Czech Vienna: the music culture of the Czech minority in Vienna 1840-1918.

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The phrase "Czech music" or "Czech music culture" is rightly associated first and foremost with music written by composers on the territory of Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia. Yet we need to remember that it has a wider range. In addition to Czech composers who spent some time of their life abroad, we might also mention Dvorak's "American period" (1892-1895) or Smetana's "Swedish period" (1856-1859), and as well as considering composers who migrated or emigrated, we must take into account the musical life of Czech minorities beyond the frontiers of the Czech Lands. Among the musicians of such minorities, the degree of identification with specifically Czech culture and background varied from individual to individual. Some identified with their "native" land very strongly and maintained contacts there, others were absorbed into the new environment, while yet others became part of the musical cultures of two or more nations. It is well known that not just Czechs but Americans too think of Antonin Dvorak as a founder of their modern national musical tradition.

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What do Czechs today associate with the phrase "The Czech minority abroad"? Probably mainly rather romantically coloured TV documentaries about the life of the Czechs in the Banat, in Rithenia (Sub-Carpathian Ukraine), in Volhynia, although we may perhaps also think of the charming old-fashioned Czech and well-ironed folk costumes of several generations of Czecho-Americans. At all events, in my experience modern Czechs rarely remember the Czech minority in Austria, even though at the turn of the 19th/20th century Vienna was the city with the greatest number of Czechs and Moravians (unofficial estimate--1/4 million) and with a highly developed structure of Czech associations and societies. These societies and clubs were, as they still are, a means of preserving original national/ethnic identity. In 1905 the Czech-Viennese historian and journalist Josef Karasek compared their role for the minority to that of the state or community for the nation, and added that all the progress made by Czechs as an ethnic group in Vienna had been achieved precisely thanks to the principle of association.

A decline in the sense of separate identity among Viennese Czechs occurred as a result of the Germanising measures associated with the mayoralty of Karl Lueger (1844-1910) and the period of the fascist regime, and subsequently also because after 1948 three different groups of Czechs lived side by side in Vienna, only one of which--the "old inhabitants" born in Vienna--systematically cultivated their identity in the tradition of the intense Czech patriotism of the national revival and Masarykian "Czechoslovakism". The emigrants who arrived after 1948 did not integrate with the original Czech minority fully, and after 1968 they tended to stress their difference from the new wave of immigrants following the Soviet invasion. More than a few of the latter were from the ranks of the communists, and while many of them "renounced" communism after the invasion, this did not bring them much closer or do much to endear them to Czechs who had emigrated in response to the original communist take-over. We can find all kinds of examples of the gradual assimilation and diminution of the Czech element in Vienna from 1918 to the present. The most marked is the drop in the number of Czech-Viennese societies, Czech religious services and the erosion to a mere remnant of the once laboriously created and excellent structure of the Czech education/school system in Vienna. Identification with Czech origins meant taking on oneself the social stigma of a nation that had voluntarily turned its back on the West and joined the Eastern bloc in 1948 and the stigma of a people traditionally regarded by the German population merely as a source of cheap labour and in its way inferior. To put it briefly, today only a few thousand people in Austria declare their nationality to be Czech, but the telephone directory or the nameplates on doorbells are more than eloquent testimony of the many waves of migration from Bohemia and Moravia. The identity of the remnant of the minority is today affected by various different factors: free cross-border movement between the Czech Republic and Austria, and free access to the media means that the previous barriers to communication with their original homeland have now fallen entirely, but bad Czech-Austrian relations have complicated the minority's life in Austria over the long term.

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Czech Vienna as a Musicological Theme

After this general introduction let us get straight to the question of what we actually know about the musical life of Viennese Czechs in the period 1840-1939. As yet musicology has provided us with no comprehensive account, beyond a basic framework, of this "golden age", its development curtailed by the 2nd World War and the subsequent closing of the frontiers of Czechoslovakia. Generally we can say that the Dictionary of Czech Music Culture (Prague 1995) has opened up a new view of Czech minorities abroad and contacts with the cultures of other nations. (1) This will be clear to any Czech reader who for example looks at the dictionary entries on "Luzice"/"Lusatia" (the region in Saxony and Germany settled by a Slav population) or indeed the entry on "Viden"/"Vienna". I choose these two examples deliberately, because years ago I started to work on these themes in the interests of overcoming the "backwardness" of research on the area. (2) There has been a comparable dearth of musicological research on other Czech minorities, for example in America, the Balkans, Poland, Germany, the Ukraine, Russia, Australia, South America and elsewhere. The long-term failure of Czech musicology to take up the subject of Czech minorities abroad is evident from just a brief glance at the content of various works on the history of Czech music. The theme of minorities is entirely overlooked in them, while the long out-dated concept of the "Czech musical emigration" (the term for the migration of Czech musicians in the 18th and earlier 19th century), relates to the subject of minorities only on a superficial view. This obsolete concept is problematic in a number of ways: it concentrated on individuals, it involved little attention to the real national identity of the people concerned, and even the term "emigration" was incorrectly employed in many cases since in the 19th century no Czech could be said to be "emigrating" from e.g. Prague to the capital of the Habsburg monarchy, but only to have migrated from one territory of the same state to another.

Let us immediately pose the question of the causes of this unsatisfactory state of musicological research, bearing in mind that many "Czecho-Viennese" patterns can usefully be applied to Czech minorities in other states as well. The main reason lies in complications caused by the political-social conditions. Czech musicology never comprehensively addressed the subject of Czech musical Vienna: in the inter-war period the discipline set itself other goals, and after 1948 there was no political interest in the theme. Only a few contributions on subsidiary themes were produced in Vienna itself. These were a matter of ventures into as it were amateur lexicography (e.g. Jan Heyer's series Czech musical viennensia in the Czech minority's Dunaj Review Vienna 1940, 1941), descriptions of certain periods (e.g. the famous Slav balls around 1848), (3) profiles of distinguished figures, and some valuable information contained in chapters on musicians in the literature about Czech Vienna. I emphasise that the great majority of these contributions came from the period before the 2nd World War and that none of the authors had a musicological education! The activity of these "enthusiasts", some of whom moved to Czechoslovakia after 1918 and promoted the idea of Czech Vienna, has left us a kind of fragment. Another reason for the earlier lack of interest on the part of Czech musicologists was that they had other priorities and the scholars concerned probably did not consider the theme to be purely Czech. The musical life of Vienna was in their eyes like an "adopted child" or an orphan left by relatives, to whom we have a moral duty to provide basic care, but not to do anything more. Here it seems obvious to ask how the theme appears in Austrian musicology. In fact, the musical life of the Czech minority does not appear at all as a theme in itself in the literature on Vienna as a city of music. There are three main reasons for this: the sources are in Czech, in the interests of self-preservation the minority in some respects isolated itself, and finally the theme was and to some extent is still regarded as a purely Czech one. This view has been changing as the picture of some individual figures is being revised to include their activities outside the German scene; ethnic identity is ceasing to be considered the main criterion and instead Vienna is being emphasised as an environment. People are discovering with surprise just how high the standard of some Czech-Viennese productions were, and that many Austrian-German musicians worked on the Czech and German music scene in Vienna, and a number of them were more Czech than German Viennese.

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I myself have witnessed and contributed to the scholarly development by which the theme of the music culture of Czech Vienna has been gradually moving into the phase represented in the CR by the Dictionary of Czech Music Culture. While the recently published Austrian Music Dictionary (Osterreichisches Musiklexikon, Wien 2002-2006) does not (with a few exceptions) include figures from Czech Vienna, the editorial board has promised to tackle this problem by adding such entries to the Internet version of the dictionary. In 2007 the FWF (Austrian Science Fund) decided to support research into the musical life of Viennese Czechs by approving a three-year project entitled "Musikkultur der Wiener Tschechen 1848-1939" under the direction of Prof. Theophil Antonicek. The goals of the project include finding and acquiring the remaining archivalia related to music, classifying this and making it accessible to the public both physically and on the Internet, producing the first detailed "chronicle" of Czech musical Vienna and compiling an dictionary of the personalities and institutions of Czech musical Vienna. This scheme ought to provide answers to the questions who, where, when, how, what and why, and in essence it is usable for similar research on the music culture of any minority. Let us take a look at the individual goals. Among the specific features of the Czech-Viennese minority is the fact that for a long time it could not rely on a central "minority archive" or "minority museum". For a certain period this function was fulfilled and remains partly filled by the archive of the "Comenius" educational association, which ran Czech schools in Vienna. a few years ago the archive was sorted out by staff of the National Archives of the Czech Republic, but the archive is not yet in regular operation, which limits access to researchers. (4) Materials in the archive relating to music consist above all in the funds of societies, numerous collections of posters, literary estates and personal funds. Another source of archivalia is the archive of the Lumir Society (established in 1865), one of the very oldest of Czech-Viennese associations. It includes sheet music material and scores including transcriptions and manuscripts of pieces by Czech-Viennese composers, chronicles, diplomas, a card index of members, photographs and much else. For a long time now Lumir has been practically defunct as a society, but thanks to the generosity of Josef Koutnik, after being moved from the Drachengasse (the headquarters of several Czech societies), these very valuable archivalia are to find a new home in the Musicology Institute at the Universtitat Wien. The FWF project mentioned earlier has meant the foundation of a collection of musical documentation of Czech-Viennese musical life. In the future this should become the place where anyone interested in the theme of Czech-Viennese music will find either archivalia and literature directly, or at least detailed references to archivalia in other institutions and other information. This new deposit of sources guarantees the long-term and adequate maintenance of archivalia. It is a question for discussion whether there is any disadvantage in the fact that it is not an institution of the minority itself nor is it a Czech institution. Questions of this kind are raised in minority circles themselves, most recently in the case of the newly founded "Forschungszentrum fur historische Minderheiten" [Research Centre for Historical Minorities], which depends for its funding on support from the City of Vienna and is open to the public twice a week. This institution has for example acquired a large fund of scores and sheet music from Mr. Kolin, including pieces by Czech-Viennese composers. Sources for music research can be found scattered in libraries and archives in the Czech Repbublic--in most cases these materials are from the literary estates of figures in Czech Vienna, materials sent by Czech-Viennese choirs to the Prague central office of the Czechoslovak Choral Community, and pieces of music in the archives of Czech Radio, the Czech Museum of Music, the National Library and so on.

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The starting point for the search for information on people and institutions must be the archival funds mentioned, but also thorough research on the Czech press. For the earlier period it is essential to comb through general pedagogical magazines such as the Ceska vcela, Bohemia, Kvety because special music magazines did not develop until the latter half of the 19th century. Even though older musical lexicons cover only a small proportion of individuals and institutions, they are still an essential source. The fact that few association chronicles have survived often means that research of these sources is the only way to put together a chronological overview of musical life. Annual reports or jubilee bulletins were published only by the biggest and richest associations such as Lumir, Slovansky zpevacky spolek (The Slav Singers' Society) ci Slovanska beseda (The Slav Arts Association).

Slav Mutuality above All

After introducing the theme and the sources for its research, let us now offer a brief retrospective of the hundred years of the development of the Czech music scene in Vienna. We should add right at the beginning, that this retrospective relates only to the organised life of Czech Vienna, the societies, about which we have surviving mentions in the press. At first only officials, students, academics and the middle class engaged in societies, but later a network of workers clubs and church clubs formed. According to my estimate more than 90% of the Czechs living in Vienna lived outside the sphere of the societies, and so it is almost impossible to write anything about their musical life. The reports of the time merely tell us that Czechs were sought-after musicians for playing in bars and salons, which confirms the traditional saying about the Czech Lands as the conservatory of Europe.

"Bitter experience shows us that as soon as a Czech or Moravian, Silesian or Slovak crosses the bounds of his homeland, entering another climate, be immediately changes his colour and his cut like a chameleon, and being neither one thing or the other be dissolves like a husk in the wind having no consciousness of nationality and persevering independence. Or so it always was, but now the situation is changing for the better!" (5)

These words written by Frantisek Cyril Kampelik in x837 are among the first documents of an awakening Czech cultural and political life in Vienna. The role that music played in this music has been eloquently summed up by Frantisek Alois Soukup: "The reports that we have of Czechs in Henna before 1848, speak only of one thing: parties ("besedas"--see below), music, song and dance." (6)

We can only speak of Czechs, or rather Czech-Slavs in Vienna in the sense of a self-conscious national/ethnic identity from the later years of the "pre-March" era, i.e. the period before the revolutionary year of 1848. At the beginning not even the pioneers on the field of interest in the history of their own Czech nation, artistic monuments and mother tongue really believed in Czech as a language of equal value. Nonetheless, soon Czechs were beginning to favour Czech over German, and this concept gained ground even in Czech Vienna. It found support not only among some of the Czech nobility in Vienna, but also in the circle of men of letters and artists of Czech origin, students and in church circles. Until the Slav Congress in Prague in 1848, Slav identity was considered a bit of exotic colouring without a necessary anti-state or chauvinist subtext. Apart from certain "ribbing", more for social than national reasons, we can speak of an idyllic development: Czech church services were arranged, Czech theatre plays were staged, bombastic Slav balls were organised, and there was great interest in Slav concerts and the song-and-dance evenings known as besedas. Originally, the minority consisted of two major social groups--students, workers and lower officials created a kind of "underground" sphere filled with reading evenings, theatre in people's apartments, meetings in cafes and pubs, and choral singing. The events had a clearly Czech or Moravian ethnic character with a strong accent on the practical fulfilment of the programme of Slav mutuality, and as time went by this became politicised. The wealthier part of Czech Vienna, headed by representatives of the nobility and higher officialdom appeared in public at the grander events mentioned earlier, which were in essence entirely cosmopolitan; they more often spoke German than Slav languages and their "Slavness" consisted in presenting Slav musical pieces and dances, in decoration, in elements of dress. There were quite a number of overlaps between the two spheres, either because of the need to hire musicians, or just because of the general love of social meetings. Some students also became renowned musicians, thus opening their way into the professional (German) music scene in Vienna. This was a path that often led precisely through involvement in the events held by the Slav nobility.

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We learn about the first Slav balls and music/ dance evenings from three sources: from the press (especially reports sent to the Prague newspapers), from police reports and from memoirs (for example those of Sevcik). There were on several occasions sharp polemics in the press on the content and importance of the beseda meetings, while the police reports are the best source for a picture of the overall course of such meetings including the people involved and their social status. Memoirs are for the most part highly subjective and idealising, but they nonetheless offer a unique chance of a view backstage. For example, the mathematics teacher Frantisek Bedrich Sevcik described the method of funding of events, which were organised by a committee of leading patriots.

"Entry to the besedas was free of charge before 1848, with tickets issued only to certain people and to patriots who were not singers and who always contributed something; tickets were then issued to elevated personages, nobility, higher officials, artists and so on, whose favour we wished to gain and whom we always personally invited to besedas. From these people we required no contribution. Often there was a deficit, and when it was large not just the guarantor committee but even sometimes the singers taking part had to contribute money, or at least those who could, since most of them were poor students who were having to make a living with lessons; they would spend the whole day in the college working out technical drawings, give a lesson in the evening, study in the night, and only towards morning, when others had long been asleep, would our poor patriotic students start transcribing choral parts. And thus it happened, that the selfless patriotic singers sacrificed countless nights for the holy national cause." (7)

The development of Czech identity in Vienna can be particularly well observed in the field of music. Composers and musicians of Czech origin in Vienna before 1848, and a significant number of them even after that date, did not form any integral whole. Like composers of other nationalities or ethnic groups they too were cosmopolitan professionals, for whom the question of origin had little influence on their public or private lives. The Czech character of their work was limited, with just a few exceptions, simply to different variations on Czech folk song. But let us look at the exceptions: Jan Emanuel Dolezalek (1780-1858) is known today more as a friend of Beethoven than as an expert on Slav literatures, a good musician, a composer, an organiser of musical productions for the Polish Prince Adam Alexandr Czartoryjski living in Vienna. As early as 1812 Dolezalek published in Vienna his own arrangements of Czech folk songs, he supported the emergent Slav cultural scene in Vienna and helped to set up Czech religious services in Vienna. Vojtech Jirovee (1763-1850) was a typical example of the "Mozart-Beethoven group" (or "Czech musical emigration"). He moved in aristocratic circles all his life and only in his last years embraced his Czech identity, setting in his late classicist style a number of poems by Vincenc Furch (1817-1864), who was two generations younger and one of the leading figures in Slav life in Vienna. Josef Ferdinand Kloos (1807-1883) is known in Austria as a pioneer of choral singing, a music teacher and composer, but much less is known of his great contribution to musical production in the Vienna church of Maria am Gestade/Mariastiegen. This was the first church to hold Czech services, and so was traditionally called the "bohmische Kirche'. Here Kloos worked as regenschori, composed pieces in a Slav style, was one of the founders of the Slav Singers' Society and wrote for the Czech music press.

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Czech theatrical performances had a major significance for Czechs (and other Slavs) in Vienna. These often featured pieces by the theatre bandmaster Antonin Emil Titl (1809-1882), which were also used in Slav ballets and besedas. In Austria, however, Titl is known mainly as the author of a long series of commercially successful singspiels, farces, marches, and vaudeville numbers. He worked in Vienna from 1840 and collaborated with another very important figure, Hynek Vojacek (1825-1916). The very Germanised Brno gave the latter little chance to develop his activities in the field of Slav mutuality and so in 1845 he went to Vienna for his vacation and soon became a leading light in the Slav student colony. After a two-year intermezzo in Transylvania he returned to Brno for a while, and a second stay in Vienna then proved just another episode that ended when he was offered work in Russia. We could name dozens of singers, musicians, and conductors from Vojacek's circle who took part in the programmes of Slav besedas in Vienna, as well as many other distinguished interpreters who did the same, such as the famous violinist Ferdinand Laub (1832-1875), the singers Jan Ludevit Lukes (1824-1906), Jan Krtitel Pisek (1814-1873) and Karel Strakaty (1804-1868), the piano virtuoso and composer Alexander Dreyschok (1818-1869), the ensemble of Johann Strauss the younger. In my view it is more important, however, to draw attention to some names of occasional composers whom we may consider the first generation of Czech-Viennese composers. Among the most active were Adolf Winter (1820-ca.1900), Vaclav Tieftrunk (1845-1851 in Vienna), Hynek Vojacek (1825-1916), Vilem Cestmir Gutmannsthal, and Vaclav Koutecky. They mainly chose materials from Czech history and composed such popular dances of the time as polkas, galops, and quadrilless. Pieces by Czech composers in Vienna were more numerous than the works of other Slav composers in the city. In his memoirs Tieftrunk explained the motivation for holding besedas and balls.

"Since at that time no nationality had so sunk in honour, indeed almost into contempt, as the Czech, there seem to be above all a need to redress the low public opinion of Czechs in Vienna in any way practicable, and that was the cause and reason for the brilliant Czech besedas and balls. The great patriot dr. Dvoracek gathered young patriots around him, and thus were born exclusively Czech concerts, besedas and other entertainments, to which the whole intelligentsia and higher Viennese society was invited." (8)

"This Revolution is a dreadful misfortune for Slavdom"

(the poet Vincenc Furch on the revolution of 1848)

The revolutionary year 1848 interrupted the promising development of Slav life in Vienna. We know from Tieftrunk that in May Czech students and workers sang Czech patriotic songs on the Slav barricade at the top of Bischoffgasse. Among the musicians and composers involved let us at least mention Frantisek Gregora (1819-1887), who moved to Bohemia after the revolution and a short episode in Klosterneuburg. Given the demonstration of Slav strength and emancipatory process (the Slav Congress in Prague in 1848, numerous Slav deputations to the emperor, the boycotting of the elections to the so-called Frankfurt Parliament), the Germans saw the Slavs as dangerous, and this was most evident precisely in Vienna, where the German-speaking part of the population was stirred up by "... Jewish newspapers, brochures and shameful cartoons against Czechs ... In many places in pubs and cafes it was impossible to speak Czech without fear ..." (9) Even before 1848 we could find a series of expressions of hostility to Bohemia (Czechs), among the most famous the scandalous farce Der Wiener Schusterbub/Schusterjunge, of 1847, or a number of insulting songs about the Czech nation performed by harpists. In his memoirs, Hynek Vojacek mentions the behaviour of German Vienna to other ethic groups in what is still quite a conciliatory tone:

Anyone who wasn't a Viennese and didn't know how to pull the face in the Viennese way, was the butt of jokes, in which the Viennese were masters. For them the Czech was a dummer, pemak [corruption of Bohmak, Bohm] orkrobot [corruption of Krovot--Croat]; a Hungarian was boorish provincial, but otherwise they were tolerated. (10)

Those attending the Slav Congress in Prague from Slav Vienna included members of the committee for organising balls and besedas--JUDr. Jan Dvoracek, Dr. Terebelsky, and the Slovak Pavel Bozinsky. The events of the revolution brought a premature end to the proceedings of the congress, and the following wave of arrests affected the Czech patriots in Vienna as well, where meetings in cafes and pubs became rare as a result. The publisher K. Ueberreuter caused a scandal because in 1848 he printed a two-volume Slav Songbook full of political-satirical songs, most likely the work of a member of the radical wing of the Slav student body, Vojta Naprstek (1826-1894), later a famous patriot and ethnographer.

The failure of the 1848 revolutions meant the evaporation of euphoria and expectations of a great future for Slavdom in the Habsburg Empire. Even after 1848 great Slav balls were still held, but they gradually became a criticised anachronism designed only for the rich and with no direct impact on the preservation and development of national identity. More important in that respect were besedas and theatre productions, at which Titl's very popular Slav Overture with its quotation from the Pan-Slavonic anthem Hej slovane! was often played. The centre for Slav meeting in Vienna was still the Czech church of Maria am Gestade, but in capacity and location it was quite unable to meet the level of interest in religious services in Czech. At this time there were increasing calls for more Czech churches, but also Czech schools, because of a great rise in the numbers migrating from Bohemia and Moravia. Migrants were not settling in just one locality as in the case of the Jewish enclave, but wherever they found work. This was often on the city periphery, a fact that inhibited these new migrants from developing contacts with the "old established" Czech Viennese living in the centre (officials, academics, students, the middle class). The problem was not just location but sheer numbers as well--the tens of thousands of migrants simply could not be brought together around a single church, or strengthened in their sense of cultural identity by a few enthusiastic patriots. This was a time at which the period press pointed out the rapid assimilation of the Czech proletariat, and some migrants themselves became aware of the necessity to resist fast and potentially complete assimilation from within--after 1860 collections were organised for a Czech school for trades and crafts journeymen, and a patriotic society based at the White Cock bar/pub, held besedas for artisans. The 15th of November 1868 saw the first appearance of the choir of the just founded Czechoslovak Worker's Association, although this was dissolved for political reasons after only a short period of existence.

But back to 1848. Kloss's choir at the Church of Maria am Gestade Kloss did not operate just as an ordinary church choir. In the summer of 1850, on Kloss's initiative a Society for the Improvement of Religious Singing was formed (the Jednota sv. Metodgje/Union of St. Methodius, founded 1865 and still active in Vienna today may be regarded as its "heir and continuer"), a number of singers well-known from besedas and theatre performances before 1848 were associated with the church. One example was Frantisek Pivoda, mentions of whom we can find in the theatre, in the world of church music, and in music teaching and the organising of besedas. In October 1950 he opened his own singing school, having already led an amateur workers-students choir. The founding of schools was one of the first manifestations of the professionalisation of the musical life of Vienna Czechs. In his memoirs Pivoda writes that the singing school was "for Czech artisans who then sang at Czech religious services under Father Furst in the Church of 'Maria am Gestade'". It was probably singers from this circle who formed the choir that under Pivoda's baton performed his own work composed for the funeral of the Slovak poet, philologist and historian Jan Kollar (1793-1852).

Another expression of professionalisation was the formation of a permanent and professional prestigious Slav choir. Singing ensembles had always been put together on a one-off basis for the needs of besedas and balls and this meant that quality often suffered. The Slav Singers' Society (few people know that it was originally named Hlahol Viden) was formed partly to remedy this. Its history goes back to 1859, but the statutes were approved by the authorities only as late as the end of 1862. The first society beseda, held on the 13th of February 1863, was a great success and decisive in showing the justification for the choir society and so securing its future. Its priorities were to cultivate a Slav repertoire and to combine high artistic aims with national goals. The society always collaborated closely with church circles (for example by appearances in the Church of Maria am Gestade), and used to perform on the occasion of visits to Vienna by important Slav guests and invite the best Slav musicians to perform with them. Essentially it was very much an elite society in which the Czech element became ever more predominant over other nationalities as time went by. For the whole period of its existence it worked closely with the Slovanska beseda/Slav Arts Association (founded 1865), which still formally exists today. Musical events at a high level were organised on an irregular basis, depending on the state of finances and state of the membership base, by the Akademicky spolek/Academic Society (founded 1868, still active today). One strong motivation for further work was the participation of Czech-Viennese choirs in prestigious singing festivals in Bohemia and Moravia--for example at the national singing festival in Brno the Slav Singers' Society conducted by Arnost Forchgott-Tovacovsky won first prize. It is testimony to the sense of bonds with the homelands and Slav nations that the profits from concerts were often directed to helping villages and towns hit by fire (e.g. in 1850 for Cracow in Poland, in 1868 for Prerov and Kasejovice), for the building of the Natinal Theatre in Prague, for Czech education and so on. At the establishment of the Slav Singers' Society as a new institution on the Slav (for the most part Czech) music scene in Vienna, certain conflicts emerged. These were partly to do with competition, but also a generation gap. The older generation concentrated around or in the "committee for the organisation of besedas and balls", either naturally withdrew into the background or moved from the city, e.g. Frantisek Pivoda (1824-1898), Ferdinand Heller (1824-1912) and Frantisek Zdenek Skuhersky (1830-1892) went to Prague and became leading figures of the Czech music scene there--Prague duly recognising their achievements in the cultivation of Czech culture in Vienna.

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To be or not be Czech, that is the question

We need to look in more detail at the structure of the new generation. It was mainly professionals, e.g. opera or concert singers, virtuosos, and music teachers, who took part in the events of the "elite societies" (Slav Singers' Society, Slav Arts Association, Academic Association). Their level of personal identification with Czech culture varied considerably. Some spent their whole lives on the German music scene primarily for financial and career reasons, and expressed their identification as patriots at Slav (music) events in Vienna or in appearances in Bohemia and Moravia. Of the best musicians of this kind, those who was embraced their Czech identity entirely openly included for example the virtuoso on the viola d'amour Jan Kral (1823-1912), the composer, conductor and singer Arnost Forchgott-Tovacovsky, (1825-1874), the professor of double bass at the Vienna Conservatory, singer, double-bass player of the court capella and court orchestra Frantisek Simandl (1840-1912), the cellist, composer and conductor Theobald Kretschmann (1850-1919) and the cellist Julius Junek (1873-1927). Tovacovsky in particular became the symbol of Czech musical Vienna--a choir bearing his name was formed in Prague as well as in Vienna. Tovacovsky, was an honorary member of several Czech societies (e.g. the Prague Hlahol), and was one of the founders of the Slav Arts Association and Vienna Sokol physical education association.

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The older literature often names (and as it were shames) those who either directly "betrayed the nation" by adopting a basically German identity, or those who "did nothing" for the nation. In doing so they create a very heterogeneous group including both people who were merely of Czech origin and were in fact never actually Czech in the national ethnic sense, and people who were only involved in the Czech Viennese music scene for a certain period. As a representative of the first group we might mention the composer Jan Evangelista Horalka (1796-1860), who lived in Vienna from the age of the thirty and entirely blended into German life. This earned him a reproach in his obituary in the magazine Dalibor: "Again a Czech artist has died who enriched with his fruits a nation other than that to which be belonged. If only this example would set many of our composers on the right road!" (11)

An example of the second group might be Josef Bezecny (1829-1904). a lawyer and later high state official, in his youth he took part in besedas as a pianist, but later he ceased to be involved either as an active musician or as a member of any society. In these cases it is often impossible to draw any objective conclusions about the reasons, and so modern lexicography ought to take a more critical view of the older judgements. We should also note that the second half of the 19th century saw several great waves of Czech migration to Vienna and that this proletarian flood at a period of intense nationalism naturally provoked fears among the German population of Vienna. One expression of these fears was jeering songs and cartoons at the expense of Czechs, and so richer or more educated Czechs in Vienna were often ashamed of their compatriots with their bad German and threadbare appearance and quite frequently adopted a purely German identity. For example, Bezecny's son Antonin is already considered an Austrian-German composer by the Czech lexicographers.

We could make a long list of outstanding musicians who despite the great demands of their careers found the time to engage in minority cultural life. It would include Josef Bohuslav Foerster, Frantisek Simandl or Theobald Kretschmann, for example. With other musicians, however, we can ask why it was that they did not get involved with minority life. Was the reason lack of interest or lack of time or the fear that a public identification with Czech culture could have a deleterious effect on a career? In this context, the greatest uncertainties for a long time surrounded the case of Oskar Nedbal (1874-1930), who in Vienna directed the Wiener Tonkunstler-Orchester in the period 1906-1919 and taught at the conservatory. He offered an explanation himself in an interview of 1910, saying that he considered his abundant presentation of Czech repertoire as a sufficient proclamation of his Czech identity, and complaining that he had never received an invitation from the Slav Arts Association. (12) He also mentioned that he had had to leave his conducting post at the Volksoper precisely because of his presentation of Czech music. The Czech press accused him not just of indifference to the minority, but also of supposed actions against it--here I refer to the unjust charge that he sabotaged the presentation of a wreath with the Czechoslovak tricolor to Ema Destinn, when the Viennese Czechs wanted to show their appreciation of this world-famous singer after a performance. Information about the wreath leaked out to the public, and out of fears of demonstrations after the concert and on the wishes of Destinn and the leaders of he orchestra the wreathe was not presented. Unjust accusations of "collaboration" in the days of the monarchy were one of the main causes of his suicide in 1930, while the composer Josef Suk, who played with Nedbal in the Czech Quartet, faced similar slanders. One telling example of fear of persecution of Slav musicians in Vienna comes from a concert of the 27th of October 1910 in the Slav Arts Association. One of those performing was the "k.k. opera singer J. Lublalansky": "There is no doubt that concealed under the pseudonym is someone who does not wish to be named for the time being, but let him be forgiven. There are other artists who are afraid to appear publicly with their nationality, and all the less can it be held against someone who is probably only just beginning his career". (13)

The fate of the violin virtuoso, composer and teacher Leopold Jansa (1795-1875), a native of Usti nad Orlici, was particularly strange. We find his name among the performers at the 1st public Czecho-Slav concert in Vienna, which was attended by the Emperor's mother (20th of May 1845)and also took part in a Czech theatre production, The Magic Hat in the summer of 1851. On a concert visit to London, however, he played a benefit concert for Hungarian emigrants, to which the Austrian emperor reacted by depriving him of all functions and banishment from the country. He was only allowed to return to Vienna towards the end of his life, in 1869, and--to the loss of the Czech minority--took no further part in public performance. The transformation of those who were Czech in origin but culturally and linguistically more rooted in German culture was a distinctive phenomenon. Vojtech Jirovec mentioned above is representative of those whose Czech identification predominated, but for hundreds of musicians of Czech origin this process did not occur or was limited to episodes in the form of a few minor appearances at Slav besedas or balls; in these cases it seems plausible to suppose that the motive for performance was financial.

Musicians of Czech origin playing in Viennese music ensembles represented another phenomenon. We can only posit their importance for Czech-Viennese music or Czech music culture in general (as in the case of Czech singers in Viennese theatre companies) if we have evidence of their active commitment to the Czech cause. The level of national identity in the case of many dozen military bandmasters of Czech origin is to be judged on an entirely individual basis--here with the complicating factor that this category of musicians was faced with the greatest pressure for national neutrality or identification with the German element. Despite this, many clearly found a way of keeping up contact with the Czech minority--research has shown that military bands led by bandmasters of Czech origin were the clear majority of bands invited to take part orchestral concerts or the provide dance music at besedas. Ensembles conducted by non-Czech conductors, such as Johann Strauus and Carl Michael Ziehrer were invited to perform for reasons of prestige; they were professionals, knew the value of such invitations and composed numerous pieces with Slav themes. Censorship of Czech or Slav pieces was not exceptional in military bands-in 1881 the magazine Dalibor carried the brief report that, "the popular military bandmaster K. Komzak has resigned his post because he was not permitted to play Czech national songs." (14)

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Musical Life in Vienna 1860-1918

The October Diploma of the 20th of October 1860 not only meant the end of the absolutist government of Emperor Franz Josef I, but also brought greater freedom of association and so cultural life. In Czech Vienna this produced a euphoria comparable with that of 1844-1848 (people once again started to wear the Czech black buttoned jackets and Slav caps) and led to the founding of a great many new clubs and societies. In addition to societies entirely devoted to music, almost all the societies paid some attention to music, especially music for entertainment and theatre music. This was as a way of entertaining the members and to ensure a prestigious external image. Some associations formed their own choirs or ensembles--the natural need to cultivate music was also exploited to get round the expense of hiring and paying a non-association group of musicians. Some associations attained such a high level that they operated as commercial subjects as well. Other societies hired professional musicians, and this demand led to the formation of many so-called "national music bands, national ensembles". According to need these could be expanded by hire of other musicians for large balls as well as smaller events. The most popular national ensembles were led by Kobert Volanek, Vaclav Houdek, Frantisek Bartos and Frantisek Halouzka. The best tamburizza bands were those of the Cechie, Tovacovsky, Barak, Sokol and Comenius/Komensky societies. We should add that as time went by, women's and mixed choirs were also founded at the societies and this substantially enlarged the repertoire.

Music production, especially events on the city periphery, were sometimes the target of anti-Czech witch-hunts by German nationalist circles. The spectrum of music events was very wide and depended on social status. The poorest had to be satisfied with humble club besedas or music acts in pubs, while the more affluent could go to the Lumir concerts; the performances of the Slav Singerse Society and the Slav Arts Association were more or less events for a closed society. The appearances of guest Czech musicians (for example The Czech Quartet, Frantisek Ondricek, Ema Destinn) were primarily intended for German Vienna. Religious services at the Church of Maria am Gestade continued to be a traditional meeting place. Guest appearances by Czech theatre companies, whether plays or opera, had great significance for strengthening the national identity of Vienna Czechs. These appearances were more than once postponed or cancelled because of pressure from German nationalist circles, and those who attended were not infrequently physically attacked.

Conflicts--although not involving the violence resorted to by the German side in Vienna sometimes also bedevilled Slav co-operation in the city. There were bad relations between Russians and Poles, Serbs and Croats, Czechs and Poles etc. In Czech Vienna the last third of the 19th century was one dominated by the activities of many dozen Czech associations and a few associations of members of other Slav nations. For this reason the terra "Slav Vienna", given the approximate 1/4 million Czech minority, was increasingly an anachronism.

In terms of impact on the Czech minority it was another type of conflict that was most serious--internal social conflict:

"We are cut off from the headquarters of Czech culture, and yet we long for it and need contact with it. In Vienna the Czech working class represents the Czech element culturally, and also represents it socially and politically. The bourgeois minority as a whole is of no weight here. It is not entirely small, but is uncommitted, or at lease without independent spirit and definitely indifferent. Small traders and artisans become Germanised in the second generation and do not Germanise themselves only because everyone recognises them as Czech the moment they open their mouths. There u a certain number of Czech civil servants here, and above all junior officials, but these are people who are subordinate, without independence, most of whom are afraid to appear in public and keep away from political life. The nationally conscious officials of the Czech banks and the rather small Czech journalist community forms only a tiny fraction of a percent." (15) Around 1900 alienation was already so great between the elite societies and the other associations (especially for workers), that efforts were made at least occasionally to organise joint public appearances. In the years 1903-1919 such efforts were sponsored above all by Josef Bohuslav Foerster (1859-1951), who moved to Vienna with his wife when she was engaged at the opera there. Although he worked as a teacher of music theory at the conservatory, and devoted himself to composing, writing and music criticism, he collaborated closely with the Lumir choral society and the Maj--Social Democratic Association. His education and above all his charisma instantly made him a towering authority. Antonin Machat wrote the following about him:

"J.B. Foerster inscribed his name in the history of our branch on the Danube in golden letters. He was never lacking anywhere where he could contribute to raising interest in Czech art. To his compatriots he gave his art but also his beneficence with a generous hand. Wherever he came, this amiable man with his good-natured smile and bright, shining eyes, it was as if the sun had come out." (16)

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The Czech choirs and societies in Vienna occasionally joined up to organise large-scale events, most of which were held to raise money for the Komensky/Comenius School Association. This combining of forces enabled them to present more demanding words. From the point of view of the minority it was a pity that these were only one-off events, and so the choirmaster Jan Stiebler initiated the creation of an umbrella organisation. Any doubts about the need for such an organisation were dispelled by the legendary "Bendl Celebration" (to mark the 10th anniversary of the death of the composer Karel Bendl), which took place on the 14th and 15th of April 1907. Apart from individual musicians, Halek, Barak XII, Hlahol, Lumir, Slavoj, Zaboj, Vlastimil-Jungmann and Academic society choirs were all involved, and there were around 400 singers! Two months after the celebration the Affiliated Singing Associations merged into the Vienna Singers' Regional Organisation (Pevecka zupa videnska, elsewhere also called the Lower Austrian Singers' Regional Association--Dolnorakouska zupa pevecka). "The founding of the regional association meant not only the creation of an organisational centre, but also joint performances at which the societies actually competed, which had an extraordinarily stimulating effect on the artistic standard and application of the societies." (17)

The union of the large societies for joint events became a model for the smaller clubs in the individual districts of Vienna: "The district singing and drama clubs used only occasionally and more or less by chance to rise to higher art. But in recent years there has been a gratifying turn for the better across the board." (18)

In parallel with efforts to bring singers and choirs together, plans proceeded for the founding of a "Czech amateur orchestra". Its first concert took place on the 18th of May 1907 in the courtyard of the Savoy Hotel and there were many references to it in the press:

"This will be the first major performance of local Czech music in the grand style, an honourable combination to create an ambitious festival of song ... All previous attempts in this direction have failed. With the orchestra, Czech cultural life u gaining a new element hitherto neglected. The orchestra is recruiting its members from all the ranks of Vienna Czechs (its members include officials, workers, students and tradesmen) and will not be just the property of the affluent, but as soon as it overcomes financial difficulties it will always give concerts for the people itself."

The fluctuation of players meant that the orchestra had a shorter life-span than the regional singing association, but even so its activities were an important milestone in the history of Czech Vienna. Throughout the 19th century it was Czechs who formed the social base supplying musicians--whether in various theatre ensembles, in military bands, or for pub music. The famous comparison of Czechs to the "conservatory of Europe" is best documented precisely by Vienna.

Of the many names of Czech choirmasters, singers and musicians who were active in the minority's cultural life, here we can only list the most genuinely committed: Konstantin Jahoda-Krtinsky (1828-1895), Alois Neruda (1837-1899), Frantisek Simandl, Alois Alexander Buchta (1841-1898), Theobald Kretschmann (1850-1919), Robert Volanek st. (1851-1929), Jan Stiebler (1857-1930), Josef Bohuslav Foerster, Josef Ferdinand Skalicky (1863-1933), Jaromir Herle (1872-1945), Eduard Zwack (1869-after 1945), Frantisek Sidak (1872-1958), Adolf Misek (1875-1954), Robert Volanek Jr. (1879-1956), Bretislav Lvovsky (real name Emil Pick, 1857-1910), Anetta (Anna) Novakova (1872-?), Arma Strettiova (nee Sourkova, 1879-?), Vojtech Syrinek (1847-after 1891), Rudolf Vohanka (1880-1963), Ella Ondrickova (nee Stillerova, 1886-1922), Ruzena Nebuskova (nee Podhajska, 1885-1935) and Metodej Knittl (1885-1982).

Among the societies, apart from the Lumir and Slav Singiers' Society we should also at least mention the Slavoj, Zvon, Bendl, Hlahol, Tovacovsky, and Smetana clubs. Choirs also existed in clubs devoted purely to entertainment, while several ensembles functioned in association with the Komensky, Barak and Sokol organisations, which had branches in a number of districts in Vienna. We might also devote a great deal of space to Czech Viennese musical journalism and the Vienna correspondents of the Czech press. Once again I offer at least a few of the important names: Richard Stretti (1875-?), Jan Stiebler, Rudolf Jenicek (1869-1939), Jaroslav Jindra (1890-1970), Vaclav Vladimir Zeleny (1858-1892), Karel Boleslav-Jirak (1891-1972), Jan Heyer (1883-1942), Vaclav Hanno Jarka (1893-1968), Ota Manousek (1888-1967) and Ferdinand Petr Laurencin, count d' Armond (1819-1890).

"Where is my Homeland, Where is my Homeland?"

(incipit of the Czech national anthem)

The end of the 1st World War was a major turning point in the development of the Czech music scene in Vienna. The four years of war crippled the activity of the societies, but even so, some demanding works were performed. For example in 1916 Lumir presented the popular opera V studni [In the Well] by Vilem Blodek and in January 1917 it organised a concert consisting exclusively of the works of Czech Viennese composers! After 1918 many people moved for economic or national reasons to the newly founded Czechoslovakia. The re-emigration process had a serious effect on the societies since many of their members left (The Slav Singers' Association entirely ceased to exist), and the harsh economic situation in Austria meant that many ambitious pre-war plans had to be abandoned, such as the establishment of a Czech National Theatre in Vienna, or a Czech-Viennese Arts Association (Umelecka beseda ceskovidenska). Among those who moved to Prague was J.B. Foerster, for example, or the choirmaster and composer Jaromir Herle. The legal conditions for the cultural development of the Czech minority in Vienna were significantly better after 1918 than they had been before the war, but even so it was through art and education that the Czech minority continued to ward off the traditional anti-Czech attacks. Musical life retained its pre-war form in the inter-war period, but after the exodus of part of the Czech population and in an atmosphere increasingly affected by the rise of fascism it began to stagnate. In the period after 1918, as before, the most frequent forms of the musical presentation of Vienna Czechs were choral singing and from the last third of the 19th century also dance music bands, because these most answered the needs for social entertainment. Chamber groups with an orientation to classical vocal and instrumental music were relatively few and their members were for the most part professionals. The next crippling blow to the structure of associations after the re-emigration in 1918 was of course the 2nd World War, but this is a theme for separate treatment.

(1) Fukac, Jiri: Viden. In: Slovnik Ceske hudebni kultury, ed. Jiri Fukac, Jiri Vyslouzil a Petr Macek, Prague 1997, pp. 994-997.

(2) Velek, Viktor: Slovanska vzajemnost v hudebni kulture Cechu a Luzickych Srbu 1848-1948. MA dissertation, FF MU Brno, 2005. Research project Musikkultur der Wiener Tschechen 1840-1939 realized thanks to support of FWF (Austrian Science Fund), 2008-2011.

(3) Sevcik-Jedovnicky, Frantisek Bedrich: Zpev slovansky a pestovani spolecenskeho zivota ve Vidni od r. 1841 az. do r. 1862. In: Sbornik Cechu dolnorakouskych (ed. Josef Karasek), Vienna 1895, pp. 11-27, 37-40 (First published by Vestnik. casopis spolku cesko-slovanskych ve Vidni in 1887, in Nos. 15-28. Then by Ceske listy in 1889, in Nos. 3-12).

(4) Research Project, Ministry of Foreign Affairs CR, "The Czech Minority in Austria", reg. no. RB 1/37/02, realisation 2002 Research Project, MFA CR "The Post-War Development of the Czech Minority in Austria on the Basis of the Srchives of the Comenius School Association", reg. no. RM 02/20/04, realisation 9004. Research team: Alexandra Blodigova, Vlasta Vales, Jan Kahuda.

(5) Kampeli, Cyril: Dopis z Vidne 8. 1. 1837. In: Hronka 1837, Part 2. Vol. 1., p. 19.

(6) Soukup, Frantisek Alois: Ceska mensina v Rakousku. Prague 1928, p. 23.

(7) Sevcik, Zpev slovansky ..., Vienna 1895, p. 18.

(8) Tieftrunk, Vaclav: Vzpominky notare pana Tieftrunka. In: Sbornik Cechu dolnorakouskych. Vienna 1895, p. 30, 31.

(9) Sevcik, Zpev slovansky ..., Vienna 1895, p. 38.

(10) Fiser, Zdenek: Diversae notae aneb pameti Hynka Vojacka (1). In: Zlinsko od minulosti k soucasnosti, Vol. 13, Zlin 1994, p. 157.

(11) Dalibor III, la: September 20 1860, no. 27, p. 220.

(12) Egon: Venec Emy Destinove a Oskar Nedbal, In: Viidensky Dennik, 25. 10. 1910, p. 1, 2

(13) Viidensky Dennik, 23. 10. 1910, p. 14

(14) Dalibor III,--1881, p. 249

(15) Olb., J.: Kulturni hlad. In: Delnicka osveta, 15. 11. 1910, p. 253, 954

(16) Machat, Antonin: Nagi ve Vidni. Prague 1946, p. 159

(17) Soukup, Frantisek Alois: Ceska mengina v Rakousku. Prague 1928, p. 400

(18) Egon: Ceske umeni po okresich. In: Vidensky Dennik, 4. 10. 1910, p. 1,2