Vítezslav Novák
Encyclopedia
Vítězslav Novák was one of the most well-respected Czech
composers and pedagogues, almost singlehandedly founding a mid-century Czech school of composition. Stylistically, he was a leading figure in the Neo
-Romanticism
movement, and his music has been occasionally considered an early example of Czech modernism
.
, a small town in Southern Bohemia
. After the death of his father the family moved to Jindřichův Hradec
, a larger town where an elementary school still bears his name. In his late teens he moved to Prague
to study at Prague Conservatory
, changing his name to Vítězslav to identify more closely with his Czech identity, as many of his generation had already done. At the conservatory he studied piano and attended Antonín Dvořák
's masterclasses in composition where his fellow students included Josef Suk
, Oskar Nedbal, and Rudolf Karel. When Dvořák departed for his three-year sojourn in America (1892–1895), Novák continued his studies with the ultra-conservative Karel Stecker. Novák would show his true colors, however, in the years shortly after graduation: just before and after 1900, he wrote a series of compositions that put distance between himself and the teachings of both Stecker and Dvořák, edging his style toward the fledgling modernist movement.
Beginning in the late 1890s, Novák began to explore influences beyond the prevailing Wagner
/Brahms
aesthetic of his contemporaries in Prague. Among these were folk influences from Moravia
and Slovakia
, which at that time were considered culturally backward in the cosmopolitan Czech capital. He also developed an interest in what would come to be called musical Impressionism
, although later life he denied any exposure to the music of Debussy at this time, claiming instead to have arrived at similar techniques on his own. These included forays into bitonality and non-functional, parallel harmony
. Finally, after the Prague premiere of Salome
in 1906, Novák formed an attachment to the music of Richard Strauss
that would remain for the rest of his career. In many respects, Novák's career would follow a similar path as that of Strauss, in his early quest for new modernist expression and subsequent withdrawal from leadership in the movement.
, performances were confined to readings of new modernist works from abroad and the group's goals were primarily intellectual. The Filharmonie served, however, as an important proving-ground for this budding circle of Czech modernists and their ideas; by regulation, its only female member was Marie Prášková, who became Novák's wife in 1912. This same year, Novák became embroiled in a series of culturo-political battles in Prague between his Conservatory-based faction and that of Zdeněk Nejedlý
, a critic and musicologist
at Prague University. When Novák signed a protest against Nejedlý's anti-Dvořák propaganda, the critic turned his energies toward Novák's own music, effectively with the intent of ruining the composer's career: the effects of Nejedlý's hatred were long-lasting and ushered in a crisis in Novák's creative life.
colleagues, including Alexander Zemlinsky and Paul Nettl, were forced out to form their own segregated institution. Novák became the new administrative head of the Czech-only institution and held various titles, alternating with Suk and others, until his retirement. During this period he continued to teach composition in the form of masterclasses, thereby influencing a new interwar generation of musicians, despite the increasing conservatism of his compositions in the 1920s.
in 1939, the retired professor gained considerable credibility among his younger Czech contemporaries through the performance of several patriotic and morale-boosting works, meant as a musical form of resistance. After the Second World War, he devoted himself to a lengthy memoir, entitled O sobě a jiných (Of Myself and Others, publ. 1970), in which he aired many of his long-standing grudges, especially toward his main rival, Otakar Ostrčil
and even his close friend Josef Suk. He died in Skuteč
in Eastern Bohemia, where he had spent much of his last years.
style until his death. His earliest work to receive an opus number
was a piano trio in G minor, but was preceded, in order of composition, by several works including an unpublished serenade in B minor
for piano dating from 1886-7; all of these bear the influences of Schumann
and Grieg. In his earliest years after graduating from Prague Conservatory his work began to show some influence from the Moravia
n and Slovak
folk music
which he began to collect and study in the late 1890s. Within the decade he had assimilated the basic intervallic and rhythmic characteristics of these folksongs into a very personal compositional style. The first works to reveal this change are the second string quartet
op. 22 and the path-breaking solo piano work, Sonata eroica, op. 24.
The next influence was that of French impressionism, which first appears in the song cycle Melancholie, op. 25, composed in 1901, and reaches a peak in the tone poem O věčné touze (Of the Eternal Longing, op. 33, completed 1905). Meanwhile the more monumental aspects of his style, evident in the Slovak-inspired tone poem V Tatrách (In the Tatras, op. 26, 1902) and the song cycle Údolí nového království (Valley of the New Kingdom, op. 31, 1903) met their match in his discovery of the music of Strauss: the result was the tone poem, Toman a lesní panna (Toman and the Wood Nymph, op. 40, completed 1907).
The height of his compositional career was acknowledged, even in the criticism of the day, to consist of two great achievements, both completed in 1910: Pan, the five-movement tone poem for piano solo (totaling some sixty pages of music, op. 43), and Bouře (The Tempest, op. 42, to a text by Svatopluk Čech
, unrelated to Shakespeare
's play). The latter was an immense symphonic cantata
for soloists, chorus, and orchestra, spanning almost an hour of unbroken music; its attention to musico-dramatic detail points to Novák's increasing interest in opera, a genre he had yet to attempt.
The polemics with Nejedlý brought about a sharp turn in Novák's attitude to composition, wherein fear of rejection outpaced the joy of artistic exploration. The public dismissal of the orchestrated version of Pan (1912) and the next cantata, Svatební košile (The Wedding Shirt, 1913, based on the same Erben
text as Dvořák's more famous work) brought about severe self-doubt and depression. Novák attempted to turn the situation around with two operas written on Czech historical subjects—a transparently nationalist move during wartime. Zvíkovský rarášek (The Zvíkov Imp, 1915, a comedy based on Stroupežnický
) and Karlštejn (Karlštejn castle, 1916, a more serious work based on Vrchlický
) both met with mixed reviews, although the latter gained an important place in the repertoire of Czech opera houses through mid-century. These works reveal Novák's tendency, latent in the early folksong work, toward bitonality, although this technique is not as manifest as in the works of Stravinsky
, Milhaud
, or Szymanowski
.
The birth of the new republic in 1918 brought a rash of patriotic compositions, dedicated to the "President-Liberator" Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk and the Czechoslovak Legion. These democratic impulses led to a marked conservatism in style, such that the artistic leadership of the years 1900-1916 all but disappeared. The two remaining operas, Lucerna (The Lantern, 1923, based on Jirásek
), and Dědův odkaz (The grandfather's legacy, 1926, based on Heyduk
) met with predominantly negative criticism, despite the compositional worth of the former; importantly, they induced extreme bitterness toward the cultural forces that opposed him, driving him toward reactionism.
With two ballet-pantomimes completed in the years 1928-29, Signorina Gioventù and Nikotina, Novák regained some of the respect he had lost among his colleagues; their vibrant layering of orchestral effects (including mixed meters and even references to tango
) won him new admirers among the younger generation, most notably Iša Krejčí
and Alois Hába
. The years of the 1930s saw a return to chamber music, but also large forms such as the epic choral/orchestral work, Podzimní symfonie (Autumn Symphony, op. 62, premiered 1934).
During the years of the Nazi occupation, Novák's star rose again in the estimation of his compatriots, especially for the depth of his patriotic works, instilled with an intense, noble melancholy for the Czech people: the symphonic poems with organ, De Profundis (op. 67, 1941) and Svatováclavský triptych (Saint Wenceslas triptych
, op. 70, 1942) and the Májová symfonie (May Symphony, op. 73, dedicated to Stalin
as liberator of the Czechs and premiered after the war in 1945) demonstrate these sentiments in a monumental fashion. In his remaining years he devoted himself to choral works based on South-Bohemian folksong.
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....
composers and pedagogues, almost singlehandedly founding a mid-century Czech school of composition. Stylistically, he was a leading figure in the Neo
Neo
Neo is a prefix from the ancient Greek word for young "neos" which derived from the Proto-Indo European word for new "néwos".Neo may refer to:* Neo , the protagonist of the Matrix film series...
-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...
movement, and his music has been occasionally considered an early example of Czech modernism
Modernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
.
Early years
Novák (baptized Viktor Novák) was born in Kamenice nad LipouKamenice nad Lipou
Kamenice nad Lipou is a small town situated in the Bohemian-Moravian Highlands between Pelhřimov and Jindřichův Hradec. Its most important sight is a castle. It took part of its name after an ancient lime tree that still grows in the garden adjacent to the castle . The tree is believed to be...
, a small town in Southern Bohemia
Bohemia
Bohemia is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands. It is located in the contemporary Czech Republic with its capital in Prague...
. After the death of his father the family moved to Jindřichův Hradec
Jindrichuv Hradec
Jindřichův Hradec is a town in the South Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic. It has approximately 22,700 inhabitants.- History :The first written mention of the town is in 1220. Before that, it was probably a Slavic settlement. At the end of the 12th century more people arrived...
, a larger town where an elementary school still bears his name. In his late teens he moved to 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...
to study at Prague Conservatory
Prague Conservatory
Prague Conservatory, sometimes also Prague Conservatoire, in Czech Pražská konzervatoř, is a Czech secondary school in Prague dedicated to teaching the arts of music and theater acting.- Instruction :...
, changing his name to Vítězslav to identify more closely with his Czech identity, as many of his generation had already done. At the conservatory he studied piano and attended 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...
's masterclasses in composition where his fellow students included Josef Suk
Josef Suk (composer)
Josef Suk was a Czech composer and violinist.- Life :Suk was born in Křečovice. He studied at Prague Conservatory from 1885 to 1892, where he was a pupil of Antonín Dvořák and Antonín Bennewitz. In 1898, he married Dvořák's eldest daughter, Otilie Dvořáková , affectionately known as Otilka...
, Oskar Nedbal, and Rudolf Karel. When Dvořák departed for his three-year sojourn in America (1892–1895), Novák continued his studies with the ultra-conservative Karel Stecker. Novák would show his true colors, however, in the years shortly after graduation: just before and after 1900, he wrote a series of compositions that put distance between himself and the teachings of both Stecker and Dvořák, edging his style toward the fledgling modernist movement.
Beginning in the late 1890s, Novák began to explore influences beyond the prevailing Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
/Brahms
Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...
aesthetic of his contemporaries in Prague. Among these were folk influences from Moravia
Moravia
Moravia is a historical region in Central Europe in the east of the Czech Republic, and one of the former Czech lands, together with Bohemia and Silesia. It takes its name from the Morava River which rises in the northwest of the region...
and Slovakia
Slovakia
The Slovak Republic is a landlocked state in Central Europe. It has a population of over five million and an area of about . Slovakia is bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south...
, which at that time were considered culturally backward in the cosmopolitan Czech capital. He also developed an interest in what would come to be called musical Impressionism
Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...
, although later life he denied any exposure to the music of Debussy at this time, claiming instead to have arrived at similar techniques on his own. These included forays into bitonality and non-functional, parallel harmony
Harmony
In music, harmony is the use of simultaneous pitches , or chords. The study of harmony involves chords and their construction and chord progressions and the principles of connection that govern them. Harmony is often said to refer to the "vertical" aspect of music, as distinguished from melodic...
. Finally, after the Prague premiere of Salome
Salome (opera)
Salome is an opera in one act by Richard Strauss to a German libretto by the composer, based on Hedwig Lachmann’s German translation of the French play Salomé by Oscar Wilde. Strauss dedicated the opera to his friend Sir Edgar Speyer....
in 1906, Novák formed an attachment to the music of Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
that would remain for the rest of his career. In many respects, Novák's career would follow a similar path as that of Strauss, in his early quest for new modernist expression and subsequent withdrawal from leadership in the movement.
Musicology and feud
Shortly after the turn of the century, Novák began teaching composition privately in Prague. From 1909 to 1920, he taught at the Prague Conservatory himself, and this occasionally occupied him to a greater degree than composing. During the same period, several events of a more personal nature affected Novák's outlook on musical expression and artistic freedom. In the years 1901-1917, his apartment became the site of a discussion group known as the Podskalská filharmonie; while most of its members were musicians, including Suk, Karel, and the conductor Václav TalichVáclav Talich
Václav Talich was a Czech conductor, violinist and pedagogue.- Life :Born in Kroměříž, Moravia, he started his musical career in a student orchestra in Klatovy. From 1897 to 1903 he studied at the conservatory in Prague with Otakar Ševčík...
, performances were confined to readings of new modernist works from abroad and the group's goals were primarily intellectual. The Filharmonie served, however, as an important proving-ground for this budding circle of Czech modernists and their ideas; by regulation, its only female member was Marie Prášková, who became Novák's wife in 1912. This same year, Novák became embroiled in a series of culturo-political battles in Prague between his Conservatory-based faction and that of 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...
, a critic and musicologist
Musicology
Musicology is the scholarly study of music. The word is used in narrow, broad and intermediate senses. In the narrow sense, musicology is confined to the music history of Western culture...
at Prague University. When Novák signed a protest against Nejedlý's anti-Dvořák propaganda, the critic turned his energies toward Novák's own music, effectively with the intent of ruining the composer's career: the effects of Nejedlý's hatred were long-lasting and ushered in a crisis in Novák's creative life.
Political affairs
Upon Czech independence in 1918, Novák turned toward a less personal manner of involvement in Prague musical life: the administration of culture in the new democratic regime. In this capacity, he led the push toward de-Germanification and nationalization of the Conservatory, during which process his German-BohemianGerman Bohemia
German Bohemia was a region in Czech Republic established, for a short period of time, after World War I. It included parts of northern and western Bohemia once largely populated by ethnic Germans...
colleagues, including Alexander Zemlinsky and Paul Nettl, were forced out to form their own segregated institution. Novák became the new administrative head of the Czech-only institution and held various titles, alternating with Suk and others, until his retirement. During this period he continued to teach composition in the form of masterclasses, thereby influencing a new interwar generation of musicians, despite the increasing conservatism of his compositions in the 1920s.
Renewal and death
In the 1930s, Novák enjoyed a period of artistic renewal with the premieres of some large-scale compositions. After the collapse of democracy and the ensuing Nazi protectorateProtectorate
In history, the term protectorate has two different meanings. In its earliest inception, which has been adopted by modern international law, it is an autonomous territory that is protected diplomatically or militarily against third parties by a stronger state or entity...
in 1939, the retired professor gained considerable credibility among his younger Czech contemporaries through the performance of several patriotic and morale-boosting works, meant as a musical form of resistance. After the Second World War, he devoted himself to a lengthy memoir, entitled O sobě a jiných (Of Myself and Others, publ. 1970), in which he aired many of his long-standing grudges, especially toward his main rival, 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...
and even his close friend Josef Suk. He died in Skuteč
Skutec
Skuteč is a small town in the Pardubice Region of the Czech Republic near from the town Hlinsko. It has about 5,400 inhabitants.-External links:*...
in Eastern Bohemia, where he had spent much of his last years.
Compositional career
Novák's music retained at least a partial allegiance to the late-RomanticRomantic music
Romantic music or music in the Romantic Period is a musicological and artistic term referring to a particular period, theory, compositional practice, and canon in Western music history, from 1810 to 1900....
style until his death. His earliest work to receive an opus number
Opus number
An Opus number , pl. opera and opuses, abbreviated, sing. Op. and pl. Opp. refers to a number generally assigned by composers to an individual composition or set of compositions on publication, to help identify their works...
was a piano trio in G minor, but was preceded, in order of composition, by several works including an unpublished serenade in B minor
B minor
B minor is a minor scale based on B, consisting of the pitches B, C, D, E, F, G, and A. The harmonic minor raises the A to A. Its key signature has two sharps .Its relative major is D major, and its parallel major is B major....
for piano dating from 1886-7; all of these bear the influences of Schumann
Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era....
and Grieg. In his earliest years after graduating from Prague Conservatory his work began to show some influence from the Moravia
Moravia
Moravia is a historical region in Central Europe in the east of the Czech Republic, and one of the former Czech lands, together with Bohemia and Silesia. It takes its name from the Morava River which rises in the northwest of the region...
n and Slovak
Slovakia
The Slovak Republic is a landlocked state in Central Europe. It has a population of over five million and an area of about . Slovakia is bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south...
folk music
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
which he began to collect and study in the late 1890s. Within the decade he had assimilated the basic intervallic and rhythmic characteristics of these folksongs into a very personal compositional style. The first works to reveal this change are the second string quartet
String quartet
A string quartet is a musical ensemble of four string players – usually two violin players, a violist and a cellist – or a piece written to be performed by such a group...
op. 22 and the path-breaking solo piano work, Sonata eroica, op. 24.
The next influence was that of French impressionism, which first appears in the song cycle Melancholie, op. 25, composed in 1901, and reaches a peak in the tone poem O věčné touze (Of the Eternal Longing, op. 33, completed 1905). Meanwhile the more monumental aspects of his style, evident in the Slovak-inspired tone poem V Tatrách (In the Tatras, op. 26, 1902) and the song cycle Údolí nového království (Valley of the New Kingdom, op. 31, 1903) met their match in his discovery of the music of Strauss: the result was the tone poem, Toman a lesní panna (Toman and the Wood Nymph, op. 40, completed 1907).
The height of his compositional career was acknowledged, even in the criticism of the day, to consist of two great achievements, both completed in 1910: Pan, the five-movement tone poem for piano solo (totaling some sixty pages of music, op. 43), and Bouře (The Tempest, op. 42, to a text by Svatopluk Čech
Svatopluk Cech
Svatopluk Čech was a Czech writer, journalist and poet.Čech studied at gymnasium in Prague, then studied law, and later worked in the journals Květy, Lumír and Světozor.His first poem, Husita na Baltu, was published in the almanac Ruch in 1868...
, unrelated to Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
's play). The latter was an immense symphonic cantata
Cantata
A cantata is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir....
for soloists, chorus, and orchestra, spanning almost an hour of unbroken music; its attention to musico-dramatic detail points to Novák's increasing interest in opera, a genre he had yet to attempt.
The polemics with Nejedlý brought about a sharp turn in Novák's attitude to composition, wherein fear of rejection outpaced the joy of artistic exploration. The public dismissal of the orchestrated version of Pan (1912) and the next cantata, Svatební košile (The Wedding Shirt, 1913, based on the same Erben
Karel Jaromír Erben
Karel Jaromír Erben was a Czech historian, poet and writer of the mid-19th century, best known for his collection Kytice , which contains poems based on traditional and folkloric themes....
text as Dvořák's more famous work) brought about severe self-doubt and depression. Novák attempted to turn the situation around with two operas written on Czech historical subjects—a transparently nationalist move during wartime. Zvíkovský rarášek (The Zvíkov Imp, 1915, a comedy based on Stroupežnický
Ladislav Stroupežnický
Ladislav Stroupežnický was a renowned Czech author, playwright, and dramatist, best known for the frequently staged play Naši furianti.-Life:...
) and Karlštejn (Karlštejn castle, 1916, a more serious work based on Vrchlický
Jaroslav Vrchlický
Jaroslav Vrchlický was one of the greatest Czech lyrical poets. He was born Emil Frida, Vrchlický being a pseudonym.He also wrote epic poetry, plays, prose and literary essays and translated widely from various languages, introducing e.g. Dante, Goethe, Shelley, Baudelaire, Poe, and Whitman to...
) both met with mixed reviews, although the latter gained an important place in the repertoire of Czech opera houses through mid-century. These works reveal Novák's tendency, latent in the early folksong work, toward bitonality, although this technique is not as manifest as in the works of Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
, Milhaud
Darius Milhaud
Darius Milhaud was a French composer and teacher. He was a member of Les Six—also known as The Group of Six—and one of the most prolific composers of the 20th century. His compositions are influenced by jazz and make use of polytonality...
, or Szymanowski
Karol Szymanowski
Karol Maciej Szymanowski was a Polish composer and pianist.-Life:Szymanowski was born into a wealthy land-owning Polish gentry family in Tymoszówka, then in the Russian Empire, now in Cherkasy Oblast, Ukraine. He studied music privately with his father before going to Gustav Neuhaus'...
.
The birth of the new republic in 1918 brought a rash of patriotic compositions, dedicated to the "President-Liberator" Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk and the Czechoslovak Legion. These democratic impulses led to a marked conservatism in style, such that the artistic leadership of the years 1900-1916 all but disappeared. The two remaining operas, Lucerna (The Lantern, 1923, based on Jirásek
Alois Jirásek
Alois Jirásek was a Czech writer, author of historical novels and plays. Jirásek was a secondary-school teacher until his retirement in 1909. He wrote a series of historical novels imbued with faith in his nation and in progress toward freedom and justice...
), and Dědův odkaz (The grandfather's legacy, 1926, based on Heyduk
Adolf Heyduk
Adolf Heyduk was a distinguished Czech poet and writer. Many of his poems were later adapted by Antonín Dvořák.-Life:...
) met with predominantly negative criticism, despite the compositional worth of the former; importantly, they induced extreme bitterness toward the cultural forces that opposed him, driving him toward reactionism.
With two ballet-pantomimes completed in the years 1928-29, Signorina Gioventù and Nikotina, Novák regained some of the respect he had lost among his colleagues; their vibrant layering of orchestral effects (including mixed meters and even references to tango
Tango music
Tango is a style of ballroom dance music in 2/4 or 4/4 time that originated among European immigrant populations of Argentina and Uruguay . It is traditionally played by a sextet, known as the orquesta típica, which includes two violins, piano, double bass, and two bandoneons...
) won him new admirers among the younger generation, most notably Iša Krejčí
Iša Krejcí
Iša Krejčí , was a Czech Neoclassicist composer, conductor and dramaturg.He was born in Prague. He studied history and musicology at Charles University and concurrently piano playing with Albín Šíma and composition at the Prague Conservatory with Karel Boleslav Jirák and Vítězslav Novák and...
and Alois Hába
Alois Hába
Alois Hába was a Czech composer, musical theorist and teacher. He is primarily known for his microtonal compositions, especially using the quarter tone scale, though he used others such as sixth-tones and twelfth-tones....
. The years of the 1930s saw a return to chamber music, but also large forms such as the epic choral/orchestral work, Podzimní symfonie (Autumn Symphony, op. 62, premiered 1934).
During the years of the Nazi occupation, Novák's star rose again in the estimation of his compatriots, especially for the depth of his patriotic works, instilled with an intense, noble melancholy for the Czech people: the symphonic poems with organ, De Profundis (op. 67, 1941) and Svatováclavský triptych (Saint Wenceslas triptych
Triptych
A triptych , from tri-= "three" + ptysso= "to fold") is a work of art which is divided into three sections, or three carved panels which are hinged together and can be folded shut or displayed open. It is therefore a type of polyptych, the term for all multi-panel works...
, op. 70, 1942) and the Májová symfonie (May Symphony, op. 73, dedicated to Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
as liberator of the Czechs and premiered after the war in 1945) demonstrate these sentiments in a monumental fashion. In his remaining years he devoted himself to choral works based on South-Bohemian folksong.