Bohuslav Martinů, 1890 - 1959

[Steve MacDowall]

Bohuslav Martinů (Martinu) ( [ˈboɦuslaf ˈmarcɪnuː]
December 8, 1890 – August 28, 1959

"The artist is always searching for the meaning of life, his own and that of mankind, searching for truth. A system of uncertainty has entered our daily life. The pressures of mechanisation and uniformity to which it is subject call for protest and the artist has only one means of expressing this, by music." - Bohuslav Martinů

List of compositions by Bohuslav Martinů


Martinů was a prolific Bohemian Czech composer, who wrote 6 symphonies, 15 operas, 14 ballet scores and a large body of orchestral, chamber, vocal and instrumental works.

He became a violinist in the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, and taught music in his home town. In 1923 Martinů left Czechoslovakia for Paris, and deliberately withdrew from the Romantic style in which he had been trained. In the 1930s he experimented with expressionism and constructivism, and became an admirer of current European technical developments, exemplified by his orchestral sentences Half-time and La Bagarre. He also adopted jazz idioms, for instance in his Kuchyňské revue ("Kitchen Revue"). Of the post-war avant-garde styles, neo-classicism influenced him the most. He continued to use Czech and Moravian folk melodies throughout his oeuvre, usually nursery rhymes—for instance in Otvírání studánek ("The Opening of the Wells").

He emigrated to the United States in 1941, fleeing the German invasion of France. Although as a composer he was successful in America, receiving many commissions, he became homesick for Czechoslovakia. He never returned to his native country, and he died in Switzerland.

He became a violinist in the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, and taught music in his home town. In 1923 Martinů left Czechoslovakia for Paris, and deliberately withdrew from the Romantic style in which he had been trained. In the 1930s he experimented with expressionism and constructivism, and became an admirer of current European technical developments, exemplified by his orchestral sentences Half-time and La Bagarre. He also adopted jazz idioms, for instance in his Kuchyňské revue ("Kitchen Revue"). Of the post-war avant-garde styles, neo-classicism influenced him the most. He continued to use Czech and Moravian folk melodies throughout his oeuvre, usually nursery rhymes—for instance in Otvírání studánek ("The Opening of the Wells").

He emigrated to the United States in 1941, fleeing the German invasion of France. Although as a composer he was successful in America, receiving many commissions, he became homesick for Czechoslovakia. He never returned to his native country, and he died in Switzerland.

Martinů was born in a bell tower in Polička, Bohemia, where his father (a shoemaker by trade) was a watchman. As a child he developed a local reputation, giving his first public concert in his hometown in 1905. In 1906 he became a violin student at the Prague Conservatory, where he studied briefly before being dismissed for "incorrigible negligence". He continued his studies on his own.

He spent the First World War in his home town as a teacher, where he pursued his interests in composition. He also joined the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra as a violinist. His ballet Istar was completed in 1922. He left Czechoslovakia for Paris in 1923, where he became a pupil of Albert Roussel, though he retained many links with his birthplace. When the German army approached Paris early in the Second World War, he fled, first to the south of France, and then to the United States in 1941, where he settled in New York with his French wife. Life in America was difficult for him, as it was for many of the other outstanding artists who arrived in similar circumstances. Lack of knowledge of English, lack of funds, and lack of opportunities to use their talents were problems common to all such émigré artists at first. However, Martinů did acclimatise himself. He composed a great deal and taught at the Mannes College of Music for most of the period from 1948–1956. His six symphonies were written in the eleven-year period 1942–1953, the first five being produced between 1942 and 1946.

His notable students include Alan Hovhaness, H. Owen Reed, Jan Novák, Vítězslava Kaprálová, Howard Shanet, Peter Pindar Stearns, and Burt Bacharach.

Martinů spent his later years in Switzerland, never returning to his homeland. He died in Liestal on August 28, 1959.

Martinů was a very prolific composer, writing almost 400 pieces. Many of his works are regularly performed or recorded, among them his choral work, The Epic of Gilgamesh (1955); his symphonies, a modern cycle of six; his concertos, including those for cello, violin, oboe and five for the piano; his anti-war opera Comedy on the bridge; and his chamber music, including eight surviving string quartets, a flute sonata, and a clarinet sonatina.

His music displays a wide variety of influences: works such as La Revue de Cuisine (1927) are heavily influenced by jazz, while the Double Concerto for two string orchestras, piano and timpani (1938) is one of many works to show the influence of the Baroque concerto grosso. Other works are influenced by Czech folk music. He also admired the music of Claude Debussy and Igor Stravinsky, among other composers.

A characteristic feature of his orchestral writing is the near-omnipresent piano; most of his orchestral works include a prominent part for piano, including his small concerto for harpsichord and chamber orchestra. The bulk of his writing from the 1930s into the 1950s was in a neoclassical vein, but with his last works he opened up his style to include more rhapsodic gestures and a looser, more spontaneous sense of form. This is easiest to hear by comparing his sixth symphony, titled Fantaisies symphoniques, with its five predecessors, all from the 1940s.

One of Martinů's lesser known works is a piece featuring the theremin commissioned by Lucie Bigelow Rosen. Martinů started working on this commission in the summer of 1944 and finished his Fantasia for theremin, oboe, string quartet and piano on October 1, dedicating it to Rosen, who premiered the piece as theremin soloist in New York on November 3, 1945, along with the Koutzen Quartet and Robert Bloom.

His opera The Greek Passion is based on the novel of the same name by Nikos Kazantzakis.

Source: Wikipedia

[Steve MacDowall]

It is perhaps understandable that a person who was born into the world to the accompaniment of festive bells would have grown up to become a great musician. Such, indeed, was the case of the Czech composer Bohuslav Martinu.
Bohuslav's father was the bell ringer and watchman in the little Bohemian town of Policka. His job was to act as fire watcher for the village and to ring the church bells for prayers and festive occasions. Thus it was that in the small tower room of the church of St. James, where the Martinus lived, on the public holiday of 8 December 1890, Bohuslav was born with the sound of church bells ringing joyously all round him.

Young Bohuslav, who was tall, thin, and weakly, often had to be carried by his father up and down the 193-step staircase in the tower. He spent the first twelve years of his life looking at his village from this bird's-eye perspective. The memory of this view of the world impressed itself upon Bohuslav's young mind and remained with him all his life, strongly influencing his ideas of composition. As he was to write later in life, it was "not the small interests of people, the cares, the hurts, or the joys" that he saw from that great height, but "space, which I always have in front of me."

When Bohuslav had hardly begun public school, his parents entrusted him to the care of the Policka music teacher. This teacher was the first to recognize the lad's genius and encouraged him to try composing. Bohuslav never forgot that first teacher for pointing him on his way toward the goal of becoming a great composer.

At sixteen years of age, Bohuslav was take to Prague by his mother to be introduced to real music experts. He carried with him his violin and his first string quartet. The outcome of this visit was encouraging, and later that year he entered the Prague Conservatoire.

But things did not go well for the young man. By the end of his second year he was failing his examinations. He finally left the Conservatoire to continue his studies on his own. He read, studied scores, attended concerts, and composed daily. It was with such intense personal discipline and hard work that Martinu was able to grow into a fine composer. Later, in a letter to the teachers in the Policka Music School, Martinu wrote to remind the students that he "was also a young lad — a student, like themselves — and that everything is achievable if we really want it and if we have the patience to go for it." The key to realizing one's dreams, in other words, is hard work.

It was fortunate for the young composer that in those days Prague was a crossroads of culture. One could hear works by Strauss, Bruckner, Debussy, and even Stravinsky, Schoenberg, and Bartók performed in the concert halls of Prague. Martinu's compositions during this time were being received with favorable response among many of Prague's musicians.

After World War I, Martinu became a second violinist with the Czech Philharmonic, where he learned to master the composition of music for a large orchestra. His Czech Rhapsody for solo, chorus, and orchestra was given a performance by the Philharmonic in 1919 and was favorably received.

Some time later Martinu was given the opportunity to travel to Paris to study with the famous French composer Albert Roussel. Martinu composed a remarkable number of works during his Paris years. Among these were Polocas ("Halftime") and La Bagarre ("Tumult"), both for orchestra, and an opera Voják a tanecnice ("The Soldier and the Dancer"), as well as ballets and chamber music. In 1935 he was awarded a Czechoslovak State Prize for another of his operas, Hry o Marii ("The Miracle of Our Lady"). One of his most famous operas, Julietta aneb Snár ("Juliette, or The Key to Dreams"), was first performed before a Prague audience that same year.

With the outbreak of World War II, the Paris years of Martinu came to a close. He visited for a short time in Switzerland before finally making his way to America — but not before waiting anxiously for several months for transportation. Even during these very trying times Martinu continued not only to compose daily, but also succeeded in writing music that is full of strength, vitality, hope, and joy. Among his works of this period are his Sinfonietta giocosa for piano and orchestra and Fantasia and Toccata for piano solo.

Arriving in American in 1941, Martinu had to work hard to establish himself in the New World. But it was in America that Martinu mastered symphonic writing. Fifty years earlier another Czech composer by the name of Antonín Dvorák had won the hearts of Americans. Principally through his virtuoso symphonies, Martinu also was to gain America's respect. Ernest Arnsermet once said that of all musicians of his generation, Martinu was "the great symphony writer."

During the next few years Martinu wrote an almost innumerable number of compositions. But, succumbing at last to a cancer that had been plaguing him for nearly a year, Bohuslav Martinu died on 28 August 1959 in Liestal, Switzerland. At his funeral, the eulogist characterized Martinu's work by saying, "His music is the music of our times, because it expresses profound basic problems; it bears the stamp of individuality, which enables it to ring out among all the rest, and guarantees that he will not be forgotten."