Week 7
Music and Czech Nationalism
Can Music Be Inherently Czech (or German, or Russian)?

In Search of Czechness in Music
•Michael Beckerman, 1986 article in 19th-Century Music
•Czechness + Russianness + Germanness: cannot be defined precisely/objectively
•It is not IN THE MUSIC ITSELF but rather IS PERCEIVED/CONSTRUCTED by the audience
•P. 73: “Czechness” itself comes about when in the minds of composers and audiences, the Czech
nation, in its many manifestations, becomes the subtextual program for musical works, and as such,
it is that which animates the musical style

Symbolic Markers of Czechness in Music
•Libuše, 1871–72 (for the coronation of Franz Joseph as the King of Bohemia, 1881, first opening of
the National Theater)
•Explicit programmatic/nationalistic elements (symphonic poems, dances, opera)—2:31:00
•References to historical styles and works (Hussite chorale)—2:26:00
•Folk-likeness—1:26:30
•Synthesis of various “mainstream” and “peripheral” traditions (Wagnerian + folksy music)—overture
•Referencing the styles of earlier national composers (Smetana)

Complexities of Musical Nationalism:
The Brandenburgers in Bohemia, 1866
•Smetana’s first opera (written already in 1863)
•Seen as nationalistic + ethnic + inherently Czech + anti-German + anti-Habsburg + anti-Austrian +
victory of the Czechs over the Germans
•13th-Century Bohemia: invasion of Brandenburger mercenaries
•Czech peasants vs. Brandenburgers
•Act II, Scene 1: peasant chorale, 58:30
•Act II, Scene 1: the Brandenburgers, 1:04:00

The Politics of The Brandenburgers
•Weak libretto that does not present a clear distinction between the Czechs and Germans
•Confuses Smetana—one of his lesser works
•Rather than a simple nationalist propaganda (or a weak work)—the opera reflect the complexity of
Bohemian population and politics in the early 1860s
•

The Brandenburgers at the former
Neues deutsches Theater turned into the Theater of the Fifth of May (now State Opera)
•September 4, 1945
•Czechs vs. Germans (Nazis)
•Bohemian Germans=expelled
•Anti-Occupation Opera
•Late September 1968

The Politics of The Brandenburgers
•1860s: FLUID CONCEPT OF NATIONAL IDENTITY
•Multiple “Czech” Groups—not a unified ethnicity:
•Peasants—no folk-like music (instead historicizing chorales)
•Prague rabble (lůza)—receives the folk-like music (28:00) + not very patriotic
•Possibly a commentary on the Old Czech Party—and their leader František Ladislav Rieger (who
thought that Czech opera should be based on folk music and not too cosmopolitan or Wagnerian)
•Prague’s Burghers: based on historical figure (Václav Vladivoj Tomek’s History of Prague, 1855)
•Slavicized names (though historically German)—Wolfram=Volfram OLBRAMOVIČ + 3 daughters (Christina
+ Elizabeth + Katharina=Ludiše, Vlčanka, Děčana)
•Tausendmark=the anti-hero—Czech or German-Bohemian?
•Most famous aria: Act 3—1:42:00
•Tausendmark judged by a Brandenburger: 1:41:00
•

The “Germans” in The Brandenburgers
•The Brandenburgers=the Prussians (1866—Austro-Prussian War)?
•The Brandenburgers vs. the Germans
•Early 1860s: no unified Germany: Prussians vs. Saxons vs. German-Bohemians
•An Anti-Austrian Opera
•Early 1860s: political situation in Bohemia—Austroslavism—hoping for acknowledging Bohemian state
rights