Page:Czecho-Slovak Student Life, Volume 18.djvu/418
Music of the Czechs.
Written for the Student Life by Prof. Ella Správka, Professor of Piano, Bush Conservatory, Chicago, Illinois.
| The author of this interesting contribution to the Student Life is an eminent Czech pianist, who at present is a faculty member at the Bush Conservatory of Music in Chicago. Early in life she studied piano under such masters as Mme. Anna Chrzova, Alois Hnilicka, Leseticky, Anton Dvořák, Edward Dannreuter, and at the Vienna Conservatory of Music. She has given concerts in England, Paris, Munich, and particularly in Bohemia, where she appeared with the Ševčík Quartette, Kubelik, Kocian, František Ondříček, Hegedus, Marie Hall, Francis MacMillen, and others. During the war she lived with her friend, the Princess Colloredo-Mannsfeld in Switzerland, where she also met her husband, Prof. Boža Oumiroff, the famous Czech baritone. In 1920 she made a concert tour in America with her husband. She has delivered lectures in Europe and in this country on Czech music, and holds a high position in artistic and social circles.—Editor’s note. |
N this article entitled “Music of the Czechs” I shall treat chiefly of the Bohemian folk songs, because they are the source from which all Bohemian music has sprung. But to understand Czech songs, we must first know something of the history of the country.
Bohemia is at present a part of Czecho-Slovakia. Until the first part of the 17th century it was an independent kingdom, comprising Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, and a part of Lusatia. In the 17th century, however, after much political and religious strife, it lost its independence and was absorbed in the Austrian Empire. Then, for nearly 300 years, the Czech nation groaned under Hapsburg rule. It was only after the World War that it regained its independence and was proclaimed a republic. By the Treaty of Versailles, the whole of Slovakia, a country inhabited by a race closely related to, and speaking a language very much like the Czech, was united to Bohemia to form the present Czecho-Slovakia.
Throughout Central and Eastern Europe the Czecho-Slovaks have the reputation of being a music-loving people. It is an interesting fact that the oldest mediaeval sacred hymn, “Hospodine pomiluj ny”, composed in the vernacular as early as the twelfth century, is a Czech song, which in its original text is still sung by Czech congregations. Another old Czech song is a hymn to St. Wenceslaus, the patron saint of the country.
This hymn, set to a beautiful Phrygian melody, can be traced back to the thirteenth century. It shows the influence of Roman chants, which at that time were the prevailing form of music. In it the simplicity of a folk song mingles with the austere severity of a chorale. Though the music of that time was entirely in the hands of the Church, we can presume that some form of folksong must have already existed. This can be inferred from Kosmas, the historian of the time, who, in describing certain chants that were in usage then, alludes to their melodies being partly adapted from Roman chants and partly from folksongs.
The second part of the fourteenth century was particularly favorable to the development of music in Bohemia. Charles IV, a great patron of all arts, was especially devoted to the practice of music. It was he who, in 1348, built the University of Prague, which was second only to that of Paris, and institued special schools where young men were trained in the art of sing-