Date of composition: 1915-1918
Premiere: 9 October 1921 in Brno, conductor: František Neumann
Duration: 24 minutes
Performances by the Berliner Philharmoniker:
First performed on 28 January 1929, conductor: Bruno Walter
Today Leoš Janáček is revered as an advocate for society’s outcasts, a sensitive chronicler of heart-rending female destinies, as in his operas Káťa Kabanová and Jenůfa. But Janáček was also a fervent patriot and a proponent of Pan-Slavism. This Romantic nationalist movement sought to unite all Slavic peoples in order to shake off the oppression of the despised Habsburg monarchy. Janáček came from Moravia, a region regarded as having remained especially “purely” Slavic. Although he spoke fluent German, he had already early on committed himself to the vision of a Czech nation state.
From this Slavophile stance, it is understandable that Janáček was already captivated in 1905 by Nikolai Gogol’s tale Taras Bulba (1835). Its hero is a Cossack colonel who, around 1620, fights against the Poles. An old warhorse, he deliberately fans the flames of war and acts with extreme cruelty even towards the civilian population. In the battles he loses both his sons: Andrei is killed by Taras Bulba himself when, for love of a Polish woman, he defects to the enemy camp. Ostap is tortured by the Poles and executed in Taras Bulba’s presence. Finally, the Cossack colonel himself is captured and burned alive.
Despite its colourful characterisation, Gogol’s story is not pleasant reading. Its brutality and male-bonded self-glorification, as well as the antisemitism it contains, strike us today as alienating. Janáček described his motivation for setting Taras Bulba by quoting Gogol’s words: “Can any fire, flames, or power be found on earth which are capable of overpowering Russian strength?” In January 1915, a few months after the outbreak of World War I, he began work on it. He will surely have felt the glorification of Slavic martial power as an ideological support for the Russian army. The Austrians sanctioned such activities, and Janáček therefore returned to the score only in 1918. The premiere took place in 1921 in Brno, in what was by then the independent Czechoslovak Republic.
Janáček’s three-part rhapsody is certainly among the most beautiful works he wrote in this genre. The opening is extraordinarily tender: a cor anglais solo, answered by a solo violin, first sketches Andrei’s love for his Polish woman. Again and again, however, disturbances intrude – through Janáček’s characteristically short-breathed, nervous motifs, and finally through the battle music of the brass. The second movement is devoted to the elder son, Ostap: a courageous fighter, he rides against overwhelming odds, and a folk-like tune sounds in glowing intensity. Ostap’s final, desperate cry for his father is voiced by the piercing E-flat clarinet. Wild, tender, dance-like, and glorifying, the final movement accompanies Taras Bulba’s end. The Cossack’s prophecy of his people’s greatness and their steadfast Christian faith rises up in the brass hymn, underpinned by solemn tubular bells and organ sonorities. An ecstatic melody transfigures Taras Bulba’s death – music of impulsive radiance, of the kind Janáček could summon so magnificently.