Before her tragic early death at the age of 25, Vítězslava Kaprálová (1915–1940) demonstrated extraordinary gifts as a composer, writing stylish and ebullient music in almost every genre. We speak to Karla Hartl, director of the Kapralova Society, about this uniquely talented Czech composer and conductor.
Could you give a brief introduction to Kaprálová’s background, and the origins of her music?
Kaprálová’s musical development was first shaped by her parents, both musicians: her mother Vítězslava was a voice teacher, her father Václav Kaprál, a student of Janáček, was a composer, pianist and a college professor. Kaprálová received her musical education at conservatories in Brno, Prague, and Paris, under Vilém Petrželka at the Brno Conservatory and Vítězslav Novák at the Prague Conservatory Master School. Later, in Paris, she had the opportunity to consult Bohuslav Martinů about her orchestral compositions.
The music of her father, Václav Kaprál, made a particularly deep impression on the young composer. It is evident in the melancholic lyricism inspired by Moravian folk melodies that can be found in a number of her compositions. Kaprálová’s love of folk music was further fostered by Bohuslav Martinů who also helped to direct her creative development toward modern, rational tectonics. She was more attracted to Igor Stravinsky’s music, however; she studied his ballet Petrushka extensively, and its influence can be found in several of her orchestral compositions.
One would expect that Kaprálová would not have been able to escape Janáček’s influence, since she was growing up in the family of one of his students, her father, during Janáček’s lifetime and the period of the greatest successes of his music. In a way she would not – Janáček’s influence was already present in the music of her father, and his music was in turn influencing hers. Nevertheless, while she undoubtedly understood Janáček’s importance and was intrigued by some of his ideas, she was not tempted to follow them.
Kaprálová joined the Brno Conservatory at the age of 15, already composing for some time before then. Her graduation piece was a well-received Piano Concerto. Can you talk about this piece and others from her period at Brno?
There are quite a few works from this period that could be mentioned: the piano suite, later orchestrated under the title Suite en miniature, Op.1; Two Violin Pieces, Op.3; Two Songs on Poems of R. Bojko, Op.4, in which we can hear for the first time the composer’s masterly piano accompaniment which she used so effectively to underline the vocal lines of her songs; the song cycle Sparks from Ashes, Op.5; and the song January for voice and instrumental quintet.
But it is the Sonata Appasionata that represented an enormous leap in Kaprálová’s musical development. Although it was written by an 18-year-old student of the 3rd-year composition class, the stylistic sophistication and inventiveness of this work place it far above the level of a mere student creation. Indeed, the sonata ranks high not only among Kaprálová’s piano oeuvre but also in the Czech piano sonata literature of the 20th century.
The sonata prepared Kaprálová well for another large-scale work, the three-movement Piano Concerto in D Minor which she composed during the last year of her studies at the Brno Conservatory. The first movement in sonata form is still grounded in the romantic idiom; the second movement, unusually short and dominated by a dark melody, is in contrapuntal style; however, the last movement, in Rondo form, already anticipates a new creative period that was to blossom during Kaprálová’s studies at the Prague Conservatory.
Kaprálová officially graduated from the Brno Conservatory by conducting the first movement (Allegro entusiastico) of her concerto, which more than amply demonstrated that she was able to meet the highest formal and technical requirements placed on a conservatory graduate. The concerto was very well received by the audience and critics alike, and continues to be her most popular orchestral work.
Kaprálová then spent a few years at the Prague Conservatory – studying both composition and conducting, and continuing to compose prolifically. Can you talk about her music of this period?
During her studies at the Prague Conservatory, Kaprálová composed some of her best-known music, such as the song cycle For Ever, Op.12 and the art song Waving Farewell, Op.14. Other noteworthy creations of the composer’s “Prague period” include her maliciously witty Grotesque Passacaglia, the splendid String Quartet, Op.8, and her most popular work for piano solo, April Preludes, Op.13, which she dedicated to Czech piano virtuoso Rudolf Firkušný.
The art song Waving Farewell (Sbohem a šáteček in Czech) in particular deserves at least a bit of an introduction. Kaprálová composed the song during the last days of her graduate studies at the Prague Conservatory. The motif of a falling major second on the word “sbohem” (goodbye) permeates the music, and emerges again and again as the basic structural element as well as the message of this great song. It is even more magnificent in the orchestral version which Kaprálová finished a year later in Paris. The inclusion of this song in the international art-song repertoire is long overdue.
However, it was the composer’s graduation work, the Military Sinfonietta Op.11, which brought Kaprálová her first international recognition. It was premiered by the Czech Philharmonic under her own baton on 26th November 1937 in Prague; and the next year, on 17th June 1938, it opened the 16th ISCM Festival in London, where Kaprálová had the honour to represent new Czech music. The British premiere of the sinfonietta, in which Kaprálová conducted the BBC Orchestra, was transmitted to the United States, where it was broadcast by CBS. According to a review in Time magazine, the 23-year-old Kaprálová not only fared well in the international competition at the festival, but she also became the star of the opening orchestral concert.
Kaprálová’s Military Sinfonietta capped off her period in Prague and proved a great success. This year it will be performed at the first time at the BBC Proms – what can new listeners expect from this piece?
The Military Sinfonietta is a stirring, lushly orchestrated composition, about 15 minutes long. Kaprálová composed it in reaction to the military threat to her beloved homeland and dedicated it to Edvard Beneš, then president and supreme commander of the Czechoslovak republic.
Kaprálová opens her sinfonietta with a brass fanfare which immediately evokes the rousing spirit of the composition. Written in sonata form, the work is built on three themes. The military call of the trumpet in the opening measures foreshadows the first theme of Tempo di marcia, introduced a few bars later in the violins. The theme is contrasted by a peaceful, singing theme Andante e cantabile, carried by the oboes. The third theme, Allegro con brio, built on the interval of a fourth, then appears in the violins, marking a return to the highly energetic character of the composition.
We are lucky to have Kaprálová’s own description of the work in the 16th ISCM Festival Guide. She explains that in her sinfonietta she used “the language of music to express [my] emotional relationship toward the questions of national existence, a subject permeating the consciousness of the nation at the time. The composition does not represent a battle cry, but it depicts the psychological need to defend that which is most sacred to the nation.”
Kaprálová spent the later 1930s in Paris, and grew particularly close to Bohuslav Martinů. Can you talk a little about their musical and personal relationship?
The musical connection came first, but the personal one inevitably followed. Kaprálová brought passion to Martinů’s life: she was charismatic, intelligent, incredibly talented and passionate about music. They would spend hours discussing and arguing over the tenets of composition. Furthermore, she was his compatriot – someone who could grasp and relate immediately to their shared cultural references. And, with the war imminent and their homeland in danger, they soon had yet another deep connection.
Kaprálová’s charisma and immense passion for life inspired the aging Martinů. His Tre ricercari, the intimate String Quartet no. 5, and the powerful Double Concerto, all composed in 1938, reflect some of the strong emotions she stirred in him. He, on the other hand, helped direct her music, as already mentioned, toward more modern, rational structure. But except for the neo-Baroque Partita for strings and piano, we do not find much of his influence in Kaprálová’s music.
Martinů truly admired his young colleague’s music though, and did not hesitate to open important doors for her. For instance, he introduced Kaprálová to composers associated with Triton, an important Parisian society for contemporary music, and recommended her Variations sur le carillon de l’église St-Étienne-du-Mont, Op.16 to one of his publishers. He also had her conduct his Harpsichord Concerto in Paris in 1938, with Marcelle de Lacour as soloist.
In 1947, Martinů was asked to contribute to a collective monograph on Kaprálová (edited by Přemysl Pražák). He wrote: “The loss to our music is greater than we might think. I know it, because I was there when she was transforming into an artist… Only rarely have I had the opportunity to encounter such a genuine talent and such confidence in the task she wanted to and was to accomplish. It was a pleasure to argue about musical problems with her. Actually, I was learning along with her…”
Despite only 9 years of active work, Kaprálová wrote prolifically and with great maturity. How would you sum up the music she left us? What other favourite works of hers would you like to mention?
Yes, despite the brevity of her creative life, which spanned barely a decade, Kaprálová managed to leave behind a substantial and diverse catalogue of works, including piano, chamber, orchestral and vocal compositions – 46 in all, if we exclude the juvenilia, torsos and missing pieces. They display the versatility of the composer’s musical talent, with its typical high energy, passion, lyricism, intelligent humour, spontaneity but also discipline. Moreover, her music offers such an abundance of ideas that it never becomes boring, and you will always find something new in it with each repeated listening.
Among the most valuable works by Kaprálová are her highly sophisticated compositions for piano. She enriched Czech piano literature significantly not only with her sonata, preludes, variations, and passacaglias for solo piano, but also with a late-romantic Piano Concerto and a neoclassical Partita for strings and piano. Her songs occupy a similarly important position. They represent one of the late climaxes of Czech art song and are also notable for the exceptional quality of the poetry she chose to set. Among Kaprálová’s chamber works, the String Quartet and the Deux ritournelles for violoncello and piano stand out; of her orchestral oeuvre, it is the avant-garde compositions of her Parisian period – the aforementioned Partita and the Concertino for Violin, Clarinet and Orchestra – but also the early Piano Concerto in D minor and, of course, the Sinfonietta which will be presented at this year’s BBC Proms, performed by the Czech Philharmonic with Jakub Hrůša.
More details about Kaprálová’s music are available on the official website kapralova.org. She was also featured as BBC Radio 3’s Composer of the Week on the occasion of her centenary in 2015.
Kaprálová’s Military Sinfonietta is performed by the Czech Philharmonic at the BBC Proms on 28th August.
This article was sponsored by the Year of Czech Music.
