DOI: 10.4149/SH_2022_4_1

Grieg’s melodrama Bergliot (1871) is a setting of the eponymous poem by Bjornstjerne Bjornson, based on a real event from 1050. Bergliot, the central character of the drama, is the wife of a powerful nobleman and warlord. Due to a treacherous murder she loses her husband and son. In his poem Bjornson used a number of archaisms and tried to imitate the style of Norwegian sagas. Grieg’s music excellently corresponds with the harsh sound of the poem. The composer even intensifies it using music-rhetoric devices in line with the tradition of Musica poetica, with which he got acquainted during his studies at the Leipzig Conservatory (1858–1862). Grieg expressed his distinctive demands regarding the performance of the work. The interpretation of melodrama by a narrator differs today from historical interpretations: contrary to the former ideal of dramatic performance it leans more towards dramatic realism and understated performance and leads from the usage of external devices to ever deeper psychological analysis and matter-of-factness of dramatic expression in line with naturalness and truthfulness.

Keywords
Edvard Grieg; Bergliot; melodrama; performance

DOI: 10.4149/SH_2022_4_2

The following essay describes the efforts of its authors to encourage the creation of concert melodramas by German composers to Czech texts. This effort became the subject of the project “Czech composers set German texts to music and German composers set Czech texts to music”. The authors are aware of the historical context that causes the minimal existence of German melodramas on Czech texts and with their current project suggest a way to change this situation. This path has always been accompanied by the willingness of both the Czech and German sides to communicate about common cultural intentions, and so the outcome of the project is positive. The following text also provides a scientific reflection on the project. Among the authors are the names of Michaela Augustinová, Michael Emanuel Bauer, Holmer Becker, Frédéric Bolli, Jiří Bezděk, Kamillo Andreas Horn, Robert Schumann, Bedřich Smetana, Pavel Trojan.

Keywords
concert melodrama, Michaela Augustinová, Michael Emanuel Bauer, Holmer Becker, Frédéric Bolli, Jiří Bezděk, Kamillo Andreas Horn, Robert Schumann, Bedřich Smetana, Pavel Trojan, Věra Šustíková

DOI: 10.4149/SH_2022_4_3

Several music-dramatic works were staged in Bratislava in the Classical period, e. g. the singspiel Narcisse et Pierre and melodrama Andromeda und Perseus by Anton Zimmermann; singspiel Der edle Eifer by Franz Xaver Tost; melodrama Abraham und Isaak (Isaak) and opera Romulus und Remus by Johann Evangelist Fuss (János Fusz). At present the continuing research of these works can be grounded in a wider amount of music-historical sources thanks to digitization of the preserved musicdramatic works in a number of European libraries and archives, as well as within the international music database RISM. On the basis of a thorough monitoring of currently accesible musical sources of music-dramatic works by Anton Zimmermann, Georg Druschetzky, Franz Xaver Tost and Johann Evangelist Fuss (János Fusz) we can confirm that the composers belong among significant Central-European composers. With their music-dramatic pieces they greatly contributed to the development of the musical life in Bratislava (Posonium/Preßburg/Pozsony) in the Classical period.

Keywords
Classicism; Bratislava/Posonium/Preßburg/Pozsony; music-dramatic works; Anton Zimmermann; Juraj Družecký; František Xaver Tost; Johann Evangelista Fuss/János Fusz

DOI: 10.4149/SH_2022_4_4

In the research titled Melody of Music and Life or Tell Me Your Story we focused on the issue of musical motivational factors. The goal of the research was: a) to uncover the fundamental agents in the participant’s focus on the profession of a musician; b) to determine the participant’s present attitude to his profession and its relationship to the uncovered agents from the point of view of a harmony with himself. We have chosen the qualitative approach to research with the help of a biographical design. The key data were obtained through a narrative conversation with the participant – a 44-year old jazz trumpeter. The obtained data were categorized on the basis of open coding; their interpretation was based on the technique of “reading the cards”. The results confirmed that the agents steering the participant towards the profession of a musician represented a synergy of several – both inner and outer – favourable factors. The inner factors were: musical faculties, intrinsic motivation, dimension of a unique inner self – character and personality traits as positive intervening factors. The outer factors were created by optimal environmental conditions: musical family environment, facilitating family climate, musical schooling in early life. The participant’s professional satisfaction (perceived as a harmony with oneself) was analyzed and proved to be primarily bound to the inner motivation. Using the terminology of humanistic psychology we can conclude that the participant has achieved self-actualization. From this viewpoint the contribution of the research can be seen already in the narration of the story itself.

Keywords
psychology; profession of a musician; fundamental agents; music-motivational factors; self-actualization

DOI: 10.4149/SH_2022_4_5

[The contribution is available only in Slovak language in the printed version of the revue.]

DOI: 10.4149/SH_2022_4_6

[The contribution is available only in Slovak language in the printed version of the revue.]

DOI: 10.4149/SH_2022_4_7

[The contribution is available only in Slovak language in the printed version of the revue.]

DOI: 10.4149/SH_2022_4_8

[The contribution is available only in Slovak language in the printed version of the revue.]