Dulcimer and Violin

Fajnor was an important representative of the idea of the brotherhood of Czechs and Slovaks. When the Czech poet Adolf Heyduk’s collection Cymbal a husle (“Dulcimer and Violin”), comprising 26 poems, appeared in 1871, Fajnor in a flood of inspiration composed 25 of the pieces. 20 of these were devoted to solo voice with piano accompaniment, the others being designed for choral delivery a cappella. Fajnor did not yet know the poet personally at the time of composing the cycle, but Heyduk’s verses, which formed a sincere ode to Slovakia, resonated with him. In Svetozar Štur’s concise description, “Heyduk Slovakized the songs in language, Fajnor did it in music”. That is to say, in attempting to reinforce the Slovak character of the compositions, Fajnor drew inspiration from folk song, which in his view (and at the time this was also the opinion of Jan Levoslav Bella) had a modal character. Hence he did not hesitate to draw from the melodies of church modes, which he sometimes even acknowledged after the song. Thus he appropriated typical Slovak songs with their modal tonality, which at the time of the cycle’s production was unique – Rakoš Rakoczy, a similarly conceived song cycle by Leoš Janaček, bearing the subtitle “an image of Moravian Slovakia with dance and songs”, was produced in nearby Brno as late as 1891 and had its stage premiere in Prague on 24. 7. 1891 at the Regional Jubilee Exhibition. Janaček here used various Moravian (Lachian, Hanackian, Slovakian) songs and dances in choral and solo forms, combining them, through what is actually an absurd subject, into a single whole. The modality and rhythms of the melody of both cycles have a certain kinship, even though they emerged on different sides of the Czecho-Slovak border.