Czech Composers vs. Each Other

[Mirror Image]

Over the course of a year, Martinu has found his way into my heart and continues to pull on it. He remains my favorite Czech composer followed by Suk. None of the others do much for me, though I do enjoy a good bit of Janacek's music.

[snyprrr]

But Zelenka was a Genius.

[Air]

The string quartets of Janacek, were for me, the deciding factor.  But with the operas, the mass, the symphonic works and other chamber compositions, not to mention the solo piano stuff... there ain't much to complain about with this guy.

[The new erato]

Janacek, Martionu or Zelenka for me (I'm not much into Romanticism). Each so great, and in so different ways.

But just now listening to the string quartets of Kalabis. Pure bliss!

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

The string quartets of Janacek, were for me, the deciding factor.  But with the operas, the mass, the symphonic works and other chamber compositions, not to mention the solo piano stuff... there ain't much to complain about with this guy.

It would be interesting to break down the composers against each other by genre...but even there it would still be difficult: Janacek v. (mature) Dvorak on quartets, Martinu v. Dvorak on symphonies and concertos, all 3 on operas, all 3 on "miscellaneous chamber music" - still hard to choose.

And poll results can be misleading. Smetana, a well-known name, has zero votes so far. But in the real world, I think he still gets plenty of love. 

[Luke]

It would be interesting to break down the composers against each other by genre...but even there it would still be difficult: Janacek v. (mature) Dvorak on quartets, Martinu v. Dvorak on symphonies and concertos, all 3 on operas, all 3 on "miscellaneous chamber music" - still hard to choose.

Actually, I think going down that route makes things a little easier, even though it isn't my reason for choosing Janacek:

Quartets - Janacek (without doubt - he's doing something entirely different and new; those two works are amongst the absolutely essential quartets in the history of the genre. Dvorak's later ones - the last four or five - are wonderful pieces all, but without them history of the genre would look pretty much the same...and however good they are, they don't have the burning, desperate passion of Janacek's. But then nothing does. Martinu's quartets are not his finest works, in general, though there is much pleasure to be had from them. Smetana's two, if they were in the mix, would shake things up a little, but Janacek would still have it IMO)

Symphonies and Concertos - Dvorak (hard, this one, but I fall down on the side of the older composer because of the sheer quality and strength of the best of the music here. Martinu's Fourth and Sixth symphonies are amongst my favourite symphonies of all, and the best of his many, many concerti are wonderful things, but put alongside Dvorak's last three or four symphonies (and IMO the third, but that's just me!) and at least two of his concerti the durability, humanity and freshness of Dvorak's ideas seems to me to win out. Janacek doesn't really compete here - there aren't any works in these forms. But if we included the Sinfonietta, if we included the completed-by-others Violin Concerto (which, ironically, happens to be about my favourite Janacek orchestral piece) and the two little piano concerti with chamber ensemble...well, I'd still come down for Dvorak, but it would be a close run thing.)

Other orchestral music - Janacek (hard, again - there are Dvorak's four late symphonic poems to consider, though they are somewhat problematic pieces, perhaps; and there are a few very interesting non-symphonic scores by Martinu, particularly from the earlier part of his career...but it seems to me that, just on the basis of the best of his fairly small corpus of orchestral piece - to me, that would be the late, great Sinfonietta, Taras Bulba and The Fiddler's Child (his finest symphonic poem?), leaving out The Ballad of Blanik as an interesting semi-success only - Janacek has three works of such communicative power that I can't help but fall on his side again.)

Operas - Janacek (without doubt - he's the only one with operas consistently in performance around the world; he was a born stage composer whose whole philosophy hinged around the sort of issues that an opera composer needs to be concerned with, and that's why he's one of the supreme opera specialist composers of the 20th century. Put him with Britten, Strauss and Berg in this respect...with Puccini, who he loved and whose influence is to be heard in his music, too. Dvorak's operas contain much wonderful music, and Martinu is a real opera man too - Julietta, which might well be his masterpiece, ought to be much better known than it is, because it's one of the most original and interesting operas of the century too - but even so, neither of them has the consistent string of enormous successes that Janacek has, nor the vitality or the ability to reach inside his characters with so much truth and honesty)

Piano music - Janacek (really, there's little competition - Dvorak wrote quite a bit but most of it isn't of much interest; Martinu's piano works are comparatively weak. Janacek has only three major pieces, but all of them have the intensity and confessional intimacy of his best works - indeed, they are amongst his most personal pieces, almost diary-like in some places. If we opened things up to the other Czechs here, there'd be more competition, I think. Smetana was a really fine piano composer - if Dvorak could have written like him for the instrument, that would have been something! - and some of his earlier works for the instrument, such as the Macbeth and the Witches piece, are experimental in a really startling way we don't expect of him. Suk's piano cycles are a hugely neglected side of his output, every bit as good as his orchestral music, and something like the flipside of it - his About Mother, for instance, is the intimate, personal complement to the grand, cosmic tragedy of the Asrael Symphony (both concerning the death of his wife). Fibich, meanwhile, wrote those masses and masses of small pieces as a kind of amorous-erotic diary for years - the heart of his output in many ways, in fact. In the cases of Suk, Fibich and Janacek, we have composers who used the piano for the most intimate thoughts...but, in the case of Janacek, always the most intimate of composers, that means something particularly extreme)

Other (non string quartet) chamber music - Dvorak (despite Janacek's three utterly endearing masterpieces for chamber ensemble outside the quartets - Mladi, the Violin Sonata and the cello Pohadka...there are two more if you include the mini-piano concerti Capriccio and Concertino - and despite Martinu's many forays into the genre, which include fabulous pieces like the nonet and so many pieces for wonderfully chosen ensembles a la Henning - theremin quartet, anyone? - Dvorak, with works such as the Piano Quintet and the Terzetto, the Piano Trios, the works for violin and piano, seems to me the most heavyweight in this area of the repertoire.)

Songs - buggered if I know! But Janacek's Diary of One who Disappeared would appear to me to be the biggest summit in this particular mountain range - it's almost an opera in some respects, and, again, it's such a confessional, personal work, with a central section of a quietly, intensely burning eroticism and in general a penetrating understanding of adolescent passion amazing in such an aged composer...

It's for reasons like this - and I'm trying not to be biased! - that Janacek is the only choice for me, overall.

And poll results can be misleading. Smetana, a well-known name, has zero votes so far. But in the real world, I think he still gets plenty of love. 

He does...but mostly on the basis of two or three popular classics, though. There's a whole world of richness in his music, and it's not explored as much as it deserves.

[Luke]

Piano music - Janacek (really, there's little competition - Dvorak wrote quite a bit but most of it isn't of much interest...

Seems a little harsh, this, I know! Especially when there are pieces like the early Silhouettes to consider, and, scattered around the rest of his output, some lovely little gems. But, all things considered, the piano wasn't really his area, I think.

Janacek modelled his early and still-formative Zdenka Variations on Dvorak's much finer and more mature set, IMO (I did a small-scale analytical comparison of the two as part of my degree). Not sure why I say that, it's just interesting.

[Luke]

The one major genre missed off the above, I suppose, is:

Choral music - Janacek has that little rustic beauty the Otce Nas, he has those three incredible male choruses setting Petr Bezruc - wow wow wow! - and plenty of other outstanding choral works (let me mention an incredible Tagore setting    ), and larger chorus+orchestra pieces like The Eternal Gospel (never really grabbed me, that one)...Martinu has many adorable pieces, such as the late (rustic, again) chamber cantatas which I love to distraction, and that fabulous piece The Epic of Gilgamesh; Dvorak has a Requiem, a Stabat Mater...this is hard..      ...no, wait: the Glagolitic Mass. Decision made!

[mc ukrneal]

Actually, I think going down that route makes things a little easier, even though it isn't my reason for choosing Janacek:

Other orchestral music - Janacek (hard, again - there are Dvorak's four late symphonic poems to consider, though they are somewhat problematic pieces, perhaps; and there are a few very interesting non-symphonic scores by Martinu, particularly from the earlier part of his career...but it seems to me that, just on the basis of the best of his fairly small corpus of orchestral piece - to me, that would be the late, great Sinfonietta, Taras Bulba and The Fiddler's Child (his finest symphonic poem?), leaving out The Ballad of Blanik as an interesting semi-success only - Janacek has three works of such communicative power that I can't help but fall on his side again.)

Songs - buggered if I know! But Janacek's Diary of One who Disappeared would appear to me to be the biggest summit in this particular mountain range - it's almost an opera in some respects, and, again, it's such a confessional, personal work, with a central section of a quietly, intensely burning eroticism and in general a penetrating understanding of adolescent passion amazing in such an aged composer...

It's for reasons like this - and I'm trying not to be biased! - that Janacek is the only choice for me, overall.

We'll get to the orchestral music in a minute, but I would have had a Choral music category (I see you did in your subsequent post). You've left out Dvorak's Requiem, which I think is terribly underrated. You also didn't mention the Serenades, which ooze beauty and everything good in life. 

But back to the orchestral music... Non. Non. And a third time - Non. 

You have forgotten the Slavonic Dances - a more infectious piece of music has never been written!! And the Legends - which is for both piano and orchestra - oh my what gloriously crafted music! I can listen to these two pieces over and over (and I do).  This is the one category that I totally disagreed with your assessment.

[Brian]

Seems a little harsh, this, I know! Especially when there are pieces like the early Silhouettes to consider, and, scattered around the rest of his output, some lovely little gems. But, all things considered, the piano wasn't really his area, I think.

And let's not forget the first half of the Humoresques set... some of those pieces are in a dangerously jazzy idiom!

Luke, I have to pick Janacek for choral music just for the Glagolitic Mass, but surely you haven't forgotten one of the very best, most joyously "Dvorakian" works in Dvorak's entirely output - the Te Deum!

[Luke]

Well, you see, I'm not really into this kind of categorical thinking myself in any case, I was just trying to take Velimir's idea and categories and see where they took me. And I added a couple more categories (non symphonic orchestral and songs) which occured to me as I posted, and then, stupid me, having forgotten choral music entirely, needed a new post to cover that. But I don't really see composers' music as breaking down like this - not these composers, not any composers. Whether it's Ravel or Sibelius or Janacek or Dvorak or Martinu or Strauss or...whoever, it's the general tone of the composer's output which counts for me, not how they 'score' genre-by-genre against other composers. There are some fairly consistent reasons why Janacek 'won' most of the head-to-heads in my post, and of course they are all IMO only, but they are all to do with the general tone of Janacek's music, that intimacy and honesty and directness and humanity and utter obsession with truth which he took to an extreme more than any other composer (Tippett, Mussorgsky and a few others might run him close, though...). I value those qualities hugely, they move me immensely, so in any genre where Janacek has a significant body of works, I'm likely to find that the sheer force of utterance impresses me to the extent that other composers simply aren't in the game. But that's just me - with a different set of criteria, if (say) joyousness and physicality and earworm potential and gorgeous warmth were my measure, then Dvorak might have been my choice (or indeed Martinu - he fits those brackets pretty well too...).

BTW, I was thinking precisely of those Humoresques when I wrote my little addendum post that you quoted. But even including works like these, and there are a few others too, scattered through his output, the music doesn't seem to me to contain as much real substance as Janacek's.

(I didn't forget the Te Deum, btw, Brian.....I just don't like it very much! I will give it another listen though, I'm sure the fault lies with me... and @ukrneal, no, I included the Requiem in my post. I like that one more than the Te Deum, but it's no Glagolitic Mass...)

Re. Dvorak's Slavonic Dances - hell yeah, wonderful little things! There are some superb Smetana Czech Dances in the same vein, for piano only, great little virtuoso pieces. And Janacek has an adorable early Suite (op 3 lol!) and the Lachian Dances of course. That Janacek Suite is such fun, I think... but to return to your point, though the Dvorak Slavonic Dances are such perfect little gems, I'd still give the nod to Janacek based on the Sinfonietta and the other two pieces I mentioned. But it's a silly, pointless game, and it's not even comparing like with like! 

[mc ukrneal]

Well, you see, I'm not really into this kind of categorical thinking myself in any case, I was just trying to take Velimir's idea and categories and see where they took me. And I added a couple more categories (non symphonic orchestral and songs) which occured to me as I posted, and then, stupid me, having forgotten choral music entirely, needed a new post to cover that. But I don't really see composers' music as breaking down like this - not these composers, not any composers. Whether it's Ravel or Sibelius or Janacek or Dvorak or Martinu or Strauss or...whoever, it's the general tone of the composer's output which counts for me, not how they 'score' genre-by-genre against other composers. There are some fairly consistent reasons why Janacek 'won' most of the head-to-heads in my post, and of course they are all IMO only, but they are all to do with the general tone of Janacek's music, that intimacy and honesty and directness and humanity and utter obsession with truth which he took to an extreme more than any other composer (Tippett, Mussorgsky and a few others might run him close, though...). I value those qualities hugely, they move me immensely, so in any genre where Janacek has a significant body of works, I'm likely to find that the sheer force of utterance impresses me to the extent that other composers simply aren't in the game. But that's just me - with a different set of criteria, if (say) joyousness and physicality and earworm potential and gorgeous warmth were my measure, then Dvorak might have been my choice (or indeed Martinu - he fits those brackets pretty well too...).

BTW, I was thinking precisely of those Humoresques when I wrote my little addendum post that you quoted. But even including works like these, and there are a few others too, scattered through his output, the music doesn't seem to me to contain as much real substance as Janacek's.

(I didn't forget the Te Deum, btw, Brian.....I just don't like it very much! I will give it another listen though, I'm sure the fault lies with me... and @ukrneal, no, I included the Requiem in my post. I like that one more than the Te Deum, but it's no Glagolitic Mass...)

Re. Dvorak's Slavonic Dances - hell yeah, wonderful little things! There are some superb Smetana Czech Dances in the same vein, for piano only, great little virtuoso pieces. And Janacek has an adorable early Suite (op 3 lol!) and the Lachian Dances of course. That Janacek Suite is such fun, I think... but to return to your point, though the Dvorak Slavonic Dances are such perfect little gems, I'd still give the nod to Janacek based on the Sinfonietta and the other two pieces I mentioned. But it's a silly, pointless game, and it's not even comparing like with like! 

Good post!

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Thanks for making this thread fun, guys 

brief commentary on Luke's extensive post

Quartets - Janacek (without doubt -

Agreed, no debate really, but those late Dvorak 4tets are exceptional - some of the best between Beethoven on one side and Bartok (& Janacek!) on the other. It would hurt to be without them. The Martinu 4tets, except for the 5th, aren't really in contention here.

Symphonies and Concertos - Dvorak

I give this one to Martinu for the following reasons: 1. Among Martinu's 6 symphonies, all are good and some are great, while I could happy do without Dvorak's first 4 or even 5 symphonies. Dvorak's 6-9 are indeed masterpieces, but I could happily live without ever hearing the "New World" again. So Martinu wins in the symphony category. He also wins in the concertos - although some of them are relative duds, several are among my favorite concertos written by anyone, and some display a degree of formal innovation that I've never heard from Dvorak. As for Dvorak, yeah the Cello Cto. is nice, but I'm one of those strange people who likes the Violin Cto. more. A clear win for Martinu on this one.

Other orchestral music - Janacek

IMHO, Janacek comes  third here - while the Sinfonietta and Taras Bulba are fun pieces, they don't strike me as very deep, and I rarely have a desire to hear them. I'd much rather listen to Martinu's Frescoes or Parables or Dvorak's Symphonic Variations (now there's an underrated score) or Scherzo cappriccioso. If forced to choose between the two though, I give the edge to Martinu because of the visionary quality of those late scores - there's something mind-expanding about them, which I don't really get from Dvorak.

Operas - Janacek (without doubt -

No argument there.

Piano music - Janacek (really, there's little competition -

No argument there, either! (not that I know enough to argue this one anyway)

Other (non string quartet) chamber music - Dvorak

That's a really hard one - they all did great things in that area. In the end I'll vote for Dvorak too, just because I think he's the most consistently outstanding.

[Luke]

IMHO, Janacek comes  third here - while the Sinfonietta and Taras Bulba are fun pieces, they don't strike me as very deep, and I rarely have a desire to hear them. I'd much rather listen to Martinu's Frescoes or Parables or Dvorak's Symphonic Variations (now there's an underrated score) or Scherzo cappriccioso. If forced to choose between the two though, I give the edge to Martinu because of the visionary quality of those late scores - there's something mind-expanding about them, which I don't really get from Dvorak.

Yes, and you make me think again, too, because those two Martinu scores you mention are amongst my favourite Martinu pieces of all - I listen to them all the time, and I have no idea why I forgot them earlier!! Fabulous pieces. I also agree, funnily enough, that Taras Bulba isn't quite the work it's often seen to be - it's one of Janacek's big hits, but it's a flawed piece, and in including it as one of the works which swings things in his favour I was, to an extent, letting the general opinion of the piece influence things. But the Sinfonietta, and the Fiddler's Child - I don't think there is any Czech orchestral music better than these two, though others equal them, those Martinu scores you mention amongst them. Cheers! 

[DavidW]

I will argue with opera=Janacek.  Did someone forget about the Bartered Bride?  Really no Janacek will not walk away with the prize this time.

[DavidW]

In fact the Bartered Bride is popular enough for radio play, which is how I heard it.  I don't think Janacek's operas receive that kind of attention.

[Philoctetes]

I will argue with opera=Janacek.  Did someone forget about the Bartered Bride?  Really no Janacek will not walk away with the prize this time.

I'd wager you'd lose that argument quite handily.

[Maciek]

In fact the Bartered Bride is popular enough for radio play, which is how I heard it.  I don't think Janacek's operas receive that kind of attention.

My first contact with two of Janacek's operas (Jenůfa and From the House of the Dead) was through live radio broadcasts.

[Luke]

I will argue with opera=Janacek.  Did someone forget about the Bartered Bride?  Really no Janacek will not walk away with the prize this time.

The Bartered Bride is the 'Czech National Opera' par excellence (though Janacek, as a Moravian, isn't really in that contest - Jenufa, his own 'folk opera', is specifically Moravian), and its popularity springs from that above all (do we know the other non-folky Smetana operas so well? I've heard Dalibor and a bit of Libuse, but....)

OTOH Janacek, as less biased sources than me say over and over too, is one of the really, really great opera specialist composers, and in the context of the 20th century he would surely rank alongside Britten or Strauss in this respect, as I said, and perhaps even higher. His operas get frequent airplay here in the UK - I just stuck 'Janacek Radio 3' into Google and came up with recent performances of Cunning Little Vixen, Kat'a Kabanova and House of the Dead in the top 4 results (the other result being the all-Janacek day they held in 2004, his 150th birthday - a distinction they've awarded very few composers so far).

[karlhenning]

But Zelenka was a Genius.

Oh, cut that out! ; )