Extract from a Letter from Bohuslav Martinu

21st December 1954

Fantaisies Symphoniques

The creation of a piece of music goes through many metamorphoses. Sometimes it is a long way from the first idea to the composer’s realisation. The idea remains germinating for years, and suddenly one day it pushes itself to the mind of composer, almost ready to be written. All the changes of the first impulse and all the other elements suddenly take their place in the integrated formation of the idea. But still the creative problem is not finished: then comes the daily work and with it many different difficulties which must be solved before the end is reached.

So when you ask the composer to talk about his work for a programme, he is often reluctant and even embarassed, and he usually tries to avoid doing so. Often the first impulse is already far away, or there are too many of them to enumerate. They may be a part of the composer’s private life which he does not like to speak of, or perhaps he does not know how far they are connected with the piece because the real musical problem takes the place of many other things, which means more than the changing feelings.

To come to my Fantaisies, there is one reason for this work which is clear and certain for me: I wished to write something for Charles Munch. I am impressed and I like his spontaneous approach to the music where music takes shape in a free way, flowing and freely following his movements. An almost imperceptible slowing down or rushing up gives to the melody a sudden life. So I had the intention to write for him a symphony which I would call ‘Fantastic’; and I started my idea in a big way putting there pianos in a very big orchestra. This was already fantastic enough, and during work I came down to earth. I saw it was not a symphony but something which I mentioned before connected with Munch’s conception and conducting. I abandoned the title and finally I abandoned also my three pianos, being suddenly frightened by those three big instruments on the stage.

I called the three movements Fantaisies, which they really are. One little fantasy of mine is that I use a few bars quotation from another piece, from my opera Juliet, which to my mind fitted in perfectly well. That is of the nature of fantasy. I did it somehow for myself because I like the special orchestral colour in it, and thinking that I will never hear my opera, I could listen once more to these few bars, which I rewrote from memory.