Leoš Janáček: Amarus
Kantáta pro sólisty, smíšený sbor a orchestr na verše Jaroslava Vrchlického.
Kantátu Amarus Leoš Janáček dopsal na jaře r. 1897. V této době začíná umělec systematicky zaznamenávat nápěvky mluvy, a její tóniny a tonalitu zahrnuje do svých unikátních kompozic. Báseň Jaroslava Vrchlického Janáčka oslovila tématem, kterým byl poznamenán i jeho osud – dětstvím stráveným v klášteře, bez matky a bez lásky.
The cantata Amarus was completed in the spring of 1897. At the time Janáček began systematically to put down in hid notebook fragments of speech melody, apart from which of course his whole concept of the key system and tonality was to remain influenced for the rest of his life by oscillations emitted by folklore of eastern Moravia. At the particular juncture, Janáček found in a poem by Jaroslav Vrchlický features of surprising similarity to his own fate, in its depiction of a childhood spent within monastic walls, deprived of mother and love.
Hraje: Česká filharmonie, řídí: Sir Charles Mackerras
Zpívá: Český filharmonický sbor, řídí: Lubomír Mátl
Sólisté: Květoslava Němečková (soprán), Leo Marian Vodička (tenor), Václav Zítek (baryton).
Nahrávka byla pořízena ve Dvořákově síni pražského Rudolfina, 30. ledna 1984. Vydal Suprahon, 1996.
AMARUS
Cantata for Soli, Mixed Chorus and Orchestra.
Words by Jaroslav Vrchlický
Always he’d lived in the monastery,
never knowing how fate brought him there,
and for the sin that brought him to the world.
They christened him Amarus!
Because it was sinning
that gave him life.
A tall man and palefaced,
always thoughtful and sad,
as though filled with mystical yearning!
And he prayed one ev’ning,
as the moon with silver flooded his chamber:
« Suffering, though all my suffering,
never do I complain,
I know that my life’s useless.
Yet hear me, this single favour
from You shall I pray for!
When shall my death be? »
And hardly had he spoken,
and angel came and whispered softly:
« Death will come and seek you,
when you fail to put oil in the lamp
there on the altar! »
Days and years were passing, alone and sad,
Amarus still laboured.
The eternal lamp he carefully tender
and whispered:
« With this oil my life I’m tending, »
and smiled amid his suff’ring.
Once in the spring lie went again
to the altar with his oilcan.
Before him, just by the wall,
under the Virgin Mary’s image,
were two lovers kneeling.
Still and silent he stood and held his breath.
And when they finished praying,
Amarus followed them!
And he watched them, filled with yearning.
In the monastery close he stood,
with the scent of lilacs around.
Their intoxicating odours enflamed his blood.
Nearby he heard a bird singing,
a butterfly like two flowers blown by the wind,
suddenly brushed against his brow.
Onward he wandered,
till on a grave that hardly could be distinguished,
hidden beneath a pile of lilac blossom,
the happy ones were sitting.
On her breast his head was resting,
and on her jet-black hair the lilac had scattered,
dew bedampened blossoms.
From afar the birds were carolling,
sweet the lilac scent,
the happy ones were sitting.
Then Amarus thought of the mother he’d never known.
To her must he be grateful
for the pain of his existence.
Today Amarus did not fill the lamp.
He stood, never moving, while the bird sang
without ceasing.
As ev’ning came, when the brothers came to prayers,
they found the altar lamp no longer burning,
in anguish they sought Amarus,
but they could not find him.
There in the churchyard he was lying
on the long-lost grave of his dead mother.
His face was turned towards the blossom,
and as he lay a bird was singing.
Amarus they named him.
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