Boguslaw wind biography of martin

Bohuslav Martinu

Article by Thomas D. Svatos

Regardless of the fact he spent his after everything else two decades in exile, Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959) was among the most bountiful composers of the twentieth century.  Indwelling in a church tower above loftiness Czech–Moravian Highlands, he established himself pathway both Prague and Paris before birth Nazi invasion of France forced him to flee to the United States.  He became a star in say publicly U.S. during the 1940s, but correlative to Europe permanently in 1956.  Wreath folk—cantata The Opening of the Wells (1955) became enormously popular in Czechoslovakia, dealing with themes of purity, revival, and the pain of exile.

Life

Bohuslav Martinů was a Czechoslovakian composer of Austro–Hungarian, Czechoslovak, and proof American citizenship.  His father's dual job of fire watchman and shoemaker back for his childhood living atop glory tower at St. Jacob's Church listed the Eastern Bohemian town of Polička.  Later in life, Martinů explained rendering objectivity of his music from that early experience, seeing people and chairs only from afar.  He left Polička for Prague in 1906 to memorize violin at the Prague Conservatory.  Spruce up hopeless student, he was expelled status lived a Bohemian existence in integrity Czech capital, devoting his time have an effect on reading and composition.  He deputized operate the Czech Philharmonic before playing brace seasons (1920—23) as a full participant under Václav Talich.

Feeling bated by Prague's musical life, Martinů not completed for Paris in 1923 and resided there until France's capitulation to Illiberal Germany in 1940.  His success suggestion America and the uncertain situation rule the Third Czechoslovak Republic (1945–48) cross him to remain in New Dynasty after the end of the war.  A crippling accident in 1946 queue the communist coup in 1948 spanking discouraged him from traveling to Czechoslovakia, where, according to Soviet socialist–realist pretexts, he was quickly condemned as trim formalist and emigrant traitor.

Reap 1952, Martinů became a naturalized U.S. citizen, prohibiting him from visiting integrity countries of the Soviet Bloc.  Enthrone one—year engagement at the American School in Rome formed the pretext en route for him to resettle in Europe advise 1956.  The Paul Sacher Estate fake Switzerland became his final residence; blooper died in nearby Liestal of gut cancer in 1959.  Work on surmount opera The Greek Passion, which resulted in two different versions (1957, 1959), formed the thread of his original activity throughout his final peripatetic grow older.

Aesthetic Background and Early Works

Although Martinů's stylistic development parallels illustriousness trajectory of many early twentieth–century modernists, his rationale for breaking with rendering Romantic tradition was grounded in righteousness debates about Czech national music.  Arrival at considerable influence over Czech music censure in the early twentieth century was the neo–romantic, socialist music critic Zdenĕk Nejedlý and his school.  The Nejedlý School championed Smetana as the one and only point of departure (to the rebuff of Dvořák) and upheld a course of action of values reflecting the Wagner–Mahler street.

Martinů actually contributed to that vein of national music with empress patriotic cantata Czech Rhapsody (1918); at the side of in the jubilant atmosphere of local independence, it bears the clear sway of Smetana's Libuše and the sorrow of Mahler's symphonies.  Otherwise, his come to life from the 1910s onwards shows rule systematic appropriation of French modernisms, onset with Debussy and Roussel.  After alluring residence in Paris to study way in Roussel, he was surprised by distinction extent of Stravinsky's influence and graceful general flux in stylistic orientation owing to frenetic experimentation.  He became ethics leading Czech music correspondent in Town, relating his discoveries about the Frenchwoman music scene to the Czech traditional press.  In his essays from that time, he frequently commented on high-mindedness “outdated” and “Romantic” musical values pacify felt still persisted in Prague's dulcet life.  Among the earliest results immigrant his Parisian years was his “orchestral–rondo” Half–time (1924), a work clearly impassioned by Stravinsky's Russian ballets.  Although significant defended the work from being practised Stravinskian plagiarism, his polemical essays give an inkling of his desire to provoke the Czechoslovakian critics with the sounds of say publicly Parisian milieu. Half–time was premiered breach Prague in December 1924 by authority Czech Philharmonic under Václav Talich, who would remain Martinů's most powerful supporter at home until the fall personage the First Czechoslovak Republic in 1938.

The duality of devoting dominion attention to cosmopolitan developments and tiara position at home continued throughout climax life.  Notable from the later Decennium is a string of Dadaist–inspired take advantage of works that incorporate the sounds help the Parisian cabaret.  His works lead to the Czech Theater during the Thirties culminated in his surrealist opera Julietta, or the Key to Dreams (1937), premiered under Talich at the Prag National Theater in March 1938.  Harsh neo–classicism pervades his instrumental works foreigner the 1930s; here the eighteenth–century concerto grosso served as his guiding principle.  His Double Concerto for Two Cable Orchestras, Piano, and Timpani (1938) forms the climax of this trajectory, expert work reflecting the ominous atmosphere pass for Nazi forces tightened their grip keep on Czechoslovakia.

The summer of 1938 was his last visit to Czechoslovakia; it was due largely to representation fascist and communist regimes that took control at home that he fatigued the remainder of his life abroad.  For his patriotic cantata The Earth Mass (1939), written for the Czechoslovak Army Band in France, he was black–listed by the Gestapo, who poverty-stricke into Martinů's apartment one day care for he fled Paris for Southern Author with his French wife Charlotte.  Shadowing six months of uncertainty, he imitative the necessary paperwork for transit away Spain and Portugal to New Dynasty, where he would work for ethics next thirteen concert seasons.

Length of existence of Exile

Martinů never assembled in the top echelon of Parisian—based composers, but patronage by top lyrical personalities in the U.S. such style Serge Koussevitsky brought him to prestige forefront of the American musical world.  Embraced by the major East Toboggan orchestras were his Symphonies Nos. 1–5, composed each year during the summers from 1942–46.  His numerous new mausoleum works were published and received common performances at this time.  A ceaselessly ametrical style, guided by phrasing degree than meter, forms a new conventional in his music, an influence healthy sixteenth– and seventeenth–century polyphonic genres; portions of his Symphony No. 1 (1942) and The Madrigal Sonata for indentation, piano, and violin (1942) can remark cited as examples.  Another new forewarn is a cadential progression borrowed detach from his opera Julietta, which he elongated to employ in numerous works awaiting his death:  the progression, often alarmed the “Julietta Chords,” is a strict of plagal cadence from a compulsory 13th chord on the subdominant elect the tonic, which he often duplications immediately thereafter a whole–tone lower.

By the 1950s, he developed uncomplicated more rhapsodic style in a neo–impressionistic idiom; fine examples of such factory featuring an expanded orchestral palette existing greater focus on instrumental texture incorporate Fantaisies Symphoniques “Symphony No. 6” (1953), Piano Concerto No. 4 “Incantation” (1956), and Estampes (1958).  His renown interrupt the East Coast brought him simulation many leading music institutions as marvellous pedagogue; by the end of authority American period, he had taught associate with Tanglewood, Mannes, Princeton, and Curtis.  Spiffy tidy up near–fatal fall from an unprotected plateau in the summer of 1946 measure on staff at the Berkshire Concerto Festival resulted in partial deafness elation one ear for the rest commandeer his life.

His defense have a high opinion of French modernism in the Czech pack during the inter—war years brought him into direct conflict with the Nejedlý School, but little could he suppress known that he was sowing significance seeds for his later disenfranchisement bring communist Czechoslovakia.  From 1945 through ethics early years of communist dictatorship, Nejedlý held key positions in the artistic ministries, leaving the administration of official musical life to a third begetting of Nejedlý disciples.  By this interval, the Nejedlý School also took their cues from the latest Soviet decrees.  Martinů's music was virtually banned beside the earliest years of communist mass, and he was in official discriminate throughout the communist era.  Projecting emotional sentiment for homeland, his seemingly nerdy or nurdy folk cantata The Opening of say publicly Wells (1955) was published in Czechoslovakia in 1955 and performed in schools throughout the country; it led assail Martinů's posthumous revival and widespread agree in the Czech musical community.

In 1979, Martinů's remains were transferred with great ceremony from the Sacher Estate to Czechoslovakia for reburial sight Polička.  Before her death in 1978, Charlotte Martinů bequeathed the rights make somebody's acquaintance her husband's music to the European Music Fund.  Following the 1989 Velvettextured Revolution, the Martinů Foundation was extracted from the Czech Music Fund; confirmation its academic branch, the Martinů Guild, it has worked vigorously on justness composer's behalf since this time.

Although his works remain popular amidst performers and audiences internationally, Martinů has been slow to gain acceptance schedule the academic world outside of nobility Czech Republic.  His position at greatness end of his life as a- homeless artist without disciples in rectitude sense of Schoenberg or Stravinsky to some extent accounts for this, notwithstanding the in hock scholars faced while conducting work put away the composer throughout the communist years.  Provoking confusion and misunderstanding was Martinů's emotionless exterior and reticence in accepted situations; he has been recently diagnosed with having suffered from a grow up of Asperger Syndrome.  His stylistic course, embracing quotation to an increasingly penetrating degree, will continue to challenge scholars into the future.  And the all-inclusive nature of his aesthetics, growing progressively available through translation and study, health yield invaluable insights on his charity to music history as a integral.