Otakar Zich was a distinguished Czech

Czech Republic

The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....

 composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

 and aesthetician.

Biography

He was a pupil of the prominent nineteenth-century Czech aesthetician Otakar Hostinský

Otakar Hostinský

Otakar Hostinský was a Czech historian, musicologist, and professor of musical aesthetics...

, and a protégé of the iconoclastic musicologist and critic Zdeněk Nejedlý

Zdenek Nejedlý

Zdeněk Nejedlý was a Czech musicologist, music critic, author, and politician whose ideas dominated the cultural life of what is now the Czech Republic for most of the twentieth century...

. In the years 1903-1906 he taught physics and mathematics at the High School in Domažlice

Domažlice

Domažlice is a town in the Plzeň Region of the Czech Republic.Domažlice is also a Municipality with Extended Competence and a Municipality with Commissioned Local Authority within the same borders.-History:...

. In the years leading up to the First World War Zich lived in Prague

Prague

Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...

, actively participating in musical life as a critic. In this capacity he supported the efforts of Nejedlý's pro-Smetana

Smetana

Smetana is a Slavic loanword in English for a dairy product that is produced by souring heavy cream. Smetana is from Central and Eastern Europe, sometimes perceived to be specifically of Russian origin. It is a soured cream product like crème fraîche , but nowadays mainly sold with 15% to 30%...

 faction against the intellectual descendants of Antonín Dvořák

Antonín Dvorák

Antonín Leopold Dvořák was a Czech composer of late Romantic music, who employed the idioms of the folk music of Moravia and his native Bohemia. Dvořák’s own style is sometimes called "romantic-classicist synthesis". His works include symphonic, choral and chamber music, concerti, operas and many...

, especially during the so-called Dvořák Affair 1911-1914, when he called into question the artistic integrity of Dvořák's compositional language. These activities firmly allied Zich with Nejedlý's academic circle at Charles University, where, in 1924, he was appointed professor of Aesthetics. He held this position until his death in 1934.

Style

As a composer, Zich was largely self taught, although he can be said to belong to the post-Smetana lineage of Czech composers (which includes Zdeněk Fibich

Zdenek Fibich

Zdeněk Fibich was a Czech composer of classical music. Among his compositions are chamber works , symphonic poems, three symphonies, at least seven operas , melodramas including the substantial trilogy Hippodamia,...

, Josef Bohuslav Foerster

Josef Bohuslav Foerster

Josef Bohuslav Foerster was a Czech composer of classical music. He is often referred to as J. B. Foerster. The surname is sometimes spelled Förster.- Life :...

, and Otakar Ostrčil

Otakar Ostrcil

Otakar Ostrčil was a Czech composer and conductor. He is noted for symphonic works Impromptu, Suite in C Minor, and Symfonietta, and in his opera compositions Poupě and Honzovo království.-Compositional career:Ostrčil was born in Prague, where he spent his entire life, as it was the center of the...

, all connected in some way to Nejedlý). His main contributions to concert life in Prague were the operas Malířský nápad (The Artist's Idea, 1908), Vina (Guilt, 1915), and Preciézky (on Zich's own translation of Molière

Molière

Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known by his stage name Molière, was a French playwright and actor who is considered to be one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature...

's Les précieuses ridicules, 1924). He also created several solo vocal and choral compositions. His musical style straddles the divide between late Romanticism

Romanticism

Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...

 and early neo-classicism, combining dense orchestration, Wagnerian leitmotif

Leitmotif

A leitmotif , sometimes written leit-motif, is a musical term , referring to a recurring theme, associated with a particular person, place, or idea. It is closely related to the musical idea of idée fixe...

s, and an intensely linear counterpoint

Counterpoint

In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more voices that are independent in contour and rhythm and are harmonically interdependent . It has been most commonly identified in classical music, developing strongly during the Renaissance and in much of the common practice period,...

 with a playful referentiality to past styles. With the exception of Preciézky and a few individual shorter works, most of Zich's music remains unpublished.

Because of his association with Nejedlý, performances of Zich's music often met with bitter controversy in interwar Prague, where critics assessed new compositions based on factional allegiances. The lowest point of this was undoubtedly the premiere of Vina in 1922, which the arch-conservative critic Antonín Šilhan attacked in a vituperative article entitled Finis musicae (The End of Music). Šilhan's argument focused primarily on the opera's orchestral score, where the counterpoint occasionally borders on atonality

Atonality

Atonality in its broadest sense describes music that lacks a tonal center, or key. Atonality in this sense usually describes compositions written from about 1908 to the present day where a hierarchy of pitches focusing on a single, central tone is not used, and the notes of the chromatic scale...

.

Zich was also the author of many folkloric studies and books on aesthetics: foremost among these are Estetické vnímaní hudby (The Aesthetic Perception of Music, 1911) and Estetika dramatického umění (The Aesthetics of Drama, 1931). In each of these he explored the application of phenomenology, derived from the work of Hegel and Husserl, to branches of the performing arts, and his theories are still the subject of debate in present-day Czech academic circles. As a musicologist he also devoted himself to the study of Smetana

Smetana

Smetana is a Slavic loanword in English for a dairy product that is produced by souring heavy cream. Smetana is from Central and Eastern Europe, sometimes perceived to be specifically of Russian origin. It is a soured cream product like crème fraîche , but nowadays mainly sold with 15% to 30%...

's life and works, with numerous analytical articles appearing in Czech-language music journals.

Selected works

Songs

• Písně a písničky I., II. (Songs I., II.) (1900-1906)
• Ze srdce (From Heart), Op. 4 (1906-1907)
• Matičce (To Mother), Op. 8
• Stará balada (Old Ballad) (1909)
• Z mělnické skály (From the Mělník's Rock), Op. 16 (1909)
• Dušičky (Little Souls) (1922)
• Střepiny dnů (Fragments of the Days), Op. 13 (1926-1927)
• Dvacet pět chodských lidových písní (Twenty-five Folk Songs from Chodsko Region) (1905-1906)

Male choirs

• Balada tříkrálová (Ballad of the Three Kings), Op. 9a (1911)
• Píseň poutníka (A Wanderer's Song), Op. 9b (1912)
• Princezna Lyoleja (Princess Lyoleia), Op. 9c (1913)
• Podzimní motiv (An Autumn Motif), Op. 18a (1932)
• Slzičky (Little Tears), Op. 18b (1905)
• Kosmická píseň (Cosmic Song), Op. 18c (1931)
• Hajdaláci (Slovens), Op. 18d (1918)
• Rodná zem (Homeland), Op. 20a (1929)
• Zazděná (Immured), Op. 20b (1929)
• Janu Nerudovi (To Jan Neruda
  Jan Neruda
  Jan Nepomuk Neruda was a Czech journalist, writer and poet, one of the most prominent representatives of Czech Realism and a member of "the May school".-Early life:...
  
  ), Op. 20c (1934)
• Třicet šest vojenských písní (Thirty-six Military Songs) (1924)
• Pět lidových písní (Five Folk Songs) (1933)
• Forman (Carman) (1934)

Female choirs

• Tři ženské sbory (Three Female Choirs), Op. 17
• Tři chodské písně (Three Folk Songs From Chodsko Region) (1909)

Mixed choirs

• Modlitba na Řípu (A Prayer on Říp
  RIP
  R.I.P. is an abbreviation for rest in peace .R.I.P. or RIP may also refer to:-Biology:*Regulated intramembrane proteolysis, a biochemical process which regulates a semipermeable membrane...
  
  ) (1905)
• Urá (Hooray), Op. 15a (1929)
• Vajanské vatry (Bonfires of Vojany
  Vojany
  Vojany is a village and municipality in Michalovce District in the Kosice Region of eastern Slovakia.-Geography:The village lies at an altitude of 102 metres and covers an area of 10.923 km². The municipality has a population of about 830 people....
  
  ), Op. 11 (1921)
• Dva čtyřzpěvy (Two Choirs for Four Voices), Op. 19 (1932-1933)
• Tři chodské písně (Three Folk Songs From Chodsko Region) (1904)

Cantata

• Osudná svatba (Fateful Marriage), Op. 1 (1917)
• Pátý hrobeček (Fifth Grave), Op. 2 (1906)
• Zimní balada (Winter Ballad), Op. 3 (1906)
• Polka jede, Op. 5 (1907)

Melodrama

• Romance o Černém jezeře (Romance about the Black Lake), Op. 6 (1907)

Opera

• Malířský nápad (The Artist's Idea), Op. 7 (1908)
• Vina (Guilt), Op. 10 (1911-1915)
• Preciézky, Op. 12 (1922-1924)

Chamber

• Česká suita (Czech Suite), Op. 14 (1928)
• String Trio in E minor, Op. 1a (1930)
• Piano Trio in E minor (1899-1902)
• Chodská suita, Op. 3a (1905)

Orchestral

• Overture Konrad Wallenrod, Op. 2a (1903)

External links

• Source of biography ^{see discussion}