studying religion, if he could find the verses for the Old Slavonic service. Martínek
brought him a version of the text that had recently appeared in an issue of the church
music magazine
Cyril
, but it was not until 1926 that Janácˇek got around to writing his
Glagolitic Mass,
completing the score between August 5th and October 15th. He may
have been spurred to undertake the
Mass
at that time in honor of the upcoming tenth
anniversary of the founding of the Czechoslovak Republic in 1928 and the 1,000th
anniversary of the death of Wenceslaus, patron saint of Bohemia, a year after that,
but he released the work for performance before either of those celebrations; it was
premiered by the Brno Philharmonic Society on December 5, 1927, conducted by the
composer’s former student Jaroslav Kvapil. Except for the opera
From the House of
the Dead
and the Second String Quartet, it was the last work Janácˇek wrote.
Janácˇek’s
Glagolitic Mass
includes the five text portions found in the Ordinary
of the Latin Mass (
Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus and Agnus Dei
), but his careful
translation of the inflections, accents and rhythms of the Czech spoken tongue into
music creates rich and unusual vocal sonorities unimagined by Western composers.
The accompaniment is marked by Janácˇek’s characteristic emphasis on the dark
instrumental colors of the orchestra, often led by triumphant shouts and fanfares from
the brass choir. The work unfolds with the fluidity and energy of rhythm, the inexorable
expansion of powerful motives, and the dynamic blending of traditional tonal
harmony and Eastern European modality that mark his very best works (and are found
nowhere else in all of music in quite the same combination). Janácˇek surrounded the
vocal movements of his
Mass
with a
Intrada
, or “entry piece,” a reflection of the old
ecclesiastical practice of providing music to accompany the entrance and departure
of the priests. The penultimate movement is a thunderous organ solo based on a
craggy repeating motive, music that is surprisingly unsettling as the postlude to the
devotional words of the
Mass
.
©2014 Dr. Richard E. Rodda
Friday, June 27 and Saturday, June 28, 2014
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