The Cecilian Music Society
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| The Cecilian Music Society in 1933 (c) Karel Šuster |
Ústí nad Orlicí is a seemingly
inconspicuous small town situated 150 kilometres east of Prague. A centre of
the weaving and drapery industries for hundreds of years, it was even dubbed
the “Manchester of the East” in 19th-century Bohemia. Today, this tradition is
no longer pursued, yet the town has retained a musical continuity, an
inseparable part of which is the Cecilian Music Society, one of the oldest
Czech music associations. Still thriving today, it has played a vital role in
the musical development of the entire region, survived wars, reforms, and even
the Communist regime. The society has existed for more than 200 years.
Published with a kind permission of the Czech MusicQuaterly magazine. You can find the full article in 2014/4 issue.
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Music associations
and the birth of the Cecilian Music Society
We do not know when precisely a few
persons in Ústí nad Orlicí began considering the establishment of a music
society. Perhaps sometime near the end of the 18th century, when the
bourgeoisie in Europe were gradually emancipated, and aristocrats’ orchestras
were disbanded, music was also played beyond closed circles (with opera living
an independent theatre life) and its performers had to seek new possibilities
of earning a livelihood. At the time, music associations initiated by townsfolk
began to spring up (often in collaboration with the gentry) with the aim to
hold regular concerts, frequently fulfilling charity purposes as well. A
crucial role in this respect was played by the immense popularity enjoyed by
non-liturgy-bound oratorios, particularly Haydn’s Die Schöpfung (The Creation) and Die Jahreszeiten (The Seasons), which was
conducive to that which we deem absolutely natural today yet was entirely novel
for 18th-century listeners: repetition of an older work at subsequent concerts.
Proof of the aforesaid is the origination of the Tonkünstler-Societät (1771),
the oldest concert society in Vienna, which also served as a pension fund for
the relatives of its deceased members. Coincidentally, it was founded by
Florian Leopold Gassmann, a native of Most, Bohemia. (By the way, Gassmann’s
pupil and successor was one Antonio Salieri.) Their concerts mainly presented Haydn’s
oratorios. Other societies sprang up in the fashion of the Viennese society;
for instance, in Berlin (1801) and St. Petersburg (1802), and from
approximately the middle of the 18th century music academies were founded in
Innsbruck, Graz, and elsewhere. The Czech lands can take pride in the first
Music Academy having been established as early as 1713, in Prague, yet it only functioned
for four years. The preserved records document the existence of the
aforementioned Artistic Society in Ústí nad Orlicí four decades later, and in
1771 the Collegium musicum was set up under the aegis of the Bishop of Olomouc.
Typical of the Czech lands was that the main concert life was for a long time
to come very closely connected with churches. In 1803, the Tonkünstler
Wittwen-und-Waisen Societät (Society for Musicians’ Widows and Orphans, known
as the “Societa”) was founded in Prague after the Viennese model. Its protector
was Count Johann Wenzel Sporck, and only professional musicians could become
full members (others could be honorary or contributory members).
Unsurprisingly, the programmes of their first concerts featured Haydn’s
oratorios. A few months later, on the feast day of St. Cecilia, 22 November 1803,
a gathering of the local music-loving intellectuals took place at a school in Ústí
nad Orlicí, which resulted in the establishment of the Cecilian Music Society,
whose aim it would be to raise the quality of the sacred music performances at
the town’s church. The meeting was initiated by: Jan Zizius (burgher, baker,
organist, former member of the literary brotherhood, Jan Jahoda, Sr.
(originally a draper, then a re-trained teacher and regenschori) and Jan Stehno
(burgher, draper, according to the period news the best violinist in the town).
On that very day, the participants also approved the articles of the Society,
evidently drawn up by the teacher Jahoda. The meeting was added gravity and
significance by the presence of the first municipal councillor, Václav Kozel,
who presided over it and was elected the association’s commissioner (from 1795,
Ústí nad Orlicí was a free town with its own self-administration, under the
patronage of Prince Alois of Liechtenstein). The articles were adopted without
reservations, and on that day the Cecilian Music Society was entered by 29
former members of the Artistic Society, who were joined by another four
applicants.
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An entry from the Cecilian Music Society’s first chronicle,
made by the first elder Vojtěch Stehno (c) Archive CMS |
Any man proving musical skills, especially the ability to play an instrument,
could become a member. When it comes to women, who performed at the church and
other concerts, they were not allowed to join the association until 1972. In
addition to active members, the Cecilian Music Society also had passive, merely
contributory, as well as honorary members. It was managed by a commissioner –
financial director – and two elders (the Vienna-based Society for Musicians’
Widows and Orphans and the literary brotherhood in Ústí nad Orlicí had these
functions too), and there were also an accountant, a scrivener and a “hand”
(assistant), a post assumed for some time by every new member. The Society
committed itself to holding an annual celebration of St. Cecilia’s Day,
providing a requiem mass for every deceased member and, in line with current financial
possibilities, supporting widows and orphans of deceased members on St.
Cecilia’s Day. Furthermore, fines were levied for late arrivals at divine
services, manifestations of disrespect towards the management, as well as fights
and squabbles.
First successes
Initially, the Cecilian Music Society
solely devoted to vocal-instrumental sacred music, with chamber pieces being
played at the members’ homes. Although the standard of musicianship was
probably very good, it did not venture to give a larger public concert until about
a decade had passed. The first public performance, which took place in the
house of one of the local benefactors, the pharmacist Jan Andres, featured
Haydn’s oratorio The
Creation and
was conducted by the honorary member Karl Pitsch, an organist, pianist and
composer, who later on became organist at the St. Nicholas Church in Prague’s
Lesser Town and director of the organ school in Prague. The concert was a great
success. Consequently, in 1828 the Society’s membership extended to 52 and its
prestige slowly began to grow. At the time, the musical life in Europe was
becoming increasingly professional by means of schools and other institutions (the
Prague Conservatory launched its activity in 1811) and many nations within the
Habsburg Monarchy, including the Czech, strove to attain emancipation. One of
the national revivalists in Ústí nad Orlicí was a commissioner of the Cecilian
Music Society, Jan Alois Sudiprav Rettig, whose wife, Magdalena Dobromila, was
responsible for the local Czech library (she was the author of the best-known
Czech cookerybook). The Czech national revival culminated around the middle of the 19th century, when
the Cecilian Music Society performed Haydn’s The Seasons (1842) and started to
expand – its members founded several chamber associations and, in 1862, the
male choir Lumír, focused on secular revivalist vocal music (it perished circa 1869).
The Cecilian Music Society and Lumír had their very first joint performance
within a charity concert in August 1862, at which they also presented the first
Czech symphonic poem, The
Táborité, Op. 60, for
solo viola and obbligato male chorus, by Alois Hnilička (1826–1909), whose
father, František, served as regenschori and organist of the Ústí nad Orlicí
church ensemble – it goes without saying that both of them were members of the
Cecilian Music Society. A talented and considerably active musician, Alois
Hnilička, similarly to his peers, was trained as a child at the Augustinian Monastery
in Brno and, after his voice broke, returned to Ústí nad Orlicí, where his
father taught him how to play the organ. He subsequently attended the organ school
in Prague and a teacher-training course. He composed numerous sacred pieces for
the Cecilian Music Society, which also premiered in 1851 his oratorio Paradise Lost, based on a Czech
translation of John Milton’s eponymous epic poem (the young violinist Antonin
Bennewitz, a native of the nearby village of Přívrat, and later on a noted
director of the Prague Conservatory, also appeared at the concert). Noteworthy
too is that Hnilička was awarded a special prize for his cantata composed for
the foundation of the National Theatre in Prague and was acquainted with Antonín
Dvořák, to whom he dedicated his String Quintet in C minor, Op. 126. Unfortunately, Hnilička
did not find in Ústí nad Orlicí a suitable job and thus moved to assume the
post of organist in Chrudim, where he was among the initiators of the still
active Slavoj choir.
The heyday
The Cecilian Music Society was at its
peak from the 1860s to the 1880s. (Conducive in this respect was the generally
relaxed political and social atmosphere in the wake of the issuance in 1860 of
the October Diploma, in which Emperor Franz Joseph I abandoned Absolutism and
promised to adopt a new constitution.). At the time, the musical life in Ústí
nad Orlicí was more bountiful than it had ever been before or ever would be again.
Apart from the mentioned political and social circumstances, other factors that
had a positive impact on the Society’s thriving were the regular trips made by
the local craftsmen, to Vienna in particular, where they had the opportunity to
familiarise themselves with the local music scene, and the migration of some of
the town’s figures beyond the municipality. Owing to these journeys, they
established contact with Johann Ritter von Lucam (1807–1879), a major figure of
Viennese musical life, who in 1841 became an honorary member of the Cecilian
Music Society and, in addition to several laudatory letters, sent in 1842 to
the association an allegoric picture with a portrait of Haydn and scenes from The Creation (the painting is still
maintained in the Society’s archives). Another honorary member – and an Ústí
nad Orlicí native – Jan Fortunát Khunt entered the Benedictine Monastery in
Prague and borrowed both from his own monastery and from the Strahov Premonstratensian
Abbey Archives music materials to copy, or even bought sheet music and donated
it to the Society. What type of music was played at the Ústí nad Orlicí church
at the time? Mainly performed were sacred compositions by W. A. Mozart, Joseph
Haydn, Ludwig van Beethoven, J. N. Hummel, works by the Czech musician and
pedagogue Václav Jan Křtitel Tomášek (1774–1850), Václav Jindřich Veit
(1806–1864), with Antonín Dvořák’s and Bedřich Smetana’s opuses too gradually
becoming a natural part of the repertoire at public concerts. Frequently played
too were pieces by the Society’s active and honorary members: the
aforementioned Alois Hnilička; the priest, violinist and composer Josef Stehno
(1778–1835), whose father, Jan, was one of the association’s founders; the
violinist and lawyer Josef Sýkora, Jr. (1804–1838); the organist and pedagogue
Josef Cyril Sychra (1859–1935), who worked in Mladá Boleslav and in his time
was deemed the best living sacred music composer in Bohemia. Nowadays, these
composers are virtually unknown, even to the domestic audience, the bulk of
their works have not yet been published, awaiting rediscovery in the archives. Divine
services were greatly impacted by the Cecilian Reform movement (to which the
Cecilian Music Society is only linked as regards its being named after St.
Cecilia), which got to the Czech lands circa 1874 and found its platform in the
magazine Cyril. Endeavouring to abridge and “purify” church music, the
reformists advocated a return to Renaissance polyphony and the Gregorian chant.
Coincidentally, the first Czech Cyrillic festivity took place in Ústí nad Orlicí
itself. This, however, may be misconstrued, since the reform met with only a partly
positive response in the town.
In the beginning, it gave rise to a
rupture in the Cecilian Music Society (the majority of its members boycotted the
Cyrillic festivity), yet the musicians ultimately reached a compromise: the
Advent and Lent periods would be solely given over to the Gregorian chant and music
by the composers recommended by the reform (Claudio Casciolini, G. P. da
Palestrina, Franz Xaver Witt), as well as the Czech Cecilian composers Josef Förster,
František Zdeněk Skuherský and J. C. Sychra. On other occasions,
vocal-instrumental music would be performed as customary previously. The main
event of the Cecilian Music Society calendar was the celebration of St.
Cecilia’s Day, which over the course of the years transformed into a monumental
three-day feast. A precise picture of how it proceeded is given in the records
in the association’s commemorative book. The celebration began on the eve of
St. Cecilia’s Day, on the town’s square, by the statue of the Virgin Mary,
where festival intradas and overtures were performed. Afterwards, the musicians
moved to the local inn to give speeches, accept new members, play chamber
pieces and have dinner together. The next morning a ceremonial mass was served,
followed by a lunch and subsequent music-making (for instance, overtures,
choruses from Haydn’s oratorios), followed by an evening dance party, after the
festivities had been joined by the ladies. The third day was dedicated to the
checking of accounts, collection of membership fees and, fi nally, performing
music and singing. Compositions for the annual celebrations were particularly
carefully selected, most notably in 1903, when only works by Ústí nad Orlicí
natives were played: František Pecháček, Leopold Jansa, Alois Hnilička, Václav Felix
Skop, Josef Cyril Sychra, František Špindler and Jaroslav Kocian (1883–1950),
the most famous local musician and a violin virtuoso, who conducted the
performances. The event was preceded by a robust press campaign (reports on the
preparations were published every 10–14 days); in August three identical concerts
(for local, non-resident and poor audiences) were held, and the festivities
only concluded at the end of November. At the time, the Cecilian Music Society
had some 118 members, 64 of them active, and its archive contained almost 1,400
pieces, by 294 composers. This occasion also saw the publication of the Memoirs of the
Cecilian Music Society in Ústí nad Orlicí by the member Josef Zábrodský, an
extremely comprehensive book, which has served ever since as a valuable source
for researchers.
Entering uncertainty
…
In 1934, new life was breathed into the
Ústí nad Orlicí parish by the newly appointed dean, Václav Boštík (1897–1963),
who, just like the first dean, Jan Mosbender, was a man of great vision who possessed
the will for its implementation. Having a clear idea of what type of music
should be played at the church, he began vigorously pursuing his conceptions.
Within three years of having assumed his post, he chaired the Society’s meeting
(in 1945, he was named its honorary member), took care of the organ repair and also
participated in the local political life. Boštík, however, could never develop
his activities to the full. For the first time, he was interrupted in 1939: in
the spring, Czechoslovakia was invaded by the Germans, the Protektorat Böhmen
und Mähren was established, and in the autumn World War II broke out. Boštik joined
the local resistance organisation, which in 1942 was, unfortunately, revealed
and the dean was duly imprisoned, first in Pardubice, then in Dresden, Prague,
Terezin and, finally, at the concentration camp in Flossenburg. In the spring
of 1945, he and the other prisoners were driven to Dachau and en route were liberated
by the US Army. After the war, in May 1945, he returned to Ústí nad Orlicí,
where he was welcomed as a hero and respected citizen. In the meantime, the
Cecilian Music Society had celebrated its 140th anniversary. In
1943, Czechoslovak Radio broadcast a programme about it, based on the script by
the Ústí nad Orlicí writer Marie Rollerová (daughter of the former regenschori
Petr Kocian), which also included music performed by the association members,
who even recorded a gramophone disc on the occasion. After coming back to the
town, Dean Boštík was again active; the citizens elected him a member of the Municipal
People’s Committee and Council (he only resigned after the bishops had issued a
call for the clergy to remain apolitical), he co-operated with outstanding
architects and also attended the Society’s rehearsals. In effect, he became the
association’s patron and benefactor (he paid for, among other things, the
putting together and extension of its music archive). As recorded by the
devoted parish chronicler Ludmila Ehlová, Boštík’s dream was to put into
practice the ideas of the Cecilian reform, yet his plan was disapproved of by
many members of the Society. They again sought a compromise, with the result
being negative for instrumental music. During the Advent and Lent periods,
instruments (including the organ) would have to keep silent altogether, while in
the rest of the liturgical year the Ordinary would be sung monophonically, the
Proper polyphonically, and, with the exception of the traditional Christmas carols,
instruments would only be played on special occasions. By adopting these rules,
the Cecilian Music Society largely returned to the tradition dating back to the
literary brotherhood.
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The Cecilian Music Society in 1953, third from left: Norbert Fišer; further left: Jaromír Lahulek, Antonín Šimeček, Dean Václav Boštík; second from right: the organist Antonín Malátek
(c)Archive CMS
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From totalitarian
fetters to freedom
The activity of the Society was
suspended for the second time in February 1948, in the wake of the Communist coup.
This meant the termination of democracy in Czechoslovakia, followed by decades
of totalitarian rule, which finally came to an end in November 1989. The
Communist dictatorship de facto doomed the Churches, the Catholic in
particular, to extinction. In the beginning, the new power acted brutally (show
trials, capital punishment, imprisonment, forced isolation, abolition of the
Catholic press, elimination of church schools, etc.), but after 1953 the
government chose more moderate yet more malicious tactics: exerting permanent
pressure on individuals. Priests became public employees, could only work if
approved by the state, which assumed continuous control of them by means of
newly established authorities, ecclesiastic life was totally excluded from the
public space and presented as a withering, unnecessary anachronism. The
Cecilian Music Society survived the totalitarian era owing, on the one hand, to
its never becoming an association in the legal sense (thus it did not need any
official “stamp” to continue its activity) and owing to Dean Boštik, who meticulously
oversaw all that happened in the church, on the other. While confined within
the church’s walls, the municipal authority tolerated the ensemble; difficulties
only occurred in the case of the regenschori Antonin Šimeček, concurrently the
director of the local music school, who ran the choir in partial secrecy, until
in 1959 he resigned for material reasons. Two years later, surprisingly at the
time when the Communists in Czechoslovakia had loosened the reins, Dean Boštik was
divested of the governmental approval to execute clerical service (on the basis
of a trumped-up charge of faulty book-keeping). His successor was not
interested in music and the Cecilian Music Society experienced a critical
period. Yet it managed to weather the storm, underwent generational change and
started to pursue the conclusions of the Second Vatican Council. From 1972 on,
the Society could accept women as members. Another stimulus was brought by a
new priest. In 1978 the Ústí nad Orlicí parish was taken over by the 30-yearold
Josef Kajnek (today, assistant bishop in Hradec Kralove), who was an ardent
supporter of the revision of the liturgy as implemented by the Second Vatican Council.
In this connection, he brought the Cecilian Music Society to the attention of
the priest Josef Olejník (1914–2009), a distinguished composer of Czech liturgical
music and connoisseur of the Gregorian chant. Co-operation with Olejník played
a vital role in the Society’s further evolution and mainly developed owing to
its new management, entrusted to Oldřich and Marie Heyl (the government
rescinded its permission for Josef Kajnek to perform his job in 1984). The
violinist, violist and organist Oldřich Heyl (1952–2010) was an ardent champion
of Olejník’s hymns, worked on the congregation’s active involvement in divine
services and moved the choir, clad in white robes, from the organloft to the
side altar. In the wake of the “velvet revolution” in 1989, the Cecilian Music
Society revived its performances beyond the church too, continued to co-operate
with Josef Olejník, of whose works it gave world premieres, and established
collaboration with another noted liturgical music composer, Petr Eben (1929–2007).
It introduced such new traditions as the choir’s summer seminars and the St.
Cecilia Sacred Music Festival for church singers and organists. In 2002 the
Society released the recording Via Crucis, featuring a programme of Easter
contemplations and music. Its 200th anniversary was marked by a special mass and
concert, which culminated in the performance of Jaroslav Kocian’s Festive Mass, and commemorated by an
exhibition on the Cecilian Music Society’s history and a conference on the
musical tradition in Ústí nad Orlicí, both held in co-operation with the
municipality. In 2007, the helm was assumed by the organist, chorus master and
musicologist Cecílie Pecháčková, who has been a member of the Cecilian Music
Society since 1985. The choir mainly sings at Sunday masses and on feast days,
and it has also performed abroad (in the twin town of Massa Martana, Italy, and
during the National Pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 2013). The core of its repertoire
is formed by a cappella pieces, including works by Josef Olejník and Petr Eben,
as well as Jaroslav Kocian and Josef Bohuslav Foerster (1859–1951), the latter of
whom was also an honorary member of the association. The Cecilian Music Society
abides by the amended original 1995 articles, and currently has 22 performers.
Nowadays, it is again an integral part of
the cultural life in Ústí nad Orlicí, regularly singing at the packed church in
an active, vital parish, where it can freely develop.
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| The Cecilian Music Society in 2014 (c) Archive CMS |
© Dina Šnejdarová
