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Suk, Josef (i)
(b Keovice, 4 Jan 1874; d Beneov, nr Prague, 29 May 1935). Czech composer and violinist.
1. Life.
He learnt the piano, the violin and the organ from his father, Josef Suk (18271913),
schoolmaster and choirmaster in the Bohemian village of Keovice. In 1885 he entered the
Prague Conservatory, where he studied the violin with Bennewitz, theory with Foerster, Knittl and
Stecker, and from 1888 chamber music with Wihan. He began composing seriously in his third
year at the conservatory and in 1891 graduated with his Piano Quartet op.1. He remained an extra
year at the conservatory for special tuition in chamber music with Wihan and composition with
Dvok, who had joined the teaching staff in January 1891. Under Wihan, Suk played second
violin in the group which in 1892 became known as the Czech Quartet; its first concert in Vienna
(1893) won the approval of Brahms and Hanslick and inaugurated a distinguished international
career during which it gave more than 4000 concerts until Suks retirement in 1933. Under
Dvok, Suk graduated from the conservatory in 1892 with his Dramatick ouvertura op.4. He was
Dvoks favourite pupil and in 1898 married his daughter Otilie (Otilka). Simrock had published
his Serenade for strings op.6 (1892) in 1896 on Brahmss recommendation and by the turn of the
century Suk was regarded, with Novk, as the leading composer of the modern Czech school. In
1922 he was appointed professor of composition for the advanced classes of the Prague
Conservatory, where he trained 35 composers, including Bokovec, Jeek, Hlobil, Martin, Reiner,
Vak and several Slovenes, Croats, Serbs and Poles. During his four terms as rector (19246,
19335) he worked energetically to raise the standards of the conservatory. He was an
extraordinary (1901) and ordinary (1913) member of the Czech Academy of Sciences and in 1933
was awarded an honorary doctorate by Brno University.
Josef Suk: portrai t by Dr Desi deri us, watercol our, 1928
2. Works.
Suk won early success as a composer, writing some of his best-known pieces (the Serenade for
strings and the Pse lsky, Love Song, from his op.7 piano pieces, 18913) before he was 20,
and was soon regarded as Dvoks natural successor. Despite opportunities through his
Grove Music Online
Suk, Josef (i)
constant travels as a performer to hear the latest European novelties he was subject to no other
strong musical influences; his virtuoso orchestral technique and subtle control of sound show his
awareness of Strauss and the French Impressionists, but he followed his own path in a steady,
organic development from lyrical Romanticism towards a complex polytonal musical language.
Like his teacher Dvok he was most at home with instrumental music. His early mass (1888
90) was his only venture into liturgical music; he wrote almost no songs; and the three choral sets
of 18991900, opp.15, 18 and 19, though well made and effective, are essentially explorations of
a genre to which he returned only once more with his male-voice choruses op.32 (191112). He
wrote no operas but the second of the two plays for which he supplied incidental music, Pod
jablon (Beneath the Apple Tree, op.20, 190001), includes sustained choral scenes which give
the suite (1912) arranged from it an almost oratorio-like character. As in the earlier score Radz a
Mahulena (Radz and Mahulena, 18978), there are, in addition to the instrumental pieces, a
few short songs and some melodrama passages for important scenes.
It is surprising that as a professional quartet player Suk wrote so little chamber music. Much of it
originated from his student days as he tried out various combinations (the String Quartet in D
minor, 1888; Piano Trio op.2, Piano Quartet op.1 and Piano Quintet op.8, 188993). The most
successful chamber work from this period is the String Quartet op.11 (1896), which has all the
freshness and melodic charm of Suks early music and, in its slow movement, a foretaste of the
more serious and personal style of Asrael. He wrote only one more quartet (op.31, 1911).
Although his only important works for the solo violin are the well-known tyi skladby (Four
Pieces, op.17, 1900) and a one-movement concerto, the Fantasy op.24 (19023), the sound of
the solo violin combining with the orchestra is one that permeates much of Suks music, from the
famous Radzsolo onwards. Suk was also a fine pianist, performing frequently to his friends and
occasionally in public, and he wrote rather more piano music. The earlier compositions were
generally published in small groups of characteristic pieces (opp.7, 10 and 12, 18916) whose
full-blooded, well-placed chords suggest Brahms, but whose undemanding forms, rich if
meretricious harmony, melodic clichs and fluent passage-work more often suggest the salon.
The Suite op.21 (1900, originally planned as a sonatina) attempts a more balanced design,
continued in the programmatic suites Jaro (Spring) op.22a and Letn dojmy (Summer
Impressions) op.22b, both written in 1902 after the birth of his son. They illustrate Suks
subjective Romantic piano style at its ripest, the last piece of op.22a, V roztouen (In Love),
achieving a popularity similar to that of the Love Song from op.7. But op.22a also contains Vnek
(The Breeze), a delicate, Impressionistic piece, revealing a more imaginative approach to
figuration, and a type of harmony that was turning from heavy chromaticism to a more modal
idiom. These qualities, and the intimate nature of O matince (About Mother, op.28, 1907), written
after the death of his wife, are developed in Suks greatest work for the piano, the suite of ten short
pieces ivotem a snem (Things Lived and Dreamt, op.30, 1909). All have detailed descriptions
of their character, some have additional programmes (no.5 on the recovery of my son) and all
inhabit a very personal world; in their economical evocation of mood, their exploration of new
musical means and their assured piano technique they foreshadow Debussys Prludes. In later
piano works such as Ukobavky (Lullabies, op.33, 191012) and O ptelstv (About
Friendship, op.36, 1920), Suk pared down his means to achieve a classic simplicity in which the
subtle control of harmony is particularly striking.
Suks central achievement was in orchestral music. The high point of his early orchestral writing
is the Serenade for strings op.6 (1892) and the op.16 suite, Pohdka (Fairy Tale, 18991900),
arranged from the Radz music. The more ambitious works that followed, the Violin Fantasy
op.24 (19023) and the Straussian tone poem Praga op.26 (1904), have a slightly portentous
quality that seems out of keeping with Suks limited emotional range up to then. The deaths of
Dvok (1904) and his daughter (1905), Suks young wife, within the space of 14 months
shattered the composers life and attitudes, and set into motion the vast Asrael symphony op.27
(19056). It is arguably his greatest work, and one of the finest and most eloquent pieces of
orchestral music of its time, comparable with Mahler in its structural mastery and emotional
impact. Although none of the orchestral works which follow Asraelare designated symphonies, all
have symphonic ambitions and proportions, particularly the two single-movement pieces Zrn
(Ripening, op.34, 19127) and Epilog op.37 (192029). Pohdka lta (A Summers Tale, op.29,
19079) is the lightest of the post-Asrael orchestral works, a suite more than a symphony,
showing a serene acceptance of life whose equanimity is disturbed only by the poignancy of the
Blind Musicians movement or the Mahlerian imagery of the fourth movement, In the Power of
Phantoms. As the title suggests, Ripening charts a mans personal development (that of Suk
Phantoms. As the title suggests, Ripening charts a mans personal development (that of Suk
himself) as he grows through the pain of lifes tragedies. In Epilog the psychological programme
made more concrete by the texts sung by soloists and chorus becomes darker as its subject
begins to contemplate his own mortality.
3. Style.
Unlike his Czech contemporaries Janek and Novk, Suk derived almost no stimulus from folk
music and very little from literary sources. Julius Zeyers was the only important literary influence
on him: his Radz and Mahulena, with its legendary Slavonic world, its message of true,
courageous love and clear-cut moral values articulated much of the young Suks outlook on life.
Its dreamy, slightly sad, introspective mood is one that runs through much of Suks early music, at
first no more perhaps than as a fin-de-sicle pessimism, but soon acquiring a specifically
Slavonic direction characterized by his dumka music. Suk wrote dumkas in opp.7 and 21 (the
poco triste movement of op.17 was also originally entitled Dumka) but there are dumka-like
movements (such as the Legenda of op.10) in all his early music. The funeral march is another
Radz feature, anticipated in Suks early orchestral funeral march (1889, dedicated to himself),
apotheosized in the second movement of Asrael and becoming terrifyingly grim in the march
section of Ripening (based on the seventh piece, marked forthright, later with an expression of
overpowering force, of Things Lived and Dreamt). In the polka music for the game of the swan
and the peacocks in Radz (later worked into the second movement of the suite) Suk wrote in a
popular style derived from Czech dance music. There are other such pieces among the piano
music (notably the minuet from op.21) and even during the years of Ripening and Epilog Suk
wrote light, appealing music such as the Ella Polka (1909) or the marches V nov ivot (Towards
a New Life, op.35c, 191920), which won him an award at the 1932 Olympics at Los Angeles,
and Pod Blankem (Beneath Blank, 1932). His last composition was a Czech dance, a
Sousedsk (1935) for small chamber ensemble.
Radz is central to Suks development. He identified the young couple Radz and Mahulena with
himself and his wife at the happiest time of their lives; it drew from him his most radiant, tender,
earnest and abundantly melodic music. He remodelled some of it in his next work, the womens
choruses op.15. It also became a point of reference for future works, its death motif of two
augmented 4ths recurring prominently from Asraelonwards. There are other examples in Suks
later music (notably in Things Lived and Dreamt and Ripening) of self-quotation and other
personal symbols. Another prominent topos is that of the fantastic dance. Early examples are the
Bacchanale in Beneath the Apple Tree (190001) and the Fantastick scherzo op.25 (1903), a
danse macabre with banal waltz rhythms, quirky chromatic tunes and highly imaginative
orchestration. Later metamorphoses in the scherzo movements of Asrael and A Summers Tale
suppress the dance element and heighten the malevolence of the fantasy. In Epilog the dance is
propelled by the biblical quotation sung by the male chorus: Prach jsi a v prach se obrt!
(Death thou art and unto death shalt thou return!). This verbal context, together with the death
theme from Radz on the brass cutting through skirling wind, scurrying strings, death-rattle side-
drums and the moaning of demons (the wordless male chorus), conjures up an apocalyptic
vision whose intensity is unique in Suks work.
Suks late orchestral music had become very complicated. His harmony was originally
sensuously Romantic, with a fondness for augmented chords (especially that of the augmented
5th), chromatic alteration, Neapolitan relations and the tonal ambiguity produced by frequent
pedals (e.g. in pedal movements such as the lullaby from About Mother and the second
movement of Asrael). Later he began to exploit polytonality more explicitly and systematically in
Ripening and Epilog. He was able to make these last scores comprehensible only by his precise
aural imagination and his superb craftsmanship as an orchestrator, a skill on which he placed
great emphasis as a teacher.
Suks later formal control grew from unpretentious beginnings. Most of his piano pieces have
simple repetitive structures; he successfully employed (e.g. in the violin Balada, 1890) the
fashionable monothematicism of the time but his early attempts at sonata form, even in the last
movement of the Serenade for strings are uneven, lacking a sense of the dramatic opposition of
key centres (so striking in Asrael) and tending towards an uncharacteristic long-windedness. The
seams of the one-movement Violin Fantasy are carelessly concealed, but the later single-
movement string quartet is much more subtle and adept. It cost him much effort, even at the
height of his powers, and prepared the way for the impressive single spans of Ripening and
Epilog. These two pieces showed Suks musical language at its utmost sophistication, his
response to the modern music he came across on his frequent tours. They also showed him
dangerously far from his roots as a simple muzikant of the Czech kantor tradition. From about
1912 his rate of composition noticeably slackened. His tiring life as a performer meant that
composition was a spare-time occupation; his duties at the Prague Conservatory, which he took
very seriously, made further demands, but as the premires of his works became more spaced
out it became clear that neither these commitments nor the increasing effort that the later scores
must have cost fully explained the gaps. Suk seems to have had misgivings about his
increasingly complicated musical speech, alien to many of his listeners; indeed, he derived a
childlike pleasure from the enthusiasm that his popular pieces (such as the New Life march)
aroused. The gulf between Suk the kantor and Suk the sophisticate was perhaps too great to
bridge.
Bibliography
SHS [incl. f urther bibliography]
J. Suk: Aus meiner Jugend: Wiener Brahms-Erinnerungen, Der Merker, ii (1910), 14750
Na poest 60. narozenin Josef a Suka [In honour of Suks 60th birthday], Tempo/Listy Hudebn matice, xiii
(19334), no.5 [incl. Suks view on his development as a composer, Kvts study of Suk and Zeyer, and
other documents and reminiscences]
J.M. Kvt, ed.: Josef Suk: ivot a dlo: studie a vzpomnky [Lif e and works: studies and reminiscences]
(Prague, 1935) [incl. articles by Kvt, K. Hof f meister, V. tpn, O. ourek, B. Vomka, O. n, B. tdro,
K. Reiner, A. Hba, F. Pcha, M. Bezdk, H. Boettinger, and a list of Suks published works]
V. tpn: Novk a Suk (Prague, 1945) [repr. of 3 substantial essays on Suk]
J.M. Kvt, ed.: iv slova Josefa Suka [In Suks own words] (Prague, 1946)
O. Filipovsk: Klavrn tvorba Josefa Suka [Suks piano works] (Plze, 1947)
J. Berkovec: Josef Suk (18741935): ivot a dlo [Lif e and works] (Prague, 1956, 2/1962, rev. and abridged
1968 as Josef Suk; Eng., Ger., Fr. and Russ. trans., 1968) [all versions contain f ull list of works and
extensive bibliography]
J.M. Kvt: Josef Suk v obrazech [Suk in pictures] (Prague, 1964)
R. Budi, ed.: Josef Suk: vbrov bibliografie [select bibliography] (Prague, 1965) [incl. chronological and
alphabetical catalogues of works, annotated bibliography, and discography]
Z. Sdeck: Lyrismus v tvorb Josefa Suka [Lyricism in Suks works] (Prague, 1966) [incl. bibliography,
commentary on sources, list of Suks articles, speeches and letters]
M. Kuna: Josef Suk Vclavu Talichovi: korespondence z Talichovy pozstalosti [Suk to Talich:
correspondence f rom Talichs estate], HV, vii (1970), 35689
E. Illingov: Listy ptelstv: Josef Suk v korespondenci Ilon a Vclavu tpnovm a Vilmu Kurzovi
[Letters of a f riendship: Josef Suk in his correspondence to Ilona tpnov, Vclav tpn and Vilm
Kurz], Pspvky k djinm esk hudb, iii (1976), 12363 [incl. 27 letters by Suk written 191835]
J. Suk: Dopisy nejblm [Letters to those closest to him], ed. M. Svobodov (Prague, 1976)
J. Doubravov: Sound and Structure in Josef Suks Zrn, International Review of the Aesthetics and
Sociology of Music, viii (1977), 7387
J. Berkovec and B. Prochzka: Pivtiv krajina Josefa Suka [The pleasant countryside of Josef Suk]
(Prague, 1982)
OM, xvii/8 (1985) [Suk issue, incl. J. Volek: K smantice zvtenho kvintakordu v hudebn e Josef a Suka
[On the semantics of the augmented 5th in Josef Suks musical speech], 22539]
Copyri ght Oxford Uni versi ty Press 2007 2012.
Z. Nouza: Sukv Pozdrav km na Slovensko [Suks Greeting to Pupils in Slovakia], OM, xviii (1986), 26
31
Zprvy spolenosti Josefa Suka, nos.17 (198693)
M. Svobodov: M setkn s Josef em Sukem [My meetings with Josef Suk], HRo, xli (1988), 3314
V. Karbusick: Josef Suk a Gustav Mahler, OM, xxii (1990), 24551
M. Svobodov: Josef Suk: tematick katalog (Jinoany, 1994) [NB incipits mostly connected to the wrong
pieces]
M. Svobodov-Herrmannov: Milovan Souata Josef Suk a Pardubice [Beloved little Suks: Josef Suk and
Pardubice], HRo, xlvii/6 (1994), 337 [reminiscences and letters]
Z. Nouza: Suks Schaf f en im Spiegel der zeitgenssischen tschechischen Musikkritik: die tschechische
Musikkritik im Spiegel der Musik von Josef Suk, Prager Musikleben zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts, ed. A.
Bezina (Berne, 2000), 15376
Z. Nouza: Autorsk poznmky k Tematickmu katalogu skladeb Josef a Suka [Commentary on Suks Thematic
catalogue of works], HV, xxxix (2002), 28593
Z. Nouza and M. Nov: Tematick katalog skladeb Josefa Suka/Thematic catalogue of the works of Josef
Suk (Prague, 2005)
See also CZECH QUARTET.
John Tyrrell