| Content | Manuscript of the text "Listening to Martinů", written by Vladimír Vaněk for the New York Times (article published here in 1955). VV describes the festival of contemporary music in Venice, which opened on 11 September with the concert SUITE CONCERTANTE for violin and orchestra. During the first movement of SUITE CONCERTANTE, VV recalls life in Paris in the 1920s and 1930s, when he too lived in Paris. Everyone took care of Bohuslav Martinů - VV offered him an apartment, Mrs [Božena] Nebeská managed his stockings, Mrs [Pavla] Osuská provided him with scholarships every year. BM came to listen a lot, once he was late for lunch because he was late listening to the pianola. It was the heyday of [the music of Igor] Stravinsky, [Albert] Roussel, the blacks, [Arthur] Honegger, the year of the arrival of [Charles] Lindberg... And suddenly it exploded - BM confessed that he had written a "little duo" [DUO PRO HOUSLE AND VIOLONCELLO No. 1], so he was sent "to Madame X in the rue de l'Université, who was doing a soirée musicale" [it is not clear who Madame X is?] Many people were gathered there, BM stood at the door and smiled to the point of being lost as always, nobody took any notice of him. BM was scolded by the musicians who were supposed to play the piece for being difficult. When they played, one critic didn't see who was playing it and wondered if they had an orchestra today. So BM broke through. SUITA's second movement, Aria, is creamy, I'm back home with my mother, the pines rustle on the rocks and it makes the Czechs' hearts skip a beat, but it also affects the non-Czechs. With Martinů there is no fear that when he shakes the orchestra until the notes fly out of it, he will be led astray by cacophony and rhythmic dry-steppers. In this he is close to Stravinsky. This was followed by the Scherzo and then a rounded Rondo. The applause was thunderous, as is not the habit of Venetian audiences. Critics agree that it was one of the highlights of the festival. The official bombshell was still to come - Starvinsky's oratorio on St Mark [Canticum sacrum, given on 13 September 1955], but Martinů was a surprise. |