arti cl e url : http://www.oxfordmusi conl i ne.com:80/subscri ber/arti cl e/grove/musi c/27094
Suk, Josef (i) (b Keovice, 4 Jan 1874; d Beneov, nr Prague, 29 May 1935). Czech composer and violinist. 1. Life. He learnt the piano, the violin and the organ from his father, Josef Suk (18271913), schoolmaster and choirmaster in the Bohemian village of Keovice. In 1885 he entered the Prague Conservatory, where he studied the violin with Bennewitz, theory with Foerster, Knittl and Stecker, and from 1888 chamber music with Wihan. He began composing seriously in his third year at the conservatory and in 1891 graduated with his Piano Quartet op.1. He remained an extra year at the conservatory for special tuition in chamber music with Wihan and composition with Dvok, who had joined the teaching staff in January 1891. Under Wihan, Suk played second violin in the group which in 1892 became known as the Czech Quartet; its first concert in Vienna (1893) won the approval of Brahms and Hanslick and inaugurated a distinguished international career during which it gave more than 4000 concerts until Suks retirement in 1933. Under Dvok, Suk graduated from the conservatory in 1892 with his Dramatick ouvertura op.4. He was Dvoks favourite pupil and in 1898 married his daughter Otilie (Otilka). Simrock had published his Serenade for strings op.6 (1892) in 1896 on Brahmss recommendation and by the turn of the century Suk was regarded, with Novk, as the leading composer of the modern Czech school. In 1922 he was appointed professor of composition for the advanced classes of the Prague Conservatory, where he trained 35 composers, including Bokovec, Jeek, Hlobil, Martin, Reiner, Vak and several Slovenes, Croats, Serbs and Poles. During his four terms as rector (19246, 19335) he worked energetically to raise the standards of the conservatory. He was an extraordinary (1901) and ordinary (1913) member of the Czech Academy of Sciences and in 1933 was awarded an honorary doctorate by Brno University. Josef Suk: portrai t by Dr Desi deri us, watercol our, 1928 2. Works. Suk won early success as a composer, writing some of his best-known pieces (the Serenade for strings and the Pse lsky, Love Song, from his op.7 piano pieces, 18913) before he was 20, and was soon regarded as Dvoks natural successor. Despite opportunities through his Grove Music Online Suk, Josef (i) constant travels as a performer to hear the latest European novelties he was subject to no other strong musical influences; his virtuoso orchestral technique and subtle control of sound show his awareness of Strauss and the French Impressionists, but he followed his own path in a steady, organic development from lyrical Romanticism towards a complex polytonal musical language. Like his teacher Dvok he was most at home with instrumental music. His early mass (1888 90) was his only venture into liturgical music; he wrote almost no songs; and the three choral sets of 18991900, opp.15, 18 and 19, though well made and effective, are essentially explorations of a genre to which he returned only once more with his male-voice choruses op.32 (191112). He wrote no operas but the second of the two plays for which he supplied incidental music, Pod jablon (Beneath the Apple Tree, op.20, 190001), includes sustained choral scenes which give the suite (1912) arranged from it an almost oratorio-like character. As in the earlier score Radz a Mahulena (Radz and Mahulena, 18978), there are, in addition to the instrumental pieces, a few short songs and some melodrama passages for important scenes. It is surprising that as a professional quartet player Suk wrote so little chamber music. Much of it originated from his student days as he tried out various combinations (the String Quartet in D minor, 1888; Piano Trio op.2, Piano Quartet op.1 and Piano Quintet op.8, 188993). The most successful chamber work from this period is the String Quartet op.11 (1896), which has all the freshness and melodic charm of Suks early music and, in its slow movement, a foretaste of the more serious and personal style of Asrael. He wrote only one more quartet (op.31, 1911). Although his only important works for the solo violin are the well-known tyi skladby (Four Pieces, op.17, 1900) and a one-movement concerto, the Fantasy op.24 (19023), the sound of the solo violin combining with the orchestra is one that permeates much of Suks music, from the famous Radzsolo onwards. Suk was also a fine pianist, performing frequently to his friends and occasionally in public, and he wrote rather more piano music. The earlier compositions were generally published in small groups of characteristic pieces (opp.7, 10 and 12, 18916) whose full-blooded, well-placed chords suggest Brahms, but whose undemanding forms, rich if meretricious harmony, melodic clichs and fluent passage-work more often suggest the salon. The Suite op.21 (1900, originally planned as a sonatina) attempts a more balanced design, continued in the programmatic suites Jaro (Spring) op.22a and Letn dojmy (Summer Impressions) op.22b, both written in 1902 after the birth of his son. They illustrate Suks subjective Romantic piano style at its ripest, the last piece of op.22a, V roztouen (In Love), achieving a popularity similar to that of the Love Song from op.7. But op.22a also contains Vnek (The Breeze), a delicate, Impressionistic piece, revealing a more imaginative approach to figuration, and a type of harmony that was turning from heavy chromaticism to a more modal idiom. These qualities, and the intimate nature of O matince (About Mother, op.28, 1907), written after the death of his wife, are developed in Suks greatest work for the piano, the suite of ten short pieces ivotem a snem (Things Lived and Dreamt, op.30, 1909). All have detailed descriptions of their character, some have additional programmes (no.5 on the recovery of my son) and all inhabit a very personal world; in their economical evocation of mood, their exploration of new musical means and their assured piano technique they foreshadow Debussys Prludes. In later piano works such as Ukobavky (Lullabies, op.33, 191012) and O ptelstv (About Friendship, op.36, 1920), Suk pared down his means to achieve a classic simplicity in which the subtle control of harmony is particularly striking. Suks central achievement was in orchestral music. The high point of his early orchestral writing is the Serenade for strings op.6 (1892) and the op.16 suite, Pohdka (Fairy Tale, 18991900), arranged from the Radz music. The more ambitious works that followed, the Violin Fantasy op.24 (19023) and the Straussian tone poem Praga op.26 (1904), have a slightly portentous quality that seems out of keeping with Suks limited emotional range up to then. The deaths of Dvok (1904) and his daughter (1905), Suks young wife, within the space of 14 months shattered the composers life and attitudes, and set into motion the vast Asrael symphony op.27 (19056). It is arguably his greatest work, and one of the finest and most eloquent pieces of orchestral music of its time, comparable with Mahler in its structural mastery and emotional impact. Although none of the orchestral works which follow Asraelare designated symphonies, all have symphonic ambitions and proportions, particularly the two single-movement pieces Zrn (Ripening, op.34, 19127) and Epilog op.37 (192029). Pohdka lta (A Summers Tale, op.29, 19079) is the lightest of the post-Asrael orchestral works, a suite more than a symphony, showing a serene acceptance of life whose equanimity is disturbed only by the poignancy of the Blind Musicians movement or the Mahlerian imagery of the fourth movement, In the Power of Phantoms. As the title suggests, Ripening charts a mans personal development (that of Suk Phantoms. As the title suggests, Ripening charts a mans personal development (that of Suk himself) as he grows through the pain of lifes tragedies. In Epilog the psychological programme made more concrete by the texts sung by soloists and chorus becomes darker as its subject begins to contemplate his own mortality. 3. Style. Unlike his Czech contemporaries Janek and Novk, Suk derived almost no stimulus from folk music and very little from literary sources. Julius Zeyers was the only important literary influence on him: his Radz and Mahulena, with its legendary Slavonic world, its message of true, courageous love and clear-cut moral values articulated much of the young Suks outlook on life. Its dreamy, slightly sad, introspective mood is one that runs through much of Suks early music, at first no more perhaps than as a fin-de-sicle pessimism, but soon acquiring a specifically Slavonic direction characterized by his dumka music. Suk wrote dumkas in opp.7 and 21 (the poco triste movement of op.17 was also originally entitled Dumka) but there are dumka-like movements (such as the Legenda of op.10) in all his early music. The funeral march is another Radz feature, anticipated in Suks early orchestral funeral march (1889, dedicated to himself), apotheosized in the second movement of Asrael and becoming terrifyingly grim in the march section of Ripening (based on the seventh piece, marked forthright, later with an expression of overpowering force, of Things Lived and Dreamt). In the polka music for the game of the swan and the peacocks in Radz (later worked into the second movement of the suite) Suk wrote in a popular style derived from Czech dance music. There are other such pieces among the piano music (notably the minuet from op.21) and even during the years of Ripening and Epilog Suk wrote light, appealing music such as the Ella Polka (1909) or the marches V nov ivot (Towards a New Life, op.35c, 191920), which won him an award at the 1932 Olympics at Los Angeles, and Pod Blankem (Beneath Blank, 1932). His last composition was a Czech dance, a Sousedsk (1935) for small chamber ensemble. Radz is central to Suks development. He identified the young couple Radz and Mahulena with himself and his wife at the happiest time of their lives; it drew from him his most radiant, tender, earnest and abundantly melodic music. He remodelled some of it in his next work, the womens choruses op.15. It also became a point of reference for future works, its death motif of two augmented 4ths recurring prominently from Asraelonwards. There are other examples in Suks later music (notably in Things Lived and Dreamt and Ripening) of self-quotation and other personal symbols. Another prominent topos is that of the fantastic dance. Early examples are the Bacchanale in Beneath the Apple Tree (190001) and the Fantastick scherzo op.25 (1903), a danse macabre with banal waltz rhythms, quirky chromatic tunes and highly imaginative orchestration. Later metamorphoses in the scherzo movements of Asrael and A Summers Tale suppress the dance element and heighten the malevolence of the fantasy. In Epilog the dance is propelled by the biblical quotation sung by the male chorus: Prach jsi a v prach se obrt! (Death thou art and unto death shalt thou return!). This verbal context, together with the death theme from Radz on the brass cutting through skirling wind, scurrying strings, death-rattle side- drums and the moaning of demons (the wordless male chorus), conjures up an apocalyptic vision whose intensity is unique in Suks work. Suks late orchestral music had become very complicated. His harmony was originally sensuously Romantic, with a fondness for augmented chords (especially that of the augmented 5th), chromatic alteration, Neapolitan relations and the tonal ambiguity produced by frequent pedals (e.g. in pedal movements such as the lullaby from About Mother and the second movement of Asrael). Later he began to exploit polytonality more explicitly and systematically in Ripening and Epilog. He was able to make these last scores comprehensible only by his precise aural imagination and his superb craftsmanship as an orchestrator, a skill on which he placed great emphasis as a teacher. Suks later formal control grew from unpretentious beginnings. Most of his piano pieces have simple repetitive structures; he successfully employed (e.g. in the violin Balada, 1890) the fashionable monothematicism of the time but his early attempts at sonata form, even in the last movement of the Serenade for strings are uneven, lacking a sense of the dramatic opposition of key centres (so striking in Asrael) and tending towards an uncharacteristic long-windedness. The seams of the one-movement Violin Fantasy are carelessly concealed, but the later single- movement string quartet is much more subtle and adept. It cost him much effort, even at the height of his powers, and prepared the way for the impressive single spans of Ripening and Epilog. These two pieces showed Suks musical language at its utmost sophistication, his response to the modern music he came across on his frequent tours. They also showed him dangerously far from his roots as a simple muzikant of the Czech kantor tradition. From about 1912 his rate of composition noticeably slackened. His tiring life as a performer meant that composition was a spare-time occupation; his duties at the Prague Conservatory, which he took very seriously, made further demands, but as the premires of his works became more spaced out it became clear that neither these commitments nor the increasing effort that the later scores must have cost fully explained the gaps. Suk seems to have had misgivings about his increasingly complicated musical speech, alien to many of his listeners; indeed, he derived a childlike pleasure from the enthusiasm that his popular pieces (such as the New Life march) aroused. The gulf between Suk the kantor and Suk the sophisticate was perhaps too great to bridge. Bibliography SHS [incl. f urther bibliography] J. Suk: Aus meiner Jugend: Wiener Brahms-Erinnerungen, Der Merker, ii (1910), 14750 Na poest 60. narozenin Josef a Suka [In honour of Suks 60th birthday], Tempo/Listy Hudebn matice, xiii (19334), no.5 [incl. Suks view on his development as a composer, Kvts study of Suk and Zeyer, and other documents and reminiscences] J.M. Kvt, ed.: Josef Suk: ivot a dlo: studie a vzpomnky [Lif e and works: studies and reminiscences] (Prague, 1935) [incl. articles by Kvt, K. Hof f meister, V. tpn, O. ourek, B. Vomka, O. n, B. tdro, K. Reiner, A. Hba, F. Pcha, M. Bezdk, H. Boettinger, and a list of Suks published works] V. tpn: Novk a Suk (Prague, 1945) [repr. of 3 substantial essays on Suk] J.M. Kvt, ed.: iv slova Josefa Suka [In Suks own words] (Prague, 1946) O. Filipovsk: Klavrn tvorba Josefa Suka [Suks piano works] (Plze, 1947) J. Berkovec: Josef Suk (18741935): ivot a dlo [Lif e and works] (Prague, 1956, 2/1962, rev. and abridged 1968 as Josef Suk; Eng., Ger., Fr. and Russ. trans., 1968) [all versions contain f ull list of works and extensive bibliography] J.M. Kvt: Josef Suk v obrazech [Suk in pictures] (Prague, 1964) R. Budi, ed.: Josef Suk: vbrov bibliografie [select bibliography] (Prague, 1965) [incl. chronological and alphabetical catalogues of works, annotated bibliography, and discography] Z. Sdeck: Lyrismus v tvorb Josefa Suka [Lyricism in Suks works] (Prague, 1966) [incl. bibliography, commentary on sources, list of Suks articles, speeches and letters] M. Kuna: Josef Suk Vclavu Talichovi: korespondence z Talichovy pozstalosti [Suk to Talich: correspondence f rom Talichs estate], HV, vii (1970), 35689 E. Illingov: Listy ptelstv: Josef Suk v korespondenci Ilon a Vclavu tpnovm a Vilmu Kurzovi [Letters of a f riendship: Josef Suk in his correspondence to Ilona tpnov, Vclav tpn and Vilm Kurz], Pspvky k djinm esk hudb, iii (1976), 12363 [incl. 27 letters by Suk written 191835] J. Suk: Dopisy nejblm [Letters to those closest to him], ed. M. Svobodov (Prague, 1976) J. Doubravov: Sound and Structure in Josef Suks Zrn, International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music, viii (1977), 7387 J. Berkovec and B. Prochzka: Pivtiv krajina Josefa Suka [The pleasant countryside of Josef Suk] (Prague, 1982) OM, xvii/8 (1985) [Suk issue, incl. J. Volek: K smantice zvtenho kvintakordu v hudebn e Josef a Suka [On the semantics of the augmented 5th in Josef Suks musical speech], 22539] Copyri ght Oxford Uni versi ty Press 2007 2012. Z. Nouza: Sukv Pozdrav km na Slovensko [Suks Greeting to Pupils in Slovakia], OM, xviii (1986), 26 31 Zprvy spolenosti Josefa Suka, nos.17 (198693) M. Svobodov: M setkn s Josef em Sukem [My meetings with Josef Suk], HRo, xli (1988), 3314 V. Karbusick: Josef Suk a Gustav Mahler, OM, xxii (1990), 24551 M. Svobodov: Josef Suk: tematick katalog (Jinoany, 1994) [NB incipits mostly connected to the wrong pieces] M. Svobodov-Herrmannov: Milovan Souata Josef Suk a Pardubice [Beloved little Suks: Josef Suk and Pardubice], HRo, xlvii/6 (1994), 337 [reminiscences and letters] Z. Nouza: Suks Schaf f en im Spiegel der zeitgenssischen tschechischen Musikkritik: die tschechische Musikkritik im Spiegel der Musik von Josef Suk, Prager Musikleben zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts, ed. A. Bezina (Berne, 2000), 15376 Z. Nouza: Autorsk poznmky k Tematickmu katalogu skladeb Josef a Suka [Commentary on Suks Thematic catalogue of works], HV, xxxix (2002), 28593 Z. Nouza and M. Nov: Tematick katalog skladeb Josefa Suka/Thematic catalogue of the works of Josef Suk (Prague, 2005) See also CZECH QUARTET. John Tyrrell