Ballad of Blaník (Ballada blanická), symphonic poem for orchestra, JW 6/16

• Composer: Leos Janácek
• Period: Post-Romantic (1870-1909)

Review

The brief tone poem Ballad of Blanik is among the lesser-known orchestral works of Leos Janácek. It comes at the end of a decade during which time Janácek was more concerned, in his art, than usual with the Czech national independence movement.

He had written the opera Excursions of Mr. Broucek, the space-and-time-travel opera based on a novel by Svatopluk Cech; its second act depicts a trip to Prague during the heroic fight for religious and national independence by Jan Huss and his followers. Then he wrote the three-part tone poem Taras Bulba, after Nikolai Gogol's Russian novel; again, the subject is an independence struggle.

The name of Blanek (or Blanik) will be known to devotees of Czech music from Zdenek Fibich's opera of that name and, more widely, Bedrich Smetana's set of tone poems, Ma Vlast (My Country). The movement "Blanik" ends that cycle of orchestral poems, and its theme prove, in retrospect, to be the main unifying motive of the whole cycle.

The significance of Blanek is that in Czech legend it is the resting place of Saint Wenceslas (Vaclav) and his knights. In common with other Slavic countries -- and this legend also has its parallels in many other parts of the world -- Czech folklore holds that these great hero-warriors from the past (bohatyrs) are but sleeping in their chamber under the mountain, ready to rise and free their people in their hour of greatest need.

Janácek's homeland was finally liberated from centuries of Hapsburg rule by the defeat of Austria in World War I, and became part of Czechoslovakia. (Since then it has been occupied, successively, by the Nazi Germans and the Soviet Russians. After the end of Czechoslovak Communism and the departure of the Red Army, the country has split into the Czech and the Slovak Republics.)

Janácek was inspired by Czech independence to write this tone poem about the new nation's legendary guardians. The tone poem took its shape and its loose programmatic content from a literary treatment of the legend by Jaroslav Vrchlicky.

Jiri, a peasant, walks up Blanek on a Good Friday. He sees a mysterious light. The rocks open, and he follows the light into the interior of the hill. The horns and harp majestically yet quietly depict what he sees: St. Vaclav and his knights, mounted and in armor, asleep yet ready to defend the people.

Jiri falls asleep. When he awakens, the knights are still there, but their weapons have been changed into tools. He emerges from the cavern and, seeing his reflection, realizes that he, too, has been under the spell of Blanek, for years have passed and he is now an old man. The rapid figuration that opened the seven-minute tone poem is now slowed, obviously representing the aged Jiri.

Ballad of Blanik is relatively gentle and romantic-sounding. The orchestral colors are more blended and less pointed than in most of Janácek's mature scoring, perhaps the reason for its relative lack of popularity. ~ Joseph Stevenson, Rovi

Albums with Complete Performances of the Work

Title	Date
Complete Orchestral Works
Janácek: Complete Orchestral Works
Janácek: Orchestral Works
Janácek: Sinfonietta/Taras Bulba/The Ballad Of Blaník/Martinu: Double Concerto
Janácek: Taras Bulba
Janácek: The Eternal Gospel; The Ballad of Blanik; etc.
Janácek: The Eternal Gospel; The Ballad of Blaník; The Fiddler's Child; The Excursions of Mr. Broucek
Leos Janácek: Sinfonietta; Ballad of Blanek; Fiddler's Child; Taras Bulba
Leos Janácek: Taras Bulba; Suite "From the House of the Dead"	2006
Orchestral Works, Vol.2
The Art of Bretislav Bakala

Previous:	Ballad of Besha, for MIDI performance
Next:	Ballad of Brotherhood