Miloslav Kabelac and percussion: Miloslav Kabelac was featured in the Profiles supplement to Czech Music 2/2004. Much of his legacy consists of pieces for percussion or with prominent and major parts for percussion, and in this category Kabelac's work is exceptional in the context of classical music internationally, and not just the Czech tradition.

Miloslav Kabelac (1908-1979) showed a serious interest in percussion from the very beginning of his career as a composer. From the beginning, too, this interest was associated with another of Kabelac's interests, also relatively undeveloped in the Czech music world--fascination with the music of non-European cultures. While still at Conservatory he had already acquired a "better than average" knowledge of this music through Alois Haba, who was for some time his teacher. Another of Kabelac's teachers, Erwin Schulhoff, also broadened the young composer's horizons beyond the traditional limited focus of thought on percussion. Kabelac later remembered an important initial stimulus that increased his interest in percussion instruments: it was the performance by the Indian dance and instrumental ensemble Uday Shankaar in Prague in 1935. We can cite the relevant passage in Kabelac's commentary, published in 1970:

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"In 1935 (to be exact the 17th and 18th of March 1935, author's note) the famous Indian dance and instrumental Uday Shankar ensemble came to Prague. The impression the performance made on me was so strong that I didn't just walk about as if dazed for a few days, but consciously and subconsciously tested out and re-evaluated my entire musical development. I found lessons and enrichment in the music of the ensemble. Including the richness of the percussion and the way it was exploited, musically, acoustically and technically exploitation. All at once our way of using percussion instruments seemed to me barbarous. The fact that the only thing we know how to do with percussion is to create an overwhelming crescendo and then crown it with the cymbals.

My interest in percussion instruments grew deeper. I became more and more aware that percussion instruments were not just a rumble, sound or effects. That you could entrust music to them, that they were real musical instruments. The results of this interest and my deepening knowledge were already reflected in my first serious pieces: the cantata Neustupujte! [Do Not Retreat!] op. 7, (1939), the 1st Symphony for Strings and Percussion Instruments op. 11 (1941-42), and the 2nd Symphony op. 15 (1942-46). In these compositions the percussion instruments already appear as an independent element either joining with the other instruments or even standing against them. Interest in percussion is growing in Europe generally. Suddenly we are all realising that we are backward in the use of percussion instruments, and that we have plenty of catching up to do. Ensembles are being formed consisting only of percussion instruments. Pieces are being written for them. The number of instruments used is increasing. The art of playing them is improving and at present some performers are achieving a virtuoso, almost acrobatic level."

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Let us look in more detail at the first serious pieces in which Kabelac, as he says himself, used percussion in a way that goes beyond usual practice. In the first piece that he names, the cantata Neustupujte! for male choir, wind orchestra and percussion (1939) he employs an unusually large percussion group: four kettle drums, a small drum, large drum, snare drum, two cymbals and a hanging cymbal and pair of tam-tams. The role of the percussion instruments, which sound practically for the entire duration of the piece, is unusually important and varied (with the parameter of timbre used in a very plastic way as well as rhythm), especially by the standards of Czech music of the time.

This differentiated approach with an emancipated and relatively large group of percussion instruments goes even further in Kabelac's 1st Symphony in D op. 11 (1941/42). Here a large group of membranophones and idiophones of various sizes, played by a no less extensive group of sticks, is added to a string orchestra. Apart from the obligatory pair of kettledrums, the composer uses a small and snare drum (with strings and without), a large drum, two tom-toms (small and large--designated in the score as "tamburini cinesi"), a large tam-tam, two cymbals, a hung cymbal and a triangle. The percussion's role in the musical events of all three movements is richly differentiated: the timbre diversity of the group has opened up undreamt of possibilities for the composer, especially when juxtaposed with the acoustically homogeneous string orchestra. The piece is based on the thorough and consistent exploitation of the formal and expressive potential of elementary melodic-rhythmic structures of modal disposition in co-ordinated classic formal types (the sonata form in the first and third movements, the three-part form with modified reprise in the slow middle movement).

Starting with the 1st Symphony, percussion instruments are lavishly represented and exploited in many different ways in more or less all of Kabelac's orchestral work (not only the symphonic) and it can be demonstrated that the role of percussion instruments in forming the distinctive marks of Kabelac's musical idiom and in the specific sound and meaning of individual pieces, increased and became a more refined and conspicuous feature with each new composition. The process de facto culminated with the last, 8th Symphony, in which percussion instruments play the dominant, decisive role.

After the end of the war Kabelac devoted himself to the study of non-European music with typical seriousness and thoroughness, naturally encountering other exotic percussion instruments. Working as he did at Prague Radio, he had plenty of exceptional study resources--above all a growing number of recordings of exotic music. In addition to his own explorations, he worked with leading orientalists and gradually became an acknowledged expert himself in the field of non-European music. This study affected the composer's own post-war output in a way that has no parallel in the career of other Czech composers of the time. The result was not extravaganza, but the integral incorporation of the elements and principles of oriental music into Kabelac's unified and thoroughly elaborated compositional style.

Eight Inventions

In the sixties Kabelac's systematic attempts to use all the possibilities of percussion and emancipate them culminated in two pieces written exclusively for percussion instruments. They were inspired by one of the first European percussion ensembles--Les Percussions de Strasbourg, formed in 1961. Kabelac soon made contact with this sextet of enthusiastic percussionists, as it is clear from another part of the authorial commentary, published in 1970, that we cited earlier. For the sake of completeness we shall cite this passage as well:

"In 1961-62 the first independent ensemble of percussion instruments ever to be formed in Europe was founded in Strasbourg--Les Percussions de Strasbourg (original title Le groupe instrumental a percussion de Strasbourg). The group is made up of six players. They play without a conductor. They have succeeded in getting together more percussion instruments than ever before. They have European (classical) instruments, original instruments from Orient (Japan, Thailand, India) and instruments they have made themselves. At their first concerts a great future was already being prophesied for these 'six men' ..."

Kabelac wrote his first piece for this ensemble as early as 1962. It was Eight Inventions for Percussion Instruments, op. 45. The ensemble included it in repertoire and in a series of outstanding performances (not only at concerts, but in various ballet arrangements) won renown for the composer, the work, and of course itself. Kabelac commented on the writing of "Eight Inventions" in the following terms:

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"The actual writing of the piece wasn't too hard or long, but the thinking period before starting the piece was far from easy. It was all about the question of whether to write studies for percussion as a technically instrumental or technically compositional experiment. In the end I decided for a third way--to write music--I repeat MUSIC--for percussion instruments. Today this seems like a simple, even obvious decision, but at the time of its realisation it didn't seem simple and easy at all. And to write a piece with distinctive musical content of its own and immediate musical impact--that raised other questions. What kind of music to write? How to adapt it to percussion instruments and how to get the percussion instruments to adapt to it? First I had to sort out the instrumental resources of the group, and assess them. And then in that traditional sorting out to find instruments and groupings that would correspond to my own temperament, my ideas of sound and my compositional aims. That meant thinking out what these instruments could offer me or my music and what I or my music could ask of them. Trying to make sense of these two contradictory standpoints I looked for and finally found a single approach--my solution. At the beginning the index of useful ideas that came out of trying to put together the two elements (composer-ensemble) was limited. But gradually it grew larger and longer until in the end I was sorry when I had to stop new ideas coming and coming in order for the piece to be completed with a reasonable duration and form.

The music for Eight Inventions--as a composition for percussion instruments--could be classified into three groups depending on specific creative approach: 1) Music that was typical--based exclusively on the characteristic properties of percussion instruments and corresponding to them (Scherzo, in part the Giubiloso and Danza), 2) Music that has been modified--adaptation of the primary musical design to percussion instruments and vice versa (Corale, Giubiloso, Lamentoso, Danza, Aria, Diabolico), and 3) Transposed (transformed) music--transposing (transforming) a different musical way of thinking (e.g. vocal) into the technical and acoustic range of possibilities of percussion (Recitativo, partially Corale and Lamentoso). The musical content of Eight Inventions is clear from the names of the individual inventions which--even though they were formulated only after the composition was complete--sufficiently characterise it."

Eight Inventions was not an experiment, but the next logical link in the chain of Kabelac's creative development. Each invention has its own precisely thought out form, expression and sound character--and also its characterising subtitle: Corale, Giubiloso, Recitativo, Scherzo, Lamentoso, Danza, Aria, Diabolico. The titles themselves testify to a relationship with tradition. The author tries to exploit the possibilities of play on percussion instruments to the full. The piece presupposed six players and the instruments used are taken from the arsenal that Les Percussions de Strasbourg had at the start of its activities:

2 xylophones, 2 vibraphones, marimba, bells, glockenspiel, 4 kettledrums (2 with a pedal), 7 hanging cymbals (various diameters from 26 cm to 72 cm), 2 normal cymbals, 5 tam-tams (different sizes), crotali, 3 groups with 3 tom-toms, 2 groups each with 2 bongos and 1 bongo, 2 small drums (with strings and without strings), 1 snare drum, 2 large drums, 5 temple-blocks of 12 Thai gongs. A large selection of sticks went with this instrumental profile.

The duration of the piece is ca 19 minutes--the shortest is Diabolico (1'45"), the longest Corale (2'45").

The piece is written down in Kabelac's individual notation system and in a second grid (see illustration.) The abundant instrumental resources of the Strasbourg ensemble offered the composer considerable possibilities in terms of combination. The range of tuneable (or relatively tuneable) instruments, and of melodically or quasi-melodically useable instruments (gongs, hung cymbals) was expanded. Of course there were problems with tuning--especially the Thai gongs that were tuned to tone systems other than European diatonic. The composer offered the following basic musical characterisations of the individual parts of "Eight Inventions":

CORALE -- inspired by Gregorian chant. "Modified" or "transformed" type of music (in the sense of the composer's typology, see above)

GIUBILOSO -- a sound and colour study. Typical and modified type of music.

RECITATIVO -- and attempt to transfer vocal melodics to percussion instruments. Transformed type of music.

SCHERZO and DANZA -- rhythmic and metric themes. "Typical" music, also partly "modified".

LAMENTOSO -- inspired by the music of the Pacific Ocean. "Modified" music, in part also "transformed".

ARIA -- special use of serial techniques. "Modified" music.

DIABOLICO -- the final part--is an almost literal citation of the introductory CORALE. It precisely follows its internal arrangement, and is based on the same musical material--the final passage is created by a doubled tempo and the addition of a long coda, in which the sound is reduced purely to rhythm. "Modified" type of music.

The overall structure of the work is linear, which means that the position of harmony is rather strange: sequences of vertical chord structures do not appear here, since the frequent use of non-tuneable percussion prevents the construction of chord forms. In most cases Kabelac uses specially constructed modal structures.

In Corale long melodic phrases like the lines of Gregorian chants are build out of the initial ten-tone mode on three melodic instruments with precise tuning (two vibraphones and a marimba). The arrangement of the melodic lines is thoroughly non-periodic (on the model of Gregorian chant). For most of the time the marimba takes the solo part, while the vibraphones provide "counterpoint". The piece has a two-section A A' form (the second part is a variation on the first part and the principle of return is maintained).

Giubiloso has a relatively strict, rationally conceived structure: it is based on two four-note series. The first of these is employed in vertical, horizontal and combined form, and the second serves simply to model the "melodic" horizontals and at the same time to create a kind of ostinato base.

Recitativo is primarily about the parameter of rhythm with timbre (although here too an artificial mode is the basic material). Two tones of this mode are presented in successive intervals and create a kind of sound background to a monologue by a solo rhythmic part created by three tom-toms, two bongos and later a snare drum as well. The whole movement takes the form of a monolithic crescendo wave and only at the culminating point does the original rhythmic solo line branch out into a wider plane through the entrance of other instruments, while at the same time the "melodic" line of modal formations becomes more "pregnant", beginning to create a counterpoint instead of the previous "background".

Scherzo is based on four six-tone modes, the material of the first three running through in each case only once to be immediately transposed into various intervals with a clear expansive tendency. The material of the fourth mode is used in the central section in a similar way as in Giubiloso--i.e. it is initially presented in components (1 note, 2 notes, 3 notes and so on), and then these are used to build vertical structures--harmonies that "rotate" in inversions.

The basis of Lamentoso is a six-tone mode, which is used melodically in one part. Around this repeating melodic-"tonal" skeleton (transposed to different octaves), other tones of the mode accumulate with the function of rhythmic and timbre drones. The whole piece creates the impression of an "oriental stereotype" in which "time stands still".

Danza: as in the Scherzo it is rhythm and metre that dominate here. The mode is the same as that of Recitativo. The movement has a "traditional" three-part form with reprise (ABA).

Aria is founded on an eight-tone mode, while the negative elements of the mode (the remaining 4 toned fulfilling the twelve-tone chromatic) are fixed as a drone. In framework this is a twelve-tone piece. The second part of the melodic phrases and at the same time the second part of the form is built on the inversion of the eight-tone sequence and its transposition by tritone.

Diabolico is a reprise of the introductory Corale with only small changes and at double tempo. The solo part is doubled by an octave, and the counterpoints drop out.

The rhythmo-metric element is complicated and not autonomous in all the movements; especially in places where traditional melodic structures predominate, the rhythm and metre is adjusted to the needs of the melodic phrases. Rhythm and metre are relatively the most independent in Scherzo, where passages of odd and even metrical arrangement alternate--the number of even patterns varies, but there is always only one (three-beat) odd pattern. In Scherzo the complexity and richness of the rhythmo-metric element is the result of the aggregation of several relatively independent layers, so the rhythm and metre also have a clear role in creating expression here. In the other pieces the composer treats the organisation of the rhythmometrical element quite freely. Only in Giubiloso does he use a kind of organising principle--augmentation and diminution: the two sequences used here alternate in complete, half, quarter and eighth values.

Special attention is devoted to rhythm in Recitativo, where a pre-established algorithm governs the sequences of rhythmic groups of the solo voice.

The form was not chosen beforehand, as the composer said himself. Nonetheless, undoubtedly under the influence of a natural and strong anchorage in the European tradition, Kabelac did not avoid the application of a number of archetypal principles of form:

A) a variational two-part structure (or perhaps more the variation type aa'--typical for "bar", lais, lejch etc.) This type appears in Corale, Aria and Diabolico

B) a variation chain of type a a' a" a'" a"" and so forth--in parts of Giubiloso, and Recitativo. This formal type also appears in oriental music.

C) a three-part closed type of structure a b a: Lamentoso, Scherzo, Danza.

The common feature of the first and third groups is symmetry. Where the composer does not use symmetry, he at least employs related principles, for example the mutual correspondence of the sections at beginning and end (mainly an introduction and coda), which are in some cases the same (Corale, Lamentoso, Aria, Recitativo). Elsewhere the coda balances out certain disproportions in the overall structure of the form.

The premiere of Eight Variations took place on the 22nd of April 1965 in the Theatre Municipal in Strasbourg together with Milhaud's "Fiesta" and Stravinsky's "Soldier's Tale". Kabelac's work was performed in the arrangement for ballet, to which the composer gave his assent after a certain amount of hesitation. In Czechoslovakia it was first premiered on the 21st of May 1967 in Prague at the Prague Spring Festival, by Les Percussions de Strasbourg and in its concert form.

Eight Ricercars

The success of Eight Inventions inspired the composer to create more pieces for the French ensemble. In 1966-67 he wrote a kind of sequel to the Eight Inventions in the form of an analogically structured eight-part cycle Osm ricercaru pro bici nastroje [Eight Ricercars for Percussion Instruments] op. 51. In the spring of 1971 Kabelac made some small changes to the composition. The name was not a direct reference to the traditional meaning of the form of ricercare as an imitatively treated several part musical movement, but to the original etymological meaning of the Italian verb "ricercare" = to seek, test, and by extension to improvise on a musical instrument. This was the character of the first documented ricercars (and in the same way the toccatas, fantasias and preludes) from the beginning of the 16th century.

The basic conception of the Eight Ricercars is similar (but by no means identical) to the conception of Eight Inventions. The subtitle of the work, "for one to six players" in itself brings an element that is not represented in the Inventions, i.e. variability of the number of players in the different sections (movements) of the composition. Compared to Eight Inventions, Eight Ricercars has an even stronger accent on the aspect of the technical elements of play on various percussion instruments, both on the standard ones and on those that might be called "ethnical" (the legendarily diverse instrument resources of the ensemble had been growing in the meantime, as Kabelac knew). Another important element of the compositional design in Eight Ricercars was the multiple application of the principle of dialogue, as we shall see below. While the work is conceived as a whole, in this case the composer conceded the possibility of independent performance of the individual pieces or various choices made from the cycle. The order of the individual movements is looser this time and determined more "mechanically" by the number of players (from one to six), with the proviso that when the entire cycle was played (which the composer definitely preferred), the recommended order was 8-1-3-6-4-2-7-5.

Ricercare no. 1 is written for just one player and only one group of instruments, i.e. three bongos of different sizes (the alternative of three Chinese tom-toms is allowable), played with the hands, without sticks. The composer employs all kinds of alternative modes of striking, and so achieves a remarkably differentiated range of timbres in the music. Naturally there is a vibrant variability of rhythms and metrical patterns including vividly changeable dynamics. In the structure of the movement there are strong elements of symmetry, inverse vertical and horizontal relations, and a discernible element of modified reprise in the overall outline of the form.

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Ricercare no. 2 also reckons with only player (exceptionally the piece may be performed by two), this time playing two different and internally further divided groups of metalophones: the first group consists of two triangles, three hung cymbals and three tam-tams (in all cases of different sizes), and the second group of five gongs of different sizes. The two groups are strongly contrasting in terms of timbre, and the second group is homogenous. A wide range of sticks--metal, wooden, felt and rubber--are also prescribed. A diverse and changeable timbre is the basis of the compositional operations, which in macrostructure take a rondo outline as starting-point (here a prominent motif played on the gong group, reminiscent in melodic outline of the opening motif of the Dies irae, has the function of a returning "refrain"). The first more diverse group provides the variable sections.

Ricercare no. 3 is for four (or possibly three) players, with the instruments again divided into two basic groups. The first group is made up of tuned (melodic) instruments--a vibraphone and a marimba, and the second of bells and a small drum. The presence of the tuned instruments allowed the composer to operate in detail with pitch--and so with characteristic artificial modes. These are treated with detailed application of all kinds of symmetries and other proportional relations on all levels of the structure. The piece has a three-part form (the second and third parts are de facto variations of the opening parts, with a modified return).

Ricercare no. 4 is also for four players, who together play two large groups of instruments: the first group consists of a marimba and three temple-blocks, and the second group of four bongos and four cymbals (all of different sizes). The "pitch algorithm" of the second group is unchanging throughout the piece--hits to the bongo and cymbals are in the stable sequence 4-1-3-2 (according to size of instrument, 4 = biggest - 1 = smallest) and only the rhythmic and metric models change. The marimba expounds a consistently three-note melodic motif, which is concurrently "imitated" in all kinds of ways by the trio of temple-blocks. Thus in both groups a single stable model is development and the result of the mutual interpenetration and different kinds of interference between the groups is highly effective.

Ricercare no. 5 is for five (or six) players and offers yet another formulation of the principle of dialogue between two groups of instruments, one of which represents the melancholic elements (vibraphone--at the end accompanied ad libitum unison by marimba as well) and the second the rhythmic and timbre element (three hung cymbals and three tom-toms, replaceable by bongo played with sticks and hands). In the melodic line a ten-tone modal phrase, to which the rhythmic algorithm of the second group is applied, is moulded in all kinds of different ways. The arched form of this ricercare has a concentrated and exciting crescendo that represents the expressive culmination of the whole work (this was certainly one of the reasons why the composer proposed that when the whole cycle was played the fifth ricercare should be placed at the end as an effective finale).

The final three ricercars (nos 6, 7, 8) are composed for the full contingent of six players.

Ricercare no. 6 is defined by an acoustically homogenous set of six gongs of different sizes (or alternatively six tam-tams or six cymbals), joined at the dynamic climax by a lastra (the well-known stage "thunder"--a thin tin sheet struck by a stick or just vibrated) and a large drum. The piece is constructed as a convex gradation arch with a quiet beginning and a quiet fading at the end. Here the key role aside from rhythm is played by timbre (especially the interference of a soft tremolo on the gongs).

Ricercare no. 7 foregrounds only the melodic percussion instruments--a marimba, vibraphone and xylophone, supported by the "bass drone" of kettledrums and the ostinato of a pair of bells and glockenspiel. At some points in the melodic formations there is a suggestion of the sequence of the Stabat Mater. The form of the movement is once again symmetrical on the principle of closed three-part structure.

Ricercare no. 8 is technically extremely difficult, especially in terms of the rhythmic coordination of the players, who together play the following range of instruments: bells, temple-block, three differently sized large tam-tams, two large drums of different sizes, a small drum and a snare drum. The following instructions written into the score by the composer form the best description:

"Each part has its own particular tempo, independent of the tempi of the other parts. In the bells part the dynamic rise and fall is combined with long, successive accelerations and decelerations. In the other parts the rise and fall is only dynamic. The notation of the parts in mutual order is approximate, and only meant as a guideline for the players. The diachronic course of the bells part is written in seconds (and for that reason there is no numbering of bars). This facilitates the accelerandi and ritenuti already mentioned and orientation in ensemble play. The important thing is that the climax of the piece should be achieved roughly in the 71st-72nd second."

This ricercare is conceived with the use of the principle of aleatorics despite the precise graphic fixation of the separate parts. The bells have the key role, and are also the only bearer of the melodic element. Their melodic phrases (like the melodic phrases in the 5th and 6th ricercars) derived from the opening clarinet theme in Kabelac's 6th Symphony. This motif then creates a kind of modernistically formulated "idee fixe" for the whole work.

Eight Ricercars were premiered on the 24th of July 1976 in the French town of Albi, performed by Les Percussions de Strasbourg. The whole performance lasted roughly 20 minutes. The programme also included Kabelac's op. 45--Eight Inventions. It is worth noting that the composer did not attend the premiere, because the totalitarian regime did not allow him to leave Czechoslovakia and travel to France.

8th Symphony "Antiphonies"

At the time of the premiere of Eight Ricercars, Kabelac's 8th Symphony "Antiphonies", op. 54 (1969-70)--the third work inspired by Les Percussions de Strasbourg, was already complete and being premiered. The 8th Symphony was very unconventional in instrumentation: a coloratura soprano, mixed choir (divided into two groups), percussion instruments and organ. The percussion group presupposed once again six players and the following instruments: marimba, xylophone, vibraphone, group of tubular bells, set of campanelle, 1 temple-block, 1 small drum, 4 bongos, 4 tom-toms, 1 large drum, 3 kettledrums, 2 triangles (of different sizes), 4 hung cymbals (diameters 26, 35, 46, 58 cm), 3 gongs, 5 tam-tams.

The symphony was also unconventional in form, being divided into nine parts--five movements and four intermedia, structured in accordance with a solid logical order, proportionality and symmetry. The axis of the work (in terms of structure and meaning) is the third--the longest movement. The intermedia, linking up the different movements, correspond to each other exactly in duration and musically, and differ only in having opposite dynamic course.

The scheme of the macrostructure of the 8th Symphony is shown on previous page.

The basic structuring principle is derived from the numbers 2, 3, 4 (= 2+2) and 7 (=3+4). It is present in the texts used and consistently applied to the musical material of the work.

In terms of meaning the 8th Symphony is intended as a warning against the acute danger of the decline of all positive values, including the key values of humanity. This was immediately connected with the political situation in Czechoslovakia at the time when the work was composed (the occupation by the armies of the Warsaw Pact in August 1968, the degrading treaty with the Soviet Union recognising the occupation of our state by the Soviet forces, social apathy in a hopeless situation, the threatened loss of the spiritual integrity of the nation).

The composer chose the texts for the piece from the Bible--they are formulae of a ritual character, with great symbolic resonance Mene tekel ufarsin, Amen, Hosanna, Alelujah. The musical treatment corresponds to the texts, deliberately emphasising their magical ritual quality. In the context of the Czech tradition, the use of this primeval function of music in a symphonic work is unique and extraordinary. The musical expression draws on the idioms of shouts, chanting, exalted intoning and monotonous recitation supported by the interjections of the instrumental element. Evocative images of suffering and destruction alternate with states of apathy and only later does a flash of hope rise up from the depths of the storm, so that the work ends as an embrace of that hope. It is a conclusion essentially positive, even if strongly marked by the suffering from which it comes. In the culminating part of the 3rd movement we even find the suggestion of a quote from the Gregorian sequence Dies irae.

Miloslav Kabelac always respected the symphony in its traditional constitutive parameters: apart from the natural instrumental--ensemble character of the musical expression, these parameters are:

1) at the formal level cyclical form,

2) at the level of meaning-content a high degree of universality of the intellectual content, including an essential tendency to the dramatic treatment of the subject,

3) a monumental tendency at all levels of the work--formal, acoustic-spatial, in expression and in content.

Despite all kinds of innovative interventions, these parameters remain fundamentally untouched in all Kabelac's symphonies. Other parameters, petrified by tradition, succumb to innovative transformations of various degrees of intensity and vitality.

The 8th Symphony was also conceived with an eye to the specific space of St. Paul's Cathedral in Strasbourg, where the premiere was to be presented. On the composer's instructions the performers were located in four different places in the cathedral--the organ at the back, Les Percussions de Strasbourg to the front by the altar, to the left a large and small mixed choir and to the right (in the pulpit) the solo soprano. Hence the subtitle of the work "Antiphonies". The conductor stood in the centre, facing the percussion ensemble and the choir.

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The work was premiered in Strasbourg at an evening devoted to Kabelac's music ("Hommage a Miloslav Kabelac"--together with Eight Inventions, two organ Fantasias, op. 32 and four Preludes for organ, op. 48) on the 15th of June 1971. As was also to be the case five years later with the premiere of Eight Ricercars, Kabelac was unable to attend the premiere of his 8th Symphony because the communist authorities refused to provide him with the necessary travel documents. The Czechoslovak premiere of the 8th Symphony took place almost 13 years later, on the 12th of January 1984 in Prague, when the composer was no longer among the living.

With his 8th Symphony the composer reached the furthest point of his lifelong innovative exploration of the possibilities of the symphony. The fact that on this journey he also arrived at a culminating point in the use of emancipated groups of percussion instruments in a primarily symphonic work is just one of the logical results of Kabelac's musical temperament and his lifelong creative direction.