JANÁČEK Presto & Adagio from "Pohádka" (first version) Božo Paradžik & Maria Sofianska | live, 2013

Описание: Two movements from an earlier version (1910) of Leoš Janáček's "Pohádka" (A Tale):

0:03 Presto
2:43 Adagio

Live recording from the recital in Sarajevo on 10th May 2013
Božo Paradžik, double bass
Maria Sofianska, piano

Janaček spoke Russian and he liked a lot Vasily Andreyevich Zhukovsky's (1783 - 1852) poetry. He tried to create for the first time in 1910 a musical rendering of Zhukovsky's tale "The Tale of Tsar Berendey, His Son Ivan the Prince, The Plots of Koshchei the Immortal and the Prudence of Princess Mariya, The Daughter of Koshchei". Zhukovsky was Pushkin's neighbor in Tsarskoe Selo. they both loved Russian folklore and there was kind of competition between them in writing down the folk tales. "The Tale of Tsar Berendey" is basically a Russian folk fairy tale, with traces of Grimm Brothers' tales "Dear Roland and the Maiden Bright Light" and "The Two King's Children".

"Presto" is a movement that hasn't been dated and it could be a piece either for cello and piano, or even for double bass and piano. But the latter would be unusual and the movement was written on the same paper like the autograph of "Pohádka", the paper that was otherwise unusual. Janáček often used to make revisions of his before they get performed by some important occasions, if had time for that. It is unknown how many versions "Pohádka" had in total. Janáček also wasn't very careful in preserving copies of his compositions, so when "Adagio" was performed during the next documented concert performance of "Pohádka" in September 1912, Janáček couldn't find the music and he had to lend to the cellist someone else's copy of his piece, which already contained the Adagio. The printed version of "Pohádka" (by Hudební matice, 1924) got famous meanwhile. It includes the last revisions by the composer done 1923 and it has solely first three movements. Janáček himself spoke to the journalist who wrote the review after the first performance (Lidové Noviny 18 March 1910) that the three movements were planned as a part of a larger work.

My personal opinion is that one can feel free to add these two movements as 4th and 5th movement to "Pohádka", no matter if versions 1910 or 1923 and to perform it that way in a recital. The work gets this way more concertante character. After reading myself Zhukovsky's Tale I believe to recognize the run for a life in Presto, and Mariya's transformation into a flower in the beginning of Adagio and the final Triumph in the end. it is in any case wonderful, that these two movements didn't get lost by the time.

In the moment when I was performing this recital in 2013 there was just one single video with a part of "Presto" (with Christian Benda) and no video at all of "Adagio" on YouTube. I wanted to publish this video long ago, but I was distracted by too much work on other projects and I was also disappointed with sound and video of this after having several technical issues with this recording (a "dead" battery in an important camera and too closely positioned microphones, which was a compromise with the local TV) but the best of it was done and now it is finally here, after 9 years 🤗

I hope many will enjoy to listen these two less known movements of "The Tale" by Janáček.

Božo Paradžik, 2022