Janáček’s Glagolitic Mass has an extremely complicated genesis and presents an intricate set of problems for an editor. Now, an authoritative edition has been published as part of the complete edition.

The Glagolitic Mass, one of the 20th century masterpieces of sacred music, has a very complex genesis and constitutes an intricate editorial challenge. Although it seems that Janáček began sketching the Mass as early as 1920, extensive work on the composition did not start until 1926. The score was published after the composer’s death, in 1929. The considerable differences between the version precluding the first performance and the one used as the print template  caused doubt to be cast on the last authorised version, albeit, as we now know, with dubious reasoning. As there are several versions of the Glagolitic Mass circulating throughout the world today, it is appropriate to find one’s bearings and to decide which of them is objectively valid. Not long ago, a score was published of the so-called “original version” of the Glagolitic Mass, labelled “Erstfassung 1927”. However, that score is by no means the authentic form of the piece in any specific point in time. It is more a score that compiles the “most interesting” elements of various time periods and versions of the composition. Although it is certainly usable and impressive, it is not correct from an editorial point of view. The editor of that score based his work on several inaccurately interpreted sources and unfounded suppositions, as are for instance the supposed incompetence of the orchestra and the technical problems during the rehearsals of the original version of the piece, and also the problems with fulfilling the requirements of the original score (the three sets of kettle-drums). And yet this argumentation is founded almost exclusively on one single memory, written down by the choir’s accompanist forty years later. The claim that the Introduction with its septuplets was removed during the rehearsals, as well as the five-crotchet bar in Gospodi pomiluj (Kyrie), is very much questionable, as everything we know implies that this edit was made after the premiere. The editor is also mistaken in presuming that the central orchestral section in Věruju (Credo) was also changed before the first performance, supposedly because it was not possible to obtain three sets of kettle-drums. The changes to Věruju were provably put into effect after the premiere, as extant documentation shows the kettle-drums sets were acquired for the concert. Furthermore, it is necessary to realise that the enormous amount of changes that the piece underwent from the version precluding the first performance to that of the print template would have been too much for the composer to have possibly implemented during just two orchestra rehearsals and one dress rehearsal. Thus everything seems to point to the composer making most of the changes after careful consideration, that is after hearing the premiere version of the piece in December 1927. One question remains unanswered, that is, why was the Intrada (the final movement) played also at the beginning of the Mass at the premiere (and at almost every other subsequent concert in Czechoslovakia, right into the 1930s). This fact is noted on the pastedown of the score by the first conductor of the Glagolitic Mass, Jaroslav Kvapil, and is even repeated in the orchestral parts. It is incontrovertible that Janáček must have agreed with this decision, although he was not happy about it apparently, as he did not include this important change in the print template, nor in the piano score that was published in April 1928, that is, still during the composer’s lifetime.

The new edition from Bärenreiter Praha thus contains two versions of the piece. The first, main one that should be used primarily for concert performances is the last authorised version. It is the one that the composer prepared for print with all responsibility, although it was not published by Universal Edition in Vienna until after Janáček’s death. The new edition merely corrects a few minor mistakes, cancels some pointless editorial changes and re-includes the fourteen bars in Svet (Sanctus) which were provably removed because of the technical limitations of the choir.

The second score of the so-called “September 1927” version is the last attestable form of the original version, excluding later edits made during or following the preparations for the first performance. The original is most distinct in the so-called Brno score, where the changes are marked in red crayon and are not rewritten as in the case of the Vienna score. Several missing pages cut out of both the manuscript scores in the Věruju section were scored using backlighting of the original orchestral parts. This version is founded on the fact that it is absolutely impossible to prove in all cases which changes were made during the preparations for the premiere, and which came later during the composer’s December revision. But most of all it is important to stress that the changes made by the composer were not forced by any need to simplify the orchestral parts. In other words, it was not necessary to revise the composition for its technical difficulties. For the orchestra of the National Theatre in Brno, which performed the premiere, was in masterly form at the time. Not only was its chief conductor František Neumann the first to prepare and premiere most of Janáček’s operas in undeniably excellent quality, with no simplifying changes ever being made, but the orchestra was also used to performing pieces by Berg, Schönberg, Stravinsky, and other challenging compositions during its regular concerts.

The “September 1927” version of the Glagolitic Mass is seen more as a supplement, and at the same time as an example of Janáček’s work process, rather than as a full-fledged version meant for the concert stage. We can see the care and concentration with which Janáček implemented all the changes, including the sacrifice of one interesting and musically excellent section for the overall effect of the piece. In the print template, he gave us a thoroughly thought-out and ingeniously sophisticated composition. Though it is surely interesting to hear the “September 1927” version, in many ways so different from the final version. Nowadays it is the conductor’s decision whether to include the Intrada at the beginning of the Mass (the editor favours beginning the Mass with the Introduction).

The new critical edition of Bärenreiter Praha was prepared in an effort to unequivocally define and put to print such a version of the piece, that would come as close as possible to the composer’s ideal. Janáček’s last authorised version is certainly such a one, and this fact should be taken into consideration for concert planning. It follows that the “September 1927” version is an informative curiosity of sorts, and it is with this in mind that it should be included in concert programmes.

Jiří Zahrádka(Translation: Kerstin Lücker)