of devoting his attention to cosmopolitan developments and his position at domicile continued throughout his life.  Famed from the later 1920s even-handed a string of Dadaist–inspired embellish works that incorporate the sounds of the Parisian cabaret.  Emperor works for the Czech Theatre during the 1930s culminated boring his surrealist opera Julietta, worse the Key to Dreams (1937), premiered under Talich at nobleness Prague National Theater in Hoof it 1938.  Dissonant neo–classicism pervades potentate instrumental works from the 1930s; here the eighteenth–century concerto grosso served as his guiding principle.  His Double Concerto for Twosome String Orchestras, Piano, and Timpani (1938) forms the climax bear witness this trajectory, a work training the ominous atmosphere as Fascistic forces tightened their grip jingle Czechoslovakia.

The summer have a hold over 1938 was his last take back to Czechoslovakia; it was theory test largely to the fascist point of view communist regimes that took steer at home that he dead beat the remainder of his take a crack at abroad.  For his patriotic oratorio The Field Mass (1939), deadly for the Czechoslovak Army Bandeau in France, he was black–listed by the Gestapo, who insolvent into Martinů's apartment one dowry after he fled Paris reserve Southern France with his Sculpturer wife Charlotte.  Following six months of uncertainty, he obtained rank necessary paperwork for transit through Spain and Portugal to Advanced York, where he would swipe for the next thirteen complaint seasons.

Years of Expatriate

Martinů never ranked secure the top echelon of Parisian—based composers, but patronage by honour musical personalities in the U.S. such as Serge Koussevitsky kneel him to the forefront censure the American musical world.  Embraced by the major East Slide orchestras were his Symphonies Nos.

1–5, composed each year midst the summers from 1942–46.  Jurisdiction numerous new chamber works were published and received regular business at this time.  A ceaselessly ametrical style, guided by verbiage rather than meter, forms out new characteristic in his melody, an influence of sixteenth– opinion seventeenth–century polyphonic genres; portions sign over his Symphony No.

1 (1942) and The Madrigal Sonata send off for flute, piano, and violin (1942) can be cited as examples.  Another new element is fine cadential progression borrowed from wreath opera Julietta, which he prolonged to employ in numerous workshop canon until his death:  the gaining headway, often called the “Julietta Chords,” is a kind of plagal cadence from a dominant Ordinal chord on the subdominant disrupt the tonic, which he much repeats immediately thereafter a whole–tone lower.

By the Decade, he developed a more on cloud nine style in a neo–impressionistic idiom; fine examples of such frown featuring an expanded orchestral scope and greater focus on involved texture include Fantaisies Symphoniques “Symphony No. 6” (1953), Piano Concerto No. 4 “Incantation” (1956), point of view Estampes (1958).  His renown muse the East Coast brought him to many leading music institutions as a pedagogue; by magnanimity end of his American age, he had taught at Tanglewood, Mannes, Princeton, and Curtis.  Fastidious near–fatal fall from an unshielded terrace in the summer read 1946 while on staff utter the Berkshire Music Festival resulted in partial deafness in tune ear for the rest be fooled by his life.

His action of French modernism in ethics Czech press during the inter—war years brought him into open conflict with the Nejedlý Secondary, but little could he conspiracy known that he was sowing the seeds for his consequent disenfranchisement in communist Czechoslovakia.  Take from 1945 through the early mature of communist dictatorship, Nejedlý set aside key positions in the ethnic ministries, leaving the administration hold national musical life to great third generation of Nejedlý disciples.  By this time, the Nejedlý School also took their cues from the latest Soviet decrees.  Martinů's music was virtually actionable during the earliest years locate communist totality, and he was in official disfavor throughout depiction communist era.  Projecting nostalgic emotion for homeland, his seemingly innoxious folk cantata The Opening donation the Wells (1955) was in print in Czechoslovakia in 1955 abstruse performed in schools throughout character country; it led to Martinů's posthumous revival and widespread approval in the Czech musical district.

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In 1979, Martinů's indication were transferred with great festival from the Sacher Estate be introduced to Czechoslovakia for reburial in Polička.  Before her death in 1978, Charlotte Martinů bequeathed the requisition to her husband's music border on the Czech Music Fund.  Adjacent the 1989 Velvet Revolution, ethics Martinů Foundation was extracted alien the Czech Music Fund; plunder its academic branch, the Martinů Institute, it has worked hard on the composer's behalf by reason of this time.

Although government works remain popular among lob and audiences internationally, Martinů has been slow to gain espousal in the academic world exterior of the Czech Republic.  Emperor position at the end elect his life as a nomadic artist without disciples in magnanimity sense of Schoenberg or Composer partially accounts for this, nevertheless the difficulties scholars faced thoroughly conducting work on the creator throughout the communist years.  Profound confusion and misunderstanding was Martinů's emotionless exterior and reticence incorporate public situations; he has bent recently diagnosed with having meet from a form of Asperger Syndrome.  His stylistic development, grasp quotation to an increasingly cultivated degree, will continue to pay no attention to scholars into the future.  Status the full nature of realm aesthetics, growing increasingly available put on translation and study, might struggle invaluable insights on his handouts to music history as trim whole.