Vitezslava vitezslava kapralova: an annotated life chronology (part 2)
by karla hartl

Notes:
1 Letter from Martinu to Kapralova dated November 4, 1938: "A vis, ze ty nase ricerkarky mely ohromny uspech v Benatkach, [...] no, jak by ne, kdyz mi Pisnicka pomahala, to by bylo smutne, vid, kdyby takovi dva talenti nedali dohromady nic poradneho." / And do you know that our ricercare were a great success in Venice, [..] and rightly so, as it was my Little Song (Martinu's nickname for Kapralova) who was helping me, and it would be indeed sad if two such talents would not be able to put together something substantial. I am indebted to the Bohuslav Martinu Memorial in Policka for providing me with copies of Martinu's letters to Kapralova.
2 I would like to thank Fons Willemsen of ISCM for providing me with the information.
3 Mentioned in an unsigned review "International Egg Rolling," published in Time Magazine on June 27, 1938.
4 ibid.
5 Jaroslav Mihule, Martinu: Osud skladatele (Prague: Karolinum, 2002), 277.
6 Havergal Brian's article, annotated by Malcolm MacDonald, is posted online at the Havergal Brian Society website.
7 Martinu's last stay in Czechoslovakia is described in great detail in Jan Kapusta, "Bohuslav Martinu v roce 1938," Hudebni veda 2 (1982): 162-175.
8 Its inspiration is usually attributed to the anxiety Martinu felt in reaction to the events leading to the infamous Munich Accord. Yet there seems to be a deeper, more personal impulse. Martinu started working on the concerto in early August 1938, shortly after his return from Czechoslovakia, when he was already getting depressed by Kapralova's absence and the prospect that he would not be able to see her for several months. During the fall of 1938 he wrote to her his most intense love letters (33 letters in total) and even contemplated a divorce with Charlotte. At the end of his life, Martinu admitted to his first biographer Milos Safranek (in his letter dated February 25, 1958) that ..the Double Concerto [has], of course, a very private character, but only I know about that and all other conjectures are only screen. Safranek makes this comment: "That means that also his public comments on the Double Concerto do not uncover the deeper impulse that moved him to write it, which does not mean that they do not contain part of the truth, as, for instance, in the sentence 'I think that [..] the foreboding of approaching tragedy anticipated the character of the whole work, like a warning against unleashed destructive elements, as if it were in my power to hold them back.'" [Milos Safranek, Bohuslav Martinu: His Life and Works (London: Allan Wingate, 1962), 184].
9 Otakar Sourek (1883-1956) was a music writer, editor and critic, and an influential personality of Prague music life. I am indebted to Alan Houtchens for providing me with copies of correspondence between Otakar Sourek and Vitezslava Kapralova.
10 The Munich Accord, by which France and Britain ceded the Czech Sudetenlands to Germany, opened the door for an invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Germans the following year.
11 The autograph is dated September 29, 1938; however, Martinu's correspondence with Paul Sacher suggests he revisited the score during the period of April 19 to June 5,1939 [Jaroslav Mihule, Bohuslav Martinu: Profil zivota a dila (Prague: Editio Supraphon), 211].
12 The story of Kapralova applying for the renewal of her scholarship has been described in some detail by Alan Houtchens [Irish Music Studies 4 (1996), reprinted in the Kapralova Society Journal 1 (2005)]. While Houtchens' article focuses on Martinu's letters to Otakar Sourek, Martinu's letters to Talich on the same matter have been published by Milan Kuna, "Korespondence Bohuslava Martinu Vaclavu Talichovi 1924-1939," Hudebni veda 2 (1970): 236-247. Martinu's correspondence with Sourek has been recently reproduced in Katerina Mayrova, "O cem si psali Otakar Sourek a Bohuslav Martinu," Harmonie 3 (2003): 19-21 and Harmonie 4 (2003): 17-21. The letter dated October 25, 1938 is quoted at length in the latter source.
13 The letter is reprinted in Milada Chlibcova, ed., Karel Capek. Prijata korespondence (Prague: Nakladatelstvi Lidove noviny, 2000), 212. I would like to thank Mgr. Martina Muchova for bringing this correspondence to my attention.
14 The recently published description of Sourek's and Martinu's correspondence (Mayrova, 2003) reveals that Martinu wrote 6 letters on the subject of Kapralova's stipend. The letters are dated October 25, 1938, November 8 and 11, 1938, December 5 and 22, 1938, and January 20, 1939. It seems that although Kapralova was approved for the stipend, there were additional delays in providing her with the necessary documents which prompted Martinu (in his correspondence dated December 22, 1938) to seek further assistance from Sourek.
15 Letter to Otakar Sourek, dated in Prague on November 24, 1938. From the correspondence between Otakar Sourek and Vitezslava Kapralova.
16 Kapralova shared the prize with Pavel Haas who received it for his opera Sarlatan.
Jubilejni nadace B. Smetany / The Bedrich Smetana Foundation was a large foundation established in Brno in 1924 to mark Smetana's centennial anniversary. Its mandate was to provide awards and financial support to composers of Czech nationality. The foundation administered about 1 million CK in funds from which it provided grants, stipends, and prizes to artists. The Foundation was abolished during the German occupation of Czechoslovakia by a decree on January 18, 1943. Revived shortly in 1945, it ceased to exist after the Communist takeover in 1948. [Gracian Cernusak, Bohumir Stedron, and Zdenko Novacek, eds., Ceskoslovensky hudebni slovnik osob a instituci, (Prague: SHV, 1963), 555.] I am indebted to Dr. Jindra Bartova and Alexandra Lukasova for providing me with additional information about the history of The Bedrich Smetana Foundation.
17 Since Jiri Macek (Macek, 1958, 167) and some other musicologists consider Suita Rustica one of Kapralova's best compositions, Kalmus' rejection of the work is rather puzzling. This episode represented only a temporary setback for Kapralova who went on to compose two other major orchestral works - the Partita and Concertino for Violin, Clarinet, and Orchestra.
18 Kapralova's letter to her parents from the same day.
Orchestral cantata Ilena has been a subject of research by Martin Kostas, a graduate from the 2007 composition class at the Janacek Academy of Performing Arts Faculty of Music in Brno. His bachelor degree (2005) and a part of his master degree (2007) theses, although they contain some errors, are valuable for including a number of musical excerpts from the cantata and scans of its autographs. Thanks to the young composer's successful efforts to orchestrate Kapralova's unfinished work, Ilena finally received its world premiere at the Janacek Academy concert on May 31, 2007 in Besedni dum in Brno. The Kapralova Society, that was behind the idea of the premiere, also financially assisted the project.
19 This corrects an error made in the first name of the violinist, as printed in Kapralova's biography by Jiri Mucha (Mucha, 1988, 2004). I am most grateful to Prof. Jan Sedivka's biographer, Elinor Morrisby, for bringing the error to my attention.
20 Originally, both Elegy and To Karel Capek were on the evening's program but due to Sedivka's sudden indisposition Elegy (under the title "In Memoriam" on the concert program) had to be replaced by Kapralova's 2nd April Prelude (performed by the composer). The melodrama could be performed only thanks to Kapralova's cousin, violinist Vera Uhlirova, who stepped in on a very short notice and replaced Sedivka, whose name appears on the concert invitations.
21 According to Frantisek Smahel (Smahel, 2006), Kapralova's application was successful and she received the funding.
22 Dated March 18, 1939 in Paris: "Chtel bych aby bylo mozno vziti i malou Kapralovou, ktera se asi take tezko bude moci vratit do Cech, a ktera by nam tam mohla pomahati, jako dirigentka i s komposici, je velmi energicka a ma stesti, nekdo ji nahore z tech muzikantskych kruhu pomaha, byla by to do jiste miry takova zvlastni atrakce." / I would like to be able to take little Kapralova with me, she also cannot return home now and she would be able to help us, both as a composer and a conductor. To some extent, it could be quite an attraction; she is very energetic and has been lucky, someone influential in the music community has been helping her. [Translated by Karla Hartl. The original is archived in the Bohuslav Martinu Memorial in Policka]. I am indebted to the Bohuslav Martinu Memorial in Policka and Mgr. Martina Muchova in particular, for researching Martinu's correspondence and kindly providing me with this quotation.
23 Dated April 18, 1939 in Paris: "...ze bych byl povolan officielne od vlady...Snad by to bylo mozno i pro tu nasi malou dirigentku kterou bych rozhodne chtel zachraniti aby se nemusela vracet do lzi. Take jsem si myslel hlavne pro ni zdali by to neslo zariditi s Voskovcem, kteri podle zprav co tu mam, tam maji uspech, zdali by si nemohli engazovati jako dirigentku, byla by to urcita atrakce a bude z ni moc dobra komponistka, tak bych nerad aby se musela vratit zpet. S Voskovcem bych sam pripadne chtel neco dati dohromady, zkratka moznosti by byly jenom se tam dostat..." / ... so that I would be officially invited by the Government. Perhaps this would be possible also for our little conductor whom I would certainly want to save so that she wouldn't have to return and live a lie. I was thinking if perhaps something could be arranged for her with Voskovec - I hear they are successful over there, so they could offer her a conducting engagement, it might be quite an attraction. She will be a very good composer so I would not like to see her being forced to go back. I would also want to do something together with Voskovec, so there are a few possibilities, now only to get there... (Martinu is referring to one of the founders of the Liberated Theatre in Prague, famous for its political satire, who fled to the United States in early 1939 to escape certain persecution by Nazis). I am indebted to the Bohuslav Martinu Memorial in Policka and Mgr. Martina Muchova in particular, for researching Martinu's correspondence and kindly providing me with this quotation.
24 Dated April 28, 1939 in Paris: "...pro malou K./apralovou/, ktera by nam mohla udelati znacnou sensaci." ." / ... for the little K[apralova] who might create quite a sensation. I am indebted to the Bohuslav Martinu Memorial in Policka and Mgr. Martina Muchova in particular, for researching Martinu's correspondence and kindly providing me with this quotation.
25 Safranek notes that he received two letters from Kapralova asking him to assist with her immigration to the U.S., but he dates them differently: in his text published in Prazak's collection of essays and texts on Kapralova he mentions that he received both letters at the beginning of April 1939 (Prazak, 1949, 113), whereas in Milos Safranek, Divadlo Bohuslava Martinu (Prague: Editio Supraphon, 1979), 85, he dates one of them May 3 and the other June 14, 1939.
26 Kapralova's diary, May 5, 1939.
27 In her letter dated June 7, 1939, Kapralova informs her parents about her plans to leave for the United States with Bohuslav Martinu: "Martinu by jel s sebou a tato otazka by se take jiste pri teto prilezitosti resila. / Martinu would accompany me and the question (of his marriage) would surely get addressed at that time. A week later, she reacts to her parents' concerned reply: "Neprejete-li si, zatim by se nemuselo nic s Martinu resit (..) rozlouceni s nim by ve mne ale zanechalo velkou a tezkou ranu (..) Ty sam, tatinku, vis, co to znamena zit s nekym jen na zaklade rodinnych a spolecnych shod, i kdyz je to predobry clovek jako mama nebo Kopec. (..) Kopec - dobry manzel, deti, kuchyn. Martinu - laska a hluboke porozumeni (..) Diference vekova mi dosud nikdy neprekazela, ovsem jiste je, ze nekdy casem bych si na tuhle vec sem tam pozasteskla. Ale to uz by byly deti a tim by bylo vsechno vyreseno." / If you do not wish it, nothing has to be resolved right away. (..) but to part with him would be too painful and would leave too deep a scar (...) You know too well, daddy, how it feels to live with someone only because of family responsibilities and social conventions, even if the other person is as good as my mom or Kopec. (...) Kopec - a good husband, children, a household. Martinu - love and true understanding (...) Age difference never bothered me. Of course, as time would progress I might complain about it here and there but by that time there would be children and that would solve it all. (From a letter dated 14.6.1939 quoted in Mucha, 1988, p. 264).
28 Dated June 12, 1939 in Paris: "Udelal bys mi velikou radost kdybys take provedl neco od moji zacky Vitky Kapralove, ktera je ted zde a dokoncila dobrou vec pro smycce s pianem "Partitu". Napise Ti sama rovnez a ja se vrele za to primlouvam, je to velky talent a jiste se Ti to bude libit, tak ji trochu pomoz, ano?" / You would make me very happy should you decide to present also something from my student Vitka Kapralova who is now here and has just finished a good work for strings and piano - "Partita". She herself will also write to you about it, and I can wholeheartedly support her request; she is a great talent, and I am sure that you will like the work, so help her a bit, would you? [Vaclav Talich Papers, T 3515]. The letter is reprinted in: Milan Kuna: "Korespondence Bohuslava Martinu Vaclavu Talichovi 1924-1939," Hudebni veda 2 (1970): 245.
29 The letter is included in the Vaclav Talich Papers housed [under T 2179] in: Muzeum Ceskeho krasu, Husovo nam. cp. 87, 88, 266 01 Beroun, Czech Republic. I wish to thank the Museum for providing me with a copy of the letter.
30 A typewritten guest invitation specifically mentions the premiere: " ... Behem hudebniho programu dojde k neposkvrnenemu pocetí P o l n i M s e, posledniho dila svrchu zmineneho oslavence." / ... During the musical program, Field mass, the latest work of the honored gentleman mentioned above will be conceived. I am indebted to Ales Brezina of the Bohuslav Martinu Institute in Prague for providing me with a copy of the invitation.
31 Letter to Kapralova dated December 21, 1939, signed by Geneviève Druon, Ministère des Postes, Télégraphes et Téléphones, Le Service des Montages, Service de la Radiodiffusion, 107, rue de Grenelle, Paris. The recording session for the public radio Paris PTT is described in Jiri Mucha's autobiography (Mucha, 1988, 331, 333).
32 Mentioned in Kapralova's correspondence to parents dated December 25, 1939 and in Bohuslav Martinu's letter to Vaclav Kapral, dated in New York, January 15, 1946. The program was also announced in Ceskoslovensky boj (December 23) under the title "Christmas in the Czechoslovak Radio." The ad mentioned Kapralova, Kraus, and Firkusny among the artists featured by the program that was most likely transmitted to occupied Czechoslovakia over the Radio International Fécamp (the RIF) in Normandy. According to Jiri Mucha (Mucha, 1988, 313), the radio in Fécamp began Czech language broadcasts in October 1939. Indeed, the RIF was operational between October 1939 and January 1940.
33 Ceskoslovensky boj / La Cause Tchécoslovaque - Ustredni list zahranicnich Cechu a Slovaku was an official publication of Czechs and Slovaks in exile. This weekly was published in France during 1939-1940 (first issue was published on April 28, 1939 and the last on June 7, 1940).
34 It has yet to be firmly established whether Kapralova studied composition under Nadia Boulanger, although the probability that Kapralova at least audited her class in Spring 1940 is very high. Kapralova intended to study with Boulanger as early as in 1937 but her inadequate French presented a major barrier; and, therefore, on Martinu's advice, she decided to postpone her studies with Nadia until such time she could follow her lectures (with Charles Munch she communicated mainly in German). During the two years that followed, it was Boulanger's extended lecturing and conducting engagements in the United States that prevented Kapralova from signing up for Boulanger's class. According to Kapralova's biographer, Jiri Macek, she must have studied under Boulanger in 1940 [Macek, 1958, 193-4], the last year Boulanger would have taught at the Ecole Normale before the German occupation of Paris. Macek supports his argument by referring to Kapralova's letter to Jiri Mucha dated March 4, 1940 in which she complains about her workload at school: "... ta baba se pominula s rozumem. Dava nam tolik toho za ulohu, a to kazdy den, ze opravdu nevim co s tim / the woman must be mad - she is giving us so much work and so many assignments, every day, that I am truly at my wits ends and do not know what to do. [Moravian Museum, Fond Vitezslavy Kapralove, sign. G7378] In another letter dated April 27, 1940 [quoted in Mucha, 388] Kapralova mentions that her song Letter is a school assignment. Indeed, the composition was premiered at the Ecole Normale.
35 It is probable that this commission was facilitated by Kapralova's new friend Hugo Haas who at the time worked on two films in France: Mer en flammes [a film of Léo Joannon, it was released in 1945 under the title Documents Secrets] and Ils se sont rencontrés dans l'eau. Haas played the leading role in the former and co-authored the script (with Guide Freud, nephew of Sigmund Freud) of the latter [Ceskoslovensky boj, May 17 (1940): 9.]. On March 8, 1940 Vitezslava writes to Jiri Mucha that Haas is about to shoot a big spy movie and "i ten nas, az na hudbu, je uz skoro hotovy, tak budu mit nyni dost prace." / .. even our movie is almost done except for music so now I will be quite busy. [Moravian Museum, G7378/101.662]
36 The Langer's play, directed by Hugo Haas, was performed by an amateur theatre group recruited from Czech emigrés organized mainly around the Sokol organization in early 1940 in Paris (Mucha 1988, 341; Jirku, 1999, 53; Fuchs, 1997, 78-79). The play was co-produced and co-presented by the Czechoslovak Colony and Sokol in Paris at the "Theatre des Arts", 78 bis, Boulevard des Batignolles in Paris on March 29 and 31 and April 6 and 7, 1940 (as advertised in Ceskoslovensky boj, No.11 (March 22, 1940) and No. 12 (March 29, 1940), p.12).
37 Opus 24 will probably remain an enigma. It could be Czech Oratorio (this composition was mentioned in Kapralova's letter to Rudolf Kopec, dated January 19, 1939) or Krajiny (Landscapes), for orchestra (this composition was mentioned in Kapralova's letter to parents dated March 31, 1940 [both letters provided courtesy of the Kapralova Estate]. It could even refer to her last song Letter.
38 The composition survived only as a fragment. In his letter to Vaclav Kapral (dated January 29, 1946) Jiri Mucha mentions that the March was one of the last compositions on which Kapralova worked and that the work received an award but later "got lost at MNO (Ministry of National Defense?) in Paris". Milos Safranek (Prazak, 1949, 117) claims, however, that the work was finished and orchestrated by Bohuslav Martinu.
The March was composed for a military band of Kapralova's friend (and a former classmate from the Brno Conservatory, from which he graduated in 1932) Vilem Tausky who originally formed it as a scratch orchestra in September 1939. The ensemble played on instruments reportedly obtained from the Paris Police by Martinu whose Field Mass was also composed for the band. (The Tausky Band information in: Rob Barnet, Vilem Tausky, September 2002, http://www.musicweb.uk.net/Tausky.html, (24 September 2002).
39 Quoted by Jiri Mucha from Milos Safranek's diary (Mucha, 1988, 387).
40 The song was composed a few days after Kapralova's wedding with Jiri Mucha. One is tempted to speculate that it was Kapralova's farewell to her clandestine affair with Martinu and a closure she needed to move on with her life. And yet, the song leaves also some hope for the two, as if Kapralova just could not rid herself of this relationship completely... The text by Petr Kricka [from: Hoch s lukem, 1924] is written as a letter of a man to his lover who has just ended their relationship: The text translates as follows: You said "no". Well, so be it... | It was fate that separated us.| I regret that but I see you're happy | - so I accept it. | I don't judge who's more guilty | or whose loss is bigger. | Yesterday there was just one path | today there are two. | I understand that now, and blame no one. | Who knows?... Perhaps, one day | your heart will recognize me again. | For God is a great artist | and has his mysterious ways...
41 In Kapralova's letter to Mucha, dated 4.5. 1940: "Chteji totiz zase delat 'Lidove hry' a mame s Martinu k tomu delat 'opravdovou' hudbu" ... / They want to do the 'Folk Plays' again and I and Martinu, we are to provide them with some 'real' music... [Fond Vitezslavy Kapralove, G7.378]. The folk plays are also mentioned in Martinu's manuscript about the origins of his work Field mass, published in a collection of Martinu's writings edited by Milos Safranek [Safranek, 1966, 282].
42 The establishment of the choir was announced in the May 3 issue of Ceskoslovensky boj. According to the weekly, the choir was founded at the Czechoslovak Colony office [ibid, p. 12]. Kapralova also mentions her appointment to her uncle, in an undated letter probably from early May.
43 She seems to have been later transferred to another hospital, since her letter to Jiri Mucha, dated May 17, is from the Broussais Hospital, rue Didot, Paris [Moravian Museum, Fond Vitezslavy Kapralove, G7.378].
44 The hospital visit is described by Guy Erismann in his monograph on Martinu (Erisman, 1990, 193). The visit is also remembered by Bohuslav Martinu who in his reminiscence about Kapralova (Prazak, 1949, 128) mentions that after the concert he went to the hospital to see her. However, Michael Henderson in his article on Kapralova and Martinu (Czech Music, 8, 1997) claims that Kapralova did attend the concert although she was very ill, and supports this claim by a witness statement from Rudolf Firkusny. Firkusny does not seem to be a reliable witness, however, judging from his other unsubstantiated statements about Kapralova, quoted elsewhere in Henderson's article.
45 Kapralova's illness was of an acute nature and involved severe abdominal pains resembling appendicitis - symptoms that better correspond with tuberculous peritonitis. I would like to thank Nadia Hembling for this interesting theory concerning the cause of Kapralova's death. Another possible diagnosis is offered by Dr. J.V. Brumlik who in his letter to Jaroslav Mihule, dated August 20, 1973, claims that he had diagnosed Kapralova in Paris with tumor caeci (Vaclav Kapral in his letter to Otakar Sourek from November 1940 talks about "cancer caeci"). I would like to thank Jaroslav Mihule for providing me with a copy of Dr. Brumlik's letter and to Jan Dehner for providing me with a copy of the letter written by Vaclav Kapral.
On 17 June 1940, Kapralova was buried at the Saint-Lazare cemetery in Montpellier. A plate on a cross at her grave had the following inscriptions: Vita Kapralova, compositeur de musique, épouse de Jiri Mucha. 24.1.1915-16.6.1940. "Tant qu'il y aura sur terre un être aimant, ton nom vivra sur ses lèvres." [As long as there will be a loving person on this earth, your name will live on his lips.]

[ continue with part 3 of the chronology ]

© Karla Hartl, 1998-2007. This chronology is based on my comparative research of available Kapralova autographs, correspondence, personal documents, diaries, notebooks, and published monographs. Other sources of research information are acknowledged above.

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