DOI: 10.4149/SH_2023_3_1

DOI: 10.4149/SH_2023_3_2

In the second part of the study Guitar Compositions of Slovak Composers we present the development of the composition for guitar in the 1970s, while discussing not only chamber music with guitar, but also the first compositions for a guitar solo written by Tadeáš Salva, Stanislav Hochel, Juraj Hatrík and Pavol Šimai. In this section of the study we also focus on the contexts and character of the guitar music by the Slovak female authors Iris Szeghy, Viera Janárčeková and Jana Kmiťová. Three interviews with the composers Peter Machajdík, Peter Javorka and Jana Kmiťová may be considered a bonus of the contribution, as they present their composing experience and opinions related to the possibilities of the guitar in the contemporary composed music.

Keywords
guitar music; Slovak composers; Slovak female composers; chamber music; solo guitar music

DOI: 10.4149/SH_2023_3_3

Air russe – Air cosaque – Air d’Ukraine – Schöne Minka

History of European composed music, the existence of which is conditioned by the written notated record, oscillates between the endeavours to reach a universal language with the help of a unified style, which would be gradually adopted by great and small (local/national) cultures, and efforts in individual modifications of that style, determined not only by artistic, but also political and social contexts. Both tendencies can be seen also in the climactic phases of development of Renaissance, Baroque and Classicist-Romantic music.
The submitted study has focused on the involvement of the Russian modification of the Classicist-Romantic musical language in the European music. The first part of the text (Air russe – Air cosaque – Air d’Ukraine – Schöne Minka) depicts the early efforts in creating collections of national songs, which took place in the Tsarist Russia as early as in the final third of the 18^th century (Vasily Fyodorovich Trutovsky (ca. 1740 – ca. 1810), Sobranie russkich prostych pesen s notami, four books, Saint Petersburg 1776, 1778, 1778, 1795; and especially Nikolay Aleksandrovich Lvov (1753 – 1803) and Ivan Prač (Johann Pratsch, 1750 – 1818), Sobranie narodnych russkich pesen s ich golosami, Saint Petersburg 1790, 1806 (enlarged edition), 1815, 1896).
Initiatives of Trutovsky, Lvov and Prač/Pratsch had goals similar to those of the Englishman George Thomson (1757 – 1851) and the Germans Johann Gottfried von Herder (1744 – 1803) and Clemens Brentano (1778 – 1842). It was namely the collection of Lvov and Prač/Pratsch which appeared in study room not only of musicians in Russia, but also in Western Europe (Jan Ladislav Dussek, Ludwig van Beethoven, Anton Reicha, Johann Nepomuk Hummel etc.). The contacts of western music with the Russian one through national song can be well illustrated on the history of utilization of a Russian (Ukrainian) song Yechal kozak za Dunay in arrangements for piano, piano duet, guitar, harp and in chamber and orchestral pieces – above all as a theme with variations.

Keywords
collections of national songs; Air russe; Air cosaque; Air d’Ukraine; Schöne Minka

DOI: 10.4149/SH_2023_3_4

The submitted study provides an outline of the music education at the Masaryk’s First State Teachers’ Institute in Modra which was supposed to become a model for the teachers’ education in the first Czechoslovak Republic. This requirement influenced also the choice of prestigious music teachers. The core of the work consists in an interpretation of the primary sources analysis results, which help to document the level of music education at the teachers’ institute. In addition, using the institute’s rich archive, the study also brings profiles of music teachers with a focus on their music teaching at the institute. Documenting the after-school activities it points to the wide extent of music schooling outside of the obligatory basis of teaching. The conclusions of our music-historical research not only bring new information regarding the regional school system, but also draw attention to teachers’ institutions as centres of learning, which, even after the change of political situation, continued in the tradition of teachers’ education preserving a high level of music activities.

Keywords
Modra; music; education; state teachers’ institute, Emil Hula; Jan Šoupal; Viliam Truhelka; Eduard Nademlýnský; Jiří Svoboda; piano playing; organ playing; singing; violin playing

DOI: 10.4149/SH_2023_3_5

The contribution examines the work of stage designer Vladimír Čáp – one of the most important Slovak theatre scenographers of the last two decades of the previous century and a few seasons following the year 2000. From the countless number of his stage design and costume realizations we focus on a selection of five productions, which he prepared as a stage designer in the Opera of the Slovak National Theatre. In the contribution we endeavour to point to a specific character of Čáp’s work: his piercing ability to analyse and grasp each particular work led him to a remarkable variety in understanding the stage aesthetics and logic of the individual dramatic and music-dramatic texts. It is this variety, not external features of his artistic expression, which is significant of his artistic handwriting.

Keywords
stage design; opera; scenographer; handwriting; principle