PT Journal
AU Fulka, V
TI Bohuslav Martinu: Memorial to Lidice as Psalm, Chorale and Lamento
SO Musicologica Olomucensia
PY 2019
BP 68
EP 84
VL 29
IS 1
DI 10.5507/mo.2019.005
DE chorale; psalm; lamento; sequence; triad; triadic structures; modality; tonality; triadic paralels; superimpositions of triadic chords; ostinato structures
AB A prominent Czech composer Bohuslav Martinu composed his short symphonic poem Memorial to Lidice in a memory of the victims of Lidice, a Czech village annihilated by Nazis in time of the World War II. The present study is a music analysis, an insight into structures and means used by Martinu with his intention to create an atmosphere of lamentoso. Martinu's composition is a dirge, a mournful type of music instigated by tragic events, in a memory of Czech victims which will never be forgotten. Therefore the analysis is not only that of a form, harmony, tonality and modality: it has to be a semantic analysis of lamentoso, chorale and psalm elements, of musical associations of this kind in a broader context. In spite of its psalmodic-lamentoso intonations and associations (Dies Irae, chorales of the east orthodox church, Memorial of Lidice, baroque lamentoso), Memorial to Lidice may in the end be designated the victorious chorale of hope, of magnificence, moral victory and regeneration of the Czech nation. In this double meaning we can perceive Martinu's citation of the ancient Czech St. Wenceslaus chorale in the beginning of the composition and his citation of Beethoven's "fate motive" from the Symphony No. 5, C minor, in the end of this composition. Another citation from Beethoven's 5th symphony, which can identified in the piece, also represents a heroic chorale reminding of Czech musical "aura", which we know from his Czech Madrigals and symphonies. The origin of Martinu's Czech "aura" we can identify in triadic sonority and in the fusion of tonality and Moravian modality integrated with this sonority, a unique trait of Martinu's music.
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