|
|
New paths to recent music: Archives, documentation centres, and museums related to Czech popular music
Opekar, Aleš
The article presents a comprehensive view of documenting the history of popular music in the contemporary Czech Republic. After a historical introduction, outlining the broader historical context of the domestic situation and a brief context of the situation abroad, the author introduces new institutions, mostly non-profit organizations, which began to emerge after 1989 with the aim of collecting, archiving, and making available archival materials which tell the history of various areas of Czech and Czechoslovak popular music and culture. Through their activities, they have replaced, and continue to do it, the nonexistent interest in this area of culture on the part of the state, which persisted from the pre1989 period (that is before the fall of the communist regime in the former Czechoslovakia). Self-help activities are gradually finding their interdependence with, if not anchorage in, the state or academic environment. The archival and museum institutions established after 1989 focused on the previously neglected area of popular music and unofficial culture – such as Libri prohibiti, Popmuseum, Centre for the Study of Popular Culture, and Archive of Czech and Slovak Subcultures – cooperate with each other and with those previously established.
|
|
|
From American Spirituals to Czech Folk Ballads: Spiritual Kvintet and the Sources of their Lyrics over Six Decades
Opekar, Aleš
The paper deals with the lyrical aspect of Spiritual Kvintet’s repertoire and the sources from which the Czech group has drawn over their 60-year-long career. Initially, they were interested in African American spirituals, which gave the group its name. Soon after they added the folk songs of European immigrants to the USA. Czech sources of Spiritual Kvintet’s repertoire include European Renaissance songs, transcribed from lute tablatures of the Rudolphine era, songs of the Czech national revival, traditional Czech folk ballads, and finally some original compositions by Czech authors. The wide range of genres was matched by the unifying character of the lyrics. Both the foreign and archaic songs required translation into Czech, so the local audience would understand. The new lyrics were supplied by the members and friends of the group (Jiří Tichota, František Novotný, Dušan Vančura, and Vlastimil Marhoul), and some were provided by the renowned lyricist Ivo Fischer. The authors often shifted the specific nuances of the original meaning in favour of keeping the rhythm and sonority of the Czech verses. Nevertheless, they managed to formulate the songs’ original social message in a way that evoked associations with the domestic social situation. The diversity of the texts was unified by the musical arrangements, based on multi-voiced singing accompanied by guitar, double bass, and other acoustic instruments.
|
|
|
Concept of popular music studies for the Czech academic context - contribution to the development of Czech media studies
Pospíšil, Michal ; Reifová, Irena (advisor) ; Turek, Pavel (referee) ; Opekar, Aleš (referee)
The topic of popular music has not been granted much attention in the Czech academic environment so far. Even less attention has been given to popular music in the Czech study of media. When analyzing media, the role of popular music is routinely neglected and its effects overlooked. The thesis surveys arguments that support music as a relevant subject for Czech media studies and determines whether the current exploration of popular music could provide useful knowledge for expanding the coverage of existing media studies tradition in the country and possibly for improving it. In its core, the thesis provides a picture of Czech musicology (especially on its popularization edge, sensitive to popular music) and the Anglo-American tradition of the study of popular music, popular music studies. It identifies and critically assesses the strengths and weaknesses of each area with regards to the study of media. In conclusion, the thesis confirms the need for the Czech popular music studies as a necessary component of the study of popular culture in the context of media studies. It suggests areas for further research and highlights its potential pitfalls - especially problems with application of Western theories in local context, the romantic ideology of rock and disproportionate focus on the exceptional....
|
|
|
The Wild East or, the Outlaw’s Note in Czech Musicals
Opekar, Aleš
The author comments on the unusual growth of various renditions of old outlaw themes in the Czechoslovak theatre and film environment of the 1970s, in the period of the reign of the authoritarian communist regime. The author focuses on the Czech interpretation of the Polish musical Na szkle malowane (Painted on Glass), and further on various versions of Czech musicals, whose storylines work with the fates of real outlaws, that is, historical characters known in folklore (e.g. Juraj Jánošík, Ondráš of Janov, and Nikola Šuhaj). The text looks at period reviews and the ways that composers and reviewers deal with the genre of the musical. Consequently, the author explores the changeable forms through which the processed material reaches audiences: from gramophone records, chamber musical, medium-sized musical with pre-recorded live music, musical film, to multimedia performance. In conclusion, the claim is made that an over-production of outlaw topics in Czech musicals of the 1970s was a consequence of the increased restrictions of the manifestations of social criticism, among other reasons. It has become an alternative possibility to show at least indirectly the topic of the revolt against the leading strata that oppressed freedom.
|
|
|
Religious Allusions in Non-religious Texts in Czech Popular Music: “God has covered His face”
Opekar, Aleš
The paper deals with an abundance of sacred, mostly Christian symbolism in the texts of Czech popular music, whose contents are not religious. Christian symbols are used as a common supply of words, similar to everyday speech, and sometimes they are placed in layers of sequences, such as prayers for love and art. Sometimes they are used as poetic devices that enhance aesthetic effects. The core of the paper is an analysis of specific but mutually different approaches of three Czech singer-songwriters of three generations: Jiří Suchý, Svatopluk Karásek, and Beata Bocek. While Suchý works with religious rhetoric rarely but with great artistic effect, Karásek makes it a natural part of his songs, which in his day was a relevant extension into social and political topics. Beata Bocek’s topics do not match any expected style: she uses common language for singing about sacred matters, and sings about general human matters in soulful language.
|
|
|
Concept of popular music studies for the Czech academic context - contribution to the development of Czech media studies
Pospíšil, Michal ; Reifová, Irena (advisor) ; Turek, Pavel (referee) ; Opekar, Aleš (referee)
The topic of popular music has not been granted much attention in the Czech academic environment so far. Even less attention has been given to popular music in the Czech study of media. When analyzing media, the role of popular music is routinely neglected and its effects overlooked. The thesis surveys arguments that support music as a relevant subject for Czech media studies and determines whether the current exploration of popular music could provide useful knowledge for expanding the coverage of existing media studies tradition in the country and possibly for improving it. In its core, the thesis provides a picture of Czech musicology (especially on its popularization edge, sensitive to popular music) and the Anglo-American tradition of the study of popular music, popular music studies. It identifies and critically assesses the strengths and weaknesses of each area with regards to the study of media. In conclusion, the thesis confirms the need for the Czech popular music studies as a necessary component of the study of popular culture in the context of media studies. It suggests areas for further research and highlights its potential pitfalls - especially problems with application of Western theories in local context, the romantic ideology of rock and disproportionate focus on the exceptional....
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
| |
guest ::
