Kabelac's message: the electro-acoustic composition E fontibus Bohemicis, op. 55.

It was characteristic of Miloslav Kabelac the composer that he never shut the door on any impulse or inspiration that might potentially be fruitful for his music. He always, however, used such impulses and transformed them in a highly individual and often very unconventional way. He avoided useless stereotypes, and was continually attracted to new creative problems and new solutions. (This is particularly well demonstrated in his eight symphonies, each written for a different set of instruments and each quite differently conceived, specific and distinctive). Kabelac had a very wide knowledge of contemporary music and the music of past epochs, and also knew a great deal about the music of non-European cultures, but he never accepted any work he encountered in a passive spirit. With each one he started--as a composer--a critical intellectual dialogue, whether sympathetic or polemic. Clearly he was very much taken with electronic music, which opens up a large new field of possibilities for composers, and he himself became on of its leading pioneers in this country.

When the potential for composition in a sound laboratory became apparent--first in the Radio and Television Institute in Prague and then particularly in the electro-acoustic studio of the radio station in Plzen--Kabelac started on work of his own. Naturally, in his electro-acoustic composition, a composer as distinctive and strong-minded as Kabelac was going to imprint the new material with the typical features of his creative idiom just as he did when working with traditional note material.

At that time his idea was to create a three-part composition in "musique concrete" extracted using just the sound material of a bell. The bell that he chose was Zikmund in the Prague Cathedral of St. Vitus and on the 12th of September 1965 he made a recording of the bell from three places: in the tower over the bell, in the third castle courtyard and in the royal oratory of St. Vitus's Cathedral (it turned out that only the recording from the tower, technically the best, was suitable for use in electro-acoustic composition). He planned to call the piece Hradcany Vigils and he continued to use the name long after he had basically changed the whole concept of the work, to which he finally gave the more precise name E fontibus Bohemicis--Six Pictures from Czech Chronicles in the last stages of composition.

By the spring of 1966 Kabelac had created one part of the originally planned Hradcany--Fantasia on the sound of the Zikmund Bell. The hymn Hospodine pomiluj ny [Lord Have Mercy upon Us], created purely by electro-acoustic treatment of the sound of the bell, appears in the middle section of this work. In the meantime, however, the whole concept of the piece had begun to grow and change in the composer's mind. As originally intended the Hradcany Vigils were supposed to have primarily composition studies in the field of "concrete music". Gradually, however, elements of programmatic direction began to enter the plan. Here the idea of using the song Lord Have Mercy upon Us and the very name Hradcany Vigils may have played a part as catalysts.

At that time--and for a long time to come--Kabelac was exploring the hymn Hospodine ... Lord Have Mercy upon Us in all its aspects; he reflected on its character and musical structure, and traced its historical roots and connections. At the same time, however, the idea of going after other themes in Czech history and so giving the new composition the character of an urgent humanist message--something not at all usual in the particular field of music concerned--was evidently crystallising in his mind.

In the summer of 1966, Kabelac interrupted work on the Hradcany Vigils and decided that he would keep what he had already completed just as a study, a sketch. The idea of creating a fantasia on the sound of the Zikmund Bell and the hymns Lord Have Mercy upon Us, however, he took over into a new plan, but with a completely new appraoch.

Kabelac continued to think in terms of the sound of the bell Zikmund as composition material for "concrete music" but not as the sole material. Above all he decided that he would include the spoken word in the music to give the non-musical programmatic message of the piece a more concrete, urgent character. This was not an isolated decision in Kabelac's work, since for very much the same reasons he added a recitor to a symphony orchestra for his 7th Symphony (1967--beginning of 1968, in which he uses words freely chosen from the Bible to philosophise on the recurrent themes of man and eternity, man and the world, good and evil, suffering, justice and injustice. His 3rd Symphony (1969-1970) also has a programmatic colouring, once again using strongly biblical words. Later, recited text appears in one of Kabelac's last works--in the Sonata for trumpet, percussion instruments, piano and recitor entitled Osudova dramata cloveka [Fateful Dramas of Man] (completed in 1976; it is for the most part connected with the text and music of Kabelac's 7th Symphony and other works of his). Finally, years before, in the cantata "Neustupujte!" ["Do not Retreat!"] of 1939, the first highly distinctive and artistically mature of Kabelac's works, the sung word (but also of course at the end the quotation from the Hussite hymn Ktoz jsu bozi bojovnici--You who are God's Warriors--well known to Czech audiences) enhances the urgent (programmatic) message and impact of the piece.

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It was mainly in connection with work on his 7th and 8th symphonies that Kabelac eventually returned to his electro-acoustic composition in the autumn of 1970. In the meantime his idea of the overall concept of the work had ripened. It had grown to six parts ("pictures") and acquired greater seriousness, making it one of the composer's major works. Although compositional considerations of the structure of an electro-acoustic work of music by no means became a secondary concern, they developed a strikingly programmatic edge.

For the definitive verion Kabelac chose the following as the basic compositional material of this "concrete music"--which he then processed in very varied and richly inventively ways in the Plzen studio: the sounds of the Zigmund bell, a una voce choral chant of the oldest Czech sacred song Hospodine, pomiluj ny, a choral recital of the text of this song, choral note clusters, recitations of several sentences from the sermon of Vojtech Rackuv mentioned below, his own treatment of the Hussite hymn Povstan, povstan velike mesto Prazske [Arise, Arise Great City of Prague] for organ, a pure sinus generator note and spoken word. After consultations with PhDr. Ema Urbankova from the Prague National and University Library he chose, compiled and modified several texts for his own purposes. These were a text from the Czech Chronicle of Cosmas for the 1st picture of the work, selected extracts from the funeral oration of Vojtech Rackuv of Jezov at the funeral of Charles IV in the Cathedral of St. Vitus, and for the last picture a few words from the speech of Master Jan Hus to the professors and students of Prague University (from the end of a Latin Quodlibet disputation). Because all the spoken passages were originally in Latin, Kabelac created his piece concurrently in two language versions, Latin and Czech, and for both of them chose the main Latin title, E fontibus Bohemicis (visiones sex) rendered in the Czech version by the subtitle Sest obrazu z ceskych letopisu [Six Pictures from Czech Chronicles].

Kabelac worked on this project in the electro-acoustic studio of the Plzen Radio with technical help from ing. Cestmir Kadlec from the autumn of 1970 (with a short interruption in 1971) to the 1st of December 1972 (finished together with report on the 18th of January 1973). Although at this time Kabelac was not feeling well, he still tried--particularly on the advice of Dr. Herzog--to finish the work as soon as possible. The political situation was rapidly deterioriating, the screws tightening, and Kabelac rightly feared that he might be prevented from completing the piece in the Plzen studio. The need to finish the work without delay meant that it was not possible to rehearse the Latin text to perfection with the recitor, especially in relation to accent and length of syllables. Unfortunately when the work was finished the basic material was wiped and so possible reinsertion of the Latin text was not an option.

On the 20th of January 1973 the electro-acoustic composition E fontibus Bohemicis was presented to the Plzen radio in both versions, Latin and Czech, at a gala private occasion in the radio auditorium. The work had its public premiere in the Czech version at a concert in the Smetana Hall of the State Scientific Library in Plzen on the 26th of March 1973.

Conscious of the need for gradation and contrast, in the overall structure of the work the composer produced a highly sensitive and thought out alternating arrangement of the parts involving the spoken words and the parts that depended for effect purely on "concrete music", while retaining the chronological order of the historical themes. In terms of time proportions, the "pictures" vary in length from 3.15 minutes to 5 minutes, with only the 4th picture taking up a longer proportion--7.45 minutes. The low dynamic level of the first picture with its quiet beginning symmetrically corresponds to the last picture with its hushed conclusion (a graduated arch). The chief dynamic climax is represented by the fifth picture--a wild storm unleashed from the electronically processed sound of the organ. The contrast makes the quiet simplicity of the end of the sixth picture even more effective. Kabelac enhances the internal coherence and integrity of the work by taking parts of sound material (bells, organ, the song Hospodine ...) from the pictures in which it is a defining element and introducing them into the other pictures: this is a kind of equivalent of the thematic work that we know in traditional composition techniques. Likewise a certain symmetry in extra-musical meanings is suggested between the first and last pictures: both take their themes from the past and turn to both the present and the future.

1st Picture--Cosmas: As an introduction to this picture one sentence (taken from the second preface to the Chronicle) is recited without mixing in other sounds, and immediately creates the right mood for the perception of the work. Only then under a text selected from the 1st Book of Cosmas's Chronicle (after the words "Here begins the Czech Chronicle") do we hear a generator sound to which a new sound is rapidly added as another element, created by polymorphic filtering and mixing of the basic sound material of the bell.

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When "the eldest, whom the others accompanied as a lord" speaks to his retinue, the voice of the recitor is electro-acoustically slowed down and so lowered, producing the impression of a kind of different voice in direct speech. Under it we hear--again in complex electro-acoustic processing--the sound of the organ (here we catch the melody of the song Arise, Arise Great City of Prague) with a mix of generator tone. Two of the main sound elements of this "concrete music", the sound of the bell and organ--are thus presented in a subtle and compositionally interesting form immediately in the first picture. Effective graduation proceeds to give the impression of a rich and very complicated polyphony, created here of course by electro-acoustic methods and finally issuing, in the identifiable sound colour of the organ, into a simple minor chord at the same time as the delivery of the words that provide the centre of gravity of this section in terms of meaning: "Welcome me, promised land, sought out by us with a thousand strivings, once deprived of people in the time of the flood, now as in memory of mankind keep us safe from calamity and multiple out posterity from generation to generation."

The 2nd Picture, called Hospondine, pomiluj ny [Lord Have Mercy Upon Us] with the subtitle Fantasie on the oldest Czech sacred song, is once again constructed with a great sense for setting the scene. The choral singing of the son Lord Have Mercy, collective recitation of its text and choral clusters are used as the basic sound material of the "concrete music". This picture has a superbly vaulted structure. Kabelac starts with an introductory sound created just by the electro-acoustic treatment of choral chant, and then adds the singing of the particular hymn, which emerges under the changeable but always present introductory note at first scarcely discernibly but then growing in power until it is fully recognisable. At the climax the collective recitation is added as an urgent prayer for "peace in the land"--and then in the descending curve of the gradation the recitation once again yields to the singing, which swells but then falls silent leaving only the introductory filtered sound.

The six-fold repetition of the final "Krles" (i.e. Kyrie eleison) from the song Lord, Have Mercy upon Us, which appears in synchronisation with chimes of the bell at the beginning of the third picture creates a subtle thematic link with the preceding picture. The choral "Krles" soon fades and vanishes away and only the sound of the bell remains. Subsequently this part, called The Cathedral of St. Vitus with the subtitle Fantasia on the Sound of the Zikmund Bell, is constructed only from the sound material of the bell, i.e. from the clearly identifiable colour and chimes of the bell in various high registers to polymorphous sound colours in which the connection with the basic sound can scarcely be made out. Here there is also (as Kabelac has explicitly said) a kind of sound suggestion of a line of Gothic windows running up and down (by filtering) and in close proximity there are symbolically rendered crosses (a running narrow sound belt is cut across by a short sound with a spectrum that ranges from low to high registers).

The sound material of the second and third picture--the Lord, Have Mercy upon Us and the sound of the bell--is also abundantly used in the following 4th part, the longest in the whole cycle. It is entitled The Funeral of Charles IV, with the subtitle The Sermon of Vojtech Raekov of Jezov. Using sound the scene of this picture--once again with the emphasis on dramatic impact--is divided into two spaces: inside the cathedral, where the funeral is going on, and in front of the cathedral where the people (as if in the distance) sing the hymn Lord Have Mercy upon Us, which then particularly in the intervals between the individual sections of the sermons forms music for the ceremony (transposed in gradation--with increased speed--first by a fifth, and then by an octave higher) The whole picture is subtly enveloped in sound extracted from the basic sound material of the bell, but an identifiable tolling helps to create the idea of a funeral ceremony.

The 3rd Volume of Sources of Czech History from which Kabelac (in collaboration with Dr. E. Urbankova) chose the text for this pictures, prints both the Latin addresses delivered at the funeral of Charles IV in the Cathedral of St. Vitus in Prague on the 15th of December 1378: the address by the Archbishop of Prague Jan Ocek of Vlasim and the address entrusted by the archbishop to the leaned man and famous orator Vojtech Rackuv of Jezov (the Latin form of his name is Adalbertus Ranconis de Erincinio in Bohemia), "scholastic of the Prague Cathedral, Master from Paris in holy theology and in the free arts". Vojtech's speech was very long (and contained the first use of the phrase pater patriae--father of the country, to characterise Charles IV and many other flowery descriptions), and Kabelac naturally chose just a few sentences that he thought could provide an effective and structurally useful basis for the funeral service in the 4th picture of the composition. The composer divided the sermon (funeral oration) into three main sections that differ both thematically and in terms of proportion. The first section is a lament for the dead, the second a resignation to painful reality and the third a wise, tranquil retrospective view of the course of life. In the sermon we hear a series of references to the Bible. Each of the sections of the funeral speech is introduced in Kabelac's composition by an important line that summarises the character and direction of the whole section. This sentence is repeated--with the acoustic illusion of the interior of the cathedral--by a male choir) once after the preacher right at the beginning of each section, and also between his individual paragraphs. Because the proportions of the sections are in the ration 3:2:1, the choir delivers the introductory sentence three times in the first section, twice in the second, and once in the third, This kind of design was to some extent already suggested in the original wording of Vojtech Rackuv's sermon. The opening line that begins the funeral service in Kabelac's piece ("Idcirco ego plorans et oculus meus deducens aquam, quia longe factus est a me consolator"--a free paraphrase of the Lamentations of Jeremiah 1:2) was also the opening line of Vojtech's speech and then appears three more times at different points in the first section of the speech. The second section in Kabelac's treatment opens with the line: "Everything has its time and everything under heaven runs its alloted course." The opening line of the third (shortest) section is "Calm your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears, for the worthy will receive just wages."

Here Kabelac has managed to create an evocative picture of the last farewell to the great Czech ruler in the space of just a few minutes. And he has done more than that, since in line with the wording of Vojtech's speech the composer to turns to his listeners with philosophical reflections. The speech comes to an end, and from the space in front of the cathdreal we now here a more massive and grand rendering of the song Lord, Have Mercy upon Us, and the picture concludes with a final repetition of the prayer for "life and peace in the land".

The 5th Picture in the cycle, entitled Hussite Prague with the subtitle Fantasia on the Song Arise Arise, Great City of Prague thunders with a huge tide of sound. The basic sound material for the electro-acoustic treatment of this picture was an organ recording of Kabelac's arrangement of the famous Hussite song, written some time around 1419 and preserved in the Jistebnice Hymnbook. The song is an appeal to fight against the Emperor Zikmund. Kabelac did not take it over unchanged, but somewhat modifies its melodic form (and in one place its rhythm as a way of enhancing the symmetry). On the one hand he changed its tonality by giving it a minor colouring, and on the other he successively drew in its pitch range from a major tenth to an octave by reducing some full tone steps to semitones but preserving the basic melodic outline. He accompanied this modified melody with only a second voice in the bottom parallels of minor thirds or major seconds, but on the organ this two-part pattern sounds in two top and in two bottom octaves. Apart from this basic form he recorded another literal transposition a fourth lower and a fourth higher. In addition he included clusters in the basic sound materials.

This then was the basic material, recorded on organ, and Kabelac now used it to build this part of his cycle. It starts with a steep dynamic gradation, which is only the vertical inversion of the final prolonged reverberation. In melodic outline the composition clearly follows the course of the song, but vary diverse sound version and electro-acoustic treatments. The combinations (at different speeds as well) again create the impression of a complex polyphonic structure. From the point of view of sound gradation this picture is the dynamic climax of the work.

If the Hussite Prague of the fifth image represented primarily the Prague of the Hussite warriors, Hussite wars and storms, in the following, closing picture it is the Prague of the preacher and thinker Jan Hus that appears. It is called Hus's Praise of Prague. Here the spoken word once again comes to the fore. In this case it is chosen from Hus's speech to an assembly of Prague University. To the recitation the other elements of bell and singing of Lord Have Mercy upon Us are added, both electro-acoustically processed (and generator sound). Throughout this picture the hymn Lord Have Mercy is played in augmentation (and therefore also in a deep register, this giving the impression of male voices only). At the same time the filtered sound of the bell in different forms connects up with the entire course of the section. Yet again the composer chose just a few words from the conclusion of Hus's speech, but they are words that despite the distance of several centuries still speak urgently to the present and to future ages--to the Czech nation and to the whole of humanity. Hus here speaks in simple, subdued words without pathos or epic affectation. He speaks with deep wisdom. At the end of his speech Hus celebrates Prague, the city with which Kabelac too was connjoined by his entire life and work. In his conclusion the composer concentrates Hus's message without shifting its meaning into the lapidary words: "And you all--be men of courage, be of one mind in truth and love each other!" This line is repeated by a male voice in a number of shifts (the composer's idea was to evoke a Hus multiplying before our eyes), until at last the recitor utters these deeply meaningful words into a subdued quietened conclusion.

The cycle E fontibus Bohemicis is undoubtedly one of Kabelac's most weight pieces. It combines the ravishing compositional structuring of the field with an urgent humanist message, typical for Kabelac. The composer is not free with strong words and gestures, but when he speaks through his work, he cannot be ignored. This is usually the way with great, powerful creative people. It is certainly the way with Miloslav Kabelac.

With permission of magazine Hudebni veda