CHAPTER XIII
BOHEMIAN SYMPHONIES
In the music of modern Bohemia is one of the most vital utterances of
the folk-spirit. The critic may not force a correspondence of politics
and art to support his theory. Yet a cause may here be found as in
Russia and Finland. (Poland and Hungary had their earlier song). There
is a sincerity, an unpremeditated quality in Bohemian music that is not
found among its western neighbors. The spirit is its own best proof,
without a conscious stress of a national note. Indeed, Bohemian music is
striking, not at all in a separate tonal character, like Hungarian, but
rather in a subtle emotional intensity, which again differs from the
wild abandon of the Magyars. An expression it must be of a national
feeling that has for ages been struggling against absorption. Since
ancient times Bohemia has been part of a Teutonic empire. The story of
its purely native kings is not much more than legendary. Nor has it
shared the harder fate of other small nations; for the Teuton rule at
least respected its separate unity.
But the long association with the German people has nearly worn away the
racial signs and hall-marks of its folk-song. A Bohemian tune thus has a
taste much like the native German. Yet a quality of its own lies in the
emotional vitality, shown in a school of national drama and, of late, in
symphony. It is not necessary to seek in this modern culmination a
correspondence with an impending danger of political suppression.
Pages:
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156