Czech Music--a lifetime's passion.

The British musicologist, conductor, bassoonist and music organiser Professor Graham Melville-Mason, honorary advisor to the International Prague Spring Music Festival and since 1987 President of the Britain's Dvorak Society for Czech and Slovak music, was for almost 30 years advisor to the Edinburgh International Music Festival and for 10 years worked for BBC Radio 3 classical music channel. In all these roles he has applied his intense active interest in Czech music, and this year he has been awarded the Czech Music Council (Ceska hudebni rada) Prize for lifelong promotion of Czech music.

Professor Mason, when did you first encounter Czech music?

My first steps towards Czech music date back to my childhood. My grandfather had an old gramophone and several dozen gramophone records. Whenever I was at my grandfather's, I very much liked listening to music there. His collection included two records of Dvorak's Slavonic Dances and I remember that it was the Slavonic Dances that I put on the record player most often. That was the beginning, but I started to develop a serious interest in Czech music much later, at the University of Edinburgh. First as a student, but when I eventually became a teacher at the university, my interest finally turned in real academic research.

But what was it that brought you to Czech music at the University of Edinburgh?

In 1960 as a new member of the teaching staff at Edinburgh University I founded a collection of historical instruments and at the time I also discovered a score of Dvorak's Serenade for Wind Instruments in D minor in an Edinburgh archive. I thought it would be a very good piece for my wind instrument ensemble. Since the individual parts were not available separately, I copied them out by hand from the score. The work fascinated me and so I started to hunt in the archives for other wind pieces by Czech composers. I found pieces by Myslivecek and Kramar and realised just what a great undiscovered treasure-house Czech music still offered. I was beginning a research project on wind music and at that time one major impetus for my work was a new arrival to the teaching staff, John Clapham, a great expert on the music of Antonin Dvorak. His books on Antonin Dvorak are still among the best on the subject. Later as a professor I had a right to a sabbatical year and I managed to get a Winston Churchill award, made for selected study projects abroad. This enabled me to go to Europe in 1975 for a long period of research in the music archives. One of the countries I visited was Czechoslovakia, because the archives in Prague, Brno, Kromeriz and Bratislava had the largest collections of surviving sources at the time. Ever since then Czech music has been my main interest.

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Did your activities in the field of Czech music develop outside the university as well?

It helped me a lot that I also had the chance to work for the Edinburgh International Music Festival as an advisor. This gave me the opportunity to meet the leading Czech musicians who were invited to the festival. For me the important turning points here were in 1964 and 1970 when the National Theatre Opera performed at the festival and I was able to meet Jaroslav Krombholz, Beno Blachut, Eduard Haken, Libuse Domaninska, Karel Berman and many others. This was the golden age of the National Theatre, and the company brought over a brilliant selection of Czech operas--mainly Janacek operas that had never been performed in London until then. The former director of the Janacek Opera in Brno, Vilem Tausky, who emigrated to London after the war, had only presented Kata Kabanova and Jenufa in London. Fortunately the then director of the Edinburgh Festival Lord Harewood heard Janacek's operas in London and decided to invite the National Theatre over with a Czech repertoire.

Was the National Theatre invited to the festival on your initiative as well?

No, at that point my job was only to arrange the tour itself and all the organisational and operational details. The source of the invitation was the festival director, Lord Harewood, the former director of the English National Opera in London. Later the festival had a new director who has originally been in theatre. At the end of the 1980s I rather hesitantly put forward a proposal suggesting that in 1990 we should focus on the celebration of the centenary of the birth of Martinu and the next year on the 150th anniversary of the birth of Dvorak. I was frankly very surprised when the director said, "Yes, we'll do it. Those will be the main themes of the festival, but you will have to take care of the whole thing yourself, because I don't know anything about this music while you know everything". And so I became completely responsible for the two festivals including the programme and the choice of musicians. The Slovak National Theatre came, the Panocha Quartet, the harpsichordist Zuzana Ruzickova, the pianist Rudolf Firkusny and many others.

How did audiences at the festival react to the Czech music?

Very well, Dvorak's music in particular had always been very warmly received, and of course when in England Dvorak had become a popular star. He had absolutely enthralled the English and ever since he has been played regularly on British concert podiums. All this was definitely what eventually led to the founding of the Britain's Dvorak Society for Czech and Slovak music. And it is interesting that in past years Martinu was performed more frequently in Britain than in the Czech Republic, France or the USA, i.e. the countries where he actually lived. The British public has always had a great interest in Martinu's music--a greater interest, indeed, than the British music critics, who were at first a little suspicious of it. In Britain today Martinu is ever more in fashion and I believe that when his next important anniversary comes round in 2009 we in Britain will succeed in giving his music the truly important place and full respect that is its due.

Since 1987 you have been president of the Britain's Dvorak Society for Czech and Slovak music. How much do you collaborate with the Britain's Dvorak Society in the Czech Republic?

We have always enjoyed good relations since the founding of the Britain's Dvorak Society in 1974. In our archives we keep the first greetings wishing us a successful start and the first letters wishing us all the best from the then director of the Czech society Karel Mikys. Ever since we have been in close contact. This year the Czech Dvorak Society celebrated its 75th anniversary and the current director Radomil Eliska personally invited me to attend the celebrations with the secretary of the Britain's Dvorak Society, Shawn Pullman, which delighted both of us.

How big is the Britain's Dvorak Society today?

Today we have around 700 members. Originally our society was founded just to promote Dvorak but currently it represents Czech and Slovak music in general and also Czech and Slovak musicians and composers. It is headed by 20-30 experts on Czech music, for example the world famous conductor Sir Charles Mackerras, the British expert on the music of Leos Janacek John Tyrrell, Jan Smaczny--an expert on the music of Dvorak and many others. This is very gratifying for us, but our members also include many ordinary people who love Czech music and that is really very interesting.

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What are the main activities of the Britain's Dvorak Society?

We produce a quarterly magazine for our members with news and features from the Czech music scene. We also regularly publish a prestigious collection of academic articles by international music experts which usually has 200 to 300 pages. Members can buy the latest world recordings of Czech musicians and Czech music through the society at very advantageous prices. We regularly organise lectures and if an important Czech musician comes to Britain we organise a meeting and discussion for our members. And not only in London, but all over Britain. We have a great deal of interest in membership in Scotland and in the North-West of England, something we certainly owe to Libor Pesek and Petr Altrichter who worked in Liverpool for many years. Interestingly, in this area we have a few members who have been living there since the war and are fond of Czech music thanks to the Czech airmen who were based there for training during the Second World War. Some of our members are also former child refugees saved at the start of the occupation of the Czech Lands by being sent on the Jewish children's trains to Britain. These people still support Czech activities even though they have lived all almost all their lives in Britain. Thanks to the support of the Czech ambassador we hold concerts in the Czech embassy in London; at these we are trying to provide chances for young Czech musicians who are studying in Britain. And every other year we organise a trip to the Czech Republic for our members, each time on a different theme.

Has the society under your presidency engaged in other projects, as well as these main activities?

Fortunately our members are extremely generous and they themselves invest money in our activities. So for example thanks to contributions from members we have been able to organise three other major projects. In 1992 we started to co-operate on the creation of the Dvorak international database. This is a complete catalogue of all the sources on Dvorak from all over the world and it is being compiled on the basis of co-operation between the British and Czech Dvorak Societies and the Dvorak Museum in Prague. At the beginning of this ambitious project we donated appropriate software and a very high-powered computer to the Dvorak Museum in Prague and now we are going to help fund further necessary innovations to the system. The second project was saving Dvorak's summer house, the Villa Rusalka in Vysoka, which belonged to the composer's descendants. We organised a fund for the reconstruction of the villa and this enabled the family to repair the monument and save it. The third project relates to funding young Czech and Slovak musicians. When our society celebrated its 25th anniversary we decided that instead of gala concerts we would fund places at the prestigious Dartington International Summer School. Ever since, our society has been awarding the scholarship to Czech and Slovak students every year.

Which people in the music world do you work with most frequently?

For many years now I have been in personal contact with the British, Czech and Slovak composers and performers I got to know through my work as a musicologist and in my ten years of working for BBC's classical music channel Radio 3. But as far as the activities of the Britain's Dvorak Society are concerned, from the beginning we have been in close contact with top Czech artists in the forefront of the Czech musical scene. Our first patron was Josef Suk, and then Rudolf Firkusny and now Petr Eben. And in the position of Vice-President Jiri Belohlavek, Radoslav Kvapil, Marketa Hallova, Alena Nemcova, Milos Jurkovic, and once Jan Hanus and Jarmil Burghauser as well. We have been truly lucky in having had the chance to work with people of this calibre. They were not just "names" on letterheads, but have always given us active support and worked with us closely.

You have already mentioned your almost ten years of work for BBC Radio in London. Can you tell us more about how far you were able to promote Czech music there?

I was supposed to look after contracts with artists, I co-ordinated the music programme and was responsible for the choice and standard of the recordings. But I was lucky. At that time I had three colleagues on the music desk who were very interested in Czech and Slovak music and so I had no trouble getting music programmes based on Czech music on the air. For example we broadcast a very detailed weekly series of programmes about Vaclav Talich, and for instance my colleague Jill White had a special predilection for recording concerts given by Rudolf Firkusny and the Smetana Quartet whenever they were in Britain. Once we even arranged for Rudolf Firkusny to appear together with the Smetana Quartet and we recorded the concert. Today it is a real historic document.

Could you give us an idea of how many recordings of Czech music you used to transmit each year?

Every year it was between 750 and 900 recordings mainly of Czech but also of Slovak music. Around half of the works would be by Dvorak. The music of Janacek--mainly his operas, was in second place. But what is interesting is that in third place there was Martinu--we even broadcast more Martinu than Smetana. Also interesting, however, was the selection of pieces by the other composers--Brixi, Vejvanovsky, Benda, Myslivecek, Kramar, Vanhal and may others, but we also played music by contemporary composers--Petr Eben, Klement Slavicky, Milan Slavicky, Viktor Kalabis, Jiri Teml and many others. It was a range of composers covering the whole course of Czech musical history.

Of course finally you got the chance to have quite an influence of your own on the direction of Czech musical life inside the Czech Republic when you started working closely with the Prague Spring International Music Festival. How did this connection come about?

It all began after the Velvet Revolution when Petr Eben became president of the Prague Spring and Oleg Podgorny became festival director. I knew both of them very well. Immediately after the Revolution the festival ran into problems relating to its whole system of financing. I had acquired a great deal of experience with writing contracts at BBC Radio and I had more than thirty years of experience from the Edinburgh Festival. So Oleg Podgorny and Petr Eben hoped I would be able to help them. Just after the revolution the concept of sponsorship was still completely unknown in the Czech Republic. Many offers of financial co-operation were arriving from companies abroad and sometimes these were highly dubious. I spent a whole night studying the draft for a major contract on financial cooperation and in the morning I sent it back with a refusal, totally appalled at the thing. That was the beginning, but then I helped on the artistic side as well. I arranged meetings for Oleg Podgorny with leading music agents and also visits to prestigious arts agencies based in London.

What was the main reason for all the financial problems that the festival had to solve?

If we go back to the beginning of the trouble, the biggest financial problem arose immediately after 1990, when the Ministry of Culture stopped financing the festival for a time even though up to then it had covered almost 100% of the financial costs. The festival then got no more than a tiny sum from the state and money had to be found elsewhere, mainly from sponsors. At that point the festival wasn't even yet supported by the Prague City Authority, whereas at the Edinburgh Festival, for example, funding from the city has always been fundamental.

How are major music festivals funded in Britain?

In Britain festival directors don't have to cope with these problems. We have what is known as the Arts Council, which is independent of the government but has a very large budget that it distributes to important festivals. And so the director of something like the Edinburgh Festival knows that each year he can count on 50% coverage of costs from the Arts Council. He knows that the City of Edinburgh will cover another 30% of the costs and that more money will be forthcoming from the surrounding districts, because everyone in the region is aware of the enormous economic benefits that a successful festival of this kind brings to the region and city. The director feels completely financially secure and knows that he will also have money to pay leading international artists in the coming years and that he can go ahead and invite them. The Prague Spring does not yet have this financial security for the future. Every director of the Prague Spring has to tackle the problem of funding and think of ways to secure the festival financially in the coming years.

Although Czech music has been at the centre of your life, as a foreigner you inevitable look at it with a degree of detachment. What in your view makes Czech music so distinctive?

One of the most frequent discussions at all conferences on Czech music revolves around the question of what the typical marks of Czech music really are, what does this "Czechness" really mean, and how it can be analysed. We can only actually identify Czech music in this distinctive sense from the middle of the 19th century, i.e. from the period of the National Revival when Czech music acquired a clear and entirely different character. Elements deriving from Czech folk music begin to appear--typical harmonic and rhythmic elements and melodies. But there is a parallel with British music here! Our composers also collected folk songs and elements of national folk music are also present in British music. To the point where we could say that British music sounds "British" and Czech music "Czech". But behind this there are other parallels--I mean a shared sense of humour, which makes for a strong connection between we British and the Czechs.

How would you compare interest in Czech music among the British and among the Czechs?

If we are talking about the ordinary concert and opera public, I would say that 15 or 20 years ago the British definitely had more interest in Czech music than the Czechs had in their own music. For example, when a Janacek opera was performed in Brno, the theatre was half empty, while in London it was almost impossible to get tickets. Of course, that is only one criterion. I remember once going to the English National Opera in London to see Janacek's Katya Kabanova, and I had Alena Nemcova from Brno with me. Even from a distance you could see an incredibly long queue of people waiting to buy tickets at the box office. That was already a surprise for Alena Nemcova, but what really stunned her was when I told her that they were people waiting for returned tickets, because the production was already sold out. Alena Nemcova was sorry that she didn't have a camera with her and couldn't take a photo of the queue and show it to people in Brno.

You speak excellent Czech. How is it possible for a foreigner to learn to speak this difficult language so well?

It really was hard. First I decided to go to evening classes in Czech at London University, where I learned the basics of the grammar but it didn't help me to speak at all. My wife is Czech by origin and when Czech friends visited she would talk to them in Czech. She always said she could just see me putting together a sentence in my head so that I could take part in the conversation, but before I had laboriously managed to formulate my comment in my head the conversation had moved onto a different topic. It was Karel Janovicky, the former head of the Czech section of the BBC World Service, who lived close to us, who literally came to my rescue. He was already retired and used to take regular walks with his dog. Each time he would ring our doorbell and I would come and accompany him on the dog walks. We made an agreement that we would speak only Czech and so thanks to the dog and Karel's patience I finally started to speak the language

(with the kind permission of Harmonie Magazine)

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(The author is a journalist at Czech Radio 3--Vltava)