Sounds of The Soul

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"Sounds of the Soul": LeoS Janalek's Conception of Speech Melody
by
Paul Victor Christiansen

B.A. (California State University, Sacramento) 1990
DISSERTATION
Submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
in
MUSIC
in the
OFFICE OF GRADUATE STUDIES
of the
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
DAVIS
Approved:
I Committee in charge
2002
UMI Number: 3062199
Copyright 2002 by
Christiansen, Paul Victor
All rights reserved.
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2002
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ii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many have had a hand in helping to bring this ship into port I wish to
thank first of all Christopher Reynolds, my dissertation advisor. His seemingly
unending patience and tolerance for other points of view, always girded by a
healthy skepticism, were of tremendous help throughout the writing process. I
owe a debt of gratitude also to Michael Beckerman, member of the reading
committee, for his encouragement, support, and friendship; without his counsel
and guidance this work would have been noticeably poorer. I am eternally
grateful for the life lessons he has taught me that are not found in any graduate
school curriculum (and he is also a decent batting coach).
The other members of my committee, D. Kern Holoman and Pablo Ortiz,
each offering his distinct and valuable perspective on the matters at hand, were
of considerable help to me in offering suggestions for the shape and scope of the
dissertation as well as in the final stages of the process. Thanks belong likewise
to Mirjam Fried, for her insightful comments on linguistic issues and just as
importantly, for her friendship. I am also grateful to Geoffrey Chew, of the music
department at Royal Holloway College in London, for his reassurance at a time
when I really needed it, and for inviting me to deliver a paper at an international
Janatek conference in the fall of 1999, a paper which was the kernel of an idea
around which I began to construct my dissertation.
iii
I wish to extend my gratitude likewise to the Fulbright Commission of the
Czech Republic, particularly to Hana Ripkova. The talented and professional
staff of the Jan££ek Archive at Moravske zemske muzeum in Brno were also
helpful to me during the initial research stages of the process and were most
obliging in offering assistance in deciphering some particularly cryptic examples
of Janafek's handwriting. In this regard I should like to particularly express my
gratitude to Svatava PftbdftovS and Jitka Buri£nkov&. MiloS §t£droft and Don
Sparling at Masaryk University provided advice and assistance during my stay
in Brno in 1998-99.
I would certainly be remiss if I failed to mention the technical assistance
that I received from Rhio Barnhart and Bill Beck, aid in administrative matters
from Patty Flowers and Karen Boemer, and moral support from the entire music
faculty at the University of California, Davis. I am delighted to have met kindred
spirit Jonathan G. Secora Pearl, who shares my passion for language and music
and who also helped improve my abstract I want to thank Mark Brill and Philip
Galinsky for lending a sympathetic ear to my complaints and frustrations and
offering kind words of encouragement
Heartfelt thanks go to Raphael, whose close friendship over the years has
meant more to me than he will ever know, and also to his wife Catharina, whom
I am privileged to call my friend. Sdrka's love, patience, understanding, and
good humor through long periods of waiting, all eased me through the more
difficult times in the writing process.
iv
Finally, and most importantly, I thank my father, Donald, for his
unconditional love and unshakable faith in me. It is to him that this book is
dedicated.
ABSTRACT
Virtually every musicological study written on Czech composer LeoS
Janafek has touched upon the composer's proclivity for notating die intonational
contours and rhythms of everyday utterances (napevky tnluvy). However, few of
these studies have contextualized Jan££ek's theory of speech melody in the
composer's personal and professional life and none has taken linguistic research
into account
This dissertation is an exploration of the meaning of speech melody for
Jan££ek. I discuss the centrality of language to perceived notions of national
identity and the historical imperatives that motivated Jan££ek to undertake his
recording activities (Chapter Two). In Chapter Three, I present relevant linguistic
research on prosody and intonation, primarily on Czech. Chapter Four is an
examination of Jan££ek's notebooks and feuilletons on the topic. Then, using
arguments presented in Chapters Three and Four to inform my analysis, I
examine the extent to which vocal lines in his works conform to the linguistic
principles that govern Czech speech (Chapters Five and Six).
In addition to having a nationalist dimension, each speech melody was for
Jancifek a person's unique expression at a certain time and setting with all its
attendant drama. JarUifek's notated these melodies in an attempt to recreate the
entire experience in his mind to pursue what Milan Kundera has called die
"search for the vanished present" The composer's notations of the final
vi
utterances of his dying daughter testify to this fact He had even planned to
compile a dictionary of napevky (an idea that was never realized).
Janafek's notebooks do not constitute a mere repository of actual speech
melodies; rather, they were a source of inspiration for his musical imagination.
For dramatic effect Jan££ek strove to approximate in his scores Czech
intonational contours and rhythms, creating a stylized speech idiom that is an
equipoise between speech and song. In the earlier works it appears that he set
text in two ways: one more melodic, the other more speech-like. Gradually his
vocal lines became more stylistically unified and closer to speech. As he became
more confident with writing in the new manner, he began to find his own voice
as a composer.
vii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgments................................................................................................... iii
Abstract.....................................................................................................................vi
Table of Contents................................................................................................... viii
List of Figures and Examples.................................................................................. ix
Editorial Note.......................................................................................................... xi
Chapter One: Introduction........................................................................................1
Chapter Two: Language and Identity in the Czech Lands.................................... 22
Chapter Three: Speech Intonation and Music........................................................ 55
Chapter Four: Jan££ek and his Ndpeoky mluvy....................................................... 98
Chapter Five: Analysis of Jenufa........................................................................... 140
Chapter Six: Analysis of the Cantatas and The Diary of One Who Disappeared 183
Score for The Diary of One Who Disappeared................................................ 203
Conclusion............................................................................................................. 261
Appendices............................................................................................................ 268
Appendix 1: Jan&ek's Writings Dealing with Language or Speech Melody Published

During his Lifetime................................................................................................................ 269
Appendix 2: JandCek's Writings Dealing with Language or Speech Melody Not
Published During his Lifetime.............................................................................................. 275
Appendix 3: Text and Translation of The Diary of One Who Disappeared.............................. 277
Glossary of Linguistic Terms................................................................................ 284
Bibliography...........................................................................................................292
LIST OF FIGURES AND EXAMPLES
Figure 2.1: Sentence in Czech and Slovak............................................................. 25

Figure 2 2 Excerpt from Sldvy dcera...................................................................... 46
Figure 3.1: Example of Ancient Greek Intonation and Prosody........................... 57
Figure 3.2: Declarative, Continuative, and Interrogative International Patterns...69
Figure 3.3: Marked and Unmarked International Contours...................................70
Figure 3.4: Rheme and Theme............................................................................... 75
Figure 3.5: International Cadences......................................................................... 76
Figure 3.6: " Vyhledavdnf'....................................................................................... 78
Figure 3.7A: "Napevek"...........................................................................................79
Figure 3.7B: "Jan4£ek"........................................................................................... 79
Figure 3.8A: Czech Word Order Model A............................................................ 81
Figure 3.8B: Czech Word Order Model B............................................................. 81
Figure 3.9: Prosodic Feet in Czech........................................................................ 84
Figure 3.10: Map of Czechoslovakia 1918-1938....................................................93
Figure 3.11: Dialect Map of Moravia.................................................................... 95
Figure 3.12: List of Characteristics of Lachian Speech..........................................96
Figure 4.1A: Hypothesized International Contour of "No pekne by to bylo" A 108
Figure 4.1B: Hypothesized International Contour of "No pekne by to bylo" B 108
Figure 42: "Jd vubec nevtm, kdeje!"...................................................................... I l l
Figure 4.3: Jandfek's February 1928 Message to Kamila Stosslovd.....................121
Figure 4.4: Excerpt from Mdcha's poem Mdj.......................................................122
Figure 45: Text for Jenufa's Entreaty to Grandmother (Act I, sc. I, mm. 5-12)...136
Figure 5.1: "Taunting" international contour.......................................................168
Figure 6.1: Cover of The Diary of One Who Disappeared........................................ 194
Figure 6.2: First quatrain of The Diary of One Who Disappeared........................... 196
Example 4.1: Excerpts of Janifek's comments in his copy of Hugo Riemann's

Musikalische Dynamik und Agogik......................................................................... 100
Example 42: "No pekne by to bylo"........................................................................107
Example 45: Facsimile of Jan&ek's Letter to Kamila St5sslov4.........................110
Example 4.4: "My mdme spatnu cestu, samy led a soma voda"................................113
Example 45: "No, s panem Bohem dobru noc pfeju!"............................................. 114
Example 4.6: "Pdnbu zaplaf milosf pan, pdnbu zaplaf' ...........................................115
Example 4.7: "Budem tody stat, a jd vim, ze nepfijde!"............................................118
Example 45: "To je jednol”................................................................................... 119
Example 4.9: Jan&ek's Setting of "Budem tody stat" and "To je jednol".............. 120
Example 4.10: “Stafenko, nehnevejte se!" (Act I, sc. I, mm. 5-8 after Rehearsal
Number 13)...........................................................................................................127
Example 4.11: Jandfek's Notation of His Daughter Olga's Last Phrases.............132
ix
Example 5.1: Jenufii Act I, sc. 1, mm. 70-90...........................................................145
Example 5.2: Jenufii Act I, sc. 1, mm. 236-49......................................................... 147
Example 53: Jenufii Act I, sc. 1, mm. 253-61.........................................................148
Example 5.4: Jenufii Act I, sc. 1, mm. 292-94......................................................... 149
Example 5.7: Jenufii Act I, sc. 2, mm. 140-43.........................................................155
Example 5.11: Jenufii Act I, sc. 5, mm. 162-66....................................................... 160
Example 5.14: Jeniifa Act I, sc. 6, mm. 99-103....................................................... 164
Example 5.15: Jenufii Act I, sc. 7, mm. 67-7Z........................................................ 165
Example 5.17: Jenufii Act I, sc. 7, m m 170-71....................................................... 170
Example 5.18: Jenufii Act ID, sc. 10, m m 24-65.................................................... 173
Example 6.1: Amarus, soprano solo, pp. 14-15..................................................... 186
Example 6.2: Elegie na smrt dcery Olgy, tenor solo, p. 3....................................... 187
Example 63: Elegie na smrt dcery Olgy, tutti tenor line, pp. 6-7............................188
Example 6.4: Beginning of Claude Le Jeune's Revecy venir du Printemps............189
EDITORIAL NOTE
Unless otherwise indicated, all translations are mine. I have used
throughout English titles for the works, always initially providing die Czech
version. For certain characters, such as Kostelnifka (Sextoness), I employ the
Czech name, which is more familiar to most readers.
Numerous musical examples accompany my analytical remarks. In die
case of The Diary of One Who Disappeared, I have included the entire score after
my analysis. The musical examples for die other works are excerpts that are
embedded in the text for easy reference.
Janafek's notated speech melodies contain many orthographic oddities
(the key signature following the time signature, unusual placement of dynamic
markings, etc.). Wherever possible these idiosyncrasies have been preserved, but
certain examples have been standardized for ease of presentation.
xi
1
CHAPTER ONE
2
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
Italian philosopher Benedetto Croce (1866-1952) conceives of language as
a "perpetual creation," akin to other forms of artistic expression.1 For Croce,
linguistics is not a science as much as it is art and as such falls under the aegis of
a theory of aesthetics; he further asserts that in fact no language exists in the
abstract, there are only individual utterances that he calls "works of art."2
Czech composer LeoS Jan££ek would likely have agreed with such an
assertion, as he thought of each instance of Czech speech melody as a person's
unique expression at a certain time and setting with all its attendant drama. Next
to each speech melody that he recorded in his notebooks, he almost invariably
jotted down the age and sex of the speaker, as well as the time, place, and general
atmosphere in which the words were uttered.3 He did this in an attem pt to
recreate the entire experience in his mind. Jan^fek was interested in the
psychological aspects of speech intonation and he theorized that the
environment had an effect on how phrases and sentences were spoken:
When, during a conversation, we quote the words of someone else, w e are half
way to a theatrical performance. We quote the words in such a way as to bring
alive before our eyes, a particular person known to us. We even quote the speed
of speech, a thin little voice or a coarse one; a singsong tone, a nasal intonation.
1 Benedetto Croce, The Aesthetic as the Science of Expression and of the Linguistic in General, trans.
Colin Lyas (Cambridge, UK- Cambridge University Press, 1992), 163.
2 Ibid., 160.
3 These notebooks are housed in die Janifek Archive at the Moravian Museum in Brno, Czech
Republic. Unlss otherwise indicated, the term "recording" as used in this dissertation is
synonymous with "notating."
3
or a snuffling voice. We might quote an angry expression, a reproachful look, or

a look of unctuous tenderness. And w e quote even the tonal register of die
speech and its melodic rise and fa ll In that moment it is as if our acquaintance
comes alive within us, whether he or she is far away or nearby, alive or already
passed away.4
In addition Janafek also saw language as having a communal aspect, a
nationalist dimension. Each speech melody (ndpeoek mluvy; plural ndpevky) was
an expression of the soul of the Czech people. In a feuilleton from 1918 for the
newspaper Lidove ncnriny, Jan££ek compares the sound of Czech and German
speech melody and he explores the issue of what the intonation of the individual
languages says about the spirit of the people.5 There was no contradiction for the
composer in these seemingly divergent ideas, language as individual expression
and as voice to the Czech spirit. His comments on the m atter do little to shed
light on the matter; on the contrary, they seem only to obscure it all the more.
Intonation had a personal meaning for Jan££ek. The following quote by
Max Brod, a long-time friend of Jan££ek's and an unflagging champion of his
music, distills the essence of the composer's obsession with speech melody and
his inclination to conflate the "speech melodies" of animals with those of
humans:
Once of an evening I walked through Kinsky Park with the master. Jan££ek had
become friends with a sim ple nutrition tax official, because this man so loved the
birds and the bird calls in die park and knew them as he did, because on his brief
visits to Prague he had already made his own little piece of nature strewn in die
midst of urban blight We were talking about som ething...suddenly Jan&ek
pulls out his notebook, scribbles five lines that could appear only to a musician
as parallel straight lines or something like that and dabs in little heads into this
4 Leo$ Jandfek, "Smetana's Daughter," Janacek's Uncollected Essays on Music, trans. and ed. Mirka
Zemanov& (London, New York: Marion Boyars, 1989), 55-56.
5 Janafek, "Moravany! Morawaan!" Essays, 39-44. jan&ek compares the sound of Czech speech
m elody to that of German.
skewed staff. That is, he explains, the very interesting musical expression of our
present question and answer, on this particular evening, in this particular mood.6
Contemporary Czech author Milan Kundera has treated the subject of
Jan££ek's theory of speech melody in his essay "A la Recherche du Present
Perdu" from a collection of his essays entitled Testaments Betrayed.7 He writes of
Jan£dek striving to capture the essence of a fleeting moment, the truth of an
utterance, that is here and gone immediately:
The search for the vanished present; the search for the melodic truth of a
moment; the wish to plumb by that means the mystery of the immediate reality
constantly deserting our lives, which thereby becomes the thing we know least
about This, I think, is the ontological import of Jan££ek's studies of spoken
language and, perhaps, the ontological import of all his music.8
Here is a variation on a thought that author developed in his Book of Laughter and
Forgetting, where he wrote of the fragile and ephemeral character of memory and
how we persist in trying to recreate memories, invariably in vain.9 This is the
crux of Janafek's obsession with speech melody: it was an attempt to seize the
m oment and retain it in all its immediacy and tangibility. He was seeking the
poetry of the present. Of course this perceived permanence through careful
documentation was illusory, but it was w hat prodded the composer to conduct
his activities.
6 Max Brod, from Stemenhimmel (Munich, 1923), as quoted in Heinz-Klaus Metzger and Rainer
Riehn, eds., Musik-Konzepte 7: Leos fandcek (Munich: Johannesdruck Hans Pribil KG, 1979), 41.
7 Milan Kundera, Testaments Betrayed: A n Essay in Nine Parts, trans. Linda Asher (New York:
Harper Collins, 1995).
8 Ibid., 138.
9 Milan Kundera, Kniha smichu a zapomneni (The Book of Laughter and Forgetting) (Toronto:
Sixty-Eight Publishers, 1981).
5
Jan££ek's preoccupation with speech melody was preceded by an equally
strong interest in the folk songs of his homeland, particularly those of Moravia
and Slovakia. He undertook ethnographic studies in earnest in the late 1880s,10
about fifteen years before B6la Bart6k and Zolt&n Kod&ly began collecting
examples of Hungarian folk music. Jan££ek was scrupulous about being accurate
in the notation of folk songs and even wrote a manual, detailing the proper
m anner in which to collect folk melodies in the field. He stressed in the m anual
the necessity of the ethnographer recording as unobtrusively as possible the
songs in a natural environment.11
This conviction carried over into his notation of napevky. Usually, his
subjects did not know that their speech was being recorded. Jan&tek w anted to
remove the variable that might skew his results; if the people whose napevky he
was recording knew that their speech was being notated, they may have
modified their speech patterns (thereby rendering them less spontaneous).
Bedfich Smetana's daughter commented on the composer's activity as she saw
him recording some of her utterances from their conversation: "That interests me
very m uch."12 Jartafek was thrilled at having the opportunity to speak w ith her
and he tells her that if she has inherited anything from her father, then perhaps
10 In the 1890s he collaborated variously with FrantiSek BartoS, FrantiSka K y selk o v & , and Hynek
Bim.
11 The pamphlet was published in the spring of 1906 and was entitled "Sbir&me £eskou ndrodni
piseh na Moravg a ve Slezsku" (How to Collect Czech National Folksong in Moravia and SQesia).
12 This appears in a 1924 feuilleton by JandCek for Lidaoe naviny, as quoted in Jan Racek, et aL,
eds., Fejetony z Lidooych naoin (Feuilletons from Lidaoe naviny) (Bmo: Krajskg nakladatelstvi
v Bmg, 1958), 98.
6
even his m anner of speaking.13 W hen she later quotes her father (speaking about
his opera Hubicka [The Kiss], "Someday this all will be appreciated"), Janidek
writes her quote in musical notation and notes below:
In this utterance, the quoting of Smetana's words, I hear the man himself. Bedfich
Smetana probably spoke this way. Maybe emotionally; in hope of die future success of
his work. A tiny excerpt of the maestro’s speech, carried into our time by his daughter
with the truth of an instant idea. The range of the maestro's speech w ould be an
octave lower; it would rest in the higher part of the grand octave. The rhythm of
even notes and the melodic contour would be authentic. I am pleased to have
this example.14
Here we come to the disparity between Janafek in theory and in practice.
He writes of the importance of accurately recording the contours and inflections
of Czech and even advocates the compilation of a dictionary of Czech speech
melodies, a sort of linguistic thematic catalog:
We need a book on the ordinary melodic curves of speech in order to preserve

the sound of the Czech language for future generations. It would be a dictionary
in notes of the living Czech language, which would contain melodic phrases for
everything which die Czech language is able to express.15
If we were take Jan££ek at his word, we might assume that the napevky that he
notated are all faithful representations of speech he heard in a variety of different
social situations. This would have to be the case for the dictionary to be able "to
preserve the sound of the Czech language for future generations." Yet certain of
the napevky that Jan££ek recorded do not conform to prosodic and intonational
conventions of Czech.16 Some examples appear to have been altered to make
them more musical. The incongruity of Jan££ek's theoretical idealization of
13 LeoS JaniCek in Bohumir Stedroft, ed., Leos Janacek: Letters and Reminiscences, trans. Geraldine
Thomsen (Prague: Artia, 1955), 98.
14 Ibid., 101. Italics are Jan&ek's own.
15 Ibid., 91-92.
161 w ill address this issue in Chapter Four.
speech melody and its practical manifestation in his notebooks is one of the
contradictions in the composer's life.
In fact, Janafek was a man of many paradoxes. He treated his characters
with an understanding and compassion that at times was lacking in his personal
dealings with those around him; he was a cosmopolitan international composer
and at the same time a provincial organ school teacher; he was a proud Moravian
who long sought acclaim among Bohemians and worked tirelessly to get
performances of his works in Prague; he was a nationalist Czech w ho erected his
aesthetic theory based upon the writings of Germans such as Wilhelm Wundt,
Robert Zimmermann, and Johann Herbart;17 he juxtaposed a quasi-scientific
objectivity with his lyrical and poetic musings about speech melody and music
theory.18
Who was Janafek as a person? Every writer paints a somewhat different
picture. Some authors have a solemn and reverent, almost uncritical view of the
man as an icon of Czech culture.19 Others note strife in his personal life and
difficulty in his dealings with others, perhaps influenced by his abandonm ent as
a child to the vagaries of life in the monastery.
17 Michael Beckerman, Janacek as Theorist, Studies in Czech Music, voL 3 (Stuyvesant, NY:
Pendragon Press, 1994), 15-24.
18 For example, the Hipp's chronoscope readings that he notated with his speech melodies and
his citations of German psychologists as the basis for his theoretical propositions. The Hipp's
chronoscope was a chronometer that JandCek often used to measure very short lengths of time.
The German town name "Morawaan" was pronouced by the station agent 0.386 seconds shorter
than die Czech name "Moravany."
19Jaroslav Vogel and Jan Racek are two examples.
8
The young Jan££ek show ed considerable promise as a musician and it was
partly for that reason that he was sent to Brno so that he could have a good
education. At age eleven he was sent by his father to study a t the Augustinian
Monastery, where he had a hard life and often had to take care of himself.
With a piece of chalk, I drew the piano key-board on die table, and in this way
my fingers learned to play the notes of Bach's Preludes and Fugues. It was painful,
I was dying for the living sounds. Hire a piano? Where would I get the money?
[...] And how often [Ferdinand Lehner, die first chaplain of Karlin church and
editor of Cyril magazine] took my hungry self out to a good dinner. Lunch at the
Konvikt restaurant cost 25 kreuzers. My landlady gave me breakfast free. Heating
in winter? I used surreptiously to open the door of the neighbouring room from
where a litde heat would steal through.20
He led a spartan life, and worked hard from morning until evening. O n the other
hand, Jana£ek developed at the monastery a strong work ethic, which remained
him the rest of his life and impelled him to develop thoroughly his considerable
musical gifts.
It may have not been until the monumental success of Jenufii in Brno in
1904 that Jan££ek began to think of himself primarily as a composer. He started
his career as a teacher, following in the footsteps of his father, who was
schoolmaster in his hometown of Hukvaldy. On 25 November 1872 he was
appointed a provisional assistant teacher of the preparatory school of the
Teacher's Training Institute in Brno, becoming a full teacher of music on 14 May
1880 at the age of 25.21 Feeling that he still had more to learn, he was reluctant to
devote himself completely to teaching; when he was in his late twenties he was
still taking leaves of absence to study at various conservatories in central
20 Jan&fek in B. Stedrofi, ed., Letters, 26.

21 Ibid., 29.
9
Europe—in Brno, Prague, Leipzig, and Vienna. A report from Jan££ek's teachers
on at the Leipzig Conservatory (12 December 1879) are for the most part glowing
in their praise of the student's aptitude and sedulousness. Here are several
excerpts:
Theory and Composition: Extraordinarily gifted, a serious and hard-working pupil

who shows remarkable progress. (Oskar Paul)
Piano playing: A very able, intelligent, and hard-working pupil, who has made
very good progress which leads us to expect die most gratifying results horn him
in the near future. (E. S. Wenzel)
Organ playing: Has proved himself not only to have talent but also diligence. I am
very satisfied with him and would like to see him given every possibility of
finishing his studies, to which he devotes himself with unusual earnestness, so
that he may achieve real excellence in the future. (Dr. Rust)
Singing: Attends rarely. (Karl Reinecke)22
In the 1880s and 1890s he conducted his ethnographic studies, while continuing
to teach. His success as a composer roughly corresponds to the beginning of his
interest in speech melody at the turn of the century.
He was an im petuous student, not afraid to criticize publicly or question a
teacher or other authority figure. For this reason, Jan££ek fell into disfavor with
some of his teachers. In his classes at the conservatory in Leipzig, he sometimes
purposely included mistakes in his composition exercises and when they w ent
undetected, his contempt for careless teachers grew. In Vienna he subm itted a
violin sonata into a competition, but the piece was not selected to win the
competition as it was deem ed too academic. He lodged a formal protest, stating
22 Ibid., 37.
10
in the strongest possible terms that he felt that his work was superior to that of
other entrants:
As for me, I am left with my conviction that my sonata is, nevertheless, the best
piece that was entered. The works were not looked over by die commission, they
were simply played one after another, from three in the afternoon until six
o'clock, and then judged. When I was working on my Sonata, I was mainly
concerned with constructing a good exam ple of sonata form which would be
carried through to a convincing end. The other sonatas had only one movement
complete and none of these were in sonata form. I do not mention the word
technique, but this made no difference to the commission, for there was not a
single expert on composition among them. What next? As a musician who
respects himself, I must either write to die Director, assuring him that I can
analyse and point out the mistakes o f all works which were sent in, or else,
dearest Zdenfi, I cannot bring m yself to continue here under such conditions. To
receive a report from such a Director sim ply makes my blood boil.23
The propensity toward brutal honesty that complicated Jan££ek's
academic career also caused him trouble in his professional life. In an acerbic
review for Hudebrri listy in 1887 of Karel Kovafovic's opera Zenichaoe (The
Bridegrooms), Jana£ek does not mince words:
Which tune has stuck in your mind? —. Which motif, at least? —. In what way is
this opera dramatic? I would not say "an opera, music by," but "with music
accompanying a comedy by Mach££ek, etc." The libretto and the music are
independent of each other. Write a new operetta to the former, and for m usic—a
drama of a sort, full of awful gloom, desperate cries, a drama stuck through with
daggers.
Hence this strange phenomenon: Mach££ek's (rather than Kovafovic's)

Bridegrooms makes you break into laughter several times.
Musical talent is borne out in the overture, and die undulations of chords and
keys: this is what will properly deafen you.24
As m ight be expected, this review did not endear the Moravian composer to his
Bohemian counterpart, who had one year previously written, for the same
magazine, a fervid paean to Jan££ek's conducting ability at the jubilee concert of
23 Jan££ek, in a letter of 28 May 1880 to Zdenka Schulz (who was to become his wife a year later),
quoted in B. Stedroft, Letters, 39.
24 LeoS Jan&ek, Essays, 149.
11
the Bmo Beseda.25 In a bitter irony for the opinionated Jand£ek, Kovafovic was
appointed director of opera at Prague National Theater in 1900 and remained in
the post for twenty years. Kovafovic, still stinging from Jan££ek's acerbic
criticism almost two decades before, refused to accept the score of Jenufa for
performance at the National Theater when Janifek sent it in 1904. Jan££ek longed
for the recognition of his fellow countrymen in the capital of his homeland.
Although he was a most im portant cultural figure in fin-de-siecle Bmo, he had
yet to make his debut in the National Theater, which w ould have been proof
positive of his having arrived as a composer of note and m arked his entrance
onto the international stage.
After the trium phant premiere of Jenufa in Bmo in January 1904, which
earned him critical acclaim as well as public success, Jan££ek wrote to the very
man whose work he had publicly denounced seventeen years earlier. His hand
m ust have shaken as he wrote the cover letter that accompanied the score. Not
surprisingly, Kovafovic rejected the submitted score; w ithout even troubling
himself to answer Jan££ek directly, Kovafovic let it be know n through an
intermediary that it was his view that the work was unsuitable for performance
and the reason given was that of the technical incompetence of the composer.26
This must have m ade Janifek seethe, for his technical skills were beyond
reproach. He had spent years honing his compositional technique, as well as
25 B. Stedroft, Letters, 44.

26 John Tyrrell, ed. fandcek's Operas: A Documentary Account (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 1992), 50.
other musical skills, studying with renow ned and talented teachers at
conservatories in central Europe. Of course it was not technical competence that
prevented acceptance of Jenufa for performance at the National Theater, but
rather Kovafovic's resentment of Jan££ek's unfavorable review. It was a long
twelve years that Jan^fek had to wait before his Pastorkyna saw its first
performance at the National Theater on 26 May 1916.27
Janafek did not get along well with his wife Zdenka for most of their
marriage, and even less so with his father-in-law, who was the director of the
Teacher's Training Institute and an Austrian sympathizer and who saw Jan££ek
as a nationalist zealot.28 After a particularly trying period of marital strife,
Zdenka left her husband to live with her parents, only to return after a year.
Zdenka, who was a mere fifteen years old w hen she took her wedding vows,
may have imagined marriage to be more rosy than she later found it to be. The
two had little in common and Jandfek's volatile temperament did little to sm ooth
over friction at home. The births of their children were a boundless joy to them,
27 After the success of the opera in Bmo, Jan££ek wrote back to Kovafovic, allowing that the score
needed certain adjustments and Kovafovic then promised to come to Bmo to attend a
performance of Jenufa, and finally did so after Jan££ek had sent him nine invitations. (Jandfek
probably did not think that the work needed changes, but merely claimed to agree with
Kovafovic in the name of political expediency. As strong-minded as Janifek was, he was able to
hold his tongue if he thought it would help his career.) Even after seeing Pastorkyna in person,
Kovafovic still refused to stage it accepting only after Jan&ek had agreed to several revisions of
the score. In a letter of 10 December 1915, JanaCek write to K ovafovic "Mrs. Calma-Veseld
[writer, pianist, and singer; acquaintance of Jan&ek's] sent me a letter which certainly cheered
me. How could I not accept suggestions from you for possible cuts! You can be assured that I w ill
accept diem thankfully. Whatever you think fit w ill hold good. Moreover, I ask you kindly to
make these corrections!...]" quoted in Tyrrell, Jandcek's Operas, 74.
28 B. Stedroft, in the introduction to Letters, 8-9.
13
but unfortunately both children, Olga and Vladimir, died prematurely (at the
ages of twenty and two, respectively).
The death of his daughter in February 1903 was the final blow for the
composer and thereafter he in effect gave up on a happy home life, even though
he was at least as m uch to blame for that as his wife.29 In the summer of 1917
Jan&fek met Kamila Stosslovci, a wom an w ho was to have a profound effect on
his life. Immediately he shared with her his unhappiness:
Dear Madam! Luhafovice, 24. 7.1917

We walked together, people envied u s—and you spoke of your domestic bliss—
and I of my misfortune. Be well!
LeoS Jan&Hek30
A decade later he is much more direct
My darling! Prague, 25.4.1927
[...] I would be pleased if the road did not have an end; eagerly I awaited the
words that you whispered: What would I do if you were my wife? Well, I think
of you as if you were my wife. It is not enough to just think that, and yet I would
drown in the rays of a hundred suns! I think it and I will not stop thinking it Do
with this letter and with my confession as you will. Bum it or n o t All of this
gives me life. Even thoughts can be made real. Be well! Yours31
It is important to keep in mind the events in Jan£fek's life, some which bear upon
his motivations for studying speech intonation.
There have been forays into the world of speech melody by other
composers and musical traditions. The ancient regilaul (runesong) of Estonia is
associated with the intonation and prosody of the Estonian language. Swedish
29 Milena Cem ohorski, Leos Jandcek (Prague: Stttni hudebni vydavatelstvi, 1966), 16-17.
30 LeoS Janifek in Svatava Pfib4rtov4, ed., Hadanka zivota: dopisy Leose Janacka Kamile Stosslooe (The
Mystery of a Life: The Letters of Leos Jan££ek to Kamila Stosslovd) (Bmo: Opus musicum, 1990),
13.
31 LeoS Jan4£ek in Pfib£Aov£, Hadanka zivota, 200-201. By this time, JanAfek was using the familiar
pronoun with Kamila, indicating the closeness of their relationship.
composer Ture Rangstrom (1884-1947) set Swedish poems to the intonational
contours that an expressive reading would render. The stylized vocal technique
of Sprechstimme, found in Pierrot lunaire by Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951), is
characterized by speechlike traits. Steve Reich (b. 1936) m ade use of speech
patterns in his recent reflective piece Different Trains. Jan££ek's interest in speech
melody is unique in that he m ade a detailed study of the subject.
Earlier models exist. Beethoven's use of the "Mufi es sein?" and "Es mufi
sein!" motives in the opus 135 string quartet in F Major suggests itself as a
precursor to Jan££ek's use of speech melody in his compositions. Haydn's opus
51 string quartet (Die sieben letzen Worte Jesu Christe) sets the German versions of
Jesus's final sentences.32Jan££ek himself wrote of the declamations (which, for all
their melodiousness, sound like authentic speech fragments) of Parisian
merchants in Charpentier's opera Louise and even in Musorgsky.33 He says of
Musorgsky and his use of Russian speech melodies: "Neznd jejich krdsu, nebo(
jinak by pfi nich byl zustal!" (He doesn't recognize their beauty, because otherwise
he would have stayed with them!).34 A yet earlier example is Orlando Gibbons's
"The Cries of London," from his collection Madrigalls and Mottets (1612), for
which the composer set various street cries as a madrigal for viols and five
voices. The effect is uncannily realistic.
32 Haydn was consciously setting die prosody of the text The words are printed in the score
under the first violin part
33Jaroslav Vogel, Leos Jandcek, reprint of 1963 edition (Prague: Academia, 1997), 15.
34 Ibid.
In the last two decades there has been an increasing international interest
in Janafek's music, particularly in the operas, where the roles are now almost
always performed in the original language. This movement has been led by the
British conductor Charles Mackerras, who makes every effort to be faithful to
Jan^fek's original intent (to the extent that a composer's design can be divined at
all), and who has conducted some quite convincing performances often based on
restored original versions. His recording of Jenufa was the first to include the
portions that were excised by Karel Kovafovic for the 1916 National Theater
debut. There is also a recent book published on Czech diction and vocal
repertoire for foreigners.35 The book teaches Czech pronunciation with lines from
some of the great works of the Czech repertoire such as Smetana's Jenik aria
from The Bartered Bride, Dvofdk's Biblical Songs, and Jan££ek's Zdpisnik zmizeleho.
Czech vocal works, long neglected in international performances because of the
difficulty of the language and the inherent problems with translations, seem now
to be coming into their own.
Virtually every musicological study written on Jan££ek, no m atter what
the specific topic of discourse, has touched upon the com poser's proclivity for
notating the pitch contours and rhythms of random utterances, which he studied
and about which he w rote num erous feuilletons. In addition to Czech and
German, he also recorded Russian and English speech melodies, some on his
35 Timothy Cheek, Singing in Czech: A Guide to Czech Lyric Diction and Vocal Repertoire (London:
Scarecrow, 2001).
various journeys to Russia and England, others in his native Czechoslovakia.
This passion for writing down the speech of those around him absorbed him for
thirty-one years of his life (the oldest notebooks that we have date from 1897)
and it would be reasonable to imagine that it might manifest itself in some way
in his compositions.
However, studies that treat the subject in any detail are scarce indeed.
Milena Cemohorsk£ wrote an article on the subject in a 1957 issue of Casopis
Moravskeho Muzea, in which she considers the issue of the provenance of
Janafek's theory of speech melody and argues that the roots for the composer's
interest extend back to 1887 and his ethnographic activities recording folksongs
with FrantiSka K v s e lk o v d and Hynek Bim.36 She also devotes several pages to the
topic in her biography of Jancidek.37 Paul Wingfield has three pages about word
setting in his book on the Glagolitic Mass he and comes to the conclusion that
Jan&fek set the text according to the rules of "naturalistic Czech," rather than the
rules than govern Old Church Slavonic prosody.38 Milo§ Stedroft writes of speech
melody in direct discourse in Janafek's operas and argues that the composer's
long-term interest in speech melody had a definite and direct impact on his
36 Milena Cemohorska, "K problematice vzniku JaniCkovy theorie n£p£vku [On the Question of
the Provenance of JaniCek's Theory of Speech M elody]/' Casopis Moravskeho Muzea, vol. 42 (1957):
165-177. There is also an unpublished dissertation by the same author that deals with Jan4£ek and
speech melody on file at Masaryk University, Bmo.
37 Milena Cemohorska, Leos jandcek (Prague: Statni hudebni vydavatelstvi, 1966), 24-29.
38 Paul Wingfield, jandcek: Glagolitic Mass (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 113.
Wingfield does not specify whether the text is set according to prosodic principles of standard
literary Czech or some dialect of die language.
compositional style.39 He supports his claim by pointing out the gradual increase
in the incidence and importance of speech melody in Jan&dek's operas.40 John
Tyrrell takes a contrary view, arguing that speech melody was not so im portant
for the composer as had been previously assumed.41 In his book Czech Opera,
Tyrrell discusses in detail issues of Czech prosody as they bear on the text setting
of Czech composers Bedfich Smetana, Richard RozkoSny, and LeoS Jan^fek.42
There is clearly m uch work to be done in this area. This present study
attem pts to partially fill this gap and in doing so will bring to bear contemporary
linguistic research in intonation as well as musicological sources. I present a
theory of how Jan££ek set text, and to this end I examine selected vocal works
and operas as examples. Through m y own analysis of Jan&Cek's text settings,
based on research in linguistic theory, I arrive at a reasonable theory of how the
composer set text to heighten dramatic effect.
The trajectory of this dissertation gradually leads us from the general to
the specific. In Chapter Two Janafek's preoccupation with speech intonation is
contextualized in broader issues of language and identity in the Czech lands.
Jana£ek saw himself as the guardian of his language, as a sort of curator of his
39 MiloS StedroA, "Direct discourse and speech-m elody in Janifek's operas," Jandcek Studies, ed.
and trans. Paul Wingfield (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 79-108.
40Ibid., 80.
41 John Tyrrell, "Jandiek and the speech-melody myth," Musical Times voL 111, no. 1530 (1970):
793-796.
42 John Tyrrell, Czech Opera (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988). Chapter 8, entitled
"Czech, metre and word-setting," is a rather thorough overview of metrical aspects of language
in Czech opera libretti. There is no discussion devoted to into national aspects of the language,
however.
nation's cultural and historical legacy. Of course, his notion of a "pure" Czech
was a chimera that could never be realized. In his time a significant num ber of
Czech words had already come into the language from German (chiefly
colloquialisms, but also some standard Czech words). Josef Jungmann, a
prom inent figure of the 19th-century national "awakening" [obrozeni], actually
invented words that he created by adapting Slavic words (from Polish, Russian,
Old Slavonic) to Czech. Today there are m any words from English and other
European languages.
Borders of language are often blurred and disputed. There is a certain
inherent difficulty in speaking of a "Czech," "Polish," or "Slovak" language,
particularly in the nineteenth century. Over time, some languages and dialects
have become standardized; others have gradually changed or disappeared
altogether. In recent decades m odem media have done much to standardize
certain linguistic forms. Throughout most of Jan££ek's lifetime, there was a good
deal of cross-pollination between different languages and dialects, even
seemingly incongruous ones such as Czech and German.
In Chapter Three I review research in linguistics (both recent and of
Jarietfek's time), specifically speech intonation of the Czech language. This is
necessary in order to determine to what extent that vocal lines in Jan££ek's music
and the ndpevky in his notebooks adhere to linguistic principles that guide
normal speech. I survey research that treats aspects of intonation and prosody,
concentrating on the Czech language. In this regard, books by Neil Bermel,
FrantiSek DarteS, Jaroslav Durych, and Duncan Gardiner will be of particular
interest.43
Chapter Four contains my linguistic analysis of some of the speech
melodies in Jandfek's notebooks; I argue that certain of them are not in fact
exemplars of Czech speech, but instead "musicalized" versions of utterances that
Jan&fek heard. It has long been assumed that the many notebooks (and even
several shirt cuffs) that Jan£fek left to posterity contain representative examples
of everyday Czech speech. The composer himself claimed as much.44 Of course it
is tem pting to think that the speech melody examples in these notebooks provide
valuable insight into Czech prosody, but close examination of the entries reveals
som ething different. While some of the melodies seem to be close representations
of spoken statements and questions (as close as possible within the limits of
standard musical notation), others are clearly not, and are more likely evidence
of Jan&fek's inclination to alter certain napevky in order to make them more
musical, as opposed to merely recording them w ithout alteration. In these cases
the speech likely provided the inspiration for Jan^fek's fertile musical
imagination.
43 These books are N eil Bermel, Register Variation and Language Standards in Czech (Munich:
Lincoln Europa, 2000); FrantiSek DaneS, Intonace a veto ve spisovne cestine (Intonation and the
Sentence in Literary Czech), first ed. (Prague: Nakladatelstvf CeskosIovensk6 akademie v£d,
1957); Jaroslav Durych, Rytmus ceske prdzy (The Rhythm of Czech Prose) (Olomouc: Votobia,
1992); and Duncan B. Gardiner Intonation and Music: The Semantics of Czech Prosody (Bloomington,
IN: Physsart, 1980).
44 Jan&ek's unrealized intention to publish a compendium of Czech speech melodies testifies to
his conviction that the totality of his recorded speech m elodies would constitute an accurate
picture of the sounds of his language.
In Chapter Five I present m y analysis of the music-text relationship in
selected vocal works of Jan££ek's ceuvre. Milan Kundera states that there is no
recitative in Jan££ek's operas,45 but this is misleading. Granted, in his operas,
there is no recitative of the sort found in a Mozart opera, but there are passages
m arked "Recit." that are meant to be recited ad libitum by the singer. The
recitative found for instance in Jenufa is not as clearly delineated from the rest of
the music as it is in a Mozart opera, where aria and recitative are discrete and
clearly delineated m odes of expression. With Jan&fek, the singing style is more
arioso, and so the boundary between the two is blurred. The nature of speech
melody as manifested in Jana£ek's works is the topic of Chapter Five.
The Conclusions chapter draw s the strands together and provide a review
of the significance of speech melody for Janifek.
The thesis of this dissertation is two-fold. First, the notebooks do not
constitute a simple repository of actual Czech speech melodies, but rather were a
source of inspiration for his musical imagination. I provide analyses based on
linguistic theory of various examples from JarUifek's notebooks. Second, at
certain points of dram a in his vocal works Jan££ek strove to set text
naturalisticallv, i.e., to reproduce in his scores the approximate pitch contours
and rhythm s of Czech speech. I examine the opera Jenufa (1904, rev. 1916), which
was Jan££ek's first commercially successful effort in the genre, the song cycle
Zdpisnik zmizeleho (The Diary of One Who Disappeared, 1919), and the cantatas
45 Kundera, 135.
Elegie na smrt dcery Olgy (Elegy of the Death of Daughter Olga, 1903) and Amarus
(1897). In selecting these pieces, I have attempted to cover a spectrum with
regard to chronology, subject matter, and genre.
Besides engaging the issue numerous times in feuilletons for the
newspaper Lidove rwviny, authoring a book on the speech melodies of children
and penciling copious notes into the margins of books in his library that deal
with the topic, Janafek also deemed it of utm ost import that he record in musical
notation the melody of his dying daughter's final words.46 For these reasons,
Jan&£ek's obsession w ith speech melody is clearly not something to be
disregarded or considered unim portant to his creative process as John Tyrrell has
argued 47 In this dissertation I take the opposite view and in doing so will engage
Tyrrell's specific claims directly.
461 address the significance of this in Chapter Four.

47 See note 17.
22
CHAPTER TWO
23
CHAPTER TWO; LANGUAGE AND IDENTITY IN THE CZECH LANDS
Speech melody calls for a Czech in the bosom of his land; it calls for his life,
rolling through the centuries with equal sorrow and harshness. [...] It is the
vigour of broad fields and the worthlessness of the dust, dark ages and the spark
of a thousandth fraction of one single second!1
—LeoS Jan&ek
The speech melody of the Czech language was central to Janifek's sense
of national identity. Language is a pivotal issue in the formation of any nation's
collective identity. This is particularly true of groups w ith a minority status
within a political entity, such as Czechs under the H apsburg Empire or Slovaks
in Czechoslovakia. I employ the term "Czech nation"2 in a broad sense to refer to
Czech speakers living with Bohemia or Moravia who consider themselves
members of a common political a n d /o r ethnic group. The reality is of course
much more complex, and questions of nationality are inherently complicated.
In order to understand why Jan££ek seems so consum ed with issues of
language, and its concrete manifestations of speech, we m ust first explore the
1 LeoS Jan££ek, "Moravany! Morawaan!" jandcek's Uncollected Essays on Music, trans. and ed.
Mirka Zemanova (London, New York; Marion Boyars, 1989), 42. The "thousandth of a second"
that he refers to has to do with the readings that Janifek frequently took of speech melodies on
his Hipps chronoscope, an instrument for measuring very small time durations.
2 Of the general concepts of nation and nationalism, Donald Larmouth says: "It should be clear at
the outset that these factors [forming a sense of national identity] are collective perceptions rather
than 'facts' —they are part of the mythology of the people and have the same pervasive power. A
sense of ethnocultural unity depends upon a shared perception of a glorious past [...]
Nationalism must establish a sense of rational continuity with die past, and national leaders
selectively identify those elements of the past which best authenticate and support present
designs." (Donald Larmouth, "Does Linguistic Heterogeneity Erode National Unity?" Ethnicity
and Language, ed. Winston van Home [Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin System
Institute of Race and Ethnicity, 1987], 38.)
Reproduced with permission o f the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
intimate connection between language and nationality, w ith particular reference
to Eastern Europe. A discussion of the history and culture of a nation as they
bear on its sense of self will necessarily take us som ewhat afield from our
examination of more specific issues of speech melody. However, this seeming
detour leads us more directly on the path toward understanding Jan££ek's
preoccupation. We will first consider the phenomenon of nationalism in the
Czech lands and its effect on Czechs' concept of shared identity. We then place
the Czech language in the broad context of the historical events that led up to
and helped shape the nationalist revival in the nineteenth century. This chapter
sets the stage for subsequent discussion of the nationalist elements of Janiifek's
speech melody theory.
The language of a people is inextricably intertwined with their culture and
sense of identity. Culture is a shared set of customs and beliefs that provide the
members of a society with a sense of belonging. Fierce battles are fought for
linguistic autonomy. One example is the case of Anglophones living in Quebec.
Another case in point is that of the sizable Hungarian minority living in Slovakia.
For a millennium Hungarians enjoyed hegemony over Slovaks, whom they
subjected to systematic Magyarization in an attem pt to rub out their culture and
assimilate them completely into Magyar society. When the tides turned at the
end of World War I and borders were being redrawn, some Hungarians fell
under the authority of the new Czechoslovak state—the same process began
25
again with reversed roles.3 Of course conscious attempts to eliminate the culture
and language of another group of people have rarely been successful.
To be sure, language has played a significant, not to say pivotal role in
virtually all questions of identity, but in the case of the Slovaks, it seems to be a
sort of mistaken identity. Slovaks see their language as distinct from any other.
However, the similarity between Czech and Slovak is so self-evident, that
scholars have differed as to w hether they are in fact two discrete languages or
only dialects of the same language.4 Consider the following sentence, rendered in
both languages:
Figure 2.1: Sentence in Czech and Slovak
Skoda, ie sa nevyjadril konkrgtne o akii pomoc mu ide.—Slovak

Skoda, ie se nevyjadfil konkr£tn£ o jakou pomoc mu jde.—Czech
(It's too bad that he didn't specify what kind of help he was looking for.)
The two versions are virtually identical. Although I selected this example
especially to make my point, the similarity between these two sentences is typical
of the degree to which the languages resemble each other. Granted, there are
phonological, morphological, and lexical points of dissimilarity between Czech
3 In recent years the government of Slovakia under Vladimir Metiar has enacted several
draconian language laws, including requiring the use of the Slovak language in all official and
everyday situations and the mandatory appending of the Slovak -ova ending to Hungarian
womens' names.
4 Jaromir B£li£, Pfehled ndfea ceskeho jazyka (Overview of Dialects of the Czech Language) (Prague:
Stcitni pedagogickd nakladatelstvi, 1971), 4. "[NJektere jevy pfiznacne pro cestinu nebo aspon pro
zrychodnejsi ndfea ceskeho jazyka zasahuji od zdpadu vice nebo mene hluboko do oblasti slovenske. Ruzne
tzto diferencni znaky (viz o nich nize) a jejich hranice vznikly ramez v prubehu dfmejsiho vyooje, nektere
kofeni az v dobach pfedMstorickych. Je pfitom zajtmtme, ze se hranice (izoglosa) iadneho vyraznejsOw
ndrecntho jevu pine nekryje s hranicemi sfery ceskeho a sloroenskeho ndrodntho podoedomi."
26
and Slovak, but then such variations also exist between dialects of the same
language. In point of fact, a case can be made that there is more difference
between common Czech and the Silesian dialect of Czech, which borrows
heavily from the Polish language, then between M oravian Czech and Western
Slovak.5 The differences between the two languages, as evidenced by this brief
example, are often so trivial as to make Slovak insistence on subtitles for Czech
films and bilingual labels on Czech products seem absurd.6 But such is the nature
of the complex relationship between language and national identity and people's
willingness to go to extraordinary lengths to preserve and cultivate self-image as
defined by linguistic personality.
The historical case of the Slovaks has deep resonances for Moravians such
as Jan££ek, who have tended to feel marginalized by Bohemians. For the greater
part of the millennium, Prague has dominated the history and culture of the
Czech lands. For an artist or intellectual to be successful, he m ust be recognized
and anointed by Prague. Jan££ek was irritated at having to achieve acclaim
abroad before being recognized in Bohemia. Jan££ek's sentiment was expressed
by the following unsigned report for Prager Tagblatt (15 January 1926):
Jan&ek's Sdrka, which recently won a decisive success at its premiere in Bmo,
having lain unpreformed for about forty years, w as—as w e have heard—turned
down by the Prague National Theatre. This is die second tim e that Prague has
5 Derek Sayer, The Coasts o f Bohemia: A Czech History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
1998), 111. "It was evident to [nineteenth-century Czech author and publisher Karel] Havlifek
that Czech and Slovak are sim ply dialects of one language in a w ay that, say, Czech and Russian
are not Then as now, Czech and Slovak were for die most part mutually intelligible, their
differences being not much greater than those between some Czech dialects themselves."
6 Requiring Slovak subtides for Czech films is akin to a Briton demanding British English
subtitles to Gone with the Wind.
not drawn the obvious conclusion from a Jan££ek success in Bmo. jenufa also
remained unperformed by Prague for many years when in Bmo it had already
become a repertory piece. It is astonishing, in die light of Jenufa’s international
success, that the Prague theatre management remains unable to learn its lessons.7
Three linguistic entities comprise the Slavic group: Southern Slavs
(Macedonians, Bulgarians, Serbs, Slovenes, Croatians); Eastern Slavs (Russians,
Byelorussians, Ukrainians); and W estern Slavs (Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, Sorbs).
These languages are largely m utually intelligible within each category and also,
to a lesser extent, from one category to another. The languages of the Western
Slav language group exhibit western, especially German, linguistic influences.
The Eastern Slavs can trace their languages more closely to their roots in Old
Slavonic.
For almost all of the last millennium, Slavs were subject to various
oppressive regimes: the Ottoman Empire, the Russian Czarist Empire, and the
Hapsburg (later Austrian) Empire. These empires were multiethnic and naturally
those people who did not speak the local official language had considerably less
power and influence than those w ho did. In the case of the Southern and
Western Slavs, the official languages of the empires that ruled them belong to
completely different linguistic groups (Turkish from the Altaic language
subfamily; German from the W est Germanic language subfamily), and most of
the citizens did not speak the official language well, if at all.
7 Tyrrell, ed., jandcek's Operas, 15. In die commentary to this letter, Tyrrell asserts that die
probable author was Jan&ek's friend Max Brod.
In the second half of the nineteenth century, m any nations and ethnic
groups in Europe experienced nationalist revivals. The Slavs were no exception,
and Slavic languages were infused with new life and joined to their written
traditions. This was in response to the unfortunate state of disrepair that many of
these languages had fallen into after centuries of foreign domination. In all cases
there was some creative reconstruction of languages and in some cases, spoken
dialects were codified and endowed with the status of literary languages, e.g.,
Bulgarian, Ukrainian, Slovene, and Slovak. I will say more about this presently.
Earlv History of the Czech Language
The Czech literary language has roots that reach into the ninth century
w ith the translation of a large part of the Bible into O ld Church Slavonic.
Liturgical texts in general (psalms, canons, prayers, etc.) played the most
im portant role in the development of what was to become the m odem Czech
language. The Legends that relate the story of the life of tenth-century St.
Wenceslas (svaty Vaclav) are partly in Czech. Thereafter literature in the Czech
lands was comprised largely of the Latin Chronica Boemorum (History of
Bohemia) by Cosmas of Prague (c. 1045-1125); and Czech hymns, such as the
oldest Hospodine, pomiluj ny (Kyrie eleison) and the Hussite hymn, Kdoz ste bozi
bojoonici (Ye Warriors of God),8 literature at court, epics, chronicles, and satirical
8 This hymn became an anthem of nationalism during the nineteenth century and it has been
quoted in Czech pieces as diverse as Bedfich Smetana's Md vlast (My Homeland) and Karel
Husa's Music far Prague 1968.
verse. The fourteenth-century epic Alexandras was a Czech version of the Latin
poem on life on Alexander the Great, written by Gautier de CMtillon, and the
earliest known secular work in Czech.
In the last years of the Pfemyslid dynasty at the end of the thirteenth
century, a number of political, social, an d economic changes led to an expansion
of the kingdom, and a resultant dissem ination of Czech as the language of
culture, law, and administration. Czech became even more w idespread in the
fourteenth century as an im portant language of learning and government.
Charles IV (1316-1378) ruled the Holy Roman Empire from 1355 until his death
and founded the Charles University (Univerzita Karlova) in Prague (with four
colleges: liberal arts, theology, law, and medicine) by decree on 7 April 1348. As a
result, Prague became an im portant center of learning and Czech began to
develop as a literary language. Charles University, which still offers instruction
in many programs of study, is the oldest university in central Europe.
Czech was adapted to the Latin alphabet, but certain sounds in the
language not represented by Roman letters were for centuries w ritten as
combinations of letters.9 This complicated reading and writing considerably. For
this reason Jan Hus, the famed theologian and Protestant reformer, codified the
language and standardized its orthography in a volume De Orthographia Bohemica
(1412) and his changes were widely adopted soon thereafter.
9 For instance, the sounds c, s, r, and a were written respectively as cz, sz, rz and aa. Some of these
combinations are still to be found in Polish (cz, sz, rz).
30
In the sixteenth century Jan Blahoslav, a bishop in Moravia, translated the
New Testament into Czech and Daniel Adam of Veleslavin contributed to the
lexicography of Czech. The Czech Brethren10 further modified spelling reforms
that Hus had begun. This group and other Czech humanists continued to
develop the language, using Latin as a m odel for syntax and usage. Dictionaries
and grammars were pivotal in the establishment and dissemination of lexical
changes. These works contained every know n word with its German, Latin, or
Greek equivalent, and taken together they constitute a history of evolution of the
language. Petr Cheldicky,11 a radical Protestant who was bom a generation after
Hus, inspired sixteenth-century scholars to translate the Kralickd bible (Kralice
Bible, 1579-94). This work was very influential as it was adopted as the standard
for literary Czech.
The didactic and pedagogical writings of Jan Amos Komensky (1592-1670)
were equally important.12 His Thesaurus linguae bohemicae was m eant to be a
definitive survey of the Czech language, but unfortunately the unfinished w ork
was alm ost completely destroyed in a fire in the author's hometown of LeSno.
10 The Unity of Czech Brethren (Jednota bratrskd) came together in the aftermath of the Hussite
Wars (mid-fifteenth century) as a Protestant denomination with their own priesthood and elected
bishops.
11 Hus's and ChelCicky's ideas found fertile ground in Martin Luther, who was to set in motion a
true Protestant Reformation a century later.
12 Komensky, also known as Comenius, was the last bishop of the Unity of Czech Brethren and
after the disastrous Battle of Bfli hora (White Mountain) in 1620, fled the Czech lands and lived
out the rest of his days in exile. BiM hora was the definitive end of Czech self-rule until the
independent state of Czechoslovakia was established on 28 October 1918, exactly two weeks
before die signing of the armistice of the First World War. Derek Sayer discusses the aftermath of
Bfl£ hora and what it meant for subsequent generations of Czechs in his Coasts of Bohemia (see
chap. 2, note 5 for full reference), in a chapter subheading aptly titled "Three Hundred Years We
Suffered."
31
Nonetheless, other works by Komenskv were influential, particularly Labyrint
sveta a raj srdce (Labyrinth of the World and Paradise of the Heart, 1631), which is
now considered one of the jewels of Czech prose. In addition he also authored in
1658 Orbis pictus, the first-ever illustrated children's book. Both of these works he
produced while in exile.
The event that caused Komenskv and many other Czech intellectuals to go
into exile was the Battle of Bfl£ hora (White Mountain). There had long been a
conflict between the largely Protestant Czechs and their Catholic German rulers;
over time the Czechs made many attempts to gain autonom y and freedom,
including two defenestrations from Prague castle, all ultimately in vain. The
pitched Battle of Bfla hora took place on 8 November 1620 and in the end the
forces Czech aristocracy were routed by the army of Hapsburg Emperor
Ferdinand II. Derek Sayer says of the long-term implications of the battle: "Bflei
hora sealed the fate of the Kingdom of Bohemia for the next three centuries; it
w as w ithout a doubt the m ost cataclysmic event in modem Czech history."13
Bom a year after the fateful Bflti hora, Bohuslav Balbin z Vorli£n6 (1621-
88) was a Catholic priest who took up the mantle of Czech patriotism. He wrote
two books of glosses on Bohemian history, he had a hand in the production of
the Saint Vaclav Bible (1677-1715), and wrote the polemic Defense o f the Slavonic
Language, in Particular Czech, which was supressed from being published until
13Sayer, Coasts o f Bohemia, 45.
32
1775—in Latin!—and a Czech translation had to wait another century. A famous
quote from that book is "Nedej zahynouti ndm i budoudm!" (Do not allow us or our
descendents to perish!).14
Nationalism and Language
Eighteenth century German philosopher Johann Gottfried von H erder
(1744-1803) perceived nations as entities that function much like families.15 As
siblings in an artificial family, members of a national group feel a certain
connection to and responsibility for other members and they define their self-
image partly by their perceived national identity, which is delim ited as m uch by
w hat they are not, as by w hat they are. The characterization of a nation as a
familial unit starkly contrasts the question of nationality with the notion of the
m odem state, which does not necessarily coincide with state boundaries, as the
case of the Czech lands has made painfully obvious. A person w ho considers
himself a member of a Czech nation could easily be judged by others (based on
ethnic, linguistic, and other determ ining factors) to be a German, Pole, or Slovak.
In addition to this positive function of identification, a society's culture
also serves to distinguish and set ap art its members from those of other social
14 Ibid., 49. Incidentally, the phrase has found its way into Czech currency—it is em bossed on the
obverse of die twenty-crown coin.
15 As summarized in H. Barry Nisbet, "Herder's Conception of Nationhood and its Influence in
Eastern Europe," The German Lands and Eastern Europe: Essays on the History of their Social, Cultural
and Political Relations, ed. Roger Bartlett and Karen Schdnwalder (New York: S t Martin's Press,
1999), 116. Incidentally, the Czech word for nation, ndrod, has connotations of ethnicity that are
not present in the English term and the root of the word is rod, which means birth. The word for
family (having the same root) is rodina.
groups. The Czech word Nemec (a German man) is derived from the adjective
nemy, meaning "mute," i.e., unable to speak the language. Although the
connection between these two words does not normally occur to Czechs, the
etymology of Nemec is clear, and its implications are telling. Because language is
so central to cultural identity, the Czech designation Nemec implies the meaning
"not one of us." Likewise the w ord nasinec (a native; fellow countryman) derives
from the w ord nds, meaning "ours." (Incidentally, these words are similar in
other Slavic languages.) These are just two examples of how language delineates
and justifies national boundaries.
Czechs take great pride in the beauty of their language and just as much
relish its inscrutability to outsiders. W hen a foreigner is able to learn the
language fluently, using correct gram m ar and speaking with little or no accent,
Czechs are usually astonished. They are surprised both because of the language's
dauntingly complex gram m ar16 and notoriously difficult pronunciation and of
the relative unim portant role their language plays on the world stage.17 Czechs
often ask incredulously, "Why did you bother?" Germans in the past have not
had to learn Czech because their political and economic position allowed them
the luxury of ignorance of the language. This does not apply to all Germans,
16 Czech is a highly inflected language, in which nouns alone fall under four different gender
categories, are governed by seven cases, and are further divided into hard and soft ending
groups.
17 There are only twelve million speakers of Czech as a first language (The World Almanac and Book
of Facts 2001, Mahweh, NJ: World Almanac Education Group, Inc., 2001; 301).
34
however. A fair num ber of Germanophones throughout history have spoken
Czech, some even fluently—one famous example is Franz Kafka.18
The collection of folksongs is also a nationalist activity; in 1819 Kazimierz
Brodzinski called for a Polish literary revival and for traditional folk songs to be
researched, compiled, and preserved as cultural artifacts.19 There were similar
movements in other proximate regions, for example Slovenia and Serbia. B6la
Bartbk and Zoltan Kod&ly systematically collected and notated examples of
Hungarian folk songs. Jan££ek did the same with M oravian and Slovak folk
songs with his collaborators FrantiSek BartoS, FrantiSka Kyselkov£, and Hynek
Bim. Those who engaged in this activity saw themselves as curators of a national
treasure.
During the nineteenth-century nationalist rebirth (ndrodni obrozeni),20 the
Czech language, which had languished in obscurity and had all but disappeared
except in the small towns and villages, was resuscitated and revitalized. This
renewed interest in the history and language has roots in the eighteenth-century
and two figures of the Enlightenment, Gelasius Dobner and Josef Dobrovsky,
18 Kafka asked his future lover (at this time still only an acquaintance), Milena Jesensfc, to write
him in Czech: "Certainly I understand Czech. I've meant to ask you several times why you don't
ever write to me in Czech. I'm not suggesting that you don't master German [...] But I wanted to
read you in Czech because it is part of you, because only there is the whole Milena (the
translation confirms it), whereas here is just one from Vienna or the one preparing herself for
Vienna. So Czech please." (Willi Haas, ed., Franz Kafka: Letters to Milena, (New York: Schoken,
1953), 24.)
19 Gerhard Ziegengeist, Helmut Grafihoff, and Ulf Lehmann, eds., J.G. Herder: Zur Rezeption in
Ost- und Sudosteuropa (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1978), 90, as quoted in H. Barry Nisbett,
"Herder's Conception of Nationhood and its Influence in Eastern Europe," The German Lands and
Eastern Europe: Essays on the History of their Social, Cultural and Political Relations, Roger Bartlett
and Karen Schonwalder, eds. (New York: S t Martin's Press, 1999), 128.
20 A more literal translation would be "national awakening."
who sought to codify Czech history by examining primary sources scientifically
and methodically in the best enlightenment traditions and in some cases
debunking long-standing m yths of history, such as the authenticity of the Prague
Fragment of the Gospel of Saint Mark, which was brought from Italy to Prague
by Charles IV in 1355 and thought to have been written by the apostle himself.21
In fact, Dobrovsky proved that the relic dated from the sixth century. Dobner
critically attacked the mistakes in a history by Vaclav H^jek of Libofany entitled
Kronika ceskd (Czech Chronicle, 1541), which had up to that time been considered
a reliable source.22 The actions of these two men were part of an Enlightenment
impulse to find the truth underneath the palimpsests of m yth and imagined
realities.
Dobrovsky wrote a history of the Czech language, a Czech gram m ar text,
and a two-volume dictionary.23 Dobrovsky's offerings were essential to the later
nationalist rebirth, as the literary Czech language had fallen into such disuse
after Bfl4 hora. Joseph II decreed that German be the sole official language in the
empire, including institutions of state and of higher education; in Prague,
German was substituted for Latin in 1784 as the official language of the
university. Despite the proliferation of grammars and dictionaries around this
time, the language and literature continued to suffer from the emigration of
21 Sayer, Coasts of Bohemia, 63.

22 Ibid.
23 These are, respectively, the History o f Czech Language and Literature (1** ed., 1792), Detailed
Grammar of the Czech Language (1809), and Czech-German Dictionary (1802,1821).
36
Protestant intelligentsia.24 As Germ an gained prominence as the language of
government and university and secondary education, Czech survived chiefly in
oral forms, such as poetry, fairy tales, folk songs, and liturgical chants. It was
clear to most that the H apsburg aristocracy, with nothing to gain from the
propagation of Czech, could not be expected to encourage the revival of that
language. Czech patriots had to take m atters into their own hands.
Bernard Bolzano (1781-1848), bom of an Italian immigrant father and a
Czech mother, was ordained as a priest, earned his doctorate in philosophy and
taught religion and mathematics. H e called attention to the current state of affairs
in Bohemia and raised issues of nationality and self-determination. He
commented insightfully (and boldly, for his ideas were considered dangerous by
many) about the polarizing effect linguistic difference had in his society between
the German-speaking haves and the Czech-speaking have-nots.25 He presents
some of the reasons for the suspicion and distrust between Czechs and Germans:
The greatest misfortune of our nation is that the parts from which it is composed
were not joined together into one voluntarily but for die most part by external
force, and that up to the present day the one part prospers to the detriment of the
other and vaunts itself over it! That die memory of the wrongs and injustices
perpetrated on grandfathers is preserved even by grandsons is understandable;
and the more so, when their results last up till now, nay, when new inequities are
always being heaped on top of the old. And this is really die case. Or perhaps
Germans and those who affiliate to diem are not still given precedence in a
thousand kinds of very important matters? Is not all higher education here
taught in the German language? Was not the German language elevated as the
language of state, in which all public business is transacted?...But still more: are
24 Besides Komensky, who was the m ost prolific and ambitious in his writings, other emigre
writers of die time included Jan Jifi Harant z Politic (wrote memoirs of his life in exile), Jifi
TFanovsky (wrote sacred poetry), Matej Janda Cechticky (wrote Angelis pestilmtialis to encourage
and lift die spirits of his fellow emigres), Pavel Skala ze Zhofe (wrote historiographies of the
church).
25 Sayer, Coasts of Bohemia, 57-62.
37
not the great and noble in the land, all the rich and the great owners in the nation
either bom Germans or complete foreigners, or such people as count themselves
as Germans since they long ago set aside the Czech language and Czech ways?
Does not the Czech-speaking part of die population live in a pitiful state of
poverty and oppression? Furthermore, and to add insult to injury, was not the
governance over these people handed over to persons who are Germans or at
least align them selves with them? Persons who, not knowing the language of the
people, cannot judge their complaints and suits, their requests and petitions;
persons who also have no sympathy for the people, do not reckon them as equals
to themselves and therefore do not treat them in a fatherly way, but lord it over
them and suck their blood exactly like those Egyptian officials did their serfs?
Who that has lived in our hom eland...would not confirm the truth of what I
have said? Who then can be surprised that there is no unity among our people?
That Czechs and Germans willingly associate together in nothing? But that they
hold one another in mutual contem pt shun one another, hate one another?
Certainly there is nothing to be surprised at there, my friends.26
Although Bolzano's overt advocacy of such ideas did not lead so unfortunate an
end as Hus's,27 it understandably did not endear him to the German populace.28
A wave of pan-Germanism (Alldeutschtum) began to sweep through Bohemian
Germans as they grew ever more wary of Slavic intrigues (slaoische Umtriebe) in
the form of a pan-Slavic movement.
Suspicion of the motives of the Pan-Slavists w as not confined to German
speakers. Karel Havlifek Borovsky (1821-56) was a journalist and author who
cast a distrustful gaze on the pan-Slavic aspirations of many Czech intellectuals
for whom Czech patriotism meant blind support for a pan-Slavic movement:
"When Havh'dek famously argued in 1846 that Poles, Russians, Czechs, and
Illyrians no more constitute a single 'Slav nation' by virtue of the affinities of
26 Bernard Bolzano, "O pomgru obou nirodnosti v Cechdch" (On the Relationship Between Both
Nationalities in the Czech Lands), cited in Sayer, Coasts of Bohemia, 60-61.
27 Hus's radical positions regarding the church and his unw illingness to recant the public
criticism he had heaped upon the clergy led to his conviction o f heresy and immolation at the
Council of Constance in 1415.
28 By the term "German populace," I refer of course to Germanophones living in the Hapsburg
Empire, as there was no Germany until 1871.
their languages than Germans, Danes, Swedes, Norwegians, Dutch, and English
make up a single 'Germanic nation' or Spaniards, French, Portuguese, and
Romanians form a single 'Romance nation,' he was challenging w hat was, at the
time, a conventional wisdom among Czech patriots."29 Nevertheless, Havlifek
was in a minority among Czech intelligentsia, and it was primarily Germans who
held Czech aspirations for pan-Slavism in disdain.
The chief distinction between Germans and Czechs from at least the time
of Bfld hora was one of social class. It was possible to split the two ethnic groups
into several categories: Catholic/Protestant, aristocratic/ lower-class, well-
educated/ less-educated, and so on. The difference that mattered m ost w as that
of social class. Up until the turn of the century, the prerequisite for a Czech to get
ahead in life was fluency in German, the language of culture and philosophy.30
Inability—or refusal—to acquire the essential skills usually relegated one to a
lower social standing and earning potential, or at least severely limited one's
prospects. An analogous instance of social stratification by language can be
found in England for centuries after the N orm an Conquest, where peasants,
servants, and other subjects of low birth spoke Anglo-Saxon and the ruling class
29 Sayer, Coasts of Bohemia, 111. HavlfCek was no German apologist, having published Czech
newspapers until he was forced into exile in 1851.
30 In 1846 HavIiCek noted die dire situation of the Czech language: "How many hundreds (they
certainly cannot be reckoned in the thousands) of Czechs yet know how to write correctly in their
own language? Not to be able to write German correctiy is regarded here as a great shame for
anybody who wants to be considered educated. And Czech?—" (Karel Havlifek Borovsky,
"Slovan a Cech," in Jan Novotny, ed., Obrozeni ndroda: svedectvi a dokumenty (Prague: Melantrich,
1979), quoted in Sayer, Coasts of Bohemia, 89.)
spoke French. (However, in this case learning the language of the ruling classes
of course offered little chance of upward social mobility.)
Czechs took for granted their place under the H apsburg monarchy and
did not press insistently for autonomy until after W orld War I. They did,
however, find ways of questioning the status quo, while avoiding direct
confrontation. Jaroslav HaSek's comic novel The Adventures o f Good Soldier Svejk
During the World War (Osudy dobreho vojdka Svejka za svetove vdlky, 1921-23) has a
protagonist who is the prototypical anti-hero. Svejk is a lowly private in the
emperor's arm y and he bucks the system and frustrates his superiors by feigning
ignorance and always carrying out orders to the letter w ith often absurd results.
Svejk's claim to w ant to "fight for the emperor until m y last breath" is of course
meant to be taken ironically. HaSek's work was denounced by some as bring
immoral, lacking in artistic merit and vulgar; the language used in the novel was
in parts profane and also of a lower caste, not the refined language of a cultured
nation as defined by contemporary literary critics. The book is now considered a
classic of Czech literature.
Closely linked to a nation's language and identity is its theater tradition
and its symbolism as an outlet for the artistic expression of the nationalist spirit.
There were calls from the intelligentsia in nineteenth-century Bohemia for a
theater that would belong to the Czech people and which could stage
productions of nationalist plays and operas. Money for the construction of a
Czech National Theater in Prague was raised solely from donations of Czech
citizens, and the building was completed in 1881. A fire consumed the theater
after only a few performances, but it was speedily rebuilt and reopened in 1883.
A sign in gilt block letters above the proscenium rem inds us of the strong
sentiments that brought about the theater's construction—"NAROD SOBfi" (A
Nation [Gives] to Itself). Many Czechs see performances in the National Theater
at least once in their lives (on school trips, family outings, or other occasions) and
this phrase is im printed on the minds of Czechs still today. A recent television
advertisem ent for a brand of Czech beer has the motto "Chlapi sob€" (Guys
[Give] to Themselves), and the connection is not lost on potential consumers.31
There were other conduits for nationalist activity. A number of patriotic
societies sprang u p —the most famous was a gymnastic society called Sokol
(falcon), founded in 1862. The leaders of the organization placed emphasis on
cultivating physical fitness and moral probity in Czechs. Members of Sokol had
their ow n uniforms, whose design was based on Czech rural apparel called kroje,
and the society held occasional jamborees. These jamborees featured massive
demonstrations of gymnastic prowess and were well attended.32
The various society balls or besedy (dances or clubs) that took place
throughout the nineteenth century were another expression of nationalist
sentiment. Society balls had long been a tradition am ong the German and
Austrian nobility in Prague. At these balls the m ost popular dances were the
31 The slogan is for Plzeftsky Prazdroj (Pilsner Urquell) beer.

32 The Spartakiada displays that took place in the Communist years are directly based on those of
Sokol.
41
waltz, the polonaise, the Landler, and the gavotte. Starting in 1830, Josef Kajetdn
Tyl and the rest of the Czech intellectuals organized a series of Czech patriotic
balls mainly in the Prague quarter Mal£ Strana (Lesser Quarter) for the benefit of
patriotic societies.33 A dance card for a beseda that took place on 24 April 1848
lists the following dances: walcik, polka, kwapik, quadrilla, prorwodruk34 The w in
place of the Czech v lent a German cast to the names and perhaps a perceived air
of respectability. The valak is a fast waltz, the kvapik is a fast round dance, and
the pror>odnik is a promenade. The proceeds from this beseda w ent toward the
construction of the National Theater.35
Another aspect of nationalism was the music of bandmaster-composers
such as FrantiSek Kmoch (1848-1912) and three som ewhat lesser known
bandmasters that shared the same nam e—Karel Komzdk (grandfather, father,
and son). Karel Komzak I (1823-93) was m ore nationalist than his progeny and
this is particularly evident in his arrangements of Czech folk music and in his
song titles. He was banned from leading his bands in playing Czech songs and
this led to his retirement in 1882, which had hardly begun w hen he was pressed
into service of the Austrian army, where he remained for six years.36 Kmoch was
heavily involved in the Sokol movement, and this precipitated his dismissal from
a position that he had held as a teacher in his hom etown of Zcismukv.
33 Prague (Knopf Guides), ed. Julie Wood et aL (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1994), 53.
34 Ibid.
35 Ibid.
36 Paul Christiansen, "Karel Komzak I," The New Grove Dictionary o f M usic and Musicians, 2nd ed.,
ed. Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell (London: Macmillan, 2001): 13: 770.
Subsequently he became a bandm aster in the town of Kolin, and it is this town
that is m ost closely associated w ith his name. There are folk elements present in
Kmoch's songs, and his music figured prominently in the Czech national
revival.37
"The spread of nationalism," according to Joshua Fishman, "is therefore
m arked not by existence in the up p er reaches of society, but by its successful
communication to and activation of the urban (and ultimately also the rural)
lower middle and lower classes."38 Fishman writes of the necessity of a
nationalism that can propagate the image of the nation, argue points of gram m ar
and work together to preserve (or create) a literary tradition in which the people
can feel grounded. Evidence of an established w ritten tradition goes far in
justifying the nation's "authenticity" by asserting a continuity with the past (at
least partly reconstructed in the case of the Czech nation).39 FrantiSek Palacky led
the Czech intellectual elite in the nineteenth century that included the likes of
FrantiSek Martin Pelcl, Josef Jungm ann, and Antonin Jaromir Puchmajer. These
nationalist leaders were referred to as buditele, which translates as "awakeners,"
suggesting that they were at last rousing a nation that had been slumbering for
centuries.
Palacky, who was dubbed "Father of the Nation," penned Dejiny ceskeho
ndroda v Cechadi a na Morave (The H istory of the Czech Nation in Bohemia and
37 Christiansen, "FrantiSek Kmoch," New Grove 13:685-86.

38 Joshua Fishman, Language and Nationalism: T ido Integrative Essays (Rowley, MA: Newbury
House, 1972), 15-16.
39 Ibid., 8.
Moravia, completed in 1876), which was, according to Derek Sayer, "the single
most influential work of the nineteenth century" for formulating Czech national
identity.40 Palacky started writing the history in German and then started
translating it into Czech. The basis of the history is the extensive research that
Palacky conducted in all Czech archives and many other European archives. The
work was m arkedly nationalist, and he defined Czech history in relation to its
near constant involvement with Germans and Austrians. Even today Palacky is
still highly regarded in the Czech Republic.
There were other stars in the nineteenth-century Czech literary firmament.
One was Josef Jungmann (1773-1847), who led the cause for the linguistic
risorgimento; his contributions to the Czech language are considerable, to say the
least. He believed that Czech was a language for poets and philosophers on par
with Russian, French, or English, and he translated m any foreign literary works
into his native language, including Milton's Paradise Lost41 The publication of
Jungmann's Czech-German Dictionary, which took the author thirty years to write,
was an im portant event in nineteenth-century Czech scholarship.42 For each
Czech word, Jungmann wrote an etymological history dating back to medieval
and Baroque usage. Where there was not a word for a concept in Czech, he
borrowed or adapted words from Polish, Russian, or other Slavic languages,
even in their medieval forms. In some cases, he just coined a new one: the
40 Sayer, Coasts o f Bohemia, 76.

« Ibid., 71.
42 Ibid., 72.
inventions klapkobrinkostroj (keyboard; lit. key plinking machine) and
cistonosoplena (handkerchief; lit. clean nose cloth) sound as odd to Czechs as their
equivalent sounds to Anglophones and have long since been replaced by the
term s klmrir43 and kapesnik.
Purists objected to what they saw as Jungm ann's cavalier attitude to the
pedigree of the Czech language and his willingness to substitute or invent new
w ords for new concepts. Antonin Puchmajer wrote in an 1816 letter to
Jungmann: "You import virtually the whole of Linde, Heym, and other foreign-
Slav [cizoslovanske\ dictionaries, som ething of which I can in no way approve.
This will no longer be a Czech dictionary but a general Slavonic dictionary."44 It
is true that Jungmann's magnificent vision of a universal language,
comprehensible to all Slavs, was never to be realized, but a good deal of his
modifications and additions to Czech from other Slavic sources still remain to
this day. Nineteenth-century language revival in the Czech lands—as
elsewhere—was a creative and imaginative process as much as a scholarly one,
an inventing of a shared past, common to all. The process of inventing language
was an integral part of the establishment of a national identity.
Certain writers of the obrozent are well-known for only one work: poet
Karel Jaromir Erben for his Kytice z paoesti ndrodmch (Bouquet from National
Legends), Karel Hynek M&cha for the lyrical poem Mdj (May), and Bofcena
43 Compare with the German word Klamer.

44 Antonin Puchmajer in a letter to Jungmann cited in O ttuv slamuk naucny, voL 13 (1898), 671,
quoted in Sayer, 109.
N6mcov& for her novel Babicka (Grandma). Erben's work is a collection of twelve
poems, primarily ballads, and the original poem Kytice, which compares the
legacy of folk song to aromatic thyme growing on the grave of the motherland.
Mucha's lyric epic, written just before his death at age 26, is about a man who is
banished from his home by his father, w ho then seduces his son's lover. The son,
intent on extracting revenge, kills his father and at the end of the poem he is
executed for his crime. The poem explores existential questions of life and death
that the protagonist considers in jail before he is to be beheaded. NSmcov£'s
book recalls her childhood and youth in the country. The protagonist is the
author's own grandmother, who metes out wise advice for children and adults
alike in her village. All three books are pillars of Czech nationalist literature.
Czech students throughout the twentieth century have been taught of the
colossal achievements of the buditele and are often made to memorize portions of
their w ork and learn of the lives of these national heroes. A deep pride in Czech
history, culture, and language is inculcated in students during their school years,
from elementary school on. However, one also encounters these luminaries on a
daily basis in the Czech Republic. The monumental stature of the buditele in
Czech history is evident by the many town squares, streets, gymnasia, and even
universities, named after them. This applies also to the currency: three out of
seven banknotes bear the likenesses of personages who had a hand in the
obrozeni or figured prominently its immediate aftermath.45
Some of the figures contributing to Czech national identity were n o t in
fact Czechs. Jan Kolldr, a Slovak writer, wrote a lyrical epic Slauy dcera (Slava's
Daughter, 1824) that was a manifesto for Slavic resistance to German domination;
the verses are in Czech rather than Slovak. An excerpt taken from the prologue
gives an idea of the poem 's polemic character and why it was embraced by the
nationalists:
Figure 12: Excerpt from S ld vy dcera
Blush, envious Teutony, neighbor of Shiva,

Your hands have committed so many evil deeds.
For no enemy has spilt so much blood,

As the German for the destruction of Sldva.
He alone, who is worthy of liberty, prizes all liberty.

He who keeps slaves in fetters is him self a slave.46
This poem drew from the ideology of pan-Slavism. Many Czechs in the
nineteenth century considered themselves part of a Slavic brotherhood that
w ould someday come into its own. Another Slovak, Pavel Josef Safah'k, rewrote
an ancient history of the Slavs, entitled Slaoanske starozitnosti (Slavic Antiquities,
45 T. G. Masaryk appears on the 5000 K£ note, FrantiSek Palacky on the 1000 Kf note, and Bofena
NSmcova on the 500 K£ note. Two other figures important in the national collective
consciousness are also pictured on the money: Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor who ruled
during one of Prague's most enlightened eras, (100K£ note) and Jan Amos Komensty (200 Kd
note).
46 Original: Zardi se, zdvistnd Teutonic, sousedo Sldvy, / tvd vin ttchto podet spdchaly ndkdy
r u k y .// Neb krve nikde tolik nevylil demidlaze iA d n f / nepfitel, co vylil k zdhubd Sldvy
Ndm ec./ / Sdm svobody kdo hoden, svobodu znd vdditi kaidou, / ten kdo do pout jimd otroky,
sdm je otrok.
1837), also in Czech. Palacky, who was by birth a Moravian, also had connections
to the Slovak nation: he attended university in Pressburg (Bratislava). Czech was
the written language for Slovaks until Ludovft Stur some two decades later
codified a standard literary Slovak language based on the dialect of central
Slovakia. Some Slovak writers vociferously opposed this development, among
them Koll£r and Safaffk 47
It was into this general feeling of cultural disadvantage that Jan££ek was
bom in 1854. Early in life the composer felt the need to support Czech culture
and thus resist the continuing Germanization of his homeland. Jan&ek, like
Jungm ann before him, also openly advocated pan-Slavism. He devoured books
by Russian authors from Pushkin to Tolstoy, he founded a Russian Circle in
Bmo, and his children even had names that are the same in Russian and Czech—
Vladimir and Olga. He actively encouraged Olga in her studies of Russian and
even took her twice to St. Petersburg to perfect her language skills (even though
the journey aggravated her already weak health and m ay have contributed to her
early demise).
At the same time, there has always been a tension between a
predisposition of Czechs to identify w ith their Slavic counterparts (usually in
nationalist contexts) and a tendency to align themselves with Germans,
particularly w ith regard to learning and culture. Connections can be made in
47 Sayer, Coasts of Bohemia, 111.
both directions; Czech society throughout history has been Janus-faced, looking
simultaneously eastward and westward. We can note this ambivalence in
Jan^dek's own attitudes. He pursued the finest musical education possible at the
time at German and Austrian conservatories and studied in great detail the
works of several German philosophers.48
In the decade immediately following the federation of Czechoslovakia in
1918, Czech began to flourish m ore than ever as a literary language. Influential
writers of this era include Vladislav VanCura, Vitfezslav Nezval, and Karel Capek.
The prose of these writers represents not only the language's continuing
modernization, but also the culm ination of a rich literary tradition that had
gotten an eleventh-hour transfusion from the buditele.
Nevertheless, at this time m any writers lamented the poor state of the
Czech language in organs of the state, institutions of higher learning and in the
theater.49 The language had atrophied after so many centuries of neglect and
48 In his library he had books by Johann Herbart, Hermann von Helmholtz, Wilhelm Wundt, and
Robert Zimmermann. These books are housed with his other effects at the Janaiek Archive in
Brno and they contain Janadek's copious notes in die margins. He primarily read Geiman
theories of aesthetics.
49 Jan Mrazik, Jaroslav Hurt, Otakar Zich, and Otakar Hostinsky are but a few of the writers
addressing the issue around that time. At tim es they vehemently disagreed with each other as the
following quote from Hurt's review of a book by Mrazik entitled Ument sprdxme i krasni cisti a
prednaseti (The Art of Correct and Beautiful Reading and Orating) bears witness: "Vidytf je to
barbarstvi, co pan Hlavinka k&Ze; patm£ nem i kousku sluchu. Je hrozn6, co doporufuje. Kde
bude pak rytmus? Kde hudba slov? V ka2d£ fefi vzd£lan£ho niroda d b i se co nejuzkostliv£ji
sprivn£ho pfizvuku. Rovn£2 tak u n is, co stanovil Gebaer pravidlem n ed i se jen tak odfouknout
Jeho price brala zfetel na mluvu lidovou a lid zdurazftuje vzdycky pfedlozku. Nevlm , odkud
ferpal p. Hlavinka duvody pro svou nauku, ale pochybuju, ie z lidu. Pfekvapuje mne, ze
takovito zruda nachizi ihned nisledovniku a to u spisovatele tak v£2n£ho, jakym je pan Mrazik.
Vratfme se pak k 'Listu' J.E. Vocela!" (Zive slovo 1, vol. 2 (July 1920): 13). Along the margins
Janafek wrote next to this paragraph the exclamation "Aj! Aj!” This would indicate that he
supression. Despite the attention and care that had been devoted to reviving and
invigorating Czech throughout most of the nineteenth century, a num ber of
writers still saw the situation as dire. In the April 1920 issue of "live slaoo
(published just a year and a half after the formation of an independent
Czechoslovakia) Antorufek Frinta laments the state of the Czech language due to
centuries of neglect under the H apsburg Empire:
It has long been felt that with regard to oratory, attention to proper speech, and
particularly diction, we modem Czechs are behind other cultural nations...but it
is understood, that there was not enough money in die budget of the Austrian
government for such a "luxury" in Czech universities, and so this idea can be
realized, just as a litany of other improvements, only after the political change,
when government is now in our hands.50
This sentiment was shared by many Czech intellectuals at that time, including
Jan3£ek himself.
With Jan££ek and other artists from his milieu the question of identity
always looms large. To w hat extent are Czechs Czech? Artists and writers have
written profusely about "Czechness" [cesstm, ceskost], and yet in virtually all
cases they decline to define the word. W hat is m eant by the expression? W hat is
included or excluded by the definition? The term is usually employed in a
"wink-and-a-nod" manner by Czechs, the speaker implying that any native
Czech would know what is meant, m uch like former U. S. Supreme C ourt justice
Potter Stewart, who wrote of obscenity, "I know it when I see it."51 It is of course
problematic to attempt to define the essence of any nationality; "Polishness" and
disagreed at least with Hurt's assertion that Czechs always place stress on the first syllable
(Jan&ek himself always tended to stress the penultim ate syllable).
50 Antonidek Frinta, Zive slaoo 1, v o l 1 (April 1920): 18.
51 In a concurring opinion in Jacobellus v. Ohio (1964).
50
" Americanness" are equally opaque expressions. However, Czechs seem to think
that they know what their nation and people stand for and w hat they represent
to the outside world.
"Small," "cozy," "simple," and "pretty" are words often associated with
Czechness and this sense is conveyed by the oft-uttered phrase about Bohemia,
Moravia, or anything else inherently Czech: "Maid, ale nose" (Small, but ours).
The word gemiitlich goes far in describing the feeling Czechs have for their
homeland and all that is associated with it. There is nothing grandiose or
bombastic about the notion that Czechs have about their society and culture.
Derek Sayer discusses the concept of Czechness and quotes from Milena
Jesenska's "The Czech Mom" [Ceskd maminka]:
In "The Czech Mom" [Ceskd maminka] she locates national identity in the little
things of life, and roots the nation's continuity in the female line. This article is
remarkable among other things for its proud assertion of the value and power of
the traditionally feminine in human existence [...1 "Trifles," Milena writes,
"become big symbols. And since it is woman, who wields her hand in trifles, she
reigns also over the big symbols. Czech song and the Czech book. Czech
hospitality. The Czech language and old Czech customs. Czech Easter eggs, little
Czech gardens and clumps of Czech roses." She fondly recalls her grandmother,
who "looked like Bo2ena N6mcovd's Babicka, just as did all your
grandmothers" —of course—and who during World War I obstinately kept her
household clocks an hour behind the official imperial summer time, which she
held to be an "Austrian invention."52
The profuse use of diminutive form in the language lends a distinctive
quality to the language that some might call "quaint" or "cute."53 Diminutives
52 Milena Jesenski, "Ceski maminka" Pfitomnost, voL 16, no. 14 (1939), 238-239, quoted in Sayer,
Coasts of Bohemia, 226.
53 Czechs seem to have a love affair with die small, as a survey of die names of some Czech
restaurants in the United States illustrates: Little Prague (Davis, CA), Bohemian Cottage
(Loveland, CO), Bohemian Garden (Downer's Grove, IL), Litde Bohemia (Riverside, IL), Litde
Europe (Bloomingdale, IL), Little Europe (Brookfield, IL) ("Czech Restaurants in the United
51
are used with children and w ith family and friends as terms of endearment.
Honzicek (from the name Jan) translates to something like "m y little Johnny" and
rucicka (from the word ruka) is approxim ated by "tiny hand." Since there are very
few diminutives in English, w e do not get the same sense from these words,
which usually represent different lexemes—m itt/m itten, cigar/cigarette—rather
than true diminutives of the original word.
Most Czech composers have grappled with the sense of what it means to
write distinctively Czech music. Jan££ek wrote repeatedly about Czechness. It
seems that he at least thought that he knew what he m eant by the term, as
evidenced by the following quote about Smetana's music: "[HJere is Czechness
in music, so palpable that it is possible to measure it."54 (One wonders how the
measurements would be conducted, other than with a Hipps chronoscope.) Here,
as elsewhere, Janafek writes w ith absolute confidence about Czechness, as
though it should be self-evident to the reader what the term entails.
Michael Beckerman has treated the question of the meaning of the term as
it applies to music:
The opening chords of Md vlast [I-vi-V6-I] are not specifically Czech [...] Yet
when Smetana juxtaposes these chords with the image of the great rock
VySehrad, and that image is further abstracted into a symbol of the enduring
quality of the Czech people, the chords become imbued with a sensibility, and
the sensibility becomes tied to something concrete [...] While ["the Czech style"]
may be considered a series of descriptive or analytic generalizations based on the
actual characteristics of a body of music, "Czechness" itself comes about when.
States," Embassy of the Czech Republic in the United States, Washington, DC

<h ttp ://w w w .m zv.cz/W ashington/general/restaurants.htm> [2000]).
54 LeoS Janidek, "Tvurdi mysl" ("The Creative Spirit") Lidaoe nauiny 32 (1924), as quoted in
Michael Beckerman, "In Search of Czechness in Music," IfF’-Century Music 10, no. 1 (Summer
1986): 66.
in die minds of composers and audiences, die Czech nation, in its many
manifestations, becomes a subtextual program for musical works, and as such, it
is that which animates the m usical style, allowing us to make connections
between the narrow confines of a given piece and a larger, dynamic context55
After examining various harmonic, melodic, and rhythmic elements that could
contribute to the Czechness of a piece,56 Beckerman points out the fallacy of
labeling these traits as Czech by observing that the very same aspects appear in
the music of such decidedly non-Czech composers as Liszt, Schubert, and
Copland.57 He argues, however, that although none of these characteristics by
themselves constitute Czechness, together the combined valences of the symbols
represent a powerful assertion of perceived national identity. O f course what
exactly is meant by "Czech nation" is a m atter of serious contention, but
composers and listeners seem to think that they know what is m eant by the term.
For Jarieidek these associations w ere strongly evocative, and speech melody no
less so. He saw ndpevky as im portant an expression of the Czech spirit as the harp
playing the opening chords of Md vlast or the folksy drawings of MikuldS AleS
for Spalicek.56 About the Czechness of Jan&ek's music, Albert PraMk, former
professor at Charles University, said: "In his works I hear as much of Moravia as
I do of Bohemia in the compositions of Smetana. I consider them to be a great
55 Ibid., 73.
56 Beckerman postulates for the sake of argument the following characteristics as inherently
"Czech": first beat accent, syncopated rhythms, lyrical passages, harmonic m ovement by major
third, parallel thirds in two-part writing, alternation between parallel minor and major modes,
use of modes with lowered sevenths and raised fourths, avoidance of counterpoint, and the use
of melodic cells which repeat a fifth above (Ibid., 64).
57 Ibid., 64.
58 This is a compilation of children's songs and rhymes akin to our Mother Goose.
musical record of Moravia."59 Pra2£k does not clarify what it is about the music
that makes it "Moravian."
The historical imperatives that fed Czech nationalism were the sam e ones
that moved Janafek to construct a theory of speech melody. Given the close
connection between language and national identity, many Czech nationalists
were involved in propagating the Czech language. Dobrovsky, Palacky, and
Jungmann wrote histories, dictionaries, and gram m ar texts of Czech. In the
noblest Enlightenment traditions, they strove to write definitive—some
scholarly, others "creative" —texts that contained all of the available knowledge
about the language at that time. The urgency with which the buditele pursued
their ends was due to German and Austrian suppression of Czech culture and
language for so long.
Jan££ek's intention to publish a dictionary of Czech speech melodies that
would be a compendium of possible ruxpevky was motivated by the same
impulse. Although the dictionary project was never realized, Jan££ek did feel
that he was conducting important w ork that had implications for Czech
nationalism. The composer felt that language was at the heart of "Czechness"
and thus central to national identity; therefore he felt the need to contribute to its
preservation in any way he could. His contribution would have been to record
and systematically categorize speech melodies that he heard in various
59 B. Stedroft, Letters, 215.
54
situations. The problem, as we will see, is that Jan3£ek was anything but
systematic.
55
CHAPTER THREE
56
CHAPTER THREE: SPEECH INTONATION AND MUSIC
This chapter treats the topic of speech intonation as it relates to music. The
crucial role that the melodic and rhythmic elements that are inherent in an
utterance plays in the transmission and reception of meaning in speech has long
been a matter of interest among writers of books on rhetoric and oratory.
Aristotle wrote in his Treatise on Rhetoric of the importance of appropriate rhythm
and tone for public speakers, in order that they may better persuade their
audiences. For Cicero, orators should strive to speak "gracefully," w ith language
that is rhythmic and harmonious. Quintilian devoted much space to the
"principle of accentuation" in his Institutes of Oratory. These are but a few
examples of the significance that has been accorded speech melody and prosody
throughout history.
The integral role that melody and rhythm play in speech has been
apparent at least since the Homeric epic, as has been shown by recent research.1
Consider the following intonational contour of a passage in Ancient Greek,
which is also parsed into its constituent poetic feet:2
1 Georg Danek and Stefan Hagel, "Homer-Singen," Wiener Humanistische Blatter 37 (1995): 5-20,
<http: www.oeaw.ac.at/ kal / sh / whb37.htm> (24 February 2000), 1-13.
2 Reproduced from Danek and Hagel, 7.
57
Figure 3.1: Example o f Ancient Greek Intonation and Prosody
Tpmoiv 6 ‘ aryytXcx, rjAGt noSnvtjicx, unxa Ipic,
— U U — w w — KJ ^ — KJ U — ^ — —
jidp Aicx, aiyioxoio ouv ayycAin aAi.yfcivfj
These are two lines of hexameter, both ending with a spondee, and the first line
beginning with one; the other feet are dactyls. Each line consists of two tone
groups that all have falling finals (the expected melodic outline for Ancient
Greek). The asymptotic dotted lines delineate the approximate boundaries for
the fundamental frequency (F0) of Greek intonation contours: the lower line
shows the base lim it and the upper line shows the high limit of the spoken
phrase. Of course these limits can be exceeded either way, but they indicate the
expectations the listener would have for an intonation profile.3 This example
illustrates a principle of speech intonation that applies to virtually all languages,
that of declination, or the tendency of all phrases to fall over time.4
3 Ancient Greek was a pitch accent language, whereby pitch (not volum e or duration) determines
word and phrase stress. In intonation languges such as English and Czech, syllabic stress can be
indicated by factors other than higher pitch.
4 See discussion below of Alan Cruttenden's book Intonation.
By the term "speech intonation," I refer to specific rhythmic and melodic
patterns that are present in everyday spoken language and w hich act as signifiers
that contribute to determ ining the overall meaning of an utterance. Intonation is
a complicated quality of sound that involves primarily variations in pitch and
volume in an utterance; the term "melody" refers to the m odulation of the
fundamental tone in an utterance (notated by linguists as F0) and as such is a sub
category of intonation and in fact its principal quality.5 The term "intonation
cadence" refers to the sm allest constituent part of an intonation pattern that can
be taken as a whole in a description of an entire tone group.6 The possible
cadences in Czech will be discussed below. A "tone group" (referred to
elsewhere as a phonemic clause, tone unit, or Tongruppe; in Czech promluvauy
lisek) can be described as a chain of stress groups that constitute an intonational
whole.7 A "stress group" is a rhythmical entity formed by one stressed syllable
and one or more unstressed syllables.
The principles that govern speech intonation are quite complex, and
studies that address intonation's function in language are necessarily limited in
their scope in ways that sim ilar studies of phonology and morphology are not.
These aspects of language tend to be more tolerant of absolutes than intonation,
3 Zdena PalkovA, Fonetika a fonologie cestiny s obecnym tivodem do problematiky oboru (Phonetics and
Phonology of Czech with a General Introduction to the Problematics of the Field), I1*ed. (Prague:
Univerzita Karlova, 1994), 161.
6 Ibid.
7 "Tone group" is also defined as "a stretch of speech identified as the domain of a unit of
intonation" (The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics, ed. P. H. Matthews [New York: Oxford
University Press, 1997]).
which is affected by many different factors. The many variables that affect
intonation make virtually any analysis context-bound and specific to a particular
utterance. Due to num erous complicating factors, treating intonation
exhaustively in any study is problematic enough when the phenomenon is
studied synchronically; no complete diachronic studies of the intonation of any
language have yet been published.
The latter part of this chapter will address the intonation of the Czech
language in particular and the practicality of using standard musical notation to
record speech rhythms and pitch contours. Compared to other fields of
linguistics, relatively little has been w ritten on speech intonation, still less on the
relation of intonation to music, and least of all on the manner in which Jan££ek's
penchant for recording everyday speech melodies manifests itself in his music.8
It is essential to understand the role that the composer's obsession of recording
speech melodies had upon his works. That this activity occupied his attention for
thirty-one years of his life is by itself clear evidence of its relevance to his work;9
although Jan££ek wore many hats (teacher, writer, critic, conductor), he
ultimately saw himself chiefly as a composer. It is counterintuitive that he would
8 See Introduction.
9 Jan&ek started to record speech m elodies in 1897.
have spent so much time on an idle pursuit that w ould bear no fruit for his
compositions.10
It is necessary to assess the current state of affairs in linguistic research on
prosody and intonation in order to be able to apply the findings to the music.
This investigation into intonation and other germane linguistic issues will
provide scientific support for the claims I make in my analysis of the text setting
in Jan££ek's vocal works. I shall start by discussing the relation between
intonation and music, at first in general with regard to all intonation languages
(as opposed to tone or pitch accent languages), and then specifically with regard
to Czech. This brief survey of research on speech intonation prepares for an
examination of the notebooks that Janafek left behind. Jan££ek bequeathed
virtually all of his estate to Masaryk University in Brno, including numerous
sketches, editions of his work as well as scores and books from his library and
many notebooks in which he had recorded fragments of speech melody.11 The
facsimile copies of the notebooks fill seventy-five folders housed in the Jan££ek
Archive on Smetanova street. In 1998 and 1999 I conducted research at the
Archive, and my comments on specific examples from the notebooks are
informed by that research.
10 MiloS Stedrofi agrees with this assertion. See M. Stedroft, "Direct discourse and speech melody
in Jan&ek's operas," Janacek Studies, ed. Paul Wingfield (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University
Press, 1999), 80.
11 MiloS Stgdrort agrees with this assertion. See M. Stedroft, "Direct discourse and speech melody
in Janadek's operas," Janacek Studies, ed. Paul Wingfield (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University
Press, 1999), 80.
61
Speech and Music: Two Sides of the Same Coin?
Philosophers such as Jean Jacques Rousseau and Herbert Spencer have
written about music as a natural outgrowth of ordinary speech, arguing among
other things that the similarity of speech to music increases as the speaker
becomes agitated and the speech more modulated.12 Partly as a reaction to the
excesses of opera seria, Rousseau sought simplicity in his operas. Chief am ong his
reforms was a direct approach to text setting, whereby w ords were set largely
syllabically and long melismas or coloratura runs were avoided. Rousseau had a
marked sensitivity for the rhythm and melody of the French language; this is
reflected in his compositions. Of course Rousseau's eighteenth-century realism
differs from that of Jan^dek's operas (Rousseau had no illusions about trying to
accurately duplicate or simulate actual speech patterns in his arias), but both
composers strove to write music of emotional power and dramatic truth through
simplicity.
For Spencer, music is emotional speech intensified and categorized. His
idea is that from speech came recitative, and from recitative arose song.13 He
explores and eventually rejects the notion that given intervals, phrases, or
12 Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Essai sur I'origine des longues (Paris: A Braik, 1983) and Herbert Spencer,
Essays: Scientific, Political, and Speculative, v o l 1. (London: Williams and Norgate, 1868), 214-24.
13 Spencer, Essays, 26. "And if, as we have good reason to believe, recitative arose by degrees out
of emotional speech, it becomes manifest that by a continuance of die same process song has
arisen out of recitative."
cadences can signal such a priori feelings as grief, melancholy, joy, and anger.14
Spencer also asserts the importance of music w ith regard to speech in other
cultures, although the Greeks (as might be expected, given the author's
predispositions and the year of publication of the essays) come in for more praise
than other ancient civilizations: "That recitative—beyond which, by the way, the
Chinese and Hindoos seem never to have advanced.. ."15
More recently, Leo Treitler has shown that in ancient chant traditions,
there were certain musical indicators that supported the syntax of the utterance.16
These conventions in some cases correspond to their analogues in actual speech,
e.g., pauses (indicated by commas) denoted by slight rises in pitch, full stops by
falling intervals. Treitler is writing about the process of memory in an oral
tradition and the re-creation of chant melodies through set syntactic patterns
symbolized by given musical formulas. He notes the necessary association
listeners make between intonation and the grammatical or syntactic import of the
text.17 The larger implication of his work is to show the intimate link between
language and music.
14 For a more recent opposing viewpoint, see Leonard Meyer, Emotion and Meaning in Music
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956).
15 Spencer, Essays, 225.
16 Leo Treitler, "The 'Unwritten' and 'Written Transmission' of M edieval Chant and the Start-up
of Musical Notation," Journal of Musicology 10 (Spring 1992): 131-91.
17 Ibid., 144. Of course the melodic formulas in chant are specific to that idiom and do not
necessarily resemble their counterparts in actual speech intonation, but nevertheless the
connection between melody and text remains a matter of considerable scholarly interest
A pivotal question at issue is the limitation of standard musical notation
for accurately recording hum an speech. This is a m atter with which linguists
largely do not concern themselves, customarily preferring instead to employ
their own graphic m ethods of representing speech contours. The American
school of linguistics employs speech levels, whereby any word uttered falls
within one of four discrete and fixed pitch levels; the British school, on the other
hand, uses curved lines to depict speech intonation. As we shall see presently,
some linguists have experimented with the notation of speech melodies on
musical staves.18
Despite the clear presence of fluid glides and falls in speech, certain
relatively fixed pitch levels nevertheless seem to be present in a speaker's vocal
range.19 Both speaker and listener make use of these pitch levels in conveying
and interpreting meaning in discourse. It is generally agreed among linguists
that there is a fundamental pitch level that is individual for every speaker,
against which other pitch levels are measured. There is some disagreement about
the level to which intonation is perceived by a listener as a succession of pitches
or as an overall impression of general contours. Some writers have argued
against claims that w e hear intonational patterns as a succession of discrete pitch
18 Ivan Fonagy and Klara Magdics (1963), as well as Duncan Gardiner (1980), have used musical
notation in the transcription of speech intonation.
19 See discussion below of DaneS's pitch levels.
levels.20 The question of whether we perceive pitch levels or contours is still
being debated, and neither viewpoint has been widely accepted as correct to the
exclusion of the other.
In accord with the American school of pitch levels, one scholar has posited
a musical model for speech intonation analysis, one that involves the equivalent
of thirds, fifths, and octaves. Duncan B. Gardiner, in a book entitled Intonation
and Music: The Semantics of Czech Prosody, posits a perceptual grid for intonation
as a sort of "coordinate system" whereby a listener compares the sequence of
pitches in an utterance to a paradigm of pitch levels that approximate certain
musical intervals.21 Integral to Gardiner's thesis is a fundamental system of
neutral intonational structure in language, against which the intonation of
affectively m arked statements may be compared to distill the meaning conveyed
by intonation alone. This theory is based on Jacobson's Formal Determinism,
whereby there is an underlying structure, here a system of unmarked patterns,
and opposition to that structure, which lends meaning not otherwise present in
an intonationally neutral statement.22
Gardiner elaborates on this notion by theorizing the existence of an
intonational tonic, third, fifth, and octave; that is, he makes a case for the
20 Anthony Fox, Prosodic Features and Prosodic Structure (New York: Oxford University Press,
2000), 300; and Johan t'Hart, et al., A Perceptual Study of Intonation: An Experimental-phonetic
Approach to Speech Melody (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 75.
21 Duncan B. Gardiner, Intonation and Music: The Semantics of Czech Prosody (Bloomington, IN:
Physsardt, 1980), 10-13.
22 Ibid., 2.
65
perceptual equivalents of those functional musical terms.23 He states that each of
the pitches has an abstract meaning that is independent of position within a tone
group, and various contextual meanings derived from the context of the
utterance. The tonic is unmarked, the third denotes minor degree, the fifth is a
major degree, and the octave means extra degree.24 These scale degrees have
specific syntactical referents that each indicate a certain discrete meaning. The
tones combined with the caesurae in the sentence yield intonational cadences,
which, G ardiner asserts, approximately correspond to their musical
counterparts.25
The various cadences denote different degrees of separation; the term
separation here refers to the syntactic connection between successive phrases. It
follows that a lesser degree of separation indicates more dependence between
two phrases. The tonic pitch signifies the end of a phrase or that are no
subsequent phrases; the fifth indicates a "norm al lack of separation;" the octave,
"more than normal lack of separation;" and the third, "less than normal lack of
separation."26 Gardiner allows that there are exceptions to these conventions and
their interpretation is dependent on context, but the key to his theory is the
23 Ibid.. 4-5. Gardiner clarifies his system: "The fifth may actually be realized as a fourth or a sixth,
the octave may be realized as a seventh of a ninth [author7s italics]," (9). In Czech these intervals
are usually not as pure as a third, fifth or octave. The fifth, for instance, was realized in
Gardiner's experiments variously as a perfect fourth, diminished fifth, and minor sixth. The
perfect fifth did not appear at all as an actual terminal cadence interval.
24 Ibid., 5.
25 Ibid., 8.
26 Ibid., 5.
underlying concept of a hierarchy of four intonation pitches, not unlike the
hierarchy that exists between various pitches in the context of Western tonal
music.27 O ther linguists have also posited four basic pitch levels, fewer than four
being insufficient for proper analysis.28 This study lends support to the viability
of using standard musical notation for representing speech melody; there are
also other examples.29
Intonation and Music
There are a num ber of apparent similarities between intonation and
music. In his book Intonation and its Parts, Dwight Bolinger points out some of the
more obvious correspondences.30 The interpretation of a speech melody depends
on the listener's identification of the fundamental pitch of the speaker, excluding
harmonics. This is analogous to how we hear melodic lines in a musical work.
(Of course no tone is ever heard in isolation from its attendant overtones, but our
aural impression is based primarily upon the strongest frequency played or
sung, i.e., the fundamental.) Bolinger further notes that in speech as well as in
music, the melodic line tends to rise at the beginning of an utterance or musical
27 Ibid., 21.
28 For exam ple, George L. Trager and Henry Lee Smith, Outline o f English Structure (Washington,
D.C.: American Council of Learned Societies, 1957).
29 Joseph van Waesberghe notes similarities between Western liturgical chant and speech
intonation ("Phonetics in its Relation to Musicology" in Louise Kaiser, ed. Manual of Phonetics
(Amsterdam, 1957). George List discusses certain basic m elody forms and how they relate to
speech intonation ("The Boundaries of Speech and Song," Ethnomusicology 7:1-16). Steven Feld
provides a methodological model for the linguistic analysis o f music ("Linguistic Models in
Ethnomusicology," Ethnomusicology 18:197-217).
30 Dwight Bolinger, Intonation and its Parts (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press: 1986), 28-29.
phrase and fall or glide down to a point of repose a t the end.31 One m ight add
that musical phrases, like their spoken counterparts, are usually short enough to
be sung or played in one breath. He follows by comparing vocal registers in
singing to those in speech: "falsetto" (high, above a speaker's comfortable range),
"modal" (middle, normal speaking voice), and "creak" (low, too low in the
speaker's range to have a clear pitch). Then he outlines the limitations of a pitch
level approach to intonation as required to render an approximation of a speech
contour using musical notation, but also notes the benefits of such an analytical
methodology.32
The m ost important grammatical delineations conveyed by intonational
variation are finals that are signified in writing by commas, semicolons, and
periods, i.e., the end of a phrase, a clause, or a sentence. These punctuation
marks have their analogs in the spoken word. In hearing a speech, a listener can
often detect intonational markers that signal the boundaries between various
grammatical structures. There is usually a pitch drop at these finals (except for
the comma, which is often indicated by a slight rise in pitch, signaling the intent
of the speaker to continue). The end of a phrase or a clause is less finished than
the end of a sentence and is thus signaled by roughly a drop of a third, whereas
the end of a sentence is represented by a drop of a fifth.33
51 Ibid., 28.
32 Ibid., 28-29.
33 Gardiner, Intonation and Music, 1-28.
Intonation can help outline the gram m ar and organization of utterances. A
rise or fall on terminal cadences can distinguish a statement from a question. A
w ord that stands out from the rest of a clause in a sentence by having a higher
pitch can signal a special contrastive emphasis on that word. Commas and
semicolons are conveyed aurally with the use of pauses of varying lengths and
are accompanied by slight rises in pitch; full stops are characterized by terminal
falls followed by pauses. However, intonation's role in delineating the gram m ar
of a sentence or phrase is usually subsidiary to its function in communicating
emotion.
Some scholars de-emphasize the importance of intonation patterns as they
relate to the grammar of an utterance: "Intonation, as one of the constituents of
speech prosody, can be removed from a speech message w ithout seriously
dam aging the message."34 Yet this view neglects the possibility of intonation
alone indicating the true import of the sentence. Intonation can aid in
distinguishing a declarative statement from a question and at times is the only
indicator, as in the following examples of intonational patterns w ith declarative,
continuative, and interrogative functions:
54 Johan t'Hart, A Perceptual Study of Intonation: A n Experimental-phonetic Approach to Speech Melody

(Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 189.
69
Figure 3.2: Declarative, Continuative, and Interrogative Intonational Patterns
Declarative:
grand
You are going to ma'son Sun
day.
Continuative:
grand
You are going to ma's day,
on Sun
(and on Monday
to
Un
cle
Bob's).
Interrogative:
day?
Sun
on
ma’s
grand
You are going to
This claim also disregards aspects such as irony and sarcasm, for which
intonation can be absolutely essential for comprehension. In fact, in the case of
irony or sarcasm, sentence intonation often contradicts the literal meaning of the
words:
70
Figure 3.3: Marked and Unmarked Intonational Contours
Unmarked:
That's
gre
at!
Marked (sarcastic):
That's
e
gr
at!
Musical Notation and Speech
To the extent that speech resembles music, the question arises as to
w hether intonation melodies can be accurately transcribed using standard
musical notation. Bolinger rem arks that in order to record speech contours using
musical notation, one m ust necessarily make compromises and decide which
pitch levels to select in order to approximate a given speech contour.35 The
difficulty of accurately notating speech could be illustrated w ith an analogy to
Heisenberg's uncertainty principle: by choosing certain pitches to represent a
speech contour, we are necessarily losing the fluidity and dynamism of the
utterance; by attempting to capture the flow and flux of a phrase, we miss its
various pitch levels (by means of which one can identify the syntax of the
35 Bolinger, Intonation and its Parts, 28-29.
intonation pattern). Therefore no system of notation can be exact, and every
attem pted solution is by necessity a compromise.
Accordingly, some scholars have claimed that standard musical notation
is simply insufficient to represent adequately the rhythmic and melodic nuances
of normal hum an speech. David Crystal, in his book Prosodic Systems and
Intonation in English, observes that in music, there are "a limited number of tones
of specific frequency, the distances between the tones being regularly definable,
and usually given by reference to some specific musical tradition."36 He then
contrasts music to speech: "[In] speech, on the other hand, the distance between
any two tones is not fixed, and may vary substantially depending on such factors
as individual, context, language, etc. Some scholars have tried to use musical
notation to transcribe pitch differences in speech, but this is fundamentally
misleading, even if one does emphasize that there is a difference."37
Studies such as Alan C ruttenden's book Intonation, have shown, however,
that there are a number of cross-cultural linguistic universals in intonation
languages; many of these observations can be seen as general tendencies in
Western music (and in some non-W estem musics as well).38 For instance, there is
a tendency of declination in all languages; declination is the term that describes
36 David Crystal, Prosodic Systems and Intonation in English (London: Cambridge University Press,
1969), 111. Of course not all musical traditions in the world are as limited in representing speech
as Crystal insinuates. Various musical cultures (particularly some oral traditions) make use of
bent notes, microtones, and other characteristics that typify normal speech patterns.
37 Ibid.
38 Alan Cruttenden, Intonation (Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 167-68.
the phenom enon where the fundamental frequency of an intonation group is
lower a t the end of the utterance than a t the beginning.39 This finds its analog in
music in that musical phrases have a strong inclination to cadence at a lower
pitch level than they begin. Both phenomena are based in theory on the gradual
decrease of pressure on the vocal cords as the speaker or singer expends air from
the lungs.
C ruttenden also identifies a near-universal principle of falling and rising
tones th at govern the syntax of the sentence in intonation languages.40 Falling
tones are used for neutral statements, sentence finals, neutral information
questions, and commands, whereas rising tones appear in implicational of
tentative statements, yes or no questions, sentence non-finals, sympathetic
question w ord questions, and requests.41 All languages, whether by nature tone,
pitch accent, or intonation languages, seem to display these same distinctions.
These universals can enhance the overall dram atic effect of vocal works w hen the
texts are set to music that reinforces the linguistically-encoded speech intonation.
This musical aspect of speech supports the idea that Jartcidek's peculiar practice of
jotting dow n and studying bits of everyday speech had a real utility for him.
w Ibid., 167-68.
* Ibid., 168-69.
« Ibid., 168.
73
Intonation in the Czech Language
In his seminal book Intonation and the Sentence in Literary Czech (Intonace a
veta ve spisovne destine), FrantiSek DaneS evaluates the role of intonation in
assigning and interpreting m eaning in speech.42 He adm its that "[n]owadays it is
generally acknowledged that musical notation is insufficient to render speech
melody,"43 but he then offers the following emendation:
There are of course individuals who have a tendency to use musical intervals in
their speech and I have likewise observed that emotions, especially of a
particular sort (sentimentality, sexual emotions) lead to "musical" intonation. For
instance, I recorded the strongly emotional call of a young woman:
^ |»
H o n -zo , ti si pro - tfiv-nej!
(Johnny, you are so difficult')
Some individuals have an outright tendency toward musical stylization in their

speech. Among them is our national artist E. F. Burian, whose radio epistles,
broadcast in 1945, drew my attention. Characteristic of Burian's speech melody
are frequent pitch drops, even in unusual places (in the middle of speech
segments, for instance), and long monotone segments alternating with cadences
in virtually pure musical intervals. For example, the word namahavem at the end
of a segment was intoned thus:
..........i ----------
-0 ------
m
na - m£ - ha - v6m
(laborious)
In other places final segm ents were monotone until the last syllable fell exactly a
major second. Overall one could say that Burian's delivery gave die impression
42 FrantiSek DaneS, Intonace a veta ve spisovne cestine (Intonation and die Sentence in Literary
Czech) (Prague: Nakladatelstvi deskoslovenskg akademie v£d, 1957).
° Ibid., 36.
74
of a certain sentimentality (in opposition to the content of the speech); this would
confirm the supposition about die relation of musical intervals and emotions.44
In Intonation, DaneS explains how the rhythm and m elody of a word,
phrase, or sentence either reinforces the grammatical or lexical content of an
utterance, or contradicts i t He postulates two broad premises: intonation
represents its own linguistic subsystem (a consitituent part of the phonology of
the language), which renders part of the overall meaning of an utterance; and,
there m ust be a systematic analysis of the relation between melody, pitch, and
rhythm in an utterance and also consideration of the utterance's place in the
overall framework of a communicative context.45 To the extent that variances in
rhythm, pitch, and so forth do not impede linguistic function, other differences
can indicate one's style of speech or personality. For instance, w hen we hear the
sentence "He wept," intonation tells us many things:
1. the character of the statement (declarative, interrogative, imperative,

etc.)
2. the speaker's intention
44 Ibid., 36-37. "Jsou ovSem jedinci, ktefi maji sklon k hudebnlm intervalum a pozoroval jsem
rovn£2, ie emoce, zvl££t& n£ktereho druhu (rozcitlivdost, sexudlni emoce) vedou k „hudebni"
intonaci. Poznamenal jsem si na pf. zvolani jednd mladd 2eny, siln£ emoci<Un£ zabarvend:
[musical example]. Ndktefi jedinci maji pfimo sklon khudebni stylisaci sv^ch projevu. Patff
k nim na pf. narodni umdlec E. F. Burian, jeho2 rozhlasovd epiStoly, vysfland v r. 1945, upoutaly
po teto strance tehdy mou pozom ost Charakteris tickym znakem Burianovy pfednesovd m elodie
je to, ie klesd velmi fasto, a to i na mistech rteobvyklych (uprostfed useku a pod.) a ie se stffdajf
dlouhd useky pfedn££en£ monotdnnd s kadenci takfka v dstych hudebnich intervalech. Ku
pfikladu slovo nam4hav4v6m na kond liseku bylo intonovdno asi takto: [muscial example]. Jindy
m£l koncovy usek prub£h monotdnni, ai poslednf slabika kiesla v dst£ sekundd. Celkdm Ize fid ,
ie Burianuv pfednes pusobi dojmem jistd rozdtlivdlosti (v rozporu s obsahem promluvy); to by
potvrzovalo pfedpoklad o vztahu hudebnosti intervalu a emoce." The relation between musical
intervals in speech and em otions is explored in Ivan Fonagy and Klara Magdics, "Emotional
patterns in intonation and music," Zeitschrift fu r Phonetik 16 (1963): 293-326; and Leonard Meyer,
Emotion and Meaning in Music (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956).
45 Ibid., 139.
3. the speaker's emotional state
4. elements that betray the speaker's personality
For DaneS the term "utterance" {promluvovy usek) refers to the smallest,
indivisable segment of speech, the basic component of communication; it is
delimited by intonation and has its place and function in the context of a
communication attempt.46 The sentence, which is purely a grammatical unit,
does not necessarily correspond to the utterance, which can be shorter. The
utterance is divided into them e and rheme, which have been previously
incorrectly referred to respectively as the psychological subject and predicate.
Rheme is the new information in the sentence and theme is the assum ed or
already known information, as show n in the following example:
Figure 3.4: Rheme and Theme
Mary is eating. Mary is eating. (Mary is eating, not Henry)
theme rheme rheme theme
An utterance is further divided into speech segments, and these segments may
be punctuated by pauses. Parsing into segments is dependent upon the semantic
structure of the sentence; the segments each have a their own melody and, in
some cases, accent47
DaneS theorizes three distinct cadences in intonation, each having a
discrete intonational pattern: the conclusive cadence (a finished thought); the
Ibid., 9.
” Ibid., 13.
76
semicadence (signaling continuance in an utterance); and the anticadence (an
interrogative). Using four pitch levels (from highest to low est 1, 2, 3, and 4) and
inserting a degree symbol to designate the utterance center, the possible
cadences, according to DaneS, are as follows:48
Figure 3.5: Intonational Cadences
Conclusive cadence:
Unmarked: (2) - °3 - 4; variant (3) - °4 - 4

Marked: (3) - °2 - 4; variants: (2) - °1 - 4, (2) - “1 - 3
Semicadence:
Unmarked: 3 - °4 - 2 or 4 - “3 - 2
Marked rising: 3 - °4 -1 - (1) or 4 - °1 - 1 - (1)
Marked falling: 4 - “1 - 1 - 3 or 4 - °2 - 2 - 4
4 - °1 - 3 or 4 - °2 - 4
Anticadence:
Rising: °4 - 4 - 2; variant “4 - 4 - 1
Fall/rise: “4 - 1 - ( 1 ) - 2
These cadence variants can be modified to a certain extent, depending on their
position in a clause.
The limit of DaneS's study is that it deals exclusively with literary Czech,
and the author adm its as much.49 He also acknowledges that there are no hard
and fast rules with intonation, just general guidelines, because patterns vary
somewhat from region to region and that intonation will never be as
standardized as other aspects of language such as syntax and lexicon. However,
« Ibid., 53-54.
« Ibid., 146.
certain principles also pertain only or primarily to local dialects. There are many
questions to address, and DaneS is quite thorough in his consideration of the
many principles that control intonation. We m ust confine ourselves, however, to
particular concepts that govern speech melody and that we m ay employ in our
analysis of Jan££ek's work, being, of course, mindful of the limitations for our
purposes of a study on purely literary Czech.
On a smaller level, there are a num ber of more specific correspondences
between speech and music. H enry Kufera, in his book The Phonology o f Czech,
while treating the subject of intonation only briefly, makes several assertions
about Czech phonology, confirmed by research, that seem to support the notion
that certain aspects of speech can be easily recorded using musical notation.50 For
instance, in Czech the ratio of long to short vowels is approximately 2:1 -51 That is,
a vowel with a cdrka (acute accent) is pronounced twice as long as a vowel
w ithout one. Thus the word vyhledaodm could easily be notated by two sixteenth
notes, the first one stressed, as are all initial syllables in Czech, followed by three
eighth notes (there is a secondary accent on the syllable "d&").
50 Henry Kufera, The Phonology of Czech ('S-Gravenhage: Mouton, 1961).

51 Ibid., 25. Kufera clarifies the situation by asserting that actual vowel length is dependent to a
certain extent on the position of a given vow el in an utterance and he refers us to Josef Chlumsky,
Ceskd koantita, melodie a pfizouk (Czech Quantity, Melody, and Stress) (Prague: Cesk^ akademie
v£d a um&u, 1928) for more details.
Figure 3.6:"Vyhledavani"
>
vyhledd- v£ - ni
(searching, n.)
Word and Phrase Stress in Czech
As the stress in Czech w ords alm ost invariably falls on the first syllable of
a word, prose may be parsed into trochees and dactyls. Multisyllabic w ords are
combinations of the two feet, i.e., they have weak secondary stresses in the
middle. However, not all texts (prose or poetry) are set exclusively with trochees
and dactyls; iambs and ana pests also occur.52 This is because of a feature that
Czech shares, oddly enough, with Hungarian, an unrelated language from the
Finno-Ugrian subgroup of Ural-Altaic languages; the independence of word
stress and vowel length. Although the first syllable is stressed, it is not
necessarily long, and long vowels do not necessarily carry stress. A cdrka over a
vowel denotes vowel quantity, except in the case of u, which in some cases has a
cdrka (u), in others a krouzek, (u). As noted above, Czech prosody by its very
nature can be graphically represented rather effectively with musical notation.
For example, the word ndpevek would be written as:
52 Karel Hynek Mdcha's poem Mdj is the most famous example of iambic meter in the Czech
language; as stress in Czech falls on the first syllables of words and rhythm groups, this was
quite a feat The opening line of the poem is Byl pozdni vecer - proni mdj - vecerni mdj —byl Idsky cos.
(It was late evening—the first of May—evening M ay—it was a time of love.) As pozdni (late)
carries more meaning than byl (was), it bears the stress and byl acts as a proclitic and as such is
unstressed. This fact allows die line to be read as iambic tetrameter.
79
Figure 3.7A: “NSpSvek”
>
US
na - pg-vek
and the name Janacek as:
Figure 3.7B: "Janafek"
>
Ja-na - dek
Stress in Czech is not, however, always realized by intensity; unaccented
syllables are often uttered a t a higher decibel level—up to 10 dB louder in certain
examples.53 It follows that stress can be manifested in other ways, such as
syllable pitch and duration. In a language such as Czech, w here stress and vowel
quantity are independent, the determ ining factor of stress is m ost often pitch. As
discussed earlier, some studies have shown that listeners perceive pitch as the
chief determinant for w ord or sentence stress. It has also been suggested that a
listener hears retrospectively: for instance, the m iddle syllable -zn- of the w ord
clozncek (little person) is initially perceived as stressed because of its longer
duration, but after the third syllable is spoken, the first syllable, slightly higher in
pitch than the second syllable, is recognized as stressed despite the duration and
53 Jana Ondr££kov&, "K analyze pfizvuCnosti, zvlASte vde$tin6" (On the Analysis of Stress,
Particularly in Czech), Acta Universitatis Carolinae - PMologica Slauica Pragensia IV (1962): 81-88.
intensity of the second syllable.54 Slight changes in frequency (up to a maximum
of a semitone) from one syllable to the next are usually judged to be stressed. In
addition, a stress group's position as a final or non-final stress group in an
intonational contour determines whether the significant frequency change is
between a syllable and the preceding syllable or the following syllable.55
Stress can be indicated by length, loudness, or pitch, which is the most
effective of all three, or with a combination of the three. There are also other
indicators, such as rhythm , vowel quality, delayed release, and breathiness. The
first two do not apply for our purposes, because rhythm is more or less
predetermined by the fact that in Czech the first syllable is always stressed and
vowel quality is constant. Delayed release and breathiness are not notated in the
music and thus will have no bearing upon our analysis. Word order can also be
brought to bear on the issue of stress, and as true as this can be for English,
French, German and other European languages, w ord order is all the more
salient as a determ inant of meaning with inflected languages such as Russian
and Czech, where w ord order is quite flexible. For instance, in Czech one might
say:
54 Mirjam Fried, personal communication, 2001. This is confirmed by research in Pfemysl Janota,
"An Experiment Concerning the Perception of Stress by Czech Listeners," Acta Universitatis
Carolinae - Phonetica Pragensia IV (1967): 45-68, as well as Pfem ysl Janota and Zdena Palkovd
"Auditory Evaluation of Stress under the Influence of Context," Acta Universitatis Carolinae -
Phonetica Pragensia IV (1974): 29-60.
55 Pfemysl Janota, "An Experiment Concerning the Perception of Stress by Czech Listeners." In
Acta Universitatis Carolinae - Phonetica Pragensia IV (1967): 58.
81
Figure 3.8 A: Czech Word Order Model A
"To pro tebe nic neni!"
(Lit- It for you nothing isn't)56
This sentence means "That's nothing for you!" in the sense that a particular task
presents no challenge or is easy for the listener to do. Using the same words in a
different order, one m ight on the other hand say:
Figure 3.8B: Czech Word Order Model B
"To neni nic pro tebe!"
(Lit - It isn't nothing for you)
This means "That's not for you!" in the sense that something is inappropriate for
the listener, e.g., alcohol for a minor. Both sentences would be pronounced with
stress on the final w ord of the tone group (To pro tebe nic neni!; to neni nic pro
tebe!). So it is clear from these examples that in the Czech language, word order,
in conjunction with stress, can be used to place emphasis on certain words and
thus completely change the meaning. These are variations in discourse structure
or Theme-Rheme articulation (see Figure 3.4).
Musically, stress can be realized in various ways. It can be expressed
metrically, by placement of a stressed syllable at the beginning of a measure. This
placement stipulates that the syllable that is sung at the beginning of the measure
will most likely be perceived as stressed. Alternatively, stress in a word or a
phrase can be represented as a note of higher pitch or by an articulation marking
56 Multiple negatives are the norm in Czech.
such as a marcato sign. As noted above, word stress and intonation in Czech
involve subtle nuances that interact within a complex aural framework. A
syllable initially heard as stressed because of its longer duration and higher
volume can be perceived as subordinate to an earlier pitch that was higher in
pitch. Czech is a stress-timed language, in which stressed syllables occur with
relative rhythmic regularity,57 but this phenomenon occurs as well in larger
units, i. e., speech segments (see below) that also tend tow ard regularity; both
English and Czech have this tendency toward rhythmic regularity.58 So the
syllables in a long tone group are pronounced more rapidly than those in a short
group in order to maintain the regularity of phrase stresses.
Rhythm in Czech
Jaroslav Durych addresses the question of rhythm in Czech prose.59 This
study is of particular interest for our purposes, because the texts of Janafek's
vocal works were almost exclusively written in prose. According to Durych, the
fundamental rhythmic unit of the prose sentence is the w ord or group of
particles (this is analogous to DaneS's speech segments; see above), with only one
stress.60 From these words or particle groups are formed patterns and the
57 DaneS, Intonace a veta, 16.

58 Ibid., 16-17. Incidentally, languages can also be syllable-timed (Yoruba, French) or mora-timed
(Japanese).
59 Jaroslav Durych, Rytmus ceske prozy (The Rhythm of Czech Prose) (Olomouc: Votobia, 1992).
60 "Particle" is thus defined in the Oxford Concise Dictionary of Linguistics (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1997): "Used of divers classes of uninflected words in divers languages. Usually
patterns are not often repeated and never one after the other. If the rhythmic
patterns were to be repeated, the prose would sound monotonous.
Each pattern is m ade up of a group of three feet, of which one m ust be a
dactyl. Durych states that the reason that the groups are tripartite is so that they
can attain symmetry or gradations of stress and thus maintain or upset the
rhythmic equilibrium of the utterance.61 In a comparison of the phenomenon of
rhythmic division in Czech to the field of kinetics, dealing with the physical
principles that govern bodies in motion and at rest, he divides rhythm into static
and dynamic and asserts that each category has its ow n rhythmic patterns.62
He further notes that of the trochees and dactyls that make up Czech
poetic feet, trochees at the beginning or the end of a rhythmic group can be
partial and that a two-syllable initial foot can be, but is not necessarily, stressed.63
The distinction betw een static and dynamic rhythmic patterns, he continues, is
dependent upon the location and number of dactyls within each group. In a
static pattern, there is always only one centrally-located dactyl that is the fulcrum
upon which the group rests, whereas in a dynamic pattern, the dactyl can be
found at the beginning or the end of the group or there may be more dactyls in
of words that are short sometim es, though not always clitic and generally not foiling easily
under any of the traditional parts of speech" (267). Examples follow die definition.
61 Ibid., 25.
“ Ibid.
“ Ibid.
84
the group.64 Durych posits the following model for rhythmic feet in Czech
prose:65
Figure 3.9: Prosodic Feet in Czech
Static:
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
6)
7)
8) ........
Dynamic
1)
2)
3)
4) . . . . . . . .
5) . . . . . . . .
6)
7) . . . . . .
8) . . . . . .
9) . . . . . . .
10) .
Double dactyls:
1)
2)
3)
4) . . . . . . . .
Double trochee:
64 Ibid.
65 Ibid., 83.
85
Another question is the representation of speech rhythm in musical
notation. The issue at hand is whether musical notation is adequate to record
rhythm in speech patterns. Actually, speech rhythm seems to be simpler in
general than musical rhythm , as Anthony Fox remarks:
[S]peech rhythm does not necessarily follow the same principles [as musical
rhythm]. As Hayes (1995: 26-8) points out, musical rhythm, in som e cultural
traditions at least, can be quite complex, with multi-layered hierarchical
structures and sim ultaneous cross-rhythms. The temptation to see the rhythm of
speech in equally complex terms is seductive, especially when we see that
linguistic models can often be insightfully applied to m usic—see especially
Lerdahl and Jackendoff (1983), who analyse musical structure in terms of
generative grammar. However, speech rhythm seems to be much simpler than
that of music, not least because, as Hayes (1995: 27) points out, only one voice is
involved.66
Whether or not all of the nuances of rhythmic variation in speech can be
accurately recorded using notes on a staff is a matter open to debate.
Various Forms of the Czech Language
It is a characteristic of the Czech language that it manifests itself in several
different social registers of language, always based on the context and function of
the speech. In formal settings the language spoken is very close to the written
language, called spisovny jazyk (also known as standard Czech or SC). Politicians,
philosophers, and other public figures use this form of the language when
addressing people. The spoken form is not exactly the same as spisavny jazyk,
66 Anthony Fox, Prosodic Features and Prosodic Structure (Oxford, N ew York: Oxford University
Press, 2000), 168-69. Bruce H ayes, Metrical Stress Theory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1995); Fred Lerdahl and Ray Jackendoff, A Generative Theory o f Tonal M usic (Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press, 1983). I disagree with Fox about the Lerdahl and Jackendoff theory; I find the application
of a theory of generative grammar to music to be problematic.
though, because there are linguistic forms that are inherently literary and seem
out of place when spoken; hardly ever does one speak precisely as one would
write. Czechs are acutely aware of context, and one who would speak literary
Czech at a party with friends would be seen as trying to p u t on airs and would
be enjoined to "stop talking like a book."67 On the other hand, if a politician in a
debate were to speak in a sub-standard dialect, some people would judge him or
her to be either dim or else socially disadvantaged for not knowing how to speak
properly (or at the very least being insensitive to context).
In addition to SC, there are also local dialects, regional codified forms,
which exhibit characteristics of several local dialects, as well as other aspects that
occur for specific purposes, e.g., popular slang or archaisms. It is appropriate in
this regard to conceive of discrete registers of language, which, though stratified
and categorized as to social context and linguistic function, are nevertheless
fluid, and in a given speech sample can manifest traits of tw o or more registers.
The issue of language registers in Czech is not simply a distinction between
longue and parole,6* or between written and spoken forms, although the boundary
between the literary and spoken forms is usually quite clear. Czech is a highly
stratified language, with several levels of expression within each category; in this
way it satisfies various linguistic functions, each of which demands different
morphological, phonological, lexicographical, and syntactical parameters. There
67 As I myself was once admonished.

48 For more discussion on longue and parole, see chapter three of Ferdinand de Saussure's Course in
General Linguistics (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966).
is scholarly disagreement about whether the standard and non-standard
variations of Czech constitute merely registers w ithin one system, or rather
separate codes.69 Regardless of the appropriate terminology, the issue remains the
same: different conditions call for different linguistic means.
In many societies language is a prim ary factor in determining how a
person is perceived by others. In British society people are frequently judged
positively or negatively based upon their linguistic usage, and even minuscule
variations in pronunciation, intonation and w ord usage are telltale signs that
reveal the speaker's social class a n d / or education level. This is not the case with
the Czech language; virtually everyone speaks some form of CC (hovorova cestina,
Common Czech) that is discrete from SC and as a rule, judgments (positive or
negative) are not made of a person based solely upon usage.70 The use of
different codes in Czech is so pervasive that one who uses SC in quotidian
circumstances (e. g., at the local pub), he or she usually does so for ironic distance
or comic effect. The wildly popular Cimrman Theater plays of Zden£k SvSrdk
and Ladislav Smoljdk are hum orous in good measure due to their extensive use
of SC, which is odd to hear as a spoken language in an everyday situation.
Czechs are of course proud of the beauty of SC in its most rarefied and archaic
69 Neil Bermel prefers to think of registers within one system (Register Variation and Language
Standards in Czech; Munich: Lincom-Europa, 2000). Olga Mullerov* and Jana HoffmannovA, on
the other hand, speak of separate codes in "CeStina spisovn£, hovorovd, obecrd...a hlavn£
mluvena (v sou£asn£ komunikad a v soufasnem vyzkumu)" (Written, Colloquial, and Common
Czech...and Mainly Spoken (In Contemporary Communication and Contemporary Research),
Slaoo a slooesnost 58 (1997): 42-54. The question is one of degree.
701 employ here Beimel's denotations SC, CC, and ColC, widely understood in linguistic circles.
form, but may nonetheless consider it somewhat akin to a relic in an
archeological museum. Of course the m odem form of SC is used as the language
of discourse in political debates, news broadcasts and other such formal settings,
but it is otherwise avoided in everyday usage. In effect, there are no native
speakers of SC, only speakers of CC who are prescriptively taught SC in school.
CC can be represented by the graphemes of SC, and CC commonly
appears in written form in novels, poetry, and other literary genres. There is
often a fluid exchange between SC and CC in spoken dialogue, and this applies
to all linguistic aspects: phonology, morphology, lexicon, and syntax. Another
category is considered by some scholars to fall under the aegis of CC: colloquial
Czech (ColC). Some scholars regard ColC as a separate category of non-standard
language and still others call into question its existence as an individual entity
unto itself. The question of various levels of language is a particularly thorny one
that occupies the attention of many Czech linguists and nothing approaching
consensus has yet been reached. For the purposes of this study, we will concern
ourselves w ith SC, CC, or regional dialects and set aside the issue of ColC, as it
has little bearing on discussion of the matters at hand.
Linguist Roman Jacobson writes of the phenomena of accent convergence
and divergence:
Each linguistic community, and each member of the community, possesses a

certain degree of conformity: die basic question concerns the choice between a
temporal and spatial type of conformism. In order to draw closer to its
neighbors, a community assimilates an element of language that has already
taken root in surrounding communities, that is, an elem ent that w ill facilitate
mutual communication and bring the two groups closer together. The
communities which adopt this sort o f assimilation are spatial conformists and
deny the tradition of their own language; they are consequently temporal
nonconformists. The opposite phenomenon, the refusal to assimilate a
neighboring linguistic acquisition in the name of safeguarding one's own
tradition, provides an example of the reverse: temporal conformism and spatial
nonconformism.71
This phenomenon is observed in dialects as well. Central dialects can serve as
interdialects, connecting outlying regions with a simplified form of the language,
a form that contains idiosyncrasies that are shared by all the surrounding dialects
and dispenses with aspects that are not universal. For instance, the pan-
Bohemian dialect, as it were, contains the non-standard declensional endings
(hloupej chlapec, zkazeny maso, pekny devcata), ej substitutes for y in the middle of
w ords (zvejkacka, hejbat), v is inserted before words beginning with o (voci, vokno),
and there are particular interjections th at not normally encountered in Moravia
ipid', hele). The Prague form of the dialect, whose intonation some liken to
singing, because of its wide intonational range compared to other dialects, has
not gained hegemony and many non-Prague Czechs dislike the sound of the
accent (for some it is held in contempt because of certain prejudices held by
Czechs about Praguers).72
These linguistic elements of spoken Bohemian dialect clearly distinguish
the speech as distinct and separate from "proper" literary Czech and also from
71 Roman Jacobson, On Language (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990), 179-180, cited
in Kevin Hannan, Borders of Language and Identity in Teschen Silesia (New York: Peter Lang, 1996),
117.
72 The branch of sociolinguistics that pertains to die tendency of speakers of a language to adapt
one's speech to the dialects of other speakers is known as Accommodation Theory.
90
Moravian interdialects, which are, for the most part, closer to literary Czech.
There is a certain am ount of linguistic tension betw een Bohemians and
Moravians, who, when they come into contact with each other, usually exhibit
accent divergence, each attem pting to distance him- or herself from the other
speaker. However, when natives of one region move perm anently to another
region, they typically adopt the linguistic habits of their new hom e in an attem pt
to assimilate.
Studies of Czech phonology and intonation tend to concentrate on either
the standard literary language or on Bohemian dialects, specifically the Prague
dialect of colloquial Czech.73 Although these books can offer some insight into
Czech intonation in a general sense, the dialects of Czech are rather distinct from
each other with regard to intonation. This is especially true for the Wallachian
and Lachian dialects that many of Janafek's characters use in his vocal works
(one of the exceptions in this regard is the florid literary Czech of The Makropulos
Case). The speech of Moravians is distinct from that of Bohemians, whether the
Bohemians use a local dialect or obecnd cestina (Czech C om m on Language).74
Czech Common Language has a clear hegemony over all other forms of the
spoken language, although there are also other codified forms of Moravian
73 For example, DaneS (1957), Gardiner (1980), and Kufera (1961).

74 This is the term employed by Henry KuCera and it refers to a colloquial interdialect that is
spoken throughout Bohemia; it is understood by all and stripped o f regional idiosyncrasies.
There is a difference between CC and obecnd cestina. Obecnd cestina is m ore standardized than CC.
dialects, such as obecnd handctina (Common Han&k Language), obecnd lastina
(Common Lachian), or obecnd valastina (Common Wallachian).
Some writers have eschewed literary Czech and have insisted on writing
in their native dialects. For example, O ndra tysohorsky wrote exclusively in
Lachian and in fact single-handedly created a Lachian literary language, an
artificial one that was adopted by a mere handful of writers during his lifetime
and has not been used since. (In much the same way Ludovit Stfur in essence
invented a literary Slovak language by codifying the central Slovak dialect and
arbitrarily calling it the standard written form of the language.) Indeed,
Lysohorsky's language is not readily understood by contemporary Lachians.
Although the language of his primary and university education was German and
he attended a Czech gymnasium, Lysohorsky composed all of his works in
Lachian.75
Jan££ek was considerably less polemic about the subject (his parti pris
against Germanisms in Czech notwithstanding). He also saw the value of
drawing from the richness of Czech dialects, particularly Moravian ones. He
wrote and set texts in dialects and exhorted actors to study the speech of the
common people. In an open letter to the editor of Moravskd revue on 6 March
1899, he writes:
75 Certain Czech Communists, among them former Minister of Education V£clav Kopecky and
Minister of Information and Culture Zden£k Nejediy (who had been antagonizing Jan&ek
toward the end of the composer's life) demanded that Lysohorsky abandon writing in Lachian
and write instead exclusively in standard Czech, which the author flatly refused to do all die way
up until his death in 1989.
92
The actors need to go back to that rare and inexhaustible school, the life of the
people, to regenerate and purify themselves. Until a time when w e have
completely purified our language, an actor or an actress must not intrude with a
distinctive, individual tone of his or her own, i.e., we must not be able to
'recognize' the voice of Mr. A or Miss B, whether he or she plays that part [...] A
true national language on the stage is one of the bridges that reaches the widest
strata of the public. At the theater people ought to see die school of real life, of
their own life!76
There is something of an inherent contradiction in w hat Jandiek writes
about distilling and preserving the essence of "true" Czech speech. W hat is
notable about his appeal is that we have no idea how Jan££ek himself actually
spoke. There exists no wax cylinder recording of the speech patterns of the
composer; the only record we have of Jan££ek's language are his writings, which
are almost exclusively in grand-style SC. We can surmise that he did not speak
SC, as SC is not naturally a spoken language. The case of the Czech language is a
peculiar one: some scholars have written of the language as an example of
diglossia,77 but here there are only tw o forms of the same language. Jan^Cek's
insistence on the purity of the language is a bit out of place, given there is little
that is pure about standard literary Czech, which was significantly overhauled
and rehabilitated in the nineteenth century.
76 Jan&ek, letter to Moravskd revue (6 March 1899), in Essays, 37-8.

77 For a detailed discussion of this term, see Charles Ferguson, "Diglossia," Word 15 (1959): 325-
40. The Oxford Concise Dictionary of Linguistics defines diglossia as "[t]he case in which a
community uses two distinct forms of the same language, one acquired through education and
appropriate to one set of contexts, the other acquired before formal education and appropriate to
another [...] In accounts of diglossia a variety learned formally and used in a range of more
formal contexts is the High form (often abbreviated H), one learned naturally and used in a range
of less formal contexts is the Low form (L)" (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 98. Some
examples of diglossia are French and Russian in Czarist Russia; Arabic, with its literary form and
numerous spoken forms; or die languages spoken in Paraguay, Spanish and Guarani.
93
Here is a map of Czechoslovakia between the wars; the four m ain regions
are indicated, as are the chief cities of each region:
Figure 3.10: Map of Czechoslovakia 1918-1938
Prague
O strava
Brno
Kosice •
Uzhorod
. Bratislava
Bohemia Moravia Slovakia Sub-Carpathian Ruthenia
In 1939, Hungary moved in to occupy Sub-Carpathian Ruthenia and after the
war the region was annexed by the Soviet Union and thereafter had nothing
more to do w ith Czechoslovakia.
At first, Jan££ek identified the region that contained his native Hukvaldy
as ValaSsko (Wallachia), and he thus titled his symphonic work Valasske tance
(Wallachian Dances). However in about 1890 he began to regard his native
Hukvaldy as belonging to Lachia (LaSsko), rather than Wallachia, in recognition
of the w ork of dialecticians FrantiSek BartoS and Alois §embera and
subsequently re-titled his dances Lachian Dances (Lasske tance).7* Both Polish
and Teschen (a interdialect that contains several dialects, including Lachian)
78 Jaroslava Prochdzka, "LeoS JaniCek a vala5sk6 lidovg tance" (LeoS Jan&ek and Wallachian Folk
Dances), Valassko 2 (1953): 54.
exhibit penultimate syllable stress,79 one of the notable characteristics of
Jan££ek's own dialect and that of m any of the characters in his vocal works.
There are a num ber of books that deal with the subject of Moravian dialects.80 Of
particular interest to this study is FrantiSek Trcivnifek's brief manuscript
Moravska ndfeci (Moravian Dialects), which was published during Jan£€ek's
lifetime.81 By examining the contents of this book, we can arrive at an
understanding of how Czech was spoken in early twentieth-century
Czechoslovakia. Tr£vmfek divides Moravian dialects into four main categories:
Moravian-Bohemian, Han£k (ndfeci handcke), Moravian-Slovak and Lachian.82 It
is curious the he w ould include Slovak dialects in a study of Moravian dialects,
b u t this testifies to the degree of obscurity that surrounded issues of language
eight years after the creation of the new state. As has been noted earlier, some
eastern Moravian dialects have more in common with western dialects of Slovak
them with Bohemian dialects.
79 Kevin Hannan, Borders, 97.

80 Among them are Jaromir Bglif's Pfehled ndfeci ceskeho jazyka (Overview of Dialects of the Czech
Language) (Prague: Stftni pedagogickg nakladatelstvi, 1971), Adolf Kellner's Vychodolasskd ndfeci
(Eastern Lachian Dialects), 2 vols. (Brno: DialektologickA komise pfi Matiri moravska, 1949), and
Adolfu Kellnerovi: Sbomik jazykaoednych studii (To Adolf Kellner Memorial Volume of Linguistic
Studies) (Opava: Slezsky studijni ustav 1954).
81 FrantiSek Trdvrudek, Moravska ndfeci (Moravian Dialects) (Prague: N4rodopisn4 spoleCnost
feskoslovanski, 1926).
“ Ibid., 5.
95
Figure 3.11: Dialect Map o f Moravia
A - M oravian-Bohemian
B = Hana It
C * M oravian-Slovak
D E Lachian
E = O ther
O strava 0
Olomouc Hukvaldy
Nove Mesto
Kromefiz
Brno
Luhacovice
Jan££ek was bom and reared in Hukvaldy, in the region known as Lachia,
and it is therefore of interest to us w hat Tr&vnifek notes about speech from that
area. Of course it is im portant to bear in mind that the com poser spent a good
deal of his later childhood and adulthood in the Moravian capital of Bmo and it
would be natural for him to adopt some speech patterns prevalent there.83
Trcivrufek outlines eleven traits of Lachian speech:84
83 He also spent a fair amount of tim e in the summers in the spa town of Luhaiovice. Many of his
letters and postcards to his w ife and to Kamila were sent from there.
84 Trdvnidek, Moravska ndfeci, 18.
96
Figure 3.12: List of Characteristics of Lachian Speech
1. Vowels are usually short

2. Stress is almost always on the penultimate syllable85
3. y replaces older Czech y
4. u replaces older Czech u
5. a replaces older Czech 'a, 'a, and f
6. die replacements for 'u and 'u are different in Lachian than in other Moravian dialects
7. Initial o is not preceded by v
8. Everywhere there is a distinction made between two different types of I: most
commonly 1 and also f
9. Old Czech sc remains86
10. Before e there is almost always a soft consonant h, cf, (, dz, c, e.g., vecfefe (SC vedete),
(etka (SC tetka), nepis (SC nepis)
11. In place of the older a, diere is often an o, e.g., brona, kraoa, sloma, som, so, zokott, etc.
In this chapter we examined the general principles that govern speech
intonation. Then we compared intonation to music and saw that there are
precedents for using standard musical notation in the recording of intonational
contours. No previous study has applied linguistic research to Jan££ek's music or
his theory of speech melody. This is surprising as it seems an obvious connection
to make. In order to make claims about whether Jan££ek's napevky do or do not
resemble speech intonation patterns, one m ust start with at least a basic
understanding of linguistics, specifically on intonation in Czech.
Next we reviewed research in intonation in the Czech language. Duncan
Gardiner's study uses music as a model for representing speech contours and
FrantiSek DaneS's book uses pitch levels to analyze intonation. Jaroslav Durych
85 Here, as elsewhere, the Lachian dialect shows a marked similarity to the Polish language. The
etym ology of the word Loch itself is telling: it comes from the Polish word Lech, which is a
synonym for "Pole;" it is also the first name of former Solidarity movement leader Lech Walesa.
86 This pronunciation is heard even now in words in which s is followed by a p a la ta liz e d t, as in
the word jeste (yet, still).
analyzed rhythm in Czech prose and posited a theory of rhythm for the
language. These studies provide some support for the viability of musical
notation for recording speech patterns.
Finally we discussed the various forms of Czech, from standard literary
Czech to Colloquial Czech, concluding with the linguistic characteristics of the
Lachian dialect that Jan££ek spoke. Czech is a stratified language; it is
characterized by num erous levels of language, called registers or codes. These
language levels (Standard Literary Czech, Common Czech, Colloquial Czech,
etc.) are employed in specific contexts and one m ust observe the norms that
govern linguistic choices. In addition to the various levels of language, which
cut across geographical, social, and economic boundaries, there are m any
different regional dialects. All of the above will provide the basis for the analysis
in subsequent chapters.
98
CHAPTER FOUR
99
CHAPTER FOUR: JANACEK AND HIS N A P tV K Y M LUVY
Tanafek as Reader
Jana£ek's interest in speech melody is reflected in the contents of his
library, contained in the Jan££ek Archive of the Moravian Museum in Brno. A
number of books there deal with the subject of speech intonation and
declamation directly or indirectly, and the margins of these books are in some
cases marked with copious notes, mostly comments in a conversational style
directed at the author. The notes from the 1870s are largely elucidative in nature:
translations of German w ords or comparisons with other texts. The notes from
1900-28 are of a different character; in them Janafek adopts a critical attitude to
what he read and in m any places wrote lengthy and contentious demurrers to
authorial assertions. It is possible to determine when the notes were penciled in
because Janafek was scrupulous in writing the date when w hen read the books
(and often even the place where he read them).
It is instructive to read these comments, because they offer valuable
insight into Jan&ek's thoughts on these subjects, which are more personal,
intimate, and immediate than anything he would publish in a feuilletim. They
give the reader a notion of where Jan££ek agreed and disagreed with his
contemporaries in these areas of such great import to him. O n the other hand, the
100
composer's notes are at times frustratingly incomprehensible, as evidenced by
the following examples from Hugo Riemann's 1884 book Musikalische Dynamik
und Agogik (Jana£ek's comments are in italics, and the underscoring is also
Janafek's):
Example 4.1: Excerpts o f Janalek's comments in his copy of Hugo Riemann's M usikalische
D ynam ik und Agogik
Page 1:
..., dass die Rhvthmik seit lanee das Stiefkind der Musiktheorie is und...
(true)
Page 8:
come ...wahrend die Gruppen selbst loser aneinander gefugt erscheinen. Zwischen die
now! einzelnen Gruppen schiebt sich...
Page 11:
Die kleinsten Glieder, in welche sich musikalische Gebilde zerlegen lassen, die
Tongruppen von zwei oder drei Einheiten, sind nicht Verkettungen iibrigens
untersehiedsloser Elemente, vielmehr reprasentiert jede derselben einen kleinen
Organism uzs von eigenartiger Lebenskraft; mit Recht kommt ihnen daher
der Name Motiv (Bewegungselement) zu. Das vollstandigste Bild organischen how can I feel
Werdens und Vergehens geben diejenigen Motive, bei denen die Tonstarke the beginning
zunachst wascht und sodann wider abnim m t and the end
[MUSICAL EXAMPLE]
Mit dem crescendo der metrischen Motive ist stets eine (selbst-
verstandlich geringe) Steigerung der Geschwindigkeit der Tonfolge und
this mit dem dimind uendo eine entsprechende Verlangsamung vrebunden; how does it
would die Gleichkeit der Zeiteinheiten ist daher keine vollkommen, sondem work!
be eine unbedeutend m odifizirte. Das wirklich genaue im Taktspielen but even the
arbitrary (z. B. nach dem Metronom) ist ohne lebendigen Ausdruck, opposite
maschinenmassig, unmusikalisch. would have
I used to say this when I was young! its menacing power!
Janafek's glosses are w ritten in pencil; according to some of the notes, he read
this book in 1909.
Besides the difference in tone of the comments, there are other indications
of when the notes w ere made: the marginalia w ritten in red pencil are
exclusively from the 1920s, and in later notes he tends to press harder on the
paper and write less legibly (in general many w ords in Jan&ek's comments are
illegible). Jan3£ek, being sure of himself in the flower of his career, did not
hesitate to write his opinions in the m ost forceful m anner possible: by writing in
red, pressing hard onto the paper, and liberally sprinkling his remarks with
exclamation points. The character of some of the comments seems to indicate that
Janafek may have been w riting the notes with the expectation that others might
be reading them after him. Other examples are m ere notes to himself,
momentary observations and reactions to the author's points or explanatory
glosses.
Among the books that Janafek had on Czech speech melody was Otakar
Hostinsky's On Czech Musical Declamation (O £esk6 deklamaci hudebm).1 Jan££ek
had two copies of this booklet in his library; one of them contains his profuse
annotations. There are some clarifications that the composer made for himself,
but m ost of the comm ents are critical assessments of Hostinsky's statements.
Underlined passages are flanked by one-word judgm ents and pithy phrases,
1 JK52, JaniCek Archive, Moravian Museum, Brno, Czech Republic. The abbreviation "JK" stands
for Jandckooa knihovna (Janaêk's library).
such as "superficial," "don't babble," "nothing about voiced consonsants," "so
what is it?" "he is contradicting himself!" or "avoiding [the subject]." Sometimes
there is just a question mark or a pair of exclamation points, leaving us to
wonder w hat he meant. Does the question m ark m ean that he disagreed or did
he w ant more clarification on a given point? Did the text contradict something he
had read or something from his own personal experience? Do the exclamation
points signify his enthusiastic endorsem ent of a line of reasoning or rather his
vehement opposition? We can only speculate.
He does seem to have found fault with m any of Hostinsky's claims. O n
page 12 of On Czech Musical Declamation, Jan££ek writes a line through the text on
the page and remarks in the margin: “Neslysel verul zivou lidooou pisehl" (He
really never heard living folk songs!).2 At this point in the book there is a small
paper inserted into the book with various settings for the phrase "Tak tise" (So
softly). Janafek seems to have been thinking of various intonations for the phrase
and in so doing he was testing for himself some of Hostinsky's assertions. At the
bottom of page 14, he writes: "pisemnou fee md na mysli" (he is thinking about the
written language).3 Jana£ek's underscoring indicates that he felt that some of
Hostinsky's assertions applied to literary Czech, and not to the spoken language,
as implied by the title of the book. This is n ot Jan££ek's only ad hominem attack on
this author. In his copy of the book Ceskd svetskd pisen lidovd, also by Hostinsky,
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid.
103
Jaricifek writes (p. 13, right margin): "a Dr. Hostinsky piSe u psadho stolu a
nevid£l lid zpxvat a skl&dat" (and Dr. Hostinsky writes at a desk and never saw
the people sing and compose).4
Janifek had other books and articles on this topic. Jaroslav H urt's "O
deklamaci hudebrn" (On Musical Declamation) appears in the April 1920 issue of
the magazine liv e slaoo. Although Jan££ek did not make any comments in the
margins of H urt's contribution, he almost certainly read it, because he m ade
notes in the margins of articles in the issue and because musical declamation had
occupied so much of his attention for so long. The content seems to agree with
the composer's own ideas of actors' responsibility to learn proper speech and
declamation for the stage and opera:
Proper diction is among die chief prerequisites necessary for dramatic

expression. An actor must therefore have a thorough command of his native
tongue. That is to say, he must know better than the average person why he
speaks a certain way and not otherwise. A dramatic artist, having mastered the
technique of his craft, must never lose sight of die fact that even the best artistic
effort is demeaned by improper speech.5
Twenty-one years earlier Jan££ek had also criticized stage actors for their
language; however, his aim was different from H urt's. The two had divergent
ideas about w hat is to be considered "proper" and "improper" speech: for H urt
the speech of his hypothesized "average" person is inferior to the practiced and
4 JK 58, Janifek Archive.

5 Mezi hlavni podminky, nutne k vyjadfovaiu dramatickeho um fni, nale ii sprivna mluva.
Um&ec-herec ma proto svou matefStinou ovlidati umflecky. To znameni: m i v£d£ti l£pe ne£
prosty obfan, prof mluvi tak a nejinak. Dramaticky um flec, ovlidaje techniku sv6ho um£ni,
nem i nikdy poidStfti se zfetele, ie sebe lepSi vykon um flecky ztrad na cenf, neni-li podepfen
sprivnou mluvou (Zive slaoo vol. 1, no. 1 (April 1920), 11-12 (JK 138).
104
learned speech of the trained stage actor. In contrast to this view, Janafek
exhorted actors to study the speech of common folk, to tap w hat he saw as a pure
source of the language, unfettered by artifice:
Study the waves of speech m elody and their timing! If there is a need to try to
achieve true language on stage there is a need for truth also in the sung words of
Czech operas. Between HanCi and Katefina there ought to be, after all, a
difference in die character of their respective speech melodies. Kozina, for
instance, cannot sing the languid melodies of modem love songs, but all this is
by the way. [...] A play m ust not be a mere comedy for die people. It is
necessary, particularly in the theatre, to lay the greatest emphasis on truth—
along with beauty—in everything that w e see or hear on stage. The gallery in
Moravia still laughs when it ought to cry!6
Not only is Jan££ek convinced that the dialogue of Czech actors m ust be
purged of foreign influences, but he also contends that stage speech should be
standardized. That is, no individual linguistic idiosyncrasies should be heard in
the theater, that most sacred shrine of nationalist pride. At the same time, he is
suggesting that Czech actors draw their inspiration from listening to the
"average" people that H urt criticizes for not knowing the proper diction taught
in books. H urt's method is prescriptive; Jan££ek's is descriptive. For Jan££ek the
language of the stage should be an apotheosis of the purity that he felt was
inherent in the dialects of common folk:
A true national language on the stage is one of the bridges that reaches the
widest strata of die public. At the theatre people ought to see the school of real
life, of their own life! A play must not be a mere comedy for die people. It is
necessary, particularly in the theatre, to lay the greatest emphasis on truth—
along with beauty—in everything that we see or hear on stage.7
6 Jan&ek, letter to Moravska revue (6 March 1899), Essays, 38.

7 Ibid.
105
lanafek as W riter
Janafek wrote extensively about the musicality of speech, particluarly of
his native language. His feuilletons for Lidove naviny are written with considerable
poetic license; one does not always know how literally to take his comments. He
seemed convinced that the speech melodies overheard in a variety of everyday
situations gave him a deep understanding of the speakers' inner states. He
claimed to be able to divine the emotions, motives, and moods of people solely
based upon their intonational patterns, irrespective of the specific words they
spoke:
When someone spoke to me, sometimes I did not understand the words, but I
did understand the intonation! I immediately knew what was inside the speaker
I could tell what he felt, whether he lied, whether he was excited, and when the
person spoke to me...I could feel, I could hear that perhaps the man was weeping
inside! The pitches, the intonation of human speech, of any creature's speech,
contained the deepest truth for me. And you see, that was my vital need."8
The phrase "of any creature's speech" is meant literally. Besides notating the
speech of adults, he also recorded the intonation of children's nonsensical
utterances, e. g., infants' cooing and toddlers' unintelligible cries, as well as the
"speech" of animals and even of things, such as the sound of ocean waves
lapping at the beach. Others before JanAfek had observed apparent intonational
patterns in the vocalizations of animals. Herbert Spencer noted that the sounds
animals make have various different intonational patterns, apparently based to a
8 JanAfek, cited in Jaromir Ne£as et al., Nejstarsi zoukaoe zdznamy morauskeho a slovenskeho lidoveho
zpeau (Brno: Gnosis, 1998), 107.
certain extent on the circumstances and situations in which they find
themselves.9
W hereas Spencer was scrupulous about acknowledging the differences
between speech and music as well as the similarities,10 Jan££ek seems to w ant to
blur the distinction. In a notebook from 1898, he writes: "There is not such a leap
from speech to song as it would seem!"11 O ne w ould expect this comment from a
composer w ho made the collection of speech fragments and their adaptation into
song a significant part of his life. In C hapter Three I enumerated some of the
clear correspondences between speech and music. However, speech is of course
not song, a n d some of the examples that Janafek scrawled into his notebooks
sound forced w hen spoken, even though one could easily imagine them making
an appearance in an opera or a folk song. An example of this is the following,
from an 1897 notebook: an undated entry just before an entry on 19 September of
that year and captioned "Mrs. Rakovifovei, calm, bold, in dialect." The ndpeuek
that Mrs. Rakovi£ov& spoke was "No pekne by to bylo;"12 here is the notation that
Janaêk recorded:
9 Herbert Spencer, Essays: Scientific, Political, and Speculative, voL I. (London: Williams and
Norgate, 1868), 214.
10 Ibid., 221-24.
11 Folder Z 19, Janifek Archive. The abbreviation "Z" stands for zdpisntk (notebook).
12 Folder Z 2 0 .1 have omitted diacritics over vowels where Janifek himself left them out
107
Example 4 Jz “N o p ikn e by to bylo“
^ *= *[—J J ^ J
no p6k- ne by to b y- lo
(Lit - Yes, nice it certainly would be.)
This fragment is made up of intervals of perfect fourths and fifths.
Although the fragment sounds musical and fits the prosody of Czech rather well,
it is difficult to imagine that someone would have spoken this sentence exactly
the way it is written because the contour is unnatural. A more regular contour
would involve a downward glide from the peak of the sentence on pekrte (viz.
Figure 4.1A). If the statement were uttered emphatically, there would likely be a
larger rise in tone on the word bylo (Figure 4.1B). In any case the onset w ould be
higher in pitch than the final syllable and there would be a steady fall from the
peak syllable.
It has been pointed out to me that this specimen would not be so
unnatural as a contrastive phrase that would continue, for example, "Yes, nice it
certainly would be, but..."13 It is certainly true that intonation patterns are
context-bound; however, there are two reasons why this ndpevek was probably
not written exactly as Jan££ek heard it. First, the last syllable, -lo, ends on A,
which from the context would appear to be at or near the bottom limit of Mrs.
13 Miijam Fried, personal communication, 2001.
Rakovi£ov4's range. This w ould indicate that the speech melody would
represent a sentence final, i. e., a closed statem ent without continuation
(contrastive or otherwise). Second, if there had been more to the statement,
Jan££ek would likely have notated the subsequent phrase. He was certainly
sensitive to the context of each ndpevek and seems to have taken context into
account in most cases w hen notating. There are m any examples of longer ndpevky
that he recorded in full, such as the ndpevek show n in Example 3.3. So if there had
been more to the phrase, he w ould have probably recorded the entire utterance
as he had in other situations.
Figures 4.1A and 4.1B illustrate tw o plausible renderings of the phrase no
pekne by to bylo:
Figure 4.1 A: H ypothesized Intonational Contour o f "No ptkne by to bylo" A
# = l \Lm h y- \— \— r
no p6k- ne by to by - lo
(Unmarked - "Yes, it would be nice.")
Figure 4.1B: H ypothesized Intonational Contour of "No p£kne by to bylo" B
no p6k- ne by to by - lo
(Marked - "Yes, nice it certainly would be.")
Note that both examples are "atonal," i.e., they do not lie within a specific tonal
context as does Example 4.1. This "atonality" is typical of speech in intonation
languages such as English, and to a lesser, but still significant, extent also with
pitch accent and tone languages. The specimen that Jan&ek notated is "too
tonal" to be likely a faithful representation of w hat Mrs. Rakovi£ov£ said; the
notes all lie within the key of A (all of the syllables are on scale degrees 1,4, and
5 of that key), and that makes this sam ple an implausible exemplar of authentic
speech.
The hypothetical ndpevky that I have proposed are but two possible
renderings of the phrase—there are others.14 In addition, it should be noted that
the cdrka on the word pekne is absent in Jan££ek's notated sample. Presumably the
composer intentionally omitted it because the speaker had pronounced that
vowel shortly, as is common am ong some Czech speakers, particularly those
from northern Moravia. In his own writing, Jan££ek almost never omitted corky;
he omitted them in quotations when the speakers spoke with short vowels. If one
were to notate the example with the prescriptively "proper" vowel length of
literary Czech, the duration of the note for -ne in the above examples w ould be a
quarter note rather than and eighth note.
Another unlikely specimen of normal speech is found in an entry for 1
March 1928 in the Diary for Kamila Stosslavd [Pamdtntk pro Kamilu Stosslovou].
Janifek notates Kamila's utterance "V y byste mne [sic] byl znicil!" (You would
have destroyed me!) and writes below: "For these words I am eternally grateful
141 treated this subject at some length in a paper at a 1999 conference in London on Jandfek.
110
to you! They are my salvation! I can't thank you for them enough! You returned
to me faith and the desire to live."15
Example 4.3: Facsimile of Janilek's Letter to Kamila Stdsslovi
^ /- " T ?
/2
/ /,
15 Leo$ Jan££ek, Pamatnik pro Kamilu Stosslovou (Diary for Kamila St5ssIov&), ed. Jarmila
Prochizkova (Brno: Moravskig zemsk£ muzeum, 1994), 43.
The first four w ords are written as quarter note Es and the last w ord is a falling
fifth from F-sharp to B in half notes. In fact, the whole phrase is like a chord
progression: IV-V-I. The fall of the perfect fifth, so comm on as a cadential pattern
in music, also appears often in speech to mark the end of a sentence or the
conclusion of a thought. The following example of a possible speech melody
illustrates this principle:
Figure 4.2: “Jd vubec nevtm , kd ejel"
J& vu- becneviin, kdeje!
(I don't have any idea where he is!)
That a final is often spoken as a falling fifth is also confirmed by research
presented in G ardiner's book.16
It seems unlikely, however, that Janafek in w riting Example 4.2 was
recalling the exact rhythm and pitches that he heard Kamila say; rather, he
probably transform ed the specimen somewhat in his m ind to render it more
easily in musical notation. The contour and rhythm of this ndpevek is inconsistent
with the conventions of the spoken language. Firstly, a more natural profile for
such an emphatic statement would involve a gradual rise from the first syllable
16 Gardiner cites several studies of in tonational cadences in various European languages

(German, Czech, Russian, and Turkish) that assert that the fall in a cadence in a closed statement
to be roughly a perfect fifth (15). By no means do the studies confirm the universality of the
interval of a fifth; they merely note the prevalence of intervals of approximately a fifth.
Vy to the nucleus of the phrase on its penultim ate syllable.17 However, the phrase
could also be spoken less insistently, in which case the first five syllables would
be more or less recited on a given pitch, there would be a slight rise on zni- and a
slight drop on -cil. Clearly there are m any other equally valid possibilities, but in
m ost cases there would be a stepwise rise from the onset syllable to the nucleus
or else a m uch narrower range, involving a recited pitch followed by a small rise
above that pitch and then a small drop below it.
Secondly, the duration of the last two syllables is twice that of the
preceding syllables, thus making the phrase sound odd when spoken. As
diacritic m arks in Czech signify crucial semantic differences, vowels that do not
carry cdrky are almost never held for the full length of a syllable that does have a
cdrka. Even in the case of words w hose meanings would not change if the
syllables were prolonged (as is the case with "znicil"), Czech speakers hardly
ever lengthen short syllables.
So although the final cadence of a falling fifth is a naturally occurring
interval in normal speech, the contour and rhythm of the example belie the
notion that Janifek merely recorded Kamila's utterance without alteration. The
example is, however, consistent w ith a dramatic setting of the text as it might
appear in one of Jan££ek's vocal works. The w ord znicil (destroyed), the semantic
and dramatic crux of the phrase, is brought into relief by the rhythmic
17 A more realistic ndpeoek for Kamila's quote, in overall rhythm and contour, if not in all specific
details, would resemble the hypothesized exam ple “]d vubec nem'rn, kde je!" (Figure 4.2).
113
prolongation of the word. The articulation markings (the crescendo to the final
word, the accent on the first syllable of that word, and the tenuto marking above
the last syllable) also highlight the word. The example is for these reasons
actually rather musical and could have been Jan&ek's "misreading" (either
intentional or inadvertant) of Kamila's exclamation for musical and dramatic
purposes.
O ther examples are similarly un-speechlike. Similarly problematic as a
specimen of actual Czech speech is the following example, spoken by a
milkmaid:
Example 4.4: “M y mdme Spatnu cestu, sam y led a sama voda"
my ma - me £pat-nu cestu, samy led a sa - ma vo - da
(We have a poor road, just ice and water)
The caption for this entry reads: "says calmly, the same woman, 4 /X II1897."18 It
is not difficult to imagine this snippet appearing in a song or an opera, but it is
hardly a specimen of authentic Czech speech. The pitches in the example
together form an E-minor triad, which would fit well in a tonal context. The
rhythm of the tunelet also belies normal speech patterns. In a spoken context,
18 Folder Z 20, Janifek Archive. Two entries earlier Jan4£ek had written the caption "the freezing
milkmaid enters" to a ndpevek and the word tatdz (die same woman) written by the two
subsequent entries indicates that they were also spoken by the milkmaid.
114
"spatnu cestu" (poor road) w ould not be spoken w ith rhythmic values twice as
long as "my mdme" (we have), and the tenuto markings emphasize this.
There are other examples that do not conform to principles of normal
speech. Another specimen that seems unlikely as actual Czech speech is the
following napevek, which outlines a B m inor triad:19
Example 15: “No, s pattern Bohem dobru noc pfeju!”
no s panem Bo- hem dobru noc pfeju!
(God be with you, I wish you good night!)
The utterance is broken into two separate grammatical units, each with five
syllables—no s pattern Bohem and dobru noc pfeju. This example is from 3 August
1898; in this year Jan££ek started to consecutively num ber his ndpevky. To the left
of the staff ]an&€ek wrote "156," to the right he wrote "stafec," (old man) to
indicate who had uttered the phrase.
Of course not all of the notated examples appear to have been altered. A
more plausible example of possible authentic speech is the following napevek
from 1897:
19 Ibid. In this napevek Jan&ek wrote the time signature before the key signature. Orthographic
inconsistencies such as this one are common for the composer and appear elsewhere in his
notebooks.
115
Example 4.6: “P&itbu zaplat milost pan, pdnbu za p la f
Pan - bu za - plaf mi losf pin pan - bu za - plaf
(God bless you, sir, bless you)
The caption to this specimen reads: "21/IX —old w om an, hunchback, w ith a
voice like a witch, thanked for the flower."20 The intervals in this specimen are
much closer together (range within two whole steps) and it is rhythmically
homogenous, except for the word pan in the middle. Panbuh (Lord God) has two
vowels w ith accents and in literary Czech, accented syllables are pronounced
twice as long as unaccented ones. However, in certain Moravian dialects,
including the one in which this woman was likely to have spoken (these samples
were collected in Brno), accents tend to not be observed, i.e., all syllables tend to
be pronounced equally long. The exception is an accented single-syllable word,
such as pan, which are often pronouced w ith their full value (twice as long as
accented syllables). This napevek conforms to those criteria. Another detail that
makes this specimen a more convincing example is the arrow with which
Jan££ek is attem pting to depict the dow nw ard glide o n the final syllable. This
example is typical of a speech melody that one m ight expect to hear on the street
in Brno.
20 Ibid. Stafena, shrbeni, hliskem jako £arod€jnke; d£kovala za k y tid
How do we know that Jan££ek did n o t really hear these speech fragments
uttered exactly as he notated them? Of course there is no way to know for
certain, but the results of linguistic research indicate that these statements w ould
not normally be spoken as Jan££ek notated them.21 Also, they sound unnatural
when spoken. Could this be explained by some sort of evolution of intonation?
This is unlikely, because recordings from around the time w hen Jan££ek was
compiling his examples do exist and they do not indicate marked differences
between contemporary intonation patterns and those of the late nineteenth or
early twentieth centuries.22
The improbability of Kamila's quote and some of the other speech tunelets
the composer compiled leads one to suspect that, more than a storehouse of more
or less exact transcriptions of Moravian Czech speech in the late nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries, Jart&£ek's notebooks may in fact represent an
indispensable part of the composer's creative process and as such are more
fascinating for what they are not. In fact, it seems that he w as—consciously or
n o t—recomposing many of the fragments as he notated them and was perhaps
visualizing how he could incorporate them into his vocal works. He probably
21 Experiments in Gardiner, DaneS, and elsewhere yield results that indicate the relative
infrequency of pure musical intervals in Czech. Jan££ek's notated perfect fourths and fifths and
arpeggiated chords were die product of his imagination.
22 For instance, on die CD recording for Jaromfr Nedas, et al. Nejstarsi zvukove zdznamy moravskeho
a slooenskeho lidaveho zpevu (The Oldest Sound Recordings of Moravian and Slovak Folksongs)
(Brno: Gnosis, 1998), FrantiSka Kyselkovd and Hynek Bim speak and although the speech of each
exhibits phonological and morphological variations from die speech of m ost contemporary
Czechs, their intonational patterns do not differ in any appreciable way from those that can be
heard today.
w ouldn't have been quite aware of transforming the speech specimens while
recording them, but even if he had done so intentionally, he may have denied the
fact. Jan££ek always rankled at the suggestion that he acquired his thematic
material from copying intonation and rhythmic patterns that he heard around
him and slavishly pasting them into his works.
The Siginificance of Speech Melody to Tan&lek's Work
We have evidence of Jan££ek's notating speech melodies from 1897 on,23
although this was an interest that captured his attention before that time. He
raised the issue when writing in 1888 about Smetana's operas (the older
composer came in for sharp criticism).24 To w hat extent did the study of napevky
have a direct impact on Janifek's compositional process? It seems unlikely from
the evidence that he did insert actual speech melodies into his vocal works. With
his notebooks he was sharpening his ear and concentrating on the melodious
aspects of his language.
Janafek seems to think these speech melodies gave him a penetrating
insight into the emotional states of the speakers such that he could comment
authoritatively on the dram a surrounding his subjects' utterances.25 Reading the
feuilletons about napevky, one is tempted to accept the composer's remarks
23 This is die year that he began collecting napeoky in notebooks.

24 Milena Cemohorski, "K problematice vzniku Jan££kovy theorie n4p6vku" (On the Question of
the Provenance of Jan££ek's Theory of Speech Melody) Casopis moravskeho muzea, voL 42 (1957):
165-177.
25 As evidenced by the quote at the beginning of this chapter.
118
without question, because he states them unequivocally and with an air of
certainty. He often used a chronoscope to measure the duration of the napevky,
and this contributed to the impression that there was a scientific basis for his
activities. This practice helped mask the nebulous quality of his remarks, and it
provided an apparent justification for them.
A number of problematic issues are involved with taking Jan££ek's
transcriptions and comments at face value. As I suggested earlier, it is not clear
that these melodies were written precisely as he heard them. Many of the
examples appear to be "too tonal"—musical rewritings of actual speech
melodies. Moreover, although he sensed the pivotal role that intonation plays in
oral communication, Jan&ek did not address the matter in a systematic and
scientific manner and thus his observations are largely subjective impressions of
what intonation meant to him. In a feuilleton for Lidove noviny on 17 March 1922,
Jan&fek writes:26
Example 4.7: “Budem tady stat, a jd vim , ze nepfijdel"
(She said curtly)
to w ih k /d , lU l, A *t f N ] # '
Budem tady stit, a j£ vim , 2e nepfijde!
(We're going to stand here, and I know that he won't come!)
26 Jan££ek, Fejetony z Lidoaych naoin (Feuilletons from Lidove nooiny), ed. Jan Racek et aL (Brno:
Krajsk£ nakladatelstvi v Bmg, 1958), 83.
119
Example 4.8: "To je jedno!"
w„/o f t / '
To je jedno!
(It doesn't matter!)
After presenting the above napevky and briefly commenting on them,
Janadek then offers a musical setting that he had written to accompany the
phrases:27
Example 4.9: Jantfek's Setting o f “Budem tady sta t" and "To je jedno!"
Vyzdvihnu tbnovou kr&su rozhovoru:

(I will demonstrate the tonal beauty of the conversation:)
Nebyly jste si vfcdomy, dru2ky, te t6nov6 krisy svoji feCL NetuSite, ie ji se va£e nitro
odhalilo, ale coi vice je3t£!
(You were not aware, ladies, of the tonal beauty of your speech. You do not suspect that
with it your very soul was revealed, but how much more still!)
27 Ibid., 84.
120
At the moment w hen he heard the napevky, Jan££ek w as already plumbing their
musical potential. As a result, he wrote an altered version of w hat was actually
said, a version that better fit a tonal scheme.
It is often assumed or implied that Jan££ek's notebooks contain a faithful
and accurate representation of speech melodies that he overheard (to the extent
that musical notation can render such speech tunelets):
The composer recorded speech intonations in ordinary everyday situations

during his trips to the country as well as in the streets o f towns, and later even
during his journeys abroad, where he recorded intonations of Russian,
Slovenian, German and English speech.28
[I]t was just at that time, at the beginning of the [eighteen] nineties, that he began
to systematically listen to and carefully record the melodic and rhythmic contours
of the living spoken word, even the speech of an im a ls and things, with all the
concomitant external and internal phenomena [emphasis mine].29
Such a characterization is, however, at odds with the evidence at hand. Even a
cursory glance at some of the napevky that Janafek recorded shows that the some
notebook entries are clearly not bona fide specimens of Czech speech. Given
w hat has been written about Janaiek and speech melody, one might expect to
find in the notebooks relatively faithful transcriptions of speech melodies, i. e.,
"authentic" exemplars of spoken Czech, recorded as meticulously as Jan3£ek had
notated folk songs he was collecting with his fellow ethnographers. However,
certain of the melodies do not resemble normal speech patterns at all, or at least
28 Jarmila Proch£zkovd, "LeoS Jandfek a moravsky hudebni folklor," in Jaromir Nefas et aL,
Nejstarsi zoukaoe zdznamy moravskeho a slovenskeho lidoveho zpexm (The Oldest Sound Recordings of
Moravian and Slovak Folksongs) (Brno: Gnosis, 1996), 107.
29 Jaroslav Vogel, Leos Jandcek, reprint from 1963 ed. (Prague: Academia, 1997), 13. "[P]r«lv6 v on£
dobg, po&tkem let devadesdtych zafal to tii systematicky odposlouchdvat a pedivg si
zaznamen£vat melodicky i rytmicky sp&d 2iv£, mluven£ fed, ba i fed zvffat a v£ci, a to i se vSemi
vngjSimi i vnitfnimi pruvodnimi zjevy."
121
exaggerate rhythmic values and intervallic content of the napevky that would
have been uttered in order to make them more musical. From certain
peculiarities of some of the fragments, it seems that in most cases Jan££ek heard a
speech melody being uttered and then transformed that melody in his mind
before setting it down to paper.
Tan££ek on the Czech Language
An ancillary observation will illustrate the intimate connection between
Jan&iek's musico-poetic thought and aesthetic predilections. After the notated
speech fragment “Vy byste mne [sic] byl znicil!" (Example 4.3), Jan££ek thanks
Kamila for the words that "returned to me faith and the desire to live." He
continues:
Figure 4.3: Janidek's February 1928 M essage to Kamila St&sslova
Ne, ma duse, neznicil. Tebe s(astnou jen videl zdravou, veselou —a na

vzdy mou, jen mou. Na rozloucenou, tezkou rozloucenou dnesniho dne 27.
unora 1928. Jen ty nikdy nezapominej, ani na chznli, zesjedine mou celou
Tvou bytosti.30
[No, my sweetheart, I would not destroy you. I would only wish to see you
happy, healthy—always mine, only mine. Farewell, a difficult farewell, today, 27
February 1928. Just you never forget, even for a moment, that you are only mine
with your whole being.]
When Jan££ek wrote these words perhaps he had nationalist poet Karel
Hynek Mucha's 1836 poem Mdj ringing in his ear:
30Jan££ek, Pamatmk, 44-45.
Figure 4.4: Excerpt from M adia's poem M dj
Ach, v zemi krasnou, zemi milovanou, v kolebku svou i hrob svuj, matku
svou, v vlast jedinou i v dedictm mu danou, v sirou tu zemi, zemi
jedinou...31
[O, into the beautiful land, beloved land, his cradle and his grave, his mother, his
only homeland, given to him as his birthright, broad land, only land...]
A simple repeated assonance of ow32 and rhythmic cadences that are similar in
both passages are enough to evoke this passage of Mdj, which, along with the
introductory lines to the poem, every Czech pupil learns by heart. We know that
JanaCek knew Mdj, as he alludes to it in a feuilleton for the Blatter der Staatsoper
und der Stddtischen Oper, which he wrote in 1927 and was published a year later.33
If he was alluding to the Mdcha poem, which is certainly possible given the fact
that Janitek (and perhaps St&sslova as well) was quite familiar with Mdj,
presumably he was comparing his pure and guileless love for Kamila to his love
for his homeland.
Jartafek often spoke in glowing terms of his native language. In an article
for Lidove nooiny from 6 April 1918 entitled "Moravany! Morawaan!" Janifek
analyzes a bilingual announcement at a train station in eastern Bohemia and is at
pains to illustrate the melodiousness of his own tongue, as it compares to
German: "The German version cut harshly and roughly in the same triad, with a
dissonance of a seventh; it has crushed the third syllable and tom off the last one;
31 Karel Hynek M£cha, Mdj. (Prague: Vil6m Smidt, 1995), 50.

32 In die Czech language there are no diphthongs; in the vow el chain cm, both vowels are
pronounced roughly the same duration.
33 LeoS Jan&ek, "The Development of Opera," Essays, 125.
it has ground into grumbling the first two. In the Czech version you hear a song
which winds along in equal lengths within a rainbow of colors; o-a-a-y."34 He
goes on to compare the Hipp's chronoscope readings for the first two versions of
the announcement, concluding that the shortness of the German version,
extrapolated over the two and a half hours of Jenufa, must be gigantic.
Subsequently he takes up the issue of the translation of Jenufa into German for
the Vienna performance. He claims that the speech melody is still there in the
translation and delights at the oddity of hearing German sung to Czech
inflections.35 For Jan£fek, the truth of the dram a—the Czech speech melodies—
remained after the words had been translated.
The Moravian composer felt the need to compensate for his being on the
fringe; he did not belong to the Austro-Germanic mainstream, nor to the Prague
school of composers, and it took a long time for him to be accepted in these
circles. Jan££ek was fiercely proud of his Moravian heritage, but also at the same
time painfully self-conscious of the fact that his roots in and artistic predilections
tow ard Moravian culture left him outside the greater European universe of
musical discourse. It was perhaps because of a feeling of perceived inferiority
that he set out to make recordings of folk songs so systematically and
methodically (and instructed others in so doing); his use of the H ipp's
chronoscope in an attem pt to record the precise lengths of the utterances may
34 JaniCek, "Moravany! Morawaan!" Essays, 40.

35 Ibid., 41.
have helped to lend a scientific cast and thus respectability to his work in the
eyes of his contemporaries.
There is a blurring of the borders between "pure" composition and
"faithful" transcription of speech melodies. As was noted earlier, a fair number
of the speech melodies Jan££ek scribbled into his notebooks seem to be spoken
phrases the composer has set to music, rather than phrases merely written down
with the same rhythm and pitch with which they were spoken. That is to say, the
speech fragments were, in a sense, m ade more musical. In contrast, some of the
singing in the operas and other vocal works is more speechlike than the
purported speech melodies.
Jan££ek was alm ost obsessed w ith the concept of purity as he imagined it:
the purity of Slavic art free from foreign influences, the purity of the Czech
language unsullied by German borrowings, even the purity of the love the
composer felt for Kamila Stosslovd.36 For all his rhetoric about preserving the
language in its natural state, Jan&ek a t times subordinated speech melody to the
music in the works and the contours of his vocal lines are often more dramatic
than the subtle inflections of normal Czech speech, which, when spoken
neutrally, sounds som ewhat similar to an intoned Old Slavonic chant. In
composing his vocal lines, he never did violence to the overall impression of
stylized speech just to fit them to the music.
36 Ian Horsburgh claims that the relationship was "entirely platonic" (Leos Janacek: The Field That
Prospered (New York: Scribner's, 1981), 139). Although the relationship appears to never have
been consummated, Jan££ek's letters imply that he had romantic, even erotic feelings for Kamila.
Janifek was loath to leave home even just to take a walk without a
notebook in his breast pocket, lest he miss an opportunity to record some
particularly beautiful or fascinating napevek. These notebooks are evidence of the
composer's hypersensitivity to the sound and character of his language. It is the
sensitivity that a foreigner w ould bring, but with the insight of a native. To a
certain extent he was able to distance himself from his language enough to be
able to comment authoritatively on w hat he heard. If he committed the primary
sin of the ethnographer—being too close to the subject of stu d y —we can forgive
him, because his observations often shed a good deal of light on the subject at
hand and at the very least give an impression of his aesthetic predispositions and
prejudices. However, we err if we accept all the notated examples contained
within his notebooks as a repository of intonational patterns of the Czech
language.
Some have suggested that the setting of texts for Jandfek was, for all the
writing to the contrary, not an issue of such great m om ent as the composer
would have us believe. John Tyrrell quotes Jan££ek as asking F. S. ProcMzka (the
librettist for The Excursion of Mr. Broucek to the Fifteenth Century) to fill in a few
lines for the revision of Sarka.37 Taking this quote and one other as a point of
departure, Tyrrell argues against the importance of speech melody to Jan4£ek. Of
course examples can be cited that seem to contradict any assertion about the
37 Tyrrell, "Jan££ek and the Speech-melody Myth," 793. The quote is from a letter of 16 April 1919
from Jan&ek to Proch£zka. In the article Tyrrell also cites a 1925 letter from Jan&ek to Ota Zitek,
asking for words for the character Pfemysl from the same opera.
composer and his compositional m ethods; Jan&Cek certainly felt that speech
melody had utility for him in his compositions as he devoted so much time and
energy to the study of it. As MiloS Stedroft states: "Although it is true that
Jan££ek strongly resisted (instinctively and intellectually) the notions that he was
a 'naturalist' and that he incorporated the speech melodies he collected into his
actual compositions, it seems obvious that the everyday process of recording
speech melodies m ust have had an im pact on his vocal and operatic style. This
argum ent is supported by the increasing significance of direct discourse set to
music in the speech-melody style in Jan&£ek's operas."38
Tyrrell's argum ent is too facile; he constructs a straw-man argum ent
against Jan Racek's statement about speech melody being the fount from which
Janafek drew his motivic and them atic material. In his demurrer to Racek,
Tyrrell devotes a good deal of space to a detailed description of Jan*i£ek's
compositional techniques in his first opera, Pocdtek romdnu (The Beginning of a
Romance). This is of little import, however, because Jan££ek composed that
opera in 1891, fully six years before he began to manifest a serious interest in
speech melody, and Pocdtek romdnu lacks passages that resemble speech patterns.
If Jan££ek had been thinking at this tim e about the connection between language
and music and its practical applications for his work, his inchoate ideas had yet
to find their way into his compositions.
38 MiloS Stedroft, "Direct discourse and speech m elody in Jan&ek's operas," Jandcek Studies, ed.
and trans. Paul W ingfield. (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 80.
127
W hen Tyrrell turns to Jenufa, he holds up the following example from Act
I, Scene 1 for scrutiny:39
Example 4.10: Jenufa's Entreaty of Grandmother (Act I, Scene 1, mm. 5-8 after rehearsal
number 13)
JENUFA
Stafenko, nehn£vejte se, Stafenko, nehn^vejte se!
(Grandma, don't be upset!)
Tyrrell observes that Jan^fek modified Preissova's text to make four octosyllabic
lines for two four-bar phrases:
Figure 4.5: Text for Jenufa's Entreaty (Act I, Scene 1, mm. 5-12)
Stafenko, nehngvejte se,

Stafenko, nehngvejte se!
J4 to vSecko vynahradim,
VSecko, vSecko vynahradim.
(Grandma, don't be upset! I'U make up for it all.)
About this section, Tyrrell asserts:
Although the play on which [the opera jenufa] is based is in prose, the prose was
turned into a sort of quasi-verse by (he time Jan££ek finished setting it This was
done by means of "rhyming repetitions," words arranged metrically into lines,
which were generally repeated, providing verbal material to go with the
symmetrically structured music. The very presence of such a device is
significant If the words were really dictating the course of the music, it would
39 Tyrrell, "Jandfek and the Speech-melody Myth," 794.
128
not have been necessary to mar the vaunted naturalism of die opera in this
way.40
Tyrrell implies that since Jan^dek cast die prose into "quasi-verse," the result
m ust necessarily be false and unrealistic; that the composer w as making the text
the handm aiden of the music by setting some texts to pre-existing music. He says
that the naturalism of the passage is marred because of the changes, but I would
in fact hold up this very passage as an excellent example of naturalism in
Jan&dek. I think it argues most eloquently against Tyrrell's claims. The passage is
adm ittedly not an example of authentic Czech speech set to music, but of that
there are few instances indeed. Jan£dek's naturalism is conveyed by a somewhat
stylized version of speech, one which has many of the characteristics of normal
speech, but in the end is a compromise that rests on the border between linguistic
and musical discourse.
There is a drop of a fifth on the emphatic imperative "nehnevejte se,” which
appears in several places in The Diary of One Who Disappeared (Zapisnik zmizeleho)
and is also typical in common speech.41 A smaller interval would be expected in
a neutral statement, but when the speaker is agitated, the interval is likely wider,
and it is perfectly possible to encounter a fifth in this situation. Jenufa is suffering
inside from the knowledge that she is pregnant by Steva, who is just about to
return from the recruiting office with the news of whether he was conscripted or
not. If so, then the wedding will not take place and it is that eventuality that
40 Ibid.
411 will discuss the Diary in Chapter Five.
129
Jenufa fears most of all. From this anxiety comes Jenufa's entreaty (a bit more
passionate than the situation warrants and this does not escape Laca's notice) to
Grandm other not to be angry with her for h er daydreaming. Because of Jenufa's
troubled state, her imperative is uttered emphatically. What makes the passage
somewhat less natural are the long half notes at the ends of the phrases on the
reflexive pronoun "se" (meaning oneself), b u t as I remarked earlier, duplicating
"pure" Czech speech was not Jan&ek's goal. I will say more presently this
example in my discussion below on Jenufa.
Tyrrell's subsequent discussion of the operas Vylety pane Brouckovy (Mr.
Brouiek's Excursion to the Moon) and Sarka does nothing to deny the validity of
speech melody on Jan££ek's compositional process and in fact serves to support
it. The article begins as an attack on the idea that speech melody was of central
importance to Jan4£ek's compositional thought and concludes with a sort of
admission of the crucial significance of speech melody on his creativity (as
evidenced by the radical revisions of the operas after the composer had
developed his speech melody theory).42
In his disquisition on the relevance of speech melody to direct discourse in
Jaifafek's operas, MiloS Sfadroft first turns his attention to the operas §arka and
Pocdtek romdnu, but does not write much about them (only one long paragraph).43
Presumably this is because Jan&fek had not begun his study of napevky until after
42 Tyrrell, "Jan&ek and the Speech-melody Myth," 795-96.

43 MiloS Stedrofi, "Direct discourse and speech m elody in Jan&ek's operas," Janacek Studies, ed.
Paul Wingfield. (Cambridge, UK, New York; Cambridge University Press, 1999).
these operas had been composed. StSdroft holds that there is a distinction in text
setting observed by Janafek between direct discourse (the representation of
speech, including quotations, as opposed to narrative discourse) and the rest of
the text; he states: "in [Jan^Cek's] operas, sung speech melody stylisations are
restricted almost exclusively to passage incorporating direct discourse a n d /o r
quotations from written texts."44 This is, however, not the case. There are
numerous examples of speechlike passages in Jan££ek's vocal works that are not
just settings of quotations or direct discourse. We will see this in Chapters Five
and Six.
A Tribute to Olga
Janafek's obsession with speech melody extended into his personal life.
His daughter Olga, who since birth had been battling w ith various threats to her
health, including scarlet fever, rheumatism, inflammation of the pericaridum,
hydrocephalus, and even typhus, which she contracted on a trip to St.
Petersburg, once again fell seriously ill in July 1902. H er chronic bronchitis and
its concomitant weakening of the liver and kidneys, caused her to be bedridden
for the rest of her days, except for a day in October, w hen she w ent with her
mother for a walk, being forced to stop after only a few hundred yards. As she
lay in bed on 22 February 1903, Olga said to her father: "Daddy, play the
44 Ibid., 80.
131
Pastorkyna for me, for I w on't be able to hear it in the theater."45 Jan££ek w ent to
the piano and began to play. Zdenka Jan4£kovd ran from the room so Olga
w ould not see her weep at the sight of her daughter listening to an opera that she
w ould never see realized on stage.46
The composer had already lost his two-and-a-half year old son Vladimir
to scarlet fever on 9 November 1890. The boy carried with him to the grave
considerable musical talent, already evident at his tender age, and this fact made
the death all the more painful for Jan££ek.47 So just as he was putting the
finishing touches on Pastorkyna, his only remaining child was on her death bed.
One gets an eerie feeling looking at the entry in the notebook for 1903, in which
Jan££ek noted the napevky of Olga's final w ords on 26 February. She d id not live
to see her twenty-first spring.
In early 1903, Janafek found himself at a nadir in his life. As Charles
Susskind notes of this period: "He had lost his beloved daughter; his marriage
had gone sour; he was up to his neck in indifferent students at the norm al school
for teachers, and even the more committed students at his own organ school
(which was actually a small conservatory) were often exasperating; none of the
45 The terms Pastorkyna and jenufa are used interchangeably by Czechs and they both refer to the
opera jenufa: jeji pastorkyna (Jenuifa: Her Stepmother).
46 An account of this scene is given in Marie Trkanovd, U Janacku podle vypraoeni Marie Stejskalooe
(At the Janideks' according to the account of Marie Stejskalovi), reprint of 1959 edition (Brno:
Simon RySavy nakladatelstvi, 1996), 70.
47 Of Vladimir's musical talent and Jan&ek's paternal pride. Jaros lav Vogel says: "[Vladimir]
laughed and sang all day long, and Jan&ek eagerly took note of the first signs o f his son's
musical abilities, his well-tuned melodies, his interest in the piano. He would scoop him up in his
arms and happily say that the boy would be a musician" (Vogel, Leos jandcek, 79).
132
other compositions he had written while he worked on Jenufa had been
published or performed outside Moravia, except for transcriptions of some of his
folk songs and dances he had collected with BartoS I—]"48Yet there was still more
disappointm ent awaiting him —Jenufa was rejected for performance by the
director of the National Theater in Prague. The most heart-breaking loss for him,
though, was the untimely death of his beloved daughter.
Some m ight think it ghoulish for Jan&ek to record the last words and
phrases that his daughter uttered before she died and their corresponding
intonational contours. But he couldn't do otherwise. The only way he saw to
truly memorialize her was to attem pt to capture the essence of her passing and
enshrine her spirit as dots in a five-barred cage. Here follows a graphic
representation of how the napevky appear on the page, together with Jan4£ek's
commentary:
Example 4.11: Jana£ek's Notation of His Daughter O lga's Final Utterances49
Posledrtislava mojiubohe Olgy Ptdm se ji, jestli ji tieco boll?

lezela na pohaoce Ne pry, ma jen uzkosf.
(The last words and sighs of my poor Olga (I ask her if anything hurts?
lying on the sofa) She says no, she's just anxious.)
1.
f=r riJ ^^
lhave: ja ne - chci u - m fit, jd chci ztt!
(She is lying: I don't want to die, I want to live!)
48 Charles Susskind, Jandcek and Brod (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985), 25-26.
49 I have attempted to reproduce the napevky as closely as possible to how they appear in
Jan&ek's hand.
133
i.
ta- ko- vy strach!

( Such fear!)
„ubrdntm se!"
(I w ill resist it!)
,fajsem si vzpomnela, ze mam umrit"

'I just remembered that I am supposed to die"
3.
Ip
u-mru, u - mfu
I am dying, I am dying
(opakovala az do nesrozumitelnosti)
(she repeated this until it was inaudible)
Po injekdch:
After the injections:
4. „ To jsme se nachodili na promenade!"

4. "That was some walk we took!"
5.
(clovek) mel by si toho n a - p o - vi- dot

(A person) "should have so much to say"
a m luvi takooe hlupoty
"and then he speaks such nonsense"
(o 2 hod. 24/2 1903)

(about 2 a.m ., 24/21903)
6. jd: Tyjsi ta nejkrasnejsi mezi nimi!

6 .1: You are the most beautiful of them all!
Ona se sfastne zasmdla: „To abys jim tak fekl!"
She laughed merrily: "Good thing you didn't tell them!"
134
7. „Neco se ztrati - Skoda, zese to nenajde!"

7. "Something is lost - it's a shame that it isn't found!"
25/2 tri ctvrte na 3 ti hod.

25/2 2:45 a.m.
8.
~ * J J J Ji J J - J J }
,Toz jd ti o- znam-u - ji ze uz je mi le - pe”
"So I announce to you that I am feeling better now"
opakooala mi to nekolikdt
she repeated this to me several times
Kdyz jsem ji volal po dvakrat, kdyz nedoslechla:

When I called her for the second time, when she didn't hear me:
9. „}a jsem se lekla”

9. "I was frightened" 10.
J
„Po-ckej- te”
"Wait"
11. Kdyz dostcda injekci (zalostne): „Jejda!”

11. When she received the injection (plaintively): "Whew!"
Posledni vzdechy 12.

Final sighs
♦
a -
m ja
Buh bucf s Tebou moje du$e
God be with you, my darling
135
This is Jan£dek's record of Olga Jan3dkov&'s last moments.50 It should be
noted that the handwriting in these examples is clearly legible, even beautiful.
This is in stark contrast to the writing of other examples in the notebooks, which
is often very difficult to read, and in some places almost illegible. The reason for
this improved penmanship is that the record here is actually rewritten from the
original, which was scrawled on a paper inserted into the notebook. It stands to
reason that the transcription of Olga's final utterances would be rough and
illegible; the composer, in his haste to accurately notate all of his daughter's
napevky (not to mention the strain of seeing his daughter die before him), jotted
the notes and words as fast as he could.
W hat is less clear is why he recopied the original notes, which, although
haphazardly scribbled onto the paper, would have been nonetheless clear to him.
We could speculate that he wanted to make certain that he remembered exactly
w h at Olga said and in w hat order and he m ay have felt that he would forget as
tim e w ent on. Another explanation could be that he expected his notebooks to be
read by others at some point, and he w anted the record of Olga's death to be
clear and unambiguous. At any rate, the rhythm s and contours of Olga's napevky
are consistent with Czech intonational patterns, i.e., it does not seem as though
JanAdek modified them in any way to make them "more musical."
50 It appears in folder Z 25 of the Jan&ek Archive in Brno. Pages 1 and 3 are reproduced in Marie
Trkanovi, U Jandcku podle vypraoeni M ark Stejskaloue (At the Jan&eks' according to the account of
Marie Stejskalovi), reprint of 1959 edition (Brno: Simon RySavy nakladatelstvt, 1998), plates 11-
12.
136
His daughter's death moved Janifek to begin work immediately on Elegie
na smrt dcery Olgy (Elegy on the Death of Daughter Olga) for mixed chorus and
piano. Elegy sets the text of a poem that Marie Vevericovovci, Olga's friend and
co-member of the Russian club, wrote in honor of Olga's memory. Jan££ek
worked at a frenzied pace until the score was completed in April of the same
year. Although he worked quickly and finished after only two months, the piece
was actually a labor of love that did not see its first performance until after
Jan££ek's death.51 The title page of the first fair copy of the piano reduction of
JenuJa bears the following inscription, written in Russian on 18 March 1903 in
Jan££ek's hand: Moew Ojn>re Ha naMsrn>. "To the memory of m y Olga."
One might imagine that the composer, otherwise so obsessed with speech
melody in all of its manifestations, might have made use of his daughter's
napevky in composing a personal memorial to her. However tem pting it may be
to attempt to find such connections, there is no evidence that he used any of
Olga's napevky in composing the work and there is no indication that he drew or
derived motivic material from them. In a sense it is a testament to how sacred his
daughter's last words were to him, i. e., far too intimate and private a profile to
be inserted into a work even as closely associated with Olga as her ow n elegy. It
may have seemed blasphemous to Jan££ek to do anything more w ith the speech
51 The elegy was revised in 1904 and saw its first performance on 28 December 1930 by Brno
Radio under the baton of Bfetislav Bakala.
melodies he had recorded than rewrite them from hastily jotted notes in his
notebook in a hand that for Jan££ek is quite legible and even graceful.
Keenly aware of his friend's concern for proper text declamation, Max
Brod took great pains in crafting a German translation to preserve the melodic
inflections as much as possible, even though German and Czech intonational
patterns are quite different.52 In the feuilleton "Moravany! Morawaan!" for Lidaoe
noviny, Jan^fek writes the following about the success of ]enufa at the Vienna
C ourt Opera with regard to speech melody: "It is w hat has not been translated
from the Czech that has trium phed: speech melody, the seat of the emotional
fum ace."53 So for Jan££ek it is the purity of the speech melody, unadulterated by
translation into German, which embodies the Czech spirit. Later in the same
piece he muses: "If speech melody is the flower of a water-lily, it nevertheless
buds and blossoms and drinks from the roots, which wander in the waters of the
m ind."54
52 Brod's translation was in standard German. The conductor of the Vienna opera house, Hugo
Reichenberger, wanted to see the translation rewritten in a dialect (perhaps Tyrolean), which
would have had, as Charles Susskind points out "an unintended comic effect" (Susskind, Jandcek
and Brod, 47). One of die key issues at hand was die prosody of the Czech language as compared
to German; Reichenberger felt that a hochdeustch version simply would not capture die spirit of
the opera. Brod fiercely fought the changes, but in the end relented a little in order to avoid
putting the work's production in jeopardy.
53 JanaCek, Essays, 42.
54 Ibid., 43.
Conclusion
The com poser's obsession with the purity of the language as spoken by
simple country folk may have been som ewhat exaggerated, but it was well-
placed, based as it was on the presumption that the speech of the ruling and
merchant classes would necessarily be corrupted by foreign words and speech
patterns, particularly Germanisms. Following the wave of intense nationalism
that crested in the second half of the nineteenth century, Jan££ek's concerns
about maintaining the integrity of his m other tongue found their useful
expression in his notebook compilations of everyday speech in m any different
situations. This linguistic anxiety was all the more acute for the composer living
in Brno, a city w ith a strong German presence and rich historical legacy even
well after the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the formation of
an independent Czechoslovak nation after World War I. Just as Mahler spoke of
a world within his symphonies, Jan££ek felt the speech melodies he was
collecting were a glimpse into the soul of the Czech people and no less a mirror
of life itself.
Given the obvious importance that Jana£ek accorded speech melody, it is
necessary to reflect upon the role that the composer's obsession played in his
compositional process. I have attempted to show that there is not always a direct
connection between natural Czech intonation patterns and the entries in
Jan££ek's notebooks, but at the same time I try to dispel the notion that the
notebook entries are somehow irrelevant or at best tangential to Jan££ek's
musical thought I have hypothesized that the notebook entries were, in some
cases, links between snippets of speech that Jan££ek heard daily and completed
musical ideas; that he transformed napevky to make them more musical. To w hat
extent the composer's study of and sensitivity to speech intonation had a
palpable effect on his music is a m atter of considerable moment to this study and
one that we will explore in Chapter Five.
140
CHAPTER FIVE
141
CHAPTER FIVE: ANALYSIS OF THE VOCAL WORKS
In Chapter Three we surveyed contemporary linguistic research in an
attem pt to ascertain w hat principles govern the prosody and intonation of
speech, particularly Czech speech. Awareness of these principles is requisite to
an analysis of speech melody in Jan£fek's vocal works. A num ber of
characteristics of Czech speech can be accurately represented by music notation.
These elements include:
1. Primary w ord stress on the first syllable and subsidiary stress

on the certain subsequent syllables can be supported by musical
accent and placement within a measure.
2. The natural prosody of a phrase can be supported by alternating
triplets and duplets and doubly long notes for long vowels.
3. A relatively flat melody, with small variations in pitch.
4. Intervals in speech roughly corresponding to thirds, fifths, and
octaves, each conveying different linguistic information.
Contrariwise, other characteristics of Czech speech cannot be described by
standard music notation:
1. Microtonal changes across an utterance.

2. Glides over a syllable's duration.
3. Slight variations in tempo and rhythm throughout a phrase.
Speech cannot be fully represented even in the context of twelve-tone
music, much less tonal music. Therefore any instance of speech melody in an
opera or cantata is necessarily an approximation and as such an example of
stylized speech. The audience overlooks the discrepancy between speech and
142
song and accepts the quasi-speech as an instance of actual dialogue within the
context of an opera or other vocal work. This dialogue has a separate valence
from the rest of the text. Since the correspondence between speech and music is
incomplete, for the purposes of analysis I m ust construct my own theory of how
Janifek depicted speech. This theory is informed by linguistic research, but it
takes into account the difference between actual speech and the simulacrum of
speech that Jan£fek created in his vocal works.
What are the criteria that determine whether a composed melody sounds
speechlike or not? First, the melody m ust have a pitch contour that approximates
that of an spoken phrase. This is wholly context-dependent; the melody could
have a contour that represents a statem ent that is neutral, interrogative,
emphatic, or any combination of the these or other types of utterances. Further,
the rhythm of the melody m ust correspond to the natural rhythm of the spoken
phrase. In the case of Czech, in order for the melody to approach the sound of a
ndpevek, the stress of each w ord m ust rest on the first syllable (except in the case
of some northern Moravian dialects, where it is found on the penultimate
syllable), and each rhythmic unit m ust be reinforced by the melodic setting.
In this chapter I examine selected passages from selected vocal works of
Jan££ek in an effort to illustrate how the composer employed speechlike vocal
lines for dramatic and reallistic effect. I analyze ]enufa, the song cycle The Diary of
One Who Disappeared (Zapisnik zmizeleho), and the cantatas Amarus and Elegy on
143
the Death of Daughter Olga. In Jenufa I discuss acts I and III, as most of the
dramatic action takes place in these acts.
THE ANALYSES
Tenufa: ieii pastorkvfta
Thirteen years had passed between the composition of Jan£dek's one-act
opera The Beginning o f a Romance and completion of the first version of Jenufa in
1904. Much had taken place during that time. His life was profoundly affected on
a personal level: he had lost his daughter to disease at the age of tw enty (his two-
and-a-half year old son Vladimir had died in 1890). There was a notable change
on a professional level as well: the composer had developed an interest in speech
melody and this had a significant effect on his music for the rest of his life. The
ethnographic activities that had occupied his attention some decades earlier had
had time to percolate and the mere act of recording folk songs m ade Janadek
consider the connection between language and music and the ramifications of
this relationship for his compositional process.
Jenufa was the first opera he composed after having started to develop his
rough ideas about intonation and rhythm in the Czech language. The libretto is
by Jan£dek himself, based on a play of the same name by Gabriela Preissov4. The
opera is characterized by certain speechlike passages that stand out from the rest
144
of the vocal texture. Here follows a detailed analysis of certain points in the
opera th at are examples of speechlike passages.
Act I
O n pages 6-7, Jenufa is praying to the Virgin Mary to let her beloved Steva
not be called away to serve in the military: " 0 Panno Maria, jestlis mne oslysela,
jestli mi frajera na vojnu sebrali a svatbu prekazili, hanba mne dozene k zatraceni duse!"
("O Virgin Mary, if you hear me, if they take my man away to serve and we don't
wed, I w on't be able to bear the shame! O Virgin Mary, have mercy on me!") The
sham e mentioned alludes to the fact that Jenufa is at the beginning of the opera
pregnant with Steva's child. This prayer is in effect chanted on C-flat, and eight
m easures later on D, with deviations of a third or a second above or below.
Janafek is conveying the idea of a religious prayer uttered as Jenufa speaks
personally with the Virgin Mary. The contour is similar to that of natural Czech
speech, and this gives the impression of conversationality, that Jenufa is speaking
personally with Mary. At the sam e time, the chant-like effect is also rather
m arked, lending a veneer of religiosity to the passage.
145
Example 5.1: Jenufa Act I, scene 1, mm. 70-90
tamniMO
denLMnten mlr zu den Sol - da-len (un

r * - u mi fn-jo- re nc naf-ne m-krm-U
•ad aue dar Hocfczattnksawtrd, •Min ldedenUebsten nir zu den S o l.d a.lu n tun
• <M(i* pfw-km - mi-li, joU-Umifrd-jo-rm m * ^ - m m - krm-U
undeusder Hoch-z«ttelcMewlrd, bringl mlchdieSdiuuf nodi urns ew’.g e Heil der

e ttai-lm fro -km - mi - li, kmm - ka mme do . it - me k mm-tra - ce . mi
W'
urns ew*. ge Hell der See —le!
k mm-tra -co - mi dm - ml
VV-
146
On page 13 both Laca and Jenufa recite on a single tone, Laca on E-flat and
Jenufa on C-flat. Laca is saying to Grandm other (Stafenka): "A Jenufii dnes voldte
k prdci, kdyz cekd Stefka od asenty?” ("And you are calling Jenufa to work when she
is waiting for Steva to return from the army?") Jenufa responds w ith a soliloquy:
"On vidx cloveku az do srdce tema prondsledujicima ocima!" ("He can see into a
person's heart with those searching eyes.") The rhythm and pitch of these lines,
which centers around one note, w ith fluctuations within a narrow range,
reinforces the impression of speech.
147
The impression is even stronger several measures later, on page 14, when
Jenufa says to Grandmother: "Stafenko, nehnevejte se" (Grandmother, do not get
angry).
148
Example 5J: Jenufa Act I, scene 1, mm. 253-61
First Laca calls her name, with a falling figure, which simulates an
imploring tone of address and sounds realistic. Also, there is a fall of a perfect
fifth on the imperative and the accent on the first syllable (see discussion of the
Diary in Chapter 5). Later, on page 18, Jenufa says to Jano (the shepherd boy
whom Jenufa has been teaching to read): "Dockaj, dockaj, Jano!" ("Wait, wait,
149
Jano") and because this is not an emphatic imperative, the interval on dockaj is
only a major second.
IP War-ta,
¥
w -to ,
¥
D»-Oan, to-Bad
•la m - n Matt anf! B tfM vatnM .aiirdodi Jetrt eln ora -

- m, ]i- ng U.Mtkl Km . m-mi- It wd aa . m ji .
Laca's "Nabrus mi ho!" ("Sharpen it for me!") to the Miller (Sttrek) is his
frustrated cry and is again a falling fifth (E-flat to A-flat).
Example 55: Jenufa Act I, scene 2, mm. 13-16
Jenufa's admonition to Laca "Co je ti po tids? 0 sebe se starej!" ("What is it to
you? Mind your own business!") is set completely naturally, so it sounds realistic
w hen she taunts him. Almost as realistic is Laca's sarcastic comment "To bude
peknd suagrina, vseho mi dobreho nachystdl'' ("She'll make a fine sister-in-law, she’ll
be so good to me!"), which also spans an octave and the wide leap followed by a
descending scale and a fall of a minor sixth is a common pattern in Czech speech
th at underscores the sarcasm of the statement. The Miller pretends not to notice
the sardonic tone of Laca's words with his apparent agreement: "Coz peknd je, az
se z toho hlava mate, coz peknd je!" ("Well, she certainly is pretty, it makes your
head spin!") The following measures, w here the Miller sings a paean to Jenufa's
charm s, do not resemble normal speech, until he breaks from his reverie and says
in direct dialogue to Laca: "Ale nac tobe to vykldddm, vsak tys jejich oci take zkusil!"
("But why am I telling you this; after all, you've also drunk of her eyes!") The
triplet figure on the word vykldddm represents the way the word would normally
be pronounced in some areas of Moravia, particularly northern Moravia. Cdrky,
which lengthen syllables by half in literary Czech, are usually not observed in
norm al speech in Silesian dialects. However, in certain performances of Jenufa,
the accents are observed nevertheless, w ith the first note of the triplet being
shortened to half the value of the two following notes.1 Also there is no
accompanim ent during this passage.
1 For example, Jindfich Jindrak’s Miller in Bohumii Gregor's 1970 recording with the National
Theater Orchestra and Chorus.
151
Example 5.6: Jenufa Act I, scene 2, nun. 33-104
- ■ - U - mil.
jr.
ta r M Bn MM
•M na M r ■ to/
d JB w S i m £ u iu i i i i u l t
7 -- I- |f r > f T - f T " F r-
'JJJJJJJJJP
= J = 1 = 1 - 1 — r iJ =I iT=iJ
j 1 zJ iJ=J iJ=iJ
i => J—
i p r r a j n r n i p r a / n m
Cm AKb m Umi, iadta «r * r Hiyhtnln ------■—-«

ft Mfctwj . dlmjt m m Mitfjid)
iHJMeno moaso.fJ
A nfM alL
•tank. /
__ Cîf
W Meno naouo. (J. m)
tftT ir w ~ y ^ !>. iu *r T i n
W IM * n a a ir wta - M . w t a A r ich ate Ue - -
H«i Uc>. fc J— f «t» i -

Hm-H-hmlmat fa mid
l rrj
" 1 t V r*r r r ■ S f r l'm T
In some places there are octave leaps, which usually only occur in natural
speech as particularly strong emotional outbursts during moments of high
drama. Certain speech tunelets by Laca, “Hlupotyl" ("Nonsense!") and "To je
potom spravedlnost!" ("You call that justice?!"), and the Miller's “Neodvedli!"
("They didn't take him away!") span an octave.
On page 31, Laca shouts to the Miller “Hlupotyl Bez si po svem!"
("Nonsense! Mind your own business!"), and various elements contribute to the
speechlike quality of the utterance. The preposition "po" is accented, as is normal
in spoken Czech, with a marcato m arking and the rhythm of the phrase reinforces
the natural prosody of the sentence. There is also a final fall of a major sixth,
which is within the range of usual intervals for an emphatic imperative.
„Laca. A
3 D m -Iu
it r r
Gctf m lM Il
Hli - po-tff B fi U po mom.
J te nmrmto
g r r_r J T la
(Nonsense! Mind your own business!)
On page 28 Laca says "Nankala si tu nad rozmaryjou, netusi, ze jsem j i do
hltny zahrabl zizaly" ("She was moaning over her rosemary, she has no idea that I
pu t worms in the flower pot"). This line is essentially recited on C-sharp. The
156
next thought is set off by a rise to E, which returns by step to C-sharp for the rest
of the phrase. This contour is a typical one in Czech and the effect is enhanced by
the accent on the first syllable of netusi.
Jana£ek had faith in his performers that the natural rhythms of the speech
(and, consequently, the dram a of the situation) would emerge naturally, w ithout
unnecessary coaxing. An example of this appears in Act 1, scene 2 on page 32,
where the Miller has an ad libitum recitative (again it is recited w ithout
accompaniment):
(They didn't take [Steva] away! I met the messenger, altogether they took nine...)
Here we again see the drop of a fifth on the statement, "Neodvedli!" ("They d id n 't
take him away!") We have observed the cadential drop of a fifth in emphatic
imperatives, and here it appears in an emphatic statement. Also characteristic of
common Czech speech is the division of syllables into rhythmic units that
naturally occur in discourse. Potkal jsem is a stress unit and poseldka is another.
The word jsem is an enclitic and as such is not stressed and instead is assimilated
157
onto the previous word as part of its stress unit. The unit potkal jsem (three
syllables) is set rhythmically as a triplet and poseldka (four syllables) as a new
stress unit of four eighth notes. There is a tendency in Czech toward rhythmic
regularity as manifested by tempo changes in roughly isochronous stress units
(more or fewer syllables fit into the same time segment).2 In this case Jan££ek sets
the stress units exactly as the theory postulates: within a 3 /2 meter, the first unit
is set as a quarter-note triplet and the second as four eighth notes, i. e., both units
each taking up a half note. The w ord Neodvedli (four syllables) is set as four
eighth notes, just like poseldka, and this rhythmic pattern is typical of common
speech, although the third syllable on the latter word would ordinarily be sung
slightly longer. This is because the syllable "-lak-" bears the cdrka and as such is
usually pronounced longer than the other syllables. (In practice singers in most
performances slightly lengthen that syllable and make up the difference by
shortening the other syllables in the word.)
This moment has great dram atic potential, because the Miller is
announcing to the villagers the results of the selection process at the recruiting
office and that they did not select Steva. Jenufa is delighted at this news, as it
means that a w edding can take place (the dramatic irony of the situation is that
she is already carrying Steva's child, bu t she is the only one w ho knows at this
point in the story). The piquancy of the situation is magnified by the silence of
2 DaneS, Intonace a veto, 16.
158
the orchestra and the other characters—all attention is riveted to a single voice
reciting the all-important information. The absence or unobtrustiveness of the
orchestra at this and similar junctures in the drama highlights the overarching
importance that Jan4fek attached to "the speech itself." We can conclude from
this passage, as well as others such as Kostelnidka's Act 3 confession, which will
be discussed below, that when a character in a Janifek opera narrates significant
events, the lines tend to be recited prosodically on a single tone with slight pitch
variations above and below the recitation tone.
An example of a neutral imperative appears on p. 35, when jenufa says
" Vitajte! Vitajte, mamicko!" (Welcome, mama!). This is set as three separate stress
units, each with a triplet and a drop of a minor third. Neutral imperatives are
typically marked by smaller intervals, e. g., thirds and seconds, and this example
conforms to that convention. Of course, the word vitajte is not m eant here as an
imperative per se, but rather as a m ere greeting from Jenufa to her stepmother.
Example 5.9: Jenufa Act 1, scene 2, nun. 174-77
159
The intonation of the final iteration of Jenufa's entreaty on p. 37,
" Neposilejte mne za nt!" (Don't send me to her!), follows rather closely the contour
often characteristic of requests in Czech. This contour can be interpreted in two
ways: it could indicate that the speaker is politely asking not to be sent, or, it can
denote a certain annoyance on the p art of the speaker w ith the listener.
I* - c V p f ^ r p f" ~ p u -i tJ ~ -~
** laBt midi um Wm-aaeto- wtt-len. la& midi io tk rn-Uffelar tan!
pra Bo - km. Mm- fom - km.— mo - to - of - lot- to amm am alt
&
It was noted earlier that imperatives in Czech usually fall at an interval of
a third to a fifth. This particular intonation contour features a rise in pitch to E-
flat on the syllable -lej-r and this is followed by a gradual fall to G-sharp, a fall of
a diminished sixth, or rather, its enharmonic equivalent, a perfect fifth. So this
utterance conforms to conventions of Czech speech melody.
Another example of a minor-third drop on an imperative appears on p. 56
with Steva's "Pojd' sem, Jenufka!" (Come here, Jenufa!). The rhythm on the word
Jenufka (eighth-quarter-eighth) also meets the conventions of Czech declamation,
with a longer duration on the long u vowel. Overall, this line is so close to
common speech patterns that it could easily be heard on a street uttered just as
Jana£ek has w ritten it.
Her
ill - ren SchoE ge - non - men! HU die

Mo
nom Hat die to - ler-U ub-ste

VMM Mo ga - la - »e - eka
On p. 59, Kostelnidka (Sextoness) tells Jenufa "Poms mu, ze jd nedavoltm,
abyste se pro sebrali, az po zkousce jednoho roku, kdyz se Stevo neopije"(TeU him that I
w on't let you two get married, until after a test of one year if Steva doesn't get
drunk). The situation here, the imparting of key facts that move along the plot,
has always been the chief purpose of recitatives throughout the history of
opera—to convey information quickly and succinctly. Kostelnifka's challenge to
§teva is im portant for Jenufa to hear clearly and comprehend and as such it is
intoned on one note, E-flat, except for slight deviations at the beginnings of
phrases. This E-flat is, incidentally, the same note (this time an octave higher) on
which Starek spoke his line (Fig. 4.2), and the dram atic purpose is the same in
both cases.
Kostelnifka seriously warns Jenufa on p. 61 with recited D-flats on the
words Buh te frrde ztrestd, kdyi m m neposlechnes (God will punish you harshly, if
163
you don 't listen to me!) This line is speechlike in that it rhythmically and
dynamically follows Czech verbal patterns; as has earlier been noted, spoken
Czech phrases tend to center on one pitch an d all of these elements combine to
lend the impression of stylized speech. The form of quasi-speech throws the
content into stark relief.
p i
M P A ft Got-U»9to»-ta!
iM nkL £)ft
Here again we see that when notes are recited by characters in Jan££ek’s operas,
it is often as a rhetorical device to make the utterance more weighty and in this
case, ominous. The intoned D-flats stand out from the various melodic lines that
wend their way through the opera (recall the chanted C-flat of Jenufa's solemn
and heartfelt prayer to the Virgin Mary to spare Steva from conscription).
Kostelnifka's admonition presages the tragedy to follow, and for this reason
Jan££ek wanted to make this dramatic moment more prominent.
These speechlike lines are conspicuous in a different way from broad,
sweeping melodies in a high register. Melodically prom inent lines are noticeable
within the suspended reality provided by the m edium of opera, for example,
Tosca's exclamations at the end of Puccini's opera. Jan£dek blurs the line between
art and reality. The similarity that these lines bear to actual spoken ndpevky
weakens the normally strong boundary between the real and imagined. It is as if
time suddenly stood still for the duration of the quote, as if we had been
transported momentarily to another universe. O n p. 75 Steva utters another
strong imperative, Neskieb se!, that is again set in octaves.
Stews. _
StanA fl
(Don't make faces!)
165
O n p. 85 Laca says to Jenufa:" Okaz, jd ti ji zastram za kordulku" (Show me, I'll put
it [the flower] behind your ribbon). The imperative Okaz (Show me) spans a fifth,
a common interval for imperatives in natural Czech speech.3 The following
words are centered on E, and the tonic is C.4 The phrase peaks on the fifth za
(marked marcato), and this is again consistent with standard verbal patterns in
the language. Rhythmically the w ords are set naturally, with tw o triplets on the
words jd ti ji zastram and eighth notes on za kordulku. In all aspects, this phrase
roughly matches the contours of Czech speech.
3 See Gardiner.
4 Here I refer to the terminology of tonic, third, and fifth as Gardiner uses it in his linguistic
model for Czech intonation (see Chapter 3).
166
This setting supports the dram a of the moment. Laca has just picked up a
fallen flower that Steva had given Jenufa and is seething with rage at Jenufa's
open rejection of him and her adoration of her beloved Steva. The mundaneness
of this sentence sets it apart from others in the opera. The sentence is uttered at
the end of a disdainful pronouncement against Steva, who got the flowers from
adm iring women. The scene is charged with intense emotion and the
staightforwardness of Laca's utterance helps to create an atm osphere of minatory
foreboding.
The next instance of speechlike text appears on p. 88, when Laca
soliloquizes "Tenhle kfivdk by ti je mohl pokazit" (This knife could ruin [your rosy
cheeks]):
167
Allegro.
m
m s
-dJui.
. rbco allegro,
li•Ifm iO m .) rsn nm *
J m h tM iw
Jaaifa tu^ m x
La - oa, hfi - le dice!

la - to, ■ - It- atm - H.
(vam ikttkid(i,eR *M ta
< a a e a > s .r •ss st* * * ^
du kamd!
Moderators*
The rhythm and contour of the phrase closely mirror standard speech patterns in
ways similar to those passages discussed above. Moreover, the passage is
m arked "Recit." and this further reinforces the impression of stylized speech.
The range of the phrase is only a diminished fifth and this narrow range is
consistent with Laca speaking to himself. Immediately thereafter Laca
apporaches Jenufa and says to her: "Ale zadarmo ti tu vonicku tieddm" (But I w on't
give the flower to you for nothing!) Three syllable w ords such as zadarmo and
vonicku are sung on triplet figures, as is usual in spoken Czech. Once again the
line is recited on a single pitch (E), with the peak of the phrase on “ne,” which is
the nucleus of the phrase and as such is typically stressed by its higher pitch. The
fall of a minor third on neddm (I w on't give [you]) is consistent with an intonation
pattern that represents taunting in many languages, including English. Often
observed in children's intonation patterns is the following contour:
Figure 5.1: ‘Taunting" international contour
i^-J J. H
I have toys and you don't!
This line is written this way to express Laca's unwillingness to show any
kindness to Jenufa until she pays him some attention.
Laca tries to embrace Jenufa, but she replies by w arning him that she will
hit him. In the ensuing struggle, Laca cuts Jenufa's face and at the same time he
says: "Co m£S proti mn6?" (What do you have against me?). The rising melodic
line on this quote resembles a standard question-word intonation pattern in
Czech. In actual speech there would usually be a slight downward glide in pitch
on the final syllable and this can be heard on some performances of the work, as
some liberty is generally taken by the perform ers with such details.
The melodic lines for Jenufa's shocked reaction "Jezismarja!” (Oh, my
God!) and “Tys mi probodl lico!" (You have cut my face!) also resemble Czech
speech. The exclamation "Jezismarja!" is sung fortissimo on high Gs, consistent
with how it would be shouted in typical spoken dialogue. The rhythm (quarter
notes, with a half note on the long syllable -zi-) supports the natural prosody of
the utterance. Likewise, Jenufa's stunned "Tys mi probodl lico!" is a stylized
version of how the phrase could be spoken. It is usual for the first three w ords to
be spoken on roughly the sam e pitch (as in this example), or with a slightly rising
line that peaks at the nucleus of the phrase, li-. This is generally followed by a
precipitous drop in pitch, to well below the m id-range of the onset of the phrase.
In Gardiner's terms, the w ords "Tys mi probodl" are at the pitch level of a fifth
(higher than the usual third for neutral utterances, as the phrase is spoken in an
excited manner) and the peak li- is pitched a fourth above (the octave) and the
subsequent -co lies an octave below the peak (the tonic). As in the previous
example, the rhythm underpins the usual prosody of the line, with equal note
values on all syllables w ithin words, except for the syllable li-, which bears a
syllable-lengthening accent. The contour of this phrase would be uttered in an
agitated state.
The Miller Girl (Barena) runs in to convey the news of Jenufa's misfortune
to the Miller (Sfarek) and Grandm other (Stafenka):
The melodic line and rhythm of the words “On si podrzel krivdk v ruce" (He held a
knife in his hand) closely resemble those of Laca's line: “Tenhle krivdk by ti je mohl
pokazit.” Both lines are centered around one pitch with an upw ard leap of a
m inor third on the syllable kfi- (B-flat and D-flat in Laca's case; B and D for
Barena). It is striking that the word krivdk is set in virtually the same way in both
cases, w ith the same interval and the rhythm and articulation of both examples is
very similar. Speechlike patterns contribute greatly to the emotional power of the
dram a at this pivotal point in the opera.
Act Three
Kostelnifka's histrionic declaration of guilt in scene 10 of Act 3 (p. 230ff.)
affords Jan££ek another opportunity to employ speech melody for emotional
impact. As the village people angrily clamor for Jenufa to be stoned for drowning
her baby son, Kostelnifka's conscience forces her to confess to the murder of the
child. As we might expect, her first line is alm ost spoken. The line is marked
"Quasi Recit." and like other such passages (such as St&rek's announcement in
Act 1, scene 2 that Steva was not among the draftees), it is recited on a single tone
with slight pitch variations and is sung a capella. The melodic shape and rhythmic
cadence of the line m irror closely a line uttered forcefully and decisively. You
[all] d o n 't know anything! is conveyed by the large leap of a major seventh up to
G on the first syllable of niceho (anything). The triplet on the word niceho is
typical in Czech, and the gradual downward fall from the nucleus of that phrase
is natural is speech patterns—not just in Czech—and the half-step interval on the
final word nevite (you don't know) between the stressed ne- and the following
two syllables -vite as well as the rhythm of a short note preceding a long one. The
intonation and rhythm of the first phrase also follows conventions of speech.
O ther phrases in Kostelnidka's confession have speechlike characteristics,
more than can be enum erated here. One of the m ost obvious examples appears
on p. 233, where she relates the details of how she took Jenufa's baby and
m urdered him. [cf. Example 5.8].
Still another example is her line on p. 235. Kostelnifka's feelings are
ambivalent: on the one hand she is contrite for the m urder, but at the same time
she defends her decision as taking one life to save another. She also fears
disapprobation and even violence from the village people. The accelerando
marking conveys the state of agitation that overwhelms her. Note the emphatic
octave leap on the climactic word umfelo (died), which is also the nucleus of the
phrase.
173
Example 5.18: Jenufa Act III, scene 10, mm. 24-65
dcm acblagL
fe .
Quasi R ecit.
Kisttria (r»flt sich B it A aitx ca g ia c aaf).
Kostflaitka Amlaô wmk& uQ.
Uadtaaa 1st mil mlrf Ihrwliit Ja von gar oidiu!

Jt.iti jttm (■ ji! f jr a 1 .c f.A 0 m-ti-M
JcfcAfaSc&adfi els!
. fit t i t 4o.ti.ju!
Quasi Recit. vu.
174
.Adagio. (J.m J
1*3 Klttarla.
Ich aalbat ta t as, a lL b a a e b aai -b ar!

Tb m it atai- ML. aatf trwat ha - i f f
a , , Tkaor. k k k
f
•r
ffia - = ■ • ---* rp Jj M J i-
tfc - a* - Mb _ ar!
la
Kb . m ff. mil - km!
( * 3 Adagio. ( J . m .)
, fl .U .----------------------------
f e i O t i a ----------------- ---------
-------------------------------------j — ^^ ^ 3 3
----------------------------------------—
•i. fas
tfc . f* - baa . » !
Kb - atai . atl . km/
Km •
175
taim omk-nraaaot
j i - oo-mot-mi.
p pp | 7 hf
n i l - t* ee as! a ir ait - zaa,
TU k.Im m m mm km - km.
CUafct ml dia KaiaJ
iF F T '-^ r - I t o n IT w \ f j i V f f f J f W - t — I
am. * » t.a ta .> a m m . Mto, 4 tl a a ih ti M k r a t i i M a i r ,
V Mo-it, to wi Si, i t to rn.kf.lo ta a m-mf.
-ir — i
!!
176
Icb daa Kind, ftt-dM hia*,

i f - ti cam . tm, am-mm.lm,
178
nkbl M Sla-iMa,
IpJcM f t t - mi.
n.
179
. a fe iv ty f ib k i —- l v t. t. i ^
------=----------------------------1
eto-^wrtedtt. —, ___ riMtarundkaltimrik Atii, d u \ i n 1 wtalM fctu**.
.'A l. xkV kT ": + * " "* * r- •— “
— P ----------------------------------------
A 1^ • __ -fy S 1 •— Mrt-alal
Jw-mim&axi .* !
Je-H -b b i-a le!
tJS b y f ■f f l P fif y
r
E JL - , — tj? J — 1 * 1 ^ T PP P P ^ jt= = |
M - mm MiMkMrmaebf «•_ Nut brun-te e» wleFau-er aufdanHir - d « _
« - >u ne-s*-pip - i»_ ■*•» f fa - ka-tp mm aa rm - kej pi-U - It—
a
J S jS j i y
----------------- y
------------------------ * -i
a _ - f » ---------
erase. s |
ueetL
FhK.ii.L Mi fa ■j---- ■
(E T F lr T B ^ ............ O - 1- —
180
Da fuhl-te tch wmStund an,dafi icta ei - M6r-de - rui b ln -

■ t i ttdm C U e t - ti.lm j ttm ,m jttm m . e»_
JbJMM Ma-ri . • ,
J t- ii- H tri-% It,
JiwmaMa rt - a,
J 4 -H .it
, JaaimMa r t - a ,
511 J t.il-H tri-sit,
Trial.
AfedannJa-iui.ta er-w ach-te, da nagi’lcfc ihr, dafidaalind In-4m

Jt-ai.fS Jttm ft.lm i f t k - l a, n > -y f 41 - tim U s -w i-it- m /
umcre Ku . tdt-rln!
to i t to - ttel-m i - k t!
Ku - irte - rln!
t a . Hal . wii - km!
Con moto.w>«J
• to r - DM M il lofil stok nicM ent-feUtm

■ - mM •U- hm - tt mmmi mU m -km m-t$ it
® Con moto-UtiaJ
I.
il« tot jo tn . Mfcirtlg—Nur nletistialU nurick hob’ hisrfe - <0n - diet!
0 -us j» a M u i - Mmt mtf-U— —w km mm-mttj-U W - mmm!
Jenufa represents Jan££ek's first compositional assay using his theory of
speech melody. His attem pt is tentative and he uses speechlike vocal lines
sparingly, to set off moments of particularly high emotional tension. Here he is
writing as if in two parallel compositional worlds: one tonal and melodic, the
other direct and speechlike. In his later works, from his next opera, Kd(a
Kabanova, to his final one, From the House of the Dead (2 mrtveho domu), the style is
more unified and the impression of musical speech is prevalent throughout He
found his new style of writing effective and continued to compose in this
manner.
183
CHAPTER SIX
184
CHAPTER SIX: ANALYSIS OF CANTATAS AND

THE DIARY OF ONE W HO DISAPPEARED
Amarus
W ritten at the same time Jan&fek w as working on jenufa (a work begun in
1894), Amarus has a subject mirrors a portion of the composer's own life. The
protagonist of the poem is a monk, and Janddek himself lived for a time as a child
in a Brno monastery. His father had sent him there in order to guarantee the boy
a proper education, for in the Jandfek household, expenses were great and
revenues scarce. The pain of loneliness and w ant for the monk is apparent in the
text of the poem, and it m ust certainly have resonated for Jandfek at a time when
he often felt misunderstood and had been having difficulty establishing himself
as a composer of note in the larger musical world beyond provincial Brno.
Jan££ek writes of his conception of the work:
Each one of us will imagine his own setting for the story. I imagine the Queen's
Cloister in Brno. The long, cool corridors, the silence and the golden sun shining
into the shady garden loud with bird-song, the high arches of the church and the
almost invisible picture of the Madonna. Close by hangs the silver "eternal light"
and Amarus's silent tread disturbs the m ute tw ilight My youth is in the work.
How could it have been otherwise?1
The lyrics are taken from a poem by Jaroslav Vrchlicky and Jandfek
himself almost certainly identified with the description of pale and pensive
Amarus, who lived in a monastery as a child, not knowing quite how he ended
1 LeoS Jan££ek, Leos Janacek: Letters and Reminiscences, ed. Bohumir Stedroft and trans. Geraldine
Thomsen (Prague: Artia, 1955), 66.
u p there and who constantly fixed his gaze downward, as if beholding
something unknown. This cantata was completed before Jan££ek had made
manifest his interest speech melody, but there are aspects of Czech intonation
and rhythm in several solo passages. The soprano solo at rehearsal number 5 is
an example. The reciting pitch on this line is A-flat, with a leap of a fourth up to
D-flat on the za-. The higher pitch on D-flat emphasizes the natural stress that
invariably lies on the first syllable of a word or a prepositional phrase. A fourth
is a larger than the usual upw ard leap on a spoken stressed syllable, which
would typically be a minor third or smaller, and the phrase v lampu pfed oltdfem
natiti olej would tend to fall gradually to the fundamental pitch level of the
speaker. The leap of a major sixth up to the F on the syllables na- and li- is greater
than a posited grid for Czech speech would allow. Nonetheless, this phrase does
mimic Czech speech patterns after a fashion. The point here is to conjure up the
impression of speech melody.
The rhythm of the line also reinforces the impression of speech given by
the contour of the melodic line. Syllables of equivalent weight are set with the
same note values (umfes, nod, zapomenes, v lampu) and natural stress patterns are
underscored by their metrical placement within the measure. For example, first
syllables, stressed in Czech, appear without exception on stronger beats within a
measure, and secondary stresses {-td- in the phrase pfed oltdfem) fall on beats that
are stronger than those of unstressed syllables, but weaker than the beats of
stressed syllables. This can be observed in the following example.
186
Example 6.1: Amarus, soprano solo, pp. 14-15
p sferico
^JUl Jl J k J>
U- mfeS one no- ci, kdy zapomeneS
J - J jJ U t J - il I ^ |
v lampu pfed ol- tif- em
i ....................................
na- Ii- ti o- lej!
(You will die one night, when you forget to pour oil into the lamp in front of the altar!)
The phrase is chanted by the chorus on chords for several pages thereafter. This
accompanying choral part has a somewhat modified rhythm, but it also
highlights the speech-like aspects of the sentence. The solo is marked “p, sferico"
the choral part, "ppp, misterioso, ben mensurato"
The quotation marks around this sentence mark it as an example of direct
discourse and thus it is not surprising that the line's intonation and rhythm
imitate Czech speech. MiloS §t6droft has written convincingly of the speech-like
qualities of direct discourse in Jan££ek's operas.2 The quotation marks do not
2 MiloS Stedroft, "Direct discourse and speech melody in Janifek's operas," Jandcek Studies, ed.
Paul Wingfield (Cambridge, U. K.: Cambridge University Press, 1999). While I agree that many
quotations in Jan&ek's vocal works exhibit characteristics of natural Czech speech, those are not
the only examples.
187
appear in the Vrchlicky poem; by adding them, Jan££ek wanted to m ake d e a r to
performers that the line was in fact a line of dialogue.
Elegie na sm rt dcerv Olgy
The tenor solo at the beginning of the elegy is recited on a m iddle E-flat:
"Hie sam, jak smtme, pokojne divka spi!" (See for yourself, how calmly and
peacefully the girl sleeps!). The lack of piano accompaniment for this line adds to
the dramatic effect, especially after the two-page piano introduction.
Example 6.2: Elegie na sm rt dcery O lgy, tenor solo, p. 3
Hie jak aiuir • n i, po-koj-n& dir - ka api l _

O ms* ;_ w e still, M'iefriedliih das MOd-chen sch lltftl
See h er!_ She aleepa.see how peaceful-lv ahe aleepal
A l . .
-------------------- =------------- ;----- ~^HP|TU^g | L i
A -- T‘ T ^
■ *' T1 =
The line sung by tutti tenors on E: "Slys, pisen pohfebni jak s kuru sleta" also
illustrates the effective use of the chanted line with speech-like rhythmic
inflections. A certain religiosity obtains and adds to the solemn atm osphere of
the piece as a whole and to this passage in particular. The sentence set in this
m anner sounds like an incantation.
188
Example 63: Elegie na sm rt dcery O lgy, tatti tenor line, pp. 6-7
---------=-------------- ------ — ------

i ----------------------=--------------------
Tutti__________
Siyi, pi - se& po . h feb -n l ja k a kd - ru

D u G rab - g e - tS n - g e h a l - le n d u m p f h r r -
A tad and ao-lrmn chant cornea from th e
V
a tempo
lAhh J j J-J j d 1 II n I
r ~
in ^.i ~
a i dales , ■«= —— . p=»-
a p lii a n f - ink tkch, co c d - s ta - h,

D ie Grab - ge-t& n - ge hal - len d u m p fher-ab
and tabs and wee-ping of those who re-main
■A-.L t , - dole* ^
a plk£ a nk - fektfch, co abjr - U,

D ie Grab - ge ran - g e h a l-le n nie - der
those left be hind, their sobs and awe - ping
li, — r. t. m » k HJ Ii
l —
— JxI
P . . MA i , 3 lJ i
jt f
aid - t i a plkd_____ a uk - fck tfch , co aby-li, se
nie - der, und K la - - ge, Uei - nen& Junerxundlhauerdurrh
or - gan. those Mt >- hind, their sobs and weeping com-
dolce ^
a plki a n i - fektkeh, co abjr - li.

D ie G nib - ge Win . g e hal - len nie - der
those left be hind, theirsobs and wee - ping
The other voices take up the hypnotic intoned phrases and em phasize die
prosody of the text Each voice recites on a different tone (w ith the exception of
189
the bass moving from E to F-sharp), giving the impression of a group of people
reciting a text together. There is something of a religious veneer to the passage,
as though the lower three voices of the chorus were reciting a prayer for Olga's
soul.
The short cantatas Otcenas (The Lord's Prayer; 1901, rev. 1906) and Vecne
evangelium (Eternal Gospel; 1914) contain no examples of napevky. The melodies
are beautiful and well-shaped, but they bear no resemblance to natural speech
patterns. Likewise the men's and mixed choruses are void of any speech
melodies. This stands to reason: the four-voice texture would not allow any
individual line to stand out as a ndpevek. The most that a composer can do to
approximate speech with a multi-voice texture is to emphasize the rhythmic
patterns of the language, as is characteristic of a Renaissance chanson such as
Claude Le Jeune's Revecy venir du Printemps:
Example 6.4: Beginning of Claude Le Jeune's Revecy venir du Printemps
| Reduuit «5|
ti A-,----------------1--------- - i -------—i---------------- -—_------ m—P------m--- -
a r . p ..e £ := r i ..... r
I i i 1
Re-ve-cy ve-nir du Prin - temps L’e-mou-reuz’ et bel - le tai - zon.
tJ J J J ~ ' -J j j ---- ------ r r i -------M ------ i~ z — zr~

■A ' '
Re-ve-cy ve-nir du Prin - temps L’e-mou-reuz’ et bel - le tai - zon.
A
^j ^ ^ ^ J J j r i f y
Re-ve-cy ve-nir du Prin - tempt L’a-mou-reuz’ et bel • le mi - zon.
rr --i
Re-ve-cy
:
ve-nir du Prin - tempt L’e-mou-reuz’ et bel - le tai - zon.
T .j- r - = f r - . r r - = f =
' 1 w f ’ A « 4 r------ U - * - l — p j ------- L---------- L J
Re-ve-cy ve-nir du Prin - tempt L’e-mou-reuz’ et bel - le tai • ion.
Of course composers in almost any context will attem pt to set text as naturally as
possible w ithin given parameters, and this includes the rhythmic placement of
syllables w ithin measures. This is always done best by native speakers, as the
awkward text setting of certain passages in the Bartered Bride illustrates so
eloquently. (Smetana kept diaries in German and never was completely
comfortable with Czech.)
The Diary of One Who Disappeared
Janatek's 1919 song cycle for tenor, contralto, piano, and female choir
entitled The Diary of One Who Disappeared (Zdpisnik zmizeleho) is the story of a
respectable Silesian lad, Jam'fek,3 who meets a beautiful young Romany girl,
Zefka, and is eventually seduced by her and as a result his life changes
irrevocably. At first he resists her obvious charms, but later, having lost a pin
from the axle of his plow, he goes to a stout elder tree to carve out another pin,
assuring himself in talking to his oxen that he will again resist her alluring eyes.
Zefka addresses him and sings him a mournful tune about the bitter lot of a
Romany's life, after which she laughs at his frightened rigidity and calms him
w ith the following words: "I am not as black as I seem to you." He answers by
saying, "There is no escape, one m ust yield to Fate's bidding." Fate dictates that
3 Janicku is the vocative form of the name JanfCek, which is one of die many diminutive forms of
the name Jan and is roughly equivalent to "Iitde John." Czechs (and indeed Slavs in general)
often employ diminutives as terms of endearment, particularly when referring to children,
friends, or loved ones.
191
he return that evening to the elder tree to meet Zefka, that he remain silent w hen
his sister is robbed, that he leave his home and family in secret, never to return,
because Zefka awaits, with his son in her arms. The implied outcome of JaruCek's
actions is all the more plausible and powerful for being unstated. Implicit in the
story is his probable banishment from civilized society, excommunication from
the church, consequent guilt and shame that he will feel for having disgraced his
family, as well as the despair he will feel at not being able to see them again.
This is a common topos in literature and the arts in Europe at the end of
the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and served the Romantic fascination
w ith the exotic and preoccupation with the tragic. A European white male is
seduced and corrupted by the irresistible charms of a non-European female
Other, who ultimately brings about his ruin; Bizet's Carmen is one of the more
famous examples of this theme. The exotic young wom an places the white m an
under a sort of voodoo spell and thus he helplessly succumbs to her wiles and
finds himself hopelessly entangled in a web of passion that leads to his ultim ate
downfall. Through subversion and stratagem, O rient conquers Occident, exotic
dominates familiar, wom an over man.
Of course the musical aesthetic in Diary is m odem in its conception and
realization, but the subject matter is thoroughly Romantic. Also Romantic is the
tendency of composers to cast their ideas either in large genres (such as the
music drama) or in intimate miniatures. These twenty-two songs are indeed
miniatures, w ith an average length of approximately forty-three measures and
none exceeding eighty-seven measures. The songs are through-composed and
the text is rarely repeated, and this contributes to their brevity. The
compositional technique that Jandfek uses is to marshal all of his motivic forces
and deploy them sparingly, in short segments, which are then in key places
connected to form longer lines. It is clear that Jan&fek had one foot firmly
grounded in the Romantic era as he was boldly striding into the m odem —he is
at once a composer of the European mainstream, while at the same time
producing music that sounds refreshingly m odem even today.
(For the following analysis, the complete score to the Diary is provided on
pp. 201-59.)
Jana£ek uses various manifestations of a perfect fourth followed by a
major second or vice versa (E-flat—A-flat—B-flat, D-flat—A-flat—G-flat). The
motive symbolizes love in m ost of Jan&ek's compositions.4 In his letters to
Kamila Stosslov£, Jan££ek repeatedly states that he composed the Diary under
the influence of his affection for her.
Jan&fek used the ingenuous Kamila as a model for the picture on the cover
of the piece when the work was published in 1921,5 but had already been
associating Kamila with Zefka w hen he wrote in a letter to her on 2 September
4 From page 5 of the introduction by Bohumil St£droA to the score of The Diary o f One Who
Disappeared (Prague: Artia, 1953).
5 Svatava Pfib<Utov£, ed. Hddanka zivota: dopisy Leose fandcka Kamile Stosslooe (The Mystery of a
Life: The Letters of Leos Jan&ek to Kamila Stdsslovd) (Brno: Opus musicum, 1990), 88.
1918: "It's too bad that m y gypsy girl cannot have a name like Kamilka."6 In a
subsequent letter he teases the dark-complected Kamila: "So be well, dark one!"
With this reference he meant for Kamila to associate herself with the Romany
character, as he spells out still more clearly in a letter from 24 July 1924: "And
that dark gypsy girl in my Diary—that was supposed to be you,"7 and again on 8
June 1927, and adds that she is also poor Elina Makropulos in The Makropulos
Affair.8 Here is the cover of the Diary, as it appeared in its first publication:
6 Ibid., 49. Kamilka is a diminutive form of Kamila.

7 Ibid., 120.
8 Ibid., 218.
194
Figure 6.1: Cover of The D iary o f One W ho Disappeared
ZAPlSNiK
z m iz c l £ h o .
L£OS JANACEK.
V VO AL
OL PA ZD ift£K ,H U D . NAKLAD. vBRK E
It should not escape our notice that the male character's name is Jarufek,
only one letter removed from the nam e of the composer himself. As mentioned
above Kamila herself had a sw arthy complexion, not unlike that of many
Romany women. The story for Kdfa Kabanova, adapted from A. N. Ostrovsky's
play The Storm, is also about illicit love that ends in disaster and Kdfa was the
first opera the composer wrote after having met Kamila.
Many phrases in the Diary are set in a m anner that closely resembles
natural Czech speech inflections. The text in the first half of song I is set as a
steadily rising line that culminates in the F-flat in m. 13. As is common in
standard spoken Czech, each phrase is intoned on one note, which rises from C-
sh arp—D-sharp—E —(F-flat). In neutral speech, syllables in Czech are usually
spoken at the same pitch within a given phrase, with subtle divisions that denote
punctuation such as commas, periods and the like. In these first thirteen
measures, there is a fairly constant rise by m inor thirds, and this would be
consistent with Jamfek excitedly describing the wom an he saw who had
captivated him. The accelerando marked in m. 2 and crescendi in m. 8 and m. 12
serve to contribute to the overall intensity of the excerpt. In this respect the vocal
line sounds very much like phrases of spoken Czech that have been transcribed
and given a harmonic underlay with the piano. I do not assert Jan££ek did this; I
am simply pointing out that Janifek's exclamations m ight change little if at all if
they were to be spoken in a normal everyday context, given the level of yearning
and restlessness in the text.
Even the deviations from the rising line bespeak the composer's sensitivity
to natural speech. The drop in pitch on jako (like, as) is perfectly natural on such
an insignificant w ord, and it serves to lay stress on the word lan (doe), which is
the m ost im portant word in the phrase. The intensity is maintained, jako is de
emphasized, and the same thing happens in m. 10 on ceme (black). The effect in
m. 10 is not to de-emphasize the w ord ceme (which is key here), but it is to repeat
of the motive that came before, with the note values for ceme tripled from the
note values for jako. The motivic repetition so common for Jan££ek is present
here, with the alteration in a crucial place, in order to illustrate the text more
clearly.
Figure 6-2: First quatrain of The Diary of One Who Disappeared
Potkal jsem ciganku C-sharp I met a young gypsy girl
nesla se jako lan D-sharp she carried herself like a doe
pres prsa ceme leltky D-sharp over her breasts black tresses
a oci bez dm zhlan E—(F-flat) and eyes without bottom, so deep.
The piano accompaniment accents these drops in pitch on the key words
ceme and bez dna (bottomless) in mm. 10 and 13, respectively. The seed is sown
already in m. 1, w ith the falling bass line in the piano, which at first masquerades
as a contrasting figure to the vocal line and later reveals itself to be an
underpinning for it; at the octave in m. 10 and at the major sixth in m. 13. The
figure rises by sequence a whole step in m. 8 and then by doubly diminished fifth
in m. 12 in preparation for its supporting role. Paradoxically, the same pitch drop
on the sixteenth notes in m. 6, which relegated jako to its proper secondary status,
serves to place stress on the words ceme and bez dna that Jan££ek wants to
highlight.
Of course any good composer wants to make the most dramatic and
realistic statem ent possible. To this end he or she will, while still accepting the
confines of the artifice of musical composition, attem pt to set text so the stresses
197
fall in the correct places, proper syllable lengths are observed, and so on. Jan££ek
takes it further in setting some phrases so realistically as almost to give the
impression that he had lifted speech specimens from his notebooks and fitted
them to the poetry. In song II there are more speech-like patterns. The phrase
proc sa tady drzi (why does she remain here) is sung in mm. 6-7 and literally
repeated a diminished third lower in the following two measures. Except for the
long tied dotted eighth and dotted sixteenth notes on the word proc, the phrase
imitates speech rather well. The words sa tady are mere thirty-second notes,
indicating their relative unimportance in the phrase, and there is a crescendo on
these notes, which lead up to the first syllable of drzi (remain), which is the focal
point of the phrase and therefore requires emphasis: dynamic and pitch stress.
The second syllable -zi is accorded the longest note value, an eighth note tied to a
dotted eighth, because it is the only syllable which carries a diacritical accent.
The overall effect of the phrase is that of natural Czech speech: the first
four syllables are sung on the same pitch, with a slight rise on the syllable dr- and
a fall on -zi. The musical accent on the w ord proc and the subsequent crescendo
together lend a sense of urgency, perhaps even fear, that Jam'£ek is feeling. The
following phrase Proc nejde do sveta? is cast within a falling whole tone scale that
spans on octave. Although the spoken version of this phrase would more likely
span a fifth or so, the falling scale is the same pattern for a spoken question in
Czech.
198
The phrase a gdyz sem odespal from song V also has a natural contour and
rhythm. The falling whole steps on a gdyz sem and the triplet figure on odespal,
placed a third above the word a, together constitute the normal pattern for a
person relating "and w hen I slept."
Song VII also has similar passages. The thought Ztratil jsem kolicek (I lost
the axle-pin) is set as usual speech—it is scalar and leads up to and dow n from
the syllable ko-, which is the commonly stressed syllable on the m ost im portant
w ord in the group. Also of note is the phrase Pujdu si pro neho ronmu ja do sece (I
will go to the elder tree myself for it).
Song X has two phrases that resemble speech patterns. The first is Rozmily
Jamcku, cujes i skrivanky? (Dearest Jan, do you hear the larks?) Characteristic of
Czech speech are the triplets on rozmily and skrivanky; this is particularly
common in northern Moravian dialects w here accents, which in the spoken form
of literary Czech lengthen the syllable by half, are often observed only in certain
places, e. g., on the syllable -m- of Jamcku. One would expect to hear the syllable
pronounced longer because in addressing him as Jarufek, Zefka is show ing her
endearment. Whenever the letter i follows n in Czech, the n is palatalized and the
constricted airway places the already high vowel i even higher. There is a special
quality to the resultant phoneme, which is at the same time alm ost yearning,
plaintive, even sometimes cloying. This effect is magnified when the syllable is
lengthened with an accent. The end result is that Jandtek, in observing the accent
when setting the name Janifek, while at the same time disregarding the accents
in the other words, is choosing to place emphasis on Zefka's affection for Jarufek.
The phrase Prisedni si pfeca (Sit down), also from song X, is set as it could
be spoken. The whole phrase spans an augmented fifth, and as we have seen, the
falling fifth is the approximate interval of literal imperatives. The interval is filled
in by the intervening syllables, which indicate a less emphatic order.
In the spoken form of SC, it will be recalled, the stress falls invariably on
the first syllable of the word, and vowels that carry accents sound twice as long
as their unaccented counterparts. This is not always observed in Jan££ek's text
setting in the song cycle with longer note values for accented vowels, because he
is setting a text written in the W allachian dialect, where accents are largely
ignored (not phonated as long as the accent would dictate) and the accent
frequently falls on the penultimate syllable, as in Italian. An example of this are
the last two measures of song XII on the word nezabudu (I w on't be [alive]).
Jan££ek lays stress on -bu-, the penultim ate syllable, in four ways: metrically, by
placing the syllable at the beginning of the measure; dynamically, w ith a
decrescendo; intervallically, with the fifth leap in the accompaniment; and
durationally, by making that syllable seven times as long as the other three
syllables. This is a particularly striking example, but there are others.
The meter of song XVI is 7/4, which easily accommodates the groupings
of six syllables while allowing a beat for the singer to catch his breath. The
phrases are all but the seventh and twelfth (last) set as six quarter notes followed
by a quarter note rest. The repetition has a hypnotic effect on the listener, and
this reflects Jam'dek's state as he ponders over w hat he has done and the
implications his actions will have for him. The first two phrases, both recited on
E-double flat, heighten the result; Co jsem to udelal? (What have I done?) and Jakd
to vzpomenka! (What has come over me?). The pattern is broken first in the
seventh phrase, where raci bych si ufal (I'd rather cut off [my pinky]) is sung on
four sixteenth notes, followed by two quarter notes. The diminution of the first
four notes places emphasis on the last two for dram atic effect—ufal (cut off). The
ninth and tenth phrases, Vyletel skrivanek (A lark flew away) and vyletel z ofesi
(flew out of the bushes) are sung on E and B, respectively, with a semitone drop
on the penultimate syllables. Again, these phrases are consistent with speech
patterns.
Here Jan££ek is making the melody more speech-like as the character is
relating more narrative information. This was also the case in song XI, where
Jaru£ek is describing how Zefka "made her bed" for the n ig h t kdmen odhodila (she
cast aw ay a stone) v smichu prohodila (she said, laughing). The note values for
odhodila and prohodila are diminished by half from the notes that precede them.
This, along with the modest contours of these phrases, makes them sound as if
they were spoken. By setting narrative comments such as "he said" or "she
laughed" to normal speech contours, Jan££ek is able to set in relief the dramatic
parts.
201
In song XIX there is a sequence of three short phrases, all set off by one
beat in the vocal part (though the piano accompaniment continues), that together
make up a gently falling phrase that spans a minor seventh; oj, gdyby vedela /
z>eckrat by se mnu / recnovat nechtela (O, if she knew, she would never w ant to
speak with me again). Of course most spoken phrases do not have such a broad
range, but here the impression of speech is somewhat more contrived or stylized.
This passage is curious for several reasons. While the contours and rhythm s of
the phrases generally resemble speech patterns, certain elements belie this
notion. The utterance is sliced into three segments, punctuated by rests, time is
suspended while Jaiu£ek sings languidly in an andante tempo, and the range of
the passage is too wide for normal speech. It is as if Jan££ek stretches out time
and space to create the illusion of speech.
Another manner in which Jan££ek inventively sets the text is in song XX,
where Janifek is made to stutter on the w ords po kolenka (above her knees) and
kosulenka (nightshirt), making him sound m uch like VaSek in his stuttering aria
from The Bartered Bride. The speech contour is maintained in the phrase tomu
neutece (one cannot escape [fate]) when, after first appearing in song VII,
resurfaces in song XVII. It seems an important, not to say pivotal, motive for the
piece, and the line could be spoken with the same contour. Whereas w hen the
phrase appears the first time, it is rendered at a frightening fortissimo dynamic
level in the upper tessitura; when the phrase is sung the second time, there is a
202
feeling of resignation to Fate as Jarufek blandly sings it at a mezzo forte in the
m iddle register.
203
SCORE FOR THE DIARY OF ONE WHO DISAPPEARED

(Zapisnik zmizeleho)
204
P IA N O F O R T E '
206
n.
___A
A — . /?\
[ i " I . = # =
T & W y
1 *
208
m .
210
jj"g_ m
211
IV
V ak-4i tla-ftiv-t? « W-rii
212
213
214
VL
215
dim.
(M i fhrtrtu)
(H u h tm m i
218
219
vul *
221
rx.
222
tgSnft ~l
223
224
J i ..
226
«k 9 Sk.
229
231
XL
232
U ifO M fiii
. t a j * ai “ |fi - trj-iim , a r*-« MUafli ra-«

N-Mb tm »Ui- M-li «• Hwfeao- allH *r ■§•*.
* )P h k jii(ilt* « li) N t i p U t l «i^J4a i J n K U rrwUvfc*.
i U t f t r a F a u a .)
DM l a « |« r t a w n f f a t t i f a l.
234
235
xm.
236
237
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission
238
XIV
PM
me—l.
• tomjo
239
XV
240
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Reproduced with permission o f the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
260
261
CONCLUSIONS
262
CONCLUSIONS
Jan££ek is an icon of Czech culture, and his practice of recording speech
melodies is legendary. However, there is some m isunderstanding about the
nature of this activity and the role that it played in the composer's life.
In C hapter Two we saw how Janafek's intense interest in speech melody
had its roots in the history that shaped his life. The cultural dissonance between
Czechs and Germans and the Autsro-German aristocracy who enjoyed
hegemony over them climaxed in the nationalist awakening in the nineteenth
century, the tim e in which Jan££ek was bom and grew up. These tensions were
most deeply felt in the matter of language. It is therefore not surprising that a
fervent nationalist like Jan&fek would take such a strong interest in the sounds of
the Czech language. Of course, as with most questions of identity, the answer is
not quite so simple. Both cultures influenced each other. Nevertheless, the
perception of inferiority provided fertile ground for nationalist sentiment to take
root and grow. It was in this atmosphere that Jan££ek developed his theory of
speech melody. Jan££ek used speech melody to aid in his search for identity and
a sense of belonging.
Chapter Three dealt with linguistic principles that govern speech
intonation. We reviewed research in intonation and prosody, concentrating on
the Czech language. Consideration was given to dialects of Czech in which many
of Jan££ek's characters spoke. Then we inquired into the issue of the viability of
music notation in the recording of normal speech. W e concluded that despite
some scholarly disagreem ent on the point, there is support for the idea that
speech intonation can be represented musically w ith a good deal of accuracy.
This would seem to support Janafek's practice of notating ndpevky.
From examination of some examples of ndpevky in C hapter Four, we saw
that not all of the ndpevky are instances of actual Czech speech, despite Jan££ek's
attempts to frame them as such. While these examples do not always reflect
principles that guide the spoken word, they do seem to be altered to fit tonal
music. Many of the intervals in the ndpevky are pure musical intervals such as
perfect fourths and fifths, which occur in Czech speech only rarely. Rather than
authentic exemplars of overheard speech fragments, som e of the speech melodies
seem to be a source of inspiration for Janafek's musical imagination. They may
have been opportunities for Janifek to engage in som ething akin to the process
of fantasieren, the act of collecting ideas and experimenting w ith them in order to
attempt to create complete musical thoughts.1 He heard a speech melody that
caught his attention, and immediately he began to cast it into a different light—to
alter the intervals a bit, juxtapose the ndpevek w ith another, write an
accompaniment to the ndpevky. Suddenly there was a piece of music sculpted
from an everyday speech melody.
1 For more on this process, see Hollace Ann Schafer, "A W isely Ordered Phantasie: Joseph
Haydn's Creative Process from the Sketches and Drafts for Instrumental Music" (Ph.D. diss.,
Brandeis University, 1987). In writing about Jan&ek, I am using the term in a somewhat different
sense than Schafer uses it in her dissertation.
264
We also saw the centrality of speech to Jandfek's musical life. The m any
notebooks that he left behind bear witness to the importance this interest had for
him. His notated and carefully rewritten transcriptions of his daughter's final
utterances illustrate the point most eloquently. That some of the ndpevky do not
resemble actual speech intonation contours of spoken Czech testifies to the
fluidity w ith which Jandfek viewed speech and music. This fact also belies the
notion that Jan££ek conducted his activities in anything approaching a scientific
manner, despite his claims to the contrary. Actual speech melodies provided the
inspiration for Jana£ek's "musicalized" examples.
Chapters Five and Six involved detailed analysis of selected vocal works.
Jandfek's vocal works (from around the turn of the century until his death)
contain many speechlike passages. There is an evolution in how Jandfek uses
Czech speech melody in his works. His first tentative experiments with the
technique are in Jenufa and here speechlike lines are alternated with more
conventional melodies, as though he were composing in two parallel universes.
He reserves the technique for some of the m ost dram atic scenes in the story,
often offsetting the text even more by withholding accompaniment and asking
the singer to improvise a recitativo secco on a line of text.
The speech melodies permeating Jandfek's vocal music are stylized. In the
earlier works it appears that Jan££ek set text in two different idioms: one m ore
melodic and the other more speechlike. As time w ent on, his vocal lines became
m ore stylistically unified and closer to speech. We can see in the Diary that the
vocal style is more consistently speechlike, in contrast to that of Jenufa, which has
two distinct styles. The speechlike vocal lines conform to certain phonological
conventions that obtain in common everyday speech, but they are not for the
m ost part accurate representations of w hat one might hear on the street in casual
conversation. The effect is something of an arioso style that lies somewhere in the
middle of a speech-song continuum. The vocal lines are m eant to be evocative of
speech and indeed they resemble speech to a degree not seen in the music of
most other composers. This is because Jan££ek studied the inflections of his
language, w hereas most other composers have not.
The subject of JarUifek and speech melody is complicated by several
factors. First, in order to draw conclusions about the speechlike qualities of the
ndpevky in Jan££ek's notebooks or in the vocal lines in his pieces, one m ust have
the requisite knowledge of linguistics. This entails researching sources that deal
with all aspects of linguistics (phonology, morphology, etc.) and specifically with
intonation. Then one m ust study books on intonation of Czech, which differs
siginificantly from that of other Indo-European languages, even Slavic ones.
Only when this knowledge is acquired can the principles can be applied in an
analysis of vocal lines.
The second difficulty pertains to Jan££ek's own writings on the topic,
which are beautifully poetic and ethereal at best, and obfuscatory and opaque at
worst. While his writings provide some insight into Jan££ek's thoughts on the
matter, one m ust read between the lines, and even then a healthy dose of
skepticism is in order. The key is to try to determine w hether Jan££ek truly
believed w hat he said or whether he was being disingenuous.
Finally, the sheer volume of the ndpevky that Jan££ek recorded presents the
first problem (facsimile copies of the pages of his notebooks fill seventy-five
bulging folders at the Jan&fek Archive at the Moravian M useum in Brno). Due in
large measure to the monumentality of the task, there has yet to be a definitive
study undertaken on all of the ndpevky, let alone a com puter analysis that would
com pare the speech melodies to vocal lines in all of Janafek's vocal works. If the
speech melodies were analyzed and compared to vocal lines Jan££ek's works
w ith the aid of a computer program, much could be learned. It could be
instructive to ascertain whether certain speech melodies that appear in the
notebooks also appear in the vocal works and if so, how the text of the melodies
relates to the text of the opera or song. This could be a fruitful avenue of inquiry
for future research to illuminate more fully the multifarious intricacies of the
relationship between text and music in Janîek's music.
The conclusions of this dissertation suggest a reevaluation of previous
assum ptions about the role of speech melody in Jan& ek's compositional process
m ay be in order. Naturally every composer who has w ritten vocal works has
been concerned with setting the text so that it sounds natural and unforced.
Some are more successful than others, but it is undoubtedly an issue that
composers have always had to confront. For dramatic effect Jan££ek strove to
approxim ate in his scores Czech intonational contours and rhythms, creating a
stylized speech idiom that is a compromise between speech and song. In the
earlier works it appears that Jan££ek set text in two ways: one more melodic and
the other more speechlike. Gradually his vocal lines became more stylistically
unified and closer to speech. As he became more confident with writing in the
new manner, he began to find his own voice as a composer.
268
APPENDICES
269
APPENDIX 1: JANA£EK'S WRITINGS DEALING WITH

LANGUAGE OR SPEECH MELODY PUBLISHED DURING HIS LIFETIME1
"VSelijakci objasn£m melodick£ a harmonick£" [General Clarifications of Melodic

and Harmonic Matters]
Cecilie, iv /I (5 January 1877), 1-2; iv /3 (5 March 1877), 19-21
Janafek writes on music theory, addressing rhythm and prosody.
"Divadelni zpr£vy" [Theater news]

Hudebni listy, i/1 2 (2 March 1885), 46
Discussion of phonetics from a Czech translation of Shakespeare's Othello.
"Slovanstvo ve svvch zpfivech. Sborru'k nArodm'ch a zn£rodn6tych pisnl vSech

slovanskVrh n4rodu" [Slavdom in its Songs: A Collection of National and
Domesticated Songs of all Slav Nations]
Hlidka literdmi, iii (1886), 314ff.; iv (1887), 43ff.
Jan££ek is critical of O takar Hostinsky's work on Czech musical declamation.
"O vyufov&ni zp£vu v 1. tfldg Skoly ndrodm" [On Teaching Singing to First-
graders]
Hudebni listy, iv /3 (1 January 1888), 39-40
Musings about the melodiousness of human speech.
"K anket£ o bmSnskem divadle" [On the Questionnaire about the Brno Theater]
Moravskd revue, i/6 (15 March 1899)
Jan^Cek urges Czech actors to adopt "truthful everyday speech" in their onstage
declamation. Presents ndpevky as examples of how actors should speak.
"N4p6vky d£tsk£ m luvy" [Children's Speech Melodies]

Cesky lid, xii (1903), 18-21, 65-6,103-6,154-6; xiii (1904), 19-22; xiv (1905), 416-19;
xv (1906), 19-22
1 From N igel Simeone, John Tyrrell, Alena N£mcov&, Jandcek's Works: A Catalogue of the Music and
Writings ofLeos Jandcek (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997).
270
The potential of speech melodies to express dram a and hum an emotion.

Many examples of children's ndpevky.
"Nap£vky naSi mluvy vynikajici zvl&Stm dramati£nosti" [Speech Melodies of

Extraordinary Dramatic Qualties]
Casopis morcwskeho muzea, iii (1903), 105-12; Hlidka, xx (1903), 636-7
Writes of "truthful examples of dramatic Czech speech m elodies." Demonstrated
with copious ndpevky.
"Moje Luhafovice" [My LuhaCovice]

Hlidka, xx (1903), 836-44
Discussion of the rich possibilities of the hum an voice for expression. Extensive
examples of speech melodies.
"Loni a letos. Hudebni studie" [Last year and this year: Musical Study]
Hlidka, xxii/3 (1905), 201-11
Further discussion of speech melodies, this time described as "an expression of
the whole state of an organism and of all phases of spiritual activity which flow
from it." Jan££ek provides m any examples of ndpevky by the girl Lidka Sl4dkov4,
the daughter of a gamekeeper from Hukvaldy, Jan££ek's hom etown.
"Rozhrani mluvy a zp6vu" [The Border Between Speech and Song]

Hlidka, xxiii/4 (1906), 241-53
Explanation of the physiological processes of speech and how these relate to
pitches of ndpevky.
"Jablunkovsk6 mosty" [Jablunkov Bridges]

Lidove noviny, xv/355 (24 December 1907)
Feuilleton about ethnic and national relations in Silesia and the constant
incursion of the Polish language into traditionally Czech regions.
"AlZbeta" [Elizabeth]
Lidavd citanka moravska, ed. FrantiSek Bfly. TelC: Emil Sole, 1907,341-47;
off-print 3-9
A remembrance of a girl from Hukvaldy. Many speech m elody quotations of the
girl.
271
"M odem! harmonicka hudba" [Modem Harmonic Music]

Hlidka, xxiv (1907), 6-14
A theoretical study including consideration of the centrality of speech melodies
for dram a in music.
"Podskal^cky pfipad" [The Podskali Case]

Hlidka, xxvi/2 (1909), 89-92, under "Feuilleton"
Jan££ek reviews a January 1909 performance at the National Theater of
Smetana's opera Libase and compares speech melodies of the reapers in the opera
w ith ice-cutters on the Vltava River.
"Vciha redlnych m otivu (Crty z pfedndSek)" [The significance of Real-life Motives

(Notes from Lectures)]
Dalibor, xxxii (1910), 227-28
Notes from introductions to public concerts of the Brno O rgan School. He speaks
of speech melodies as a spring of originality and personality in Czech expression.
Examples from a lecture of Jaroslav Vrchlicky in Brno (15 May 1898).
"Letnice 1910 v Praze" [Whitsunday 1910 in Prague]

Hlidka, xxvii (1910), 555-60,640-44
An account of Jan&fek's visit to Prague. There are a num ber of speech melodies
in this article. The composer bitterly laments the prejudice with which Jeji
pastorkyna had met heretofore. There is also an addendum in which he criticizes a
lecture presented by Zden£k Nejedty on Sm etana's music.
"Z knifcni ndlady" [From a Bookish Mood]

Moravskoslezskd revue, xi/1 (20 Nov. 1914), 13-19
Inquiry into the relationship between the dynamic contours of spoken syllables
and their static state in notation.
"Glosy k DvotekovS neoriginalite my§lenkov6" [Thoughts on DvoMk's

Intellectual Unoriginality]
Hlidka, xxxii (1915), 36-41
Jan££ek alludes to Josef BartoS's book Antonin Dvorak (Prague: J. Pelc, 1913) and
then shifts to talking about speech melodies.
272
"Okolo Jeji pastorkyng" [On JenuJa]

Hudebni revue, ix /7 (April 1916), 245-49
On the importance of ndpevky in text setting in Jeji pastorkyna and on the musical
and psychological origin of speech melodies.
"Kol6bka £esk6 prapisn6 lidov6" [The Cradle of Ancient Czech Folksong]

Narod, i / l l (11 June 1917), 226
On folksong and speech.
"Z pra£sk6ho ovzduSi. PrispSvek k t6novym utvarum £esk£ feCi" [From the
atm osphere of Prague: A Contribution to the Sonic Shapes of Czech Speech]
Hlidka, xxxiv/2 (1917), 65-71; xxxiv (1917), 151-56
Addressing the capacity of ndpevky to convey a wide range of emotions Citations
of speech melodies overheard in Prague.
"Moravany, Morawaaan!"
Lidove noviny, xxvi/93 (6 April 1918)
In a train passing through the town Moravany, Jan££ek hears the announcements
in Czech and German and compares the speech melodies of both versions.
Finishes by discussing the ability of ndpevky to express human emotions.
"Plnost vyrazov&" [Fullness of Expression]

Moravskoslezskd revue, xii (1918), 259-67
The ability of speech melodies to communicate emotions.
"Ot&zky" [Questions]
Cos, xxx/6 6 (1920), 131
On the psychological basis for composition which represents the mirroring of
speech melody.
"Rada" [Some Advice]

Prdzdniny. Posldnik studentstvu na rok 1920,1920/3-4,13-14
About the actions of Jablunkov priest VaSica, who in 1908 collected Czech
hymnbooks from locals in order to facilitate the progress of the Polish language
273
into Silesia. Jan&ek advises students to visit the area and reaffirm the
relationship of Czech people to their language.
"Z pfedn&»ky prof. Torraca" [From Professor Torraca's Lecture!

Lidove noviny, xxix/282 (8 June 1921)
The speech melodies of the names of La divina commedia, Dante Alighieri, Beatrice
as uttered by Francesco Torraca.
"Ryt& slova" [Engraved Words]

Lidove noviny, xxix/474 (22 Sept. 1921)
Tom&S Garrigue M asaryk's speech delivered during his first presidential visit to
Brno (16 Sept. 1921). Certain speech melodies recorded.
"Pofatek rom£nu" [The Beginning of a Romance]

Lidove noviny, xxx/138 (17 March 1922)
Two girls at the train station are talking and Jan££ek records their speech
melodies. He then addresses the phenomenon of speech melody as a "central
impulse of the course of composition."
"Usta" [Mouth]
Lidove noviny, xxxi/331 (5 July 1923)
Discussion of w ord and syllable articulation and the timing of sounds.
"MSI vyteSny sluch" [He Had a Sharp Ear]

Lidove noviny, xxxii/13 (8 January 1924)
About Plato and his sensitivity to speech contours.
"Smetanova dcera" [Smetana's Daughter]
Lidove noviny, xxxii/497 (3 October 1924)
Smetana's daughter's ndpevky recorded; Jan££ek muses that it may be possible to
imagine how Smetana actually spoke from his daughter's speech patterns.
"Josef Zubaty. Brno 21. ffjna 1925. Aula filosofickS fakulty" [Josef Zubaty: Brno,
21 October 1925, Hall of the Faculty of Liberal Arts]
Lidove noviny, xxxiii/532 (24 October 1925)
JanSSek captures ndpevky from the lecture of linguist Dr. Josef Zubaty.
274
"Projev L. Jan££ka na slavnost, pof6dan6 Skolou pro slovanska studia v Lond^nS

dne 4. 5.1926" [Speech of L. Jan££ek at a Celebration Arranged by the School for
Slavonic Studies, G iven 4 May 1926]
Jan Mikota: "LeoS Jandfek v Anglii," Listy Hudebni matice, v/7-8 (25 May 1926)
Thoughts on folksong, w ith an emphasis on speech.
"Toulky" [Rovings]
Lidove noviny, xxxv/78 (16 January 1927)
Reminiscences of strolls through Prague, including speech melodies overheard
on the street.
275
APPENDIX h JANACEK'S W RITINGS DEALING WITH

LANGUAGE OR SPEECH MELODY NOT PUBLISHED DURING HIS
LIFETIME2
"6e£ a slovo" [Speech and Word]

8 March 1914
O n the psychology of speech, form and content of emotions.
"Typy £esk£ mluvy" [Kinds of Czech Speech]

undated, 1915
Concerning the relationship between psychology and human speech.
"K£esk6 narodru pisni na Moravfi a ve Slezsku" [Regarding Czech Folksong in

Moravia and in Silesia]
undated, before 1917
The connection between the rhythmic and melodic characteristics of folk songs
and ndpevky.
"Triptychon" [Triptych]
26 September 1921
W ritten for the proposed encyclopedia Vsendrodni enafdopedie [National
Encyclopedia]
Three feuilletons with an afterword. They constitute a discussion of the
personality of President Tom^S Garrigue Masaryk and his establishment of
Czechoslovakia. Further consideration of speech melodies and the the
composer's creative process.
"Prosodie lidov6 pisng" [Folksong Prosody]

undated, 1923[?]
Folksong rhythm and vowel duration in singing and in the spoken word.
2 From N igel Simeone, John Tyrrell, Alena N£mcov£, Janacek's Works: A Catalogue of the Music and
Writings ofLeos Jandcek (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997).
276
"N&pSvky mluvy" [Speech Melodies]

undated, 1923
O n the methodology of collecting, analyzing, and categorizing speech melodies.
Undatable
"Prvky typu £esk6 mluvy" [The Elements of Types of Czech Speech]

undated
Discussion of various characteristics of Czech speech.
Lectures and Papers
"Opera. N afrt pfedn^Sky" [Opera: The Sketch of a Lecture]

Analysis of examples of composers Balakirev, W agner, Jan&dek, Musorgsky,
Charpentier, Smetana. On the equal importance of the lyrics in relation to the
music.
"Pfedn&Sky na mistrovsk6 Skole" [Lectures at the M aster School]

dated 11 October 1922-25 January 1923
On the categorization of speech melodies.
"Fonetika I, II" [Phonetics 1,2]

Lectures on Phonetics for Students
"PfednaSky na mistrovsk6 Skole" [Lectures at the M aster School]

11 October 1922-5 January 1923
O n the emotional import inherent in music. Categorization of speech melodies.
277
APPENDIX 3: Text for The Diary o f One W ho Disappeared
I. I.
Potkal jsem mladou cigdnku, I met a young gypsy.

nesla se jako laft, She carried herself like a doe,
pfes prsa f em 6 lelflcy Over her breasts black tresses
a ofi bez dna zhlaft. And eyes without bottom, so deep.
Pohledla po mn£ zhlboka, She looked at me from their depths.
Pak vznesla sa pfes pert, Then she darted away over tire flowers.
a tak mi v hlavg ostala And so in my head she remained
pfes celufky, celufky deft. For all the entire day.
n. n.
Ta £em£ cig&nka That black gypsy
kolem sa posm fta— Is lurking here.
Prof sa tady drft, Why does she cling so to this place?
prod sa tady dr±i. Why does she cling so to this place?
Prof nejde do svfta Why doesn't she go out into the world?
prof nejde do svfta? Why doesn't she go out into the world?
Byl bych snad veselSi I would be happier
gdyby odjit chtftla If she would ever leave
Sel bych sa pomodlit I would go and pray.
hnedkaj do kostela. Right away, in the church.
m. m.
Svatoj£nsk£ muSky tanfija po hr&ri, Glow-worms are dancing on the dam. | dam
gdosi sa v podvefer podle ni pfichizL Someone is walking in the dusk along the
Nefekaj, nevyjdu, nedam j£ sa zlik a t Don't wait! I won't come! I won't be tempted.
mosela by po tej m i mamfnka plakat My mother then would weep so much.
M fsifek zachodi, u i nic vidft neni, The moon goes down, no one can see
stoji gdosi, stoji v naSem zahumeni. But someone's standing in our back yard.
Dvoje svftftlka zAfija do n o d Two eyes shine into the night
Pane Bo2e, nedaj! Stoj mi, stoj mi ku Lord God, don't let this happen! Stand by
pomoci! me and help me!
IV. IV.
Ui mladf vlaStuvky Already the young swallows

ve hnizdg vm oh, Are cooing in their nests.
278
Leial sem celu noc I lay all night long

jako na tmo£i. As if on thorns.
Ui sa aj svitdni Already the dawn
na nebi patmi, In die sky appears.
leial sem celu noc I lay all night long
jako nahy v tmi. As if naked on a bed of thorns.
V. V.
T&tko sa mi ofe It's hard for me to plow,

vyspal sem sa malo I slept so little,
a gdyi sem odespal, And when I did sleep
o ni sa mi zddlo! Of her I dreamed.
o ni sa mi zddlo! Of her I dreamed.
VI. VI.
Hajsi, vy shri void, Hey, you, my gray oxen,

bedlivo orajte, Carefully plow.
nic vy sa k ol£in£ Do not look toward the elder trees.
nic neohledajte! Do not look.
Ode tvrddj zem£ From the hard earth
pluh mi odskakuje, My plow rebounds.
strakaty fertuSek A colorful scarf
Iistim pobleskuje. Through the leaves glitters.
Gdo tarn na mne Ceka The one who is waiting over there for me
nech rati zkameni, Should turn to stone!
moja chord hlava My ailing head
v jednom je plameni. Is one great flame.
Gdo tarn na mne feka The one who is waiting over there for me
nech ra£i zkameni! Should turn to stone!
vn. vn.
Ztratil sem kolifek, I have lost a peg.
ztratil sem od ndpravy, I lost it from the damaged axle.
Postojte volCci, postojte, Stay here, my oxen, stay here.
novy to vyspravi. A new one will fix it
Pujdu si pro ngho I w ill go and make one
rovnu do seie. Over there out of wood from that elder tree
Co komu suzeno, What is meant to be
tomu neutede. Cannot be escaped.
279
vm. vm.
NehlecTte, voledd, Do not look, my oxen.
tesklivo k uvratim, So sadly toward the gate.
nebojte sa o mne, Do not fear for me,
Sak sa vim neztratim! I won't get lost!
Stoji derrd Zefka There stands dark Zefka
v ol£in£ na kraju On the edge of die elder trees
Temni jeji odi Darkly her eyes
jiskru ligotaju. With sparks do shine.
Nebojte sa o mne, Do not fear for me.
aj kdyi k ni pfikrodim, Ay, even if I should step toward her,
dok£2u zdorovat I will prove I can resist
uhhrandliv^m ofim . Those witch's eyes.
DC. DC.
„Vitaj, Janidku, "Welcome Janidek!

vitaj tady v lese Welcome here in the forest!
Jaki Stfastna trefa What lucky stroke.
Sfastni trefa Lucky stroke
fa sem cestu nese? Brings you this way?
Vitaj Janidku! Welcome, Janidek!
Co tak tady stojiS, And why do you stand there
bez krve, bez hnud So pale, without moving?
di snad sa mne bojiS?" Perhaps you fear me?"
„Nem im ja sa v€ru, "I do not have
nem im sa koho bit, A soul to fear.
pfiSel sem si enom I only came
nikolnidek ufat, To cut a peg,
nikolnidek utfaf" To cut a peg!"
„N efei muj Janidku, "Do not cut anything, my Janidek,
n efei nikobiidku! Do not cut any pegs.
Radi si poslechni Instead listen
dginsku pisnidku!" To a gypsy song."
Ruky sepjala, She folded her hands,
smutno zpivala, she sang so sadly.
truchli p^snidka Her sorrowful song
srdcem hybala. Would m ove any heart
X. X.
„Bo2e dalny, nesmrtelny, God so far away, god immortal.

prod d gin u d vot dal? Why create us gypsies, | world.
By bez d ie bludil svdtem, So that w e aim lessly stray throughout die
Stvin byl jenom d il a dil?" Hunted wherever we go?
„Rozmity Janidku, "Dearest Janidek,
duje§-li skfivinky?" Do you hear the lark?"
Sm utni pdsnidka Her sorrowful song
280
srdcem hybala. Would move any heart

„Pfisedni si pfeca "Come sit here.
podleva cigAnky!" Here beside the gypsy."
„Boi e mocny! Milosrdny! "God so mighty! Merciful!
N e i v pustem sv£te zahynu, Before I perish in this wild world,
daj mi poznat, daj mi citit, daj mi citit! Let me know, let me feel. Let me feel!
Daj mi cftit" Let me feel."
Smutnd p€sni£ka Such sad songs
srdcem hybala. Would move any heart
„Pofdd tady enom "All this time here
jak solny sip stojiS You have stood like a pillar of salt
vSecko mi pfipadi, It seem s to me
i e sa ty mne bojiS? That you are afraid of me?
Pfisedni si bliiej Come sit closer,
ne tak z povzdaleka, Not so far away.
£i fa moja barva Or is it my color that
pfeca enom Iekd? Frightens you?
Nejsu ja tak fem a I am not as black
jak sa ti uzdA vi As I seem to you.
gde nemoZe since, Where the sun cannot reach
jinSx je postava!" My body is lighter!"
KoSuIku na prsoch The blouse from her breasts
krape£ku shmula, She lowered a little.
KoSulku na prsoch The blouse from her breasts
krapedku shm ula, She lowered a little.
jemu sa v§ecka krev At that, all his blood
do hlavy vrhnula. Rushed to his head.
jemu sa v§ecka krev At that, all his blood
do hlavy vrhnula. Rushed to his head.
XL XL
Tahne vufia k lesu The perfume floats towards the wood.

z rozkvetl£ pohanky, Smelling of flowering buckwheat
„Chces-li, Janku, vid&t "Would you like, Janek, to see
jak spija ciganky?" How the gypsies sleep?
„ChceS-Ii v6d6t, Would you like to know
jak spija ciganky?" How the gypsies sleep?"
Haluzku zlomila, A few twigs she broke off,
kameh odhodila; A few stones she removed.
„Toi uz mdm ustlan^," "See, my bed is made,"
v smichu prohodila. with a laugh she said.
„Zem je mi za poBtef, "The earth is my pillow
nebem sa pfikryv£m, With the sky I cover myself,
a rosu schadle ruce And when the dew makes my hands cold,
v klin£ si zahfivim." I warm them here in my lap."
V jednej suk^nce In her petticoat
na zem i le£ala On the ground she lay.
A moja postivosf And my innocence.
pl^£em usedala. With tears, broke down.
281
PUfem usedala. With tears, broke down.
xn. xn.
Tmava olSinka, Dark elder trees.
chladrte studenka, Cold spring water,
ferrUL ciginka, Black gypsy.
bfl6 kotenka: White knees.
nato Stvero, These four things.
co H v budu, As long as I live.
nikdy ja ui nezabudu. Will never be forgotten.
xm. xm.
Klavir sdlo Piano solo
XIV. XIV.
Slne£ko sa zdvih£, The sim comes up.

stin sa krdtL The shadows shorten.
O! Ceho sem pozbyl, Ah, what I have lost!
O! Ceho sem pozbyl, Ah, what I have lost*
gdo, gdo, Who, who.
gdo mi to navTati? Who will return it to me?
gdo mi to navratf? Who w ill return it to me?
XV. XV.
Moji sivi void, My gray oxen,

co na mne hledite? Why do you stare at me so?
Esli vy to na mne, Will you tell on me?
esli vy povite! Will you tell?
Nebudu ja bida I will not spare
na vas Sanovat, My whip on you
budete to potem And then you shall.
budete banovat! Shall regret it
NejhorSi vSak bude, The worst is yet to come.
vrafa sa k polednu, When I return at nearly noon.
jak jd jen mamdnce Into my mother's eyes
do od pohtednu! I'll not be able to look.
XVI. XVI.
Co sem ud£lal? What have I done?

Jak4 to vzpom£nka! What kind of thoughts are these?
G dyi bych jd ntel pravit How could I call
282
cigance mamgnka. A gypsy "mother?"

Cigance mamgnka, A gypsy "mother?"
ciggnu tatigek, Another gypsy "father?"
rad bych si ufal I would rather cut off
od ruky maligek! My pinky.
Vyletgl skfivanek, A lark flew up.
vyletgl z ofeSi, He flew from the nut tree,
moje truchlg srdce My sorrowful heart
nigdo nepotgSL No one can cheer up.
xvn. xvn.
Co komu suzeno, What is one's fate?
tomu neutege. It cannot be escaped.
Spgchgm jg vd l gasto Therefore I hurry
na veger do sege. In the evenings to the elder trees.
Co tam chodim dglat? What am I going to do there?
Co tam chodim dglat? What am I going to do there?
Sbirim tam jahody. There I'll gather strawberries.
Listegek odhrfia, A few leaves I'll draw aside.
uiaje§ lahody. And what delights I'll find.
xvm. xvm.
Nedbam jg vgil o nic, I care no more for anything
n e i aby veger byl, But that evening w ill come
abych jg si s Zefku So that I with Zefka
celu noc pobyl. The night will spend.
Po vSeckym kohutom As for the cocks,
hlavy bych zutinal, I'd cut their heads of
to aby Z&dny z nich So that none of them
svitgni nevolal. Will be able to call the dawn.
Gdyby chtela noc If only the night
na vgky trvati, Could last forever,
abych jg na vgky So that I could forever
mohl milovati. Make love!
XIX. XIX.
Leti straka leti, There flies the magpie.

kfidlama chlopotg With her wings she flaps.
ztratila sa sestfe My sister has lost
koSulenka z plota Her shirt from the hedge.
Gdo ji ju ukradl, Who stole it from her?
aj, gdyby vgdgla, Ah, if she only knew,
vgckrgt by se mnu Nevermore with me
fegftovat nechtgla. She'd want to speak.
O, Bo2e, rozbo2e. Oh God, dear God,
283
jak sem sa promgnil, How did I change.

jak sem sve mySlenky How are my thoughts
ve svem srdd zm enil And my heart so different?
Co sem sa modlfval, How I did once pray!
ui sa hlava zbyla, That's all that remains of my head.
jak gdyby sa piskem It is as if sand
zhlybefi zafutila! Were filling my brain!
XX. XX.
Mam j&panenku. Do I have a sweetheart!

Ale po...po...pokolenka And w hat...w hat...w hat knees!
Ui sa ji zdvhihg Look at how
Re±na ko...ko...ko§ulenka. Her sk .. .sk .. .skirt flies up!
XXI. XXI.
Muj drahy tati£ku, My dearest father.

jak vy sa myiite, How mistaken you are
ie sa ja oienim , If you think I w ill marry
kteru mi zvolfte. The one that you choose for me.
K aidy, kdo pochybil, Everyone who makes a mistake
nech trpi za vinu; Will have to pay for it
svojemu osudu From my fate, too,
rovngi nevyminu! I shall not escape!
xxn. xxn.
S Bohem, rodny kraju, Goodbye, my native land,
s Bohem, ma dgdino! Goodbye, my village!
Na vid y sa rozludit, To part forever.
zbyvg mi jedino. Nothing else is left for me to do.
S Bohem, muj tatidku, Goodbye, my dear father.
a i Vy, mamgnko, And also you, dearest mother.
s Bohem, mg sestfigko, Goodbye, my little sister.
mych o d pomgnko! The forget-me-not of my eyes.
Ruce Vdm obtulgm, I kiss your hands,
ddm odpuStgni, 1 ask forgiveness.
u i pro mne ngvratu It is too late for me
iadnou cestou nerd! To choose another path.
Chci vSechno podniknut, I want to undertake all
co osud porugi! That Fate demands from me.
Zefka na mne £eka, Zefka is waiting for me.
se synem v ngrud! With my son in her arms!
284
GLOSSARY OF LINGUISTIC TERMS
285
GLOSSARY OF LINGUISTIC TERMS1
accent - As used in this study, a distinct variation of a language that differs w ith
regard to phonology.
accusative - Gram m atical case of the direct object. A bbreviated ACC.
aspect - Term used by linguists (particularly of Slavic languages) for verb

categories that indicate w hen actions occur in relation to other events.
A ccom m odation T heory - The field of sociolinguistics that deals w ith the
adjustm ents that people m ake in their speech when speaking to non-natives or
speakers of another dialect.
case - Category of inflection indicating a norm 's role in the gram m ar of a

sentence. In Czech, there are seven cases: nom inative, genitive, dative,
accusative, vocative, prepositional, and instrum ental.
clitic - Term for a w ord whose position in a sentence is determ ined by the
position of other w ords. A clitic is syntactically independent, but is
phonologically connected to the w ords that precedes or succeeds it, e.g., in
English the w ord to in the phrase I'm going to go [gonna go]. A proclitic is an
unstressed w ord th at precedes a stressed w ord in a phonological phrase; an
enclitic is an unstressed w ord that succeeds a stressed w ord.
coda - The p art of a w ord that succeeds the nucleus in an intonational unit. As
opposed to onset.
co d e-sw itching - Changing from one language or dialect to another in discourse.

As some scholars hold that the variation and boundaries betw een codes tend to
be fluid and so as discretely delineated as the term switching implies (Neil
Bermel, 2000; Petr Sgall 1992), recent studies have preferred term s that imply free
oscillation, such as code-mixing and code-altemation.
1 Naturally this brief word list is not intended by any means to be exhaustive, but it explains
some terms germane to this dissertation.
286
Colloquial Czech - The spoken form of Czech that is void of archaism s of SC

and is m orphologically sim ilar to CC w ith some non-SC lexical item s (hovorova
cestina). A bbreviated ColC.
Common Czech - Term referring to an interdialect spoken by m any Czechs

(iobecnd cestina); abbreviated CC.
dative - Gram atical case for the indirect object. In Latin Vitam ded.it patriae (He
gave his life to the country—patria-DAT). Abbreviated DAT.
declarative - Term for a statem ent construction in w hich the intention is to

convey inform ation.
declension - A change in the form of a word denoting its role within a sentence,
e.g., in Latin, the difference between puella (girl-NOM), puellae (girl-DAT), and
puellam (girl-ACC). A lso inflection.
declination - The phenom enon w hereby the pitch tends to fall in the course of
an utterance as air is gradually expended from the lungs.
diacritics - Term for m arks appended to letters to indicate a phonological change

to the letter, e.g., in French the circonflexe (Joret) or accent grave (la-bas). In m odem
Czech the diacritics are the cdrka (vaza), krouzek (stul), and hdcek (zidle).
dialect - A distinctive form of spoken language usually lim ited to a particular

geographical area.
diglossia - Situation in which a linguistic community uses tw o separate form s of

a language, one acquired and used a t hom e and in other inform al contexts, the
other learned at school from books and used in formal contexts.
dim inutive - Especially common in Slavic languages, a w ord w ith an ending

that indicates either small size or endearm ent to the speaker. Kocicka, the
dim inutive of kocka (cat), can m ean "little cat" or approxim ately "m y dear little
cat."
enclitic - See clitic.
fifth - A m idpoint in an intonational contour, higher than a third and low er than
an octave.
287
foot - Borrowed from poetry term inology, a rhythm ical unit in speech m ade up
of tw o or three syllables, one of which is stressed. The feet that predom inate in
Czech are the trochee (- .) and dactyl (-
inflection - Any of a num ber of m orphological forms that denote gram m atical
variations of the sam e lexical unit, e.g., in English, the ending y in the w ord
thirsty is an adjectival inflection of the noun thirst.
gender - Gram m atical classification dividing w ords into groups characterized by

sex. Czech has four gender categories: m asculine anim ate, m asculine inanim ate,
feminine, and neuter.
genitive - G ram m atical case indicating possession, e.g. in Czech, penezenka pana
Zemana (the w allet of Mr. Zeman; pan-ACC Zeman-ACC). Abbreviated GEN.
grammar - The structural system of a language and its description or

proscription of prevalent patterns.
imperative - Form of a verb or verb phrase th at conveys the sense of an order

being given, e.g., Put that down!
indicative - Type of sentence or gram m atical form or that is unmarked w ith

regard to mood. See declarative.
inflection - See declension.
instrumental - Gram m atical case denoting m eans or agency, e.g. in Czech

taktovkou m eans "w ith a baton" (taktovka-TNS).
interdialect - A sim plified form of spoken dialect understood across a particular

region.
interrogative - Type of sentence that asks a question.
intonation - The pattern of pitches and rhythm over speech passages longer than
a w ord. Intonation alone can convey inform ation; see the example under the
entry for modulation.
intonation cadence - An utterance that is long enough to have its distinctive

intonational pattern. Also know n as "intonation group."
288
intonation language - A language in which stress is prim arily determ ined by

factors other than variations in pitch. This allows intonation to be used as a
com ponent of m eaning in an utterance. Tone and pitch accent languages make
less use of intonation in conveying m eaning, as they allow only restricted pitch
variations.
isogloss - A line on a dialect m ap indicating a linguistic variation or set of

variations between dialects.
langue - Term borrowed from de Saussure defined as the abstract social reality
constraining the speech of every person. As opposed to parole.
lexicon - The aspect of linguistics dealing w ith individual w ords, loosely defined
as the vocabulary of the language or dialect.
marked - A grammatical construction that is an exception to a general rule and is

m eant to draw the listener's attention. For example, the w ord order and
intonation are m arked in the sentence Her ESsays I like - it's her POetry I dislike.
m odulation - In linguistic term s, the gram m atical dim ensions of intonation and
stress. Thus the sentence Sally's singing conveys different inform ation when
uttered Sally's SYNGing or SAlly's singing.
mood - Grammatical category of verbs that indicates type of speech act or the
am ount of certainty w ith w hich a statem ent is said, e.g., declarative,
subjunctive, imperative, interrogative. Also called m odality.
mora - a unit of syllable length for languages that distinguish betw een short and
long syllables.
morpheme - The sm allest unit of a w ord that contains m eaning.
morphology - The study of the elem ents m aking up w ords th at carry meaning,
e.g. disreputable is divided into three morphemes: the prefix dis-, the root -reput-,
and the suffix -able. M orphemes can be as short as one letter, such as the suffix -s
in the w ord horses.
nominative - Grammatical case for the subject of a clause or sentence.

Abbreviated NOM.
number - Grammatical inflectional category determ ining w hether the referent is

singular or plural.
289
nucleus - The syllable th at is the center of gravity of an intonational unit.
octave - The extrem e lim it of an intonational contour, usually uttered by a

speaker in an agitated state.
onset - The part of a w ord that precedes a vowel or its nucleus. As opposed to
coda.
paradigm atic - The relationship between a linguistic u n it and other units that
can replace it. For exam ple, between the w ord skiing and other words that could
replace it such as opera or pets in the phrase "I like skiing" or the letter difference
betw een the w ords year and gear.
parole - Term used by de Saussure; the actual speech patterns of individual

speakers. As opposed to langue.
person - Gram m atical inflectional category that differentiates the speaker from
the listener or any others.
phonem e - The sm allest discrete sound unit of a language or dialect.
phonology - The study of the sound systems of languages.
phrase - Often defined as the length of an utterance th at can be spoken in one

breath, a phrase is a syntactical unit sm aller than the clause or the sentence.
pitch accent language - A language in which pitch is the prim ary determ inant in
denoting stress. Japanese and Ancient Greek are exam ples of pitch accent
languages.
prepositional - Gram m atical case used in prepositional phrases. Abbreviated

PREP.
prim ary stress - C hief em phasis on a syllable in a w ord,
proclitic - See clitic.
prosody - The rhythm ic and intonational system of a language and the study
thereof.
290
register - Term denoting the variations of language shared am ong certain

linguistic groups (for example, politicians or journalists) or em ployed in specific
linguistic contexts (e.g., at a professional conference or at a church service).
secondary stress - Emphasis on a syllable in a w ord that is subsidiary to the

prim ary stress.
speech m elody - The prosodic and pitch variations that are characteristic of a
particular language. Alternatively, the melodic and rhythm ic elem ents of an
individual utterance.
Standard Czech - The form of Czech em ployed in w riting and spoken in very
formal contexts (spisoond cestina). Abbreviated as SC and as opposed to CC and
ColC.
stress - The phonological prom inence of a syllable w ithin a w ord or phrase;

stress can be realized in pitch, duration, or vowel quality.
stress group - A rhythm ical u n it containing one stressed and other unstressed
syllables.
subjunctive - Mood that indicates uncertainty of a given statem ent. In Czech, the
subjunctive is expressed by the form s jestli (if, uncertain) and kdyby (if, contrary
to fact).
syntagm atic - Describing the relationship betw een elements w ithin a linguistic
form, e.g., betw een the letters g, r, and o, in the w ord group or between the
subject and verb in the sentence "Susan helped."
syntax - The area of linguistics addressing the gram m atical relationship between
various w ords in a sentence.
th ird - A m idpoint in an intonational contour betw een the tonic and the fifth,
tone group - The sm allest u n it of intonation.
tone language - A language in w hich pitch variations (high, m iddle, low, rising
tone, falling tone) indicate different m orphem es or lexemes. Thai and Cantonese
are exam ples of tone languages.
tonic - The fundam ental pitch of an intonational contour (as defined by Duncan
B. G ardiner).
291
unm arked - N ot marked.
vocative - Grammatical case used to address som eone (also used poetically to
address inanimate objects). In Czech, Poole! (Pavel-VOC) and Sarko! (Skrka-VOC).
292
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INFORMATION TO U SE R S

The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the

Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by

ProQuest Information and Learning

This reproduction is the best copy available.

Paul Victor Christiansen

Submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of

OFFICE OF GRADUATE STUDIES

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thank first of all Christopher Reynolds, my dissertation advisor. His seemingly

healthy skepticism, were of tremendous help throughout the writing process. I

owe a debt of gratitude also to Michael Beckerman, member of the reading

school curriculum (and he is also a decent batting coach).

The other members of my committee, D. Kern Holoman and Pablo Ortiz,

department at Royal Holloway College in London, for his reassurance at a time

around which I began to construct my dissertation.

Czech Republic, particularly to Hana Ripkova. The talented and professional

obliging in offering assistance in deciphering some particularly cryptic examples

of Janafek's handwriting. In this regard I should like to particularly express my

Sparling at Masaryk University provided advice and assistance during my stay

I would certainly be remiss if I failed to mention the technical assistance

faculty at the University of California, Davis. I am delighted to have met kindred

Galinsky for lending a sympathetic ear to my complaints and frustrations and

offering kind words of encouragement

I am privileged to call my friend. Sdrka's love, patience, understanding, and

difficult times in the writing process.

Virtually every musicological study written on Czech composer LeoS

contours and rhythms of everyday utterances (napevky tnluvy). However, few of

these studies have contextualized Jan££ek's theory of speech melody in the

This dissertation is an exploration of the meaning of speech melody for

Jan££ek. I discuss the centrality of language to perceived notions of national

recording activities (Chapter Two). In Chapter Three, I present relevant linguistic

research on prosody and intonation, primarily on Czech. Chapter Four is an

examination of Jan££ek's notebooks and feuilletons on the topic. Then, using

arguments presented in Chapters Three and Four to inform my analysis, I

principles that govern Czech speech (Chapters Five and Six).

In addition to having a nationalist dimension, each speech melody was for

attendant drama. JarUifek's notated these melodies in an attempt to recreate the

compile a dictionary of napevky (an idea that was never realized).

Janafek's notebooks do not constitute a mere repository of actual speech

For dramatic effect Jan££ek strove to approximate in his scores Czech

intonational contours and rhythms, creating a stylized speech idiom that is an

Table of Contents................................................................................................... viii

List of Figures and Examples.................................................................................. ix

Chapter One: Introduction........................................................................................1

Chapter Two: Language and Identity in the Czech Lands.................................... 22

Chapter Three: Speech Intonation and Music........................................................ 55

Chapter Four: Jan££ek and his Ndpeoky mluvy....................................................... 98

Chapter Five: Analysis of Jenufa........................................................................... 140

Score for The Diary of One Who Disappeared................................................ 203

Appendix 1: Jan&ek's Writings Dealing with Language or Speech Melody Published

Glossary of Linguistic Terms................................................................................ 284

Figure 2.1: Sentence in Czech and Slovak............................................................. 25

Example 4.1: Excerpts of Janifek's comments in his copy of Hugo Riemann's

Unless otherwise indicated, all translations are mine. I have used

version. For certain characters, such as Kostelnifka (Sextoness), I employ the

Czech name, which is more familiar to most readers.

Numerous musical examples accompany my analytical remarks. In die

embedded in the text for easy reference.

Janafek's notated speech melodies contain many orthographic oddities

certain examples have been standardized for ease of presentation.

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION