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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.
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