BEDŘICH BĚLOHLÁVEK (1902–1991): VE STOPÁCH ZDEŇKA NEJEDLÉHO
| Title in English | BEDŘICH BĚLOHLÁVEK (1902–1991): IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF ZDENĚK NEJEDLÝ |
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| Authors | |
| Year of publication | 2024 |
| Type | Article in Periodical |
| Magazine / Source | Hudební věda |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Doi | http://dx.doi.org/10.54759/MUSICOLOGY-2024-0303 |
| Keywords | Bedřich Bělohlávek; Zdeněk Nejedlý; interwar music journalism; publishing house Dobrá edice; the life in exile; promotion of Czech music |
| Description | One of the Czechoslovaks whose journey after the establishment of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia led through France to Great Britain, where they eventually found a lifelong home, was the significant interwar music journalist and publisher Bedřich Bělohlávek (1902–1991). He had lived outside his homeland since 1937, when he went to Bulgaria. Here Bělohlávek began to cooperate with the Czechoslovak exile government in London, and took part in resistance actions. During the war, his cooperation with the Czech and English BBC broadcasting began. Although his main job after 1951 was working in the bookstore, until his old age he organized concerts and other musical events in cooperation with compatriot organizations and associations. The article will focus on his activities in inter-war Czechoslovakia, where Bělohlávek was considered the “enfant terrible” of art journalism, showing a high degree of social involvement and a choice of topics very personal to him. As a student of the leading Czech musicologist, Zdeněk Nejedlý, he was involved in many contemporary discussions about Czech music. His writings about music from the 1920s and 1930s, and two musicological works (Jaroslav Jeremiáš. Doba – život – dílo [Jaroslav Jeremiáš. Time – Life – Work], 1935; Masaryk a hudba [Masaryk and Music], 1936), show dependence on Nejedlý’s thinking, which he prolonged and adapted to journalistic style and editing. In the article, we will show Bělohlávek as a typical representative of the developmentally older interpretation of modernism in Czech music, inextricably linked to revivalist nationalism, whose main themes were the “Czechness” of music, emphasizing the importance of Bedřich Smetana for current and future generations of composers, negative assessment of Antonín Dvořák and Leoš Janáček, and criticism of the musical avant-garde. |