Children’s musical instruments form an inseparable part of musical instruments set. They include an uncountable amount of simple and easily handled musical instruments used by children usually as toys. For instance the musical instruments of Orff’s musical instruments set are included, as well as traditional children’s instruments of various nations and ethnic groups, or modern children’s musical instruments (toys) made of plastic, based on the electrophonic or electronic principles. However, the contemporary progressive comprehension of a musical instrument practically enables us to include any object capable of producing sounds into the set of children’s musical instruments (as well as among the musical instruments generally).

The study focuses exclusively on a set of children’s musical instruments which originated and were used by children in traditional environment in Slovakia. It offers the register and description of children’s musical instruments and classifies them on the basis of numerical index of the international Hornbostel–Sachs Classification of Musical Instruments (since 1914). Simultaneously on the basis of the research the study surveys contemporary producers of Slovak traditional children’s musical instruments and toys (I. Ivanov, J. Fiala, P. Blaha, T. Koblíček, M. Moncoľ, R. Žilík, J. Slivka, V. Grieš, J. Šuška, B. Gernát). The research confirmed the existence of a production (although locally limited) of some kinds of Slovak traditional children’s musical instruments and also points to some progressive changes in this realm.

The status, life and work of Czech composer Vítězslava Kaprálová are remarkable from many aspects. Being a daughter of a prominent Brno composer Václav Kaprál she was the first Czech profesionally trained woman composer and conductor. Even in the course of her short life she received many accolades, awards and was honoured by important performances of her compositions. She was a student of then significant teachers, e.g. Vítězslav Novák, Václav Talich, Bohuslav Martinů and Charles Munch. She lived only 25 years and her short life was filled by relentless creative composing and conducting work, by cultural activities and many accomplished as well as non-accomplished loves.

Vítězslava Kaprálová was born on January 24, 1915 in Brno in a family of concert singer Viktória Kaprálová and music composer Václav Kaprál, a pupil of Leoš Janáček. At nine she composed her first piano pieces, at 15 she entered the Brno Conservatory (established in 1919) – the composition class of Vilém Petrželka and conducting class of Zdeněk Chalabala. On June 17, 1935 she herself conducted the performance of her Piano Concerto D Minor, Op. 7 at her graduating concert. The first orchestral score, the first conducting event of a woman composer and simultaneously the first female conducting event in Brno.

After the graduation in Brno the young composer continued her studies in the compositional class of Vítězslav Novák at the master-school of the Prague Conservatoire and at the same time in the conducting class of Václav Talich. She graduated from the Prague Conservatoire with her Military Symfonietta, which enjoyed two exceptional performances – the first one on November 26^th, 1937 in Prague Lucerna visited by the president of the republic Dr. Edvard Beneš, and the second one in the Queen’s Hall in June 1938, again conducted by the author, in the frame of the ISCM Festival in London. The concert led to a commission for a new composition from the London subsidiary of the Universal Edition publishing house – then Suita Rustica originated –, however, in the end the piece was not published.

Having acquired a scholarship she left for Paris late in summer 1937. At the Ecole Normale de Musique she entered the class of the conductor Charles Munch. She did not enrolled into the compositional class of Nadia Boulanger due to her language barrier (Munch could speak German), therefore she continued her compositional studies with Martinů. The teacher-pupil relation soon grew from collegiality and friendship into the mutual love. She met outstanding personalities (Milhaud, Honegger) and soon blended in the Czech community (Firkušný, Kundera, Haas). In 1939 she considered a trip to the U.S.A. as an alternative conductor of Jaroslav Ježek on the Voskovec-Werich tour.

She married Jiří Mucha, a son of the painter Alfons Mucha, on April 23, 1940, who had at that time been already detached to the military unit in Agde. He transported his terminally ill wife to Montpellier, where she died on June 16, 1940, from incurable tuberculosis of appendix.

The compositions by Vítězslava Kaprálová are filled by creative fantasy, extraordinary sensitiveness and sound imaginativeness, and despite this controlled by an exact sense for form and structure of the piece. Polytonality and polyphonic voice-leading are typical for her. Namely vocal and piano works are remarkable. Karla Hartl, the founder of The Kapralova Society in Canadian Toronto, is credited with promotion of her music. In 14 years of its existence the society released 4 profile CDs and three fourths of her compositions were published. Besides it participated and financially supported a range of concerts and cultural events joined with the composer.

Czech composer Josef Bohuslav Foerster is notable especially for his choral, opera, symphonic and chamber music. His list of works comprises 190 opuses from which 25 pieces are dedicated to piano – 14 piano cycles, 2 significant piano pieces (Masks of Eros and Osenice Suite) and 9 small pieces. Thus piano work does not form a negligible part of the composer’s output. We have to remember that the composer also transcribed for piano his orchestral and chamber pieces. Obviously piano occupied an important place in both Foerster’s work and life. Despite this it has not been particularly reflected yet from the music-theoretical aspect. J. Patzáková dealt with it only briefly (a chapter in her book Památník Foerstrův/Foerster’s Memorial, 1929) and Václav Holzknecht in one of the chapters of the book J. B. Foerster – jeho životní pouť a tvorba 1859 – 1949 / J. B. Foerster – His Life and Work 1859 – 1949, 1949). Foerster’s piano pieces are characteristic by their intimacy, by the frequent use of polyphonic texture, almost vocally conceived melodical line with simple rhythmical segmentation and characteristic miniature. In his piano pieces Foerster applies rather slower and mean tempos, as melodious lyrism is typical for his music. With the exception of his greatest works he does not use virtuoso texture, or so-called showy surfaces. He rather uses dynamics and harmonical tension for dramatic expression. The pieces in particular cycles are usually more spacious and boldly use music expressive devices. The major performing obstacle of Foerster’s piano pieces is the cumulation of changes in tempo, dynamics, agogics and expression.

Only during the 20^th century the city of Žilina with its modest musical past developed as a centre of the North-West Slovakia, in which the conditions for the development of the professional musical activities were built. The foundations were laid by the work of the Municipal Music School established in 1927. After 1945 the importance of the institution became even greater after its gradual transformation into the Higher Music School and the Conservatory which has existed since 1961 till now. The crystallization of Žilina as a city of music not only of a regional but of a national character was helped by the establishment of the Slovak Sinfonietta Žilina in 1974, the chamber orchestra spreading our excellent performing art at home as well as abroad. The dramaturgy of the orchestra positively inclines to original Slovak music. Besides covering regular music events by way of subscription concerts the orchestra is engaged in the Central European Music Festival in Žilina with international participation, it seeks contacts with foreign partners (Project One) and also takes care of the education of the future audience via concerts for children.

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

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