In 1894, the Belgian playwright Maurice Maeterlinck wrote three short plays for performance by marionettes. The Death of Tintagiles is the last of these plays and had inspired music long before Martinů took an interest in it. As early as 1898, it was used as the basis of a symphonic poem, with solo viola d’amore, by the German composer Charles Martin Loeffler, then resident in America; Vaughan Williams also wrote incidental music for the play, a little after Martinů’s involvement with it, in 1913. The setting for puppets may make one suppose that the play is trivial, despite its title, but its tone is gloomy, even harrowing. The child Tintagiles is summoned to a dark castle by the queen. Although she is rarely seen by anyone, her power is enormous and her granddaughters – Tintagiles’ two sisters – live in constant fear of her. From the moment they receive him, they are agitated lest Tintagiles fall into the queen’s power. It is subtly suggested that he has been summoned to the castle as some form of sacrifice. The sisters guard him in their chamber, but when sleep overtakes them he is stolen away. The door to the chamber is locked. One of the sisters falls in a swoon: all the other can do is beat upon the door in desperate entreaty as she hears the last moments of the child’s life taking place on the other side. Martinů’s response to the drama is an ambitious symphonic poem occupying 87 pages of manuscript score. He evidently felt at the time that this work was his first important statement as a composer – the front page proudly declares it to be his ‘Op. 1’. Nonetheless, it was written quickly – the manuscript is dated 8–21 June 1910.
It is often thought that the earliest phase of Martinů’s development was Impressionist; in fact, the virtuosic orchestration and tortuous chromatic harmonies of this first orchestral endeavour betray the influence of Richard Strauss. Martinů saw a number of Strauss operas in Prague. The influence continued through the First World War, when he copied out the score of the ballet Die Josephslegende, and it persisted fitfully for some years after. […]
There are many effective instrumental touches in Tintagiles as well as several anticipations of Martinů’s mature orchestral style. The cor anglais, for instance, remained a favourite solo instrument throughout his career. […]
The overall construction of the piece also leaves something to be desired. The different sections are rather too clumsily delineated: each ends with an extended chord, pedal note or timpani roll, sometimes with activity above but more often lulling the piece to stillness. As a result, it runs aground too often, especially near the start, where the sections are relatively short. I find it intriguing nonetheless, since it points to Martinů’s future more clearly than has usually been realised. Not for many years would he write another orchestral piece which so valiantly attempts to exploit the full potential of its opening theme. Tintagiles has a healthy measure of discipline, not always apparent in his early compositions. Most remarkably of all, it contains a number of passages which foreshadow his mature harmonic idiom.
Michael Crump, Martinů and the Symphony, Symphonic Studies No. 3, Toccata Press, London, 2010, s. 18–21 [shortened by Jana Burdová, 2024].