Bedřich Smetana a jeho korespondence/and his Correspondence (review)

‘A complete critical edition of the correspondence of Bedřich Smetana is a task Smetana scholars have owed the Czech and international public for decades.’ So begins the latest attempt to repay this debt. What follows, in the first part of the Introduction (‘The edition of Smetana’s correspondence as a task’, pp. xix–xx), is an account of the authors’ present project, which stretches back to 2005 and of which this catalogue is yet another temporizing manifestation to add to the depressing list of false starts enumerated in the following section, ‘Bedřich’s correspondence and its records’ (pp. xxi–xxvii). Too many grand committees in the past and too many grant applications in the present have somehow contrived to delay the start of actually publishing the letters. Unlike Dvořák’s correspondence (for which a splendid multivolume publication exists), or Janáček’s vast correspondence (of which over 10,000 letters have already been transcribed and put online), all we have of Smetana’s 2,288 communications sent and received is a number of aged publications containing his correspondence with a few individuals and then a whole series of lists of letters intended as the beginnings of a critical edition but which never deliver the goods. Will the present authors see it through this time?

Their most recent catalogue of Smetana’s letters is at least a useful object in its own right. Unlike their previous publication, S kým korespondoval Bedřich Smetana/Bedřich Smetana’s Correspondents/Mit wem korrespondierte Bedřich Smetana (2009), which simply enumerated and glossed those individuals and organizations with whom Smetana corresponded and provided no further information than the years in which letters were written, the present volume lists every communication sent and received by the composer. There are four sections: Smetana’s letters to organizations (pp. 4–38); Smetana’s letters to individuals (pp. 39–200); letters from organizations to Smetana (pp. 202–79); and letters from individuals to Smetana (pp. 280–443). Each section is arranged alphabetically, with chronological listings within this for multiple letters to/from the same person or organization. It is nicely set out with bold headings for each letter stating writer and recipient, under which is listed the date, place of writing, and language (Czech, German, etc.) of the letter, and its present location. A useful feature is the brief summary of contents supplied by the authors for all extant letters: like everything else in the book, this comes in both Czech and English. Although the prefatory material is scrupulous in listing minute details of methodology (not an easy read, at least in the English), the list of abbreviations omits the most vital item, i.e. the explanation of the symbols ○ and ▹ preceding the type of communication (letter, postcard, etc.). Items beginning with a circle turn out to be letters extant in some form (original, copies, transcriptions) whereas the triangle points to a source that suggests a letter was written but has not survived or has not been found. By including all putative communications the catalogue has swelled to almost twice the size it might have been. What the catalogue fails to provide, however, is a day-by-day chronological list of Smetana’s correspondence. Perhaps this would have taken the volume to unpublishable proportions (the print-run is a modest 300 copies), but it would have constituted a useful insight into Smetana’s daily activities.

End matter includes a list of unpublished sources (mostly Smetana’s diaries and notebooks—their unpublished state is yet another blot on Czech musicology) and a bibliography that expands the author–date sources used for cross-references within the catalogue. There are four indexes: persons, organizations, places, and Smetana’s works. Page numbers in the index of persons and organizations are helpfully differentiated typographically between those referring to writers and recipients (in bold) and those mentioned in the contents...