On the 80th anniversary of liberation from National Socialism, Bärenreiter Praha is publishing the performance material of two works by Miloslav Kabeláč which are still highly topical.
The Czech composer Miloslav Kabeláč (1908–1979) left a significant body of works, including eight symphonies, choral, piano and chamber music. Subjected to two dictatorships, several times he positioned himself against the prevailing regime. His music was characterized in many ways by a humanistic, independent spirit.
Cantata “Do Not Retreat!” (“Neustupujte!”) op. 7
When Nazi Germany declared the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia in March 1939, Miloslav Kabeláč was thirty years old. He initially continued working at Czech Radio, but was then dismissed because of his marriage to the Jewish pianist Berta Rixová-Kabeláčová. His works increasingly disappeared from public performance until the end of the war.
At the beginning of the German occupation Kabeláč considered writing a work which made reference to this far-reaching event. In the folk song texts of Karel Jaromír Erben’s collection, he found a suitable text for his Cantata “Do Not Retreat!” (“Neustupujte!”) for male voice choir, brass and percussion op. 7. He completed the composition on 27 October 1939, a day before the anniversary of the founding of Czechoslovakia.
The text after Karel Jaromír Erben deals with the violent invasion of Bohemia and Prague in the mid-18th century by Prussian troops – a clear parallel with the political situation at the time.
The cantata culminates in a quotation from the Hussite chorale “Ktož jsú boží bojovníci!” (Who are God’s warriors!) clearly declaimed by the trumpets. This 15th century chorale plays an important cultural-historical role in connection with the formation of the Czech nation, identity and culture, and calls for the willingness to make sacrifices and love of one’s neighbour, for trust in God and for bravery in the face of enemy threat.
In the periodical “Hudební rozhledy” (1959) Kabeláč compared his Cantata “Do Not Retreat!” with Arnold Schönberg’s melodrama “A Survivor from Warsaw” op. 46 of 1947. Above all, in terms of its human message, his Cantata was an “equally urgent call to the conscience of the world against the horrors and the inhumanity of fascism.”
The Cantata has the dedication “Českému národu” (To the Czech nation). It was premiered on 28 October 1945 on the radio on the election of Edvard Beneš as the first state President after the war.
Jewish Prayer Op. 59 / Židovská modlitba op. 59
After the suppression of the Prague Spring in 1968, the clearly more restrictive policy in Czechoslovakia of the 1970s (“normalisation”) brought a deterioration in the situation of many artists in the country. Miloslav Kabeláč continued to compose until his death in 1979 despite serious ill health.
He took the 40th anniversary of his wedding to Berta Kabeláčová on 1 August 1976 as the occasion for the composition of the “Jewish Prayer” (“Židovská modlitba”) for singer (bass-baritone), solo narrator (low male voice) and choir (low male voices).
In this, the composer drew on the Aramaic prayer for the dead, the Kaddisch, which is recited in the Jewish tradition after the death of one parent by the (male) descendant.
It was the composer’s explicit wish that this composition should bear the last opus number in his catalogue of works.
Elisabeth Hahn
(from [t]akte 2/2025)
(translation. Elizabeth Robinson)