JK Voices - Women's Choruses

Leoš Janáček: Wolf Tracks; Hradčany Songs; Kaspar Rucky
Josef Suk: Ten Songs for Female Choir with Piano for Four Hands, Op. 15
Bohuslav Martinů: Three Sacred Songs (Three Legends)

Compositions intended for women’s choirs are in a minority compared to men’s or mixed choirs, which have a greater tradition in our environment. Nevertheless, even for this cast, excellent, often top works were created by Czech composers.

Leoš Janáček (1854–1928) is one of them. He composed mainly for male voices, as Brno had excellent choirs such as Svatopluk or later the Moravian Teachers Singing Association. A change came in 1916. War was raging in the world and many men had to enlist in the Austro-Hungarian army. The men’s choirs have emptied out. Ferdinand Vach, choirmaster of the Moravian Teachers, decided to found the Moravian Lady Teachers Choir. And it was for them that Janáček composed all his women’s choirs, during a short period in early 1916. He based them mainly on the texts of the epic poems of his friend František Serafínský Procházka and his collection Hradčany Songs, and added a poem by Jaroslav Vrchlický. All these compositions are very demanding in terms of interpretation and are therefore performed rather rarely.

Ten Songs for Female Choir with Piano for Four Hands is the first real choral composition by Josef Suk (1874–1935). It was written in 1899 to the lyrics of Slavic folk songs and it shows the musical thinking of the young Suk, so we can also hear the connection with the stage music for Radúz and Mahulena. It is undeniably one of the jewels of Czech choral music.

Bohuslav Martinů’s (1890–1959) Three Sacred Songs is also a work based on Czech folk poetry. Martinů wrote them in New York in 1952, when it was clear to him that a return to his native country was impossible. It is a period when he returns to his home at least through his work. The songs thus bear the poetry of the composer’s Highland cantatas, the most famous of which is The Opening of the Wells.

Jiří Zahrádka