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could speculate that the change of metre might in this instance have been influenced
by the shortcomings of the forces at the Brno National Theatre, although one would
surely be justified in assuming that, at least in the Andante section, this would hardly
have been unduly taxing for the players. In any event, the rhythmic variety
introduced by the semiquavers of Janáček’s revision achieves an intensification of
expression not quite present in the undifferentiated succession of 5/8 quavers of the
pre-première original. In his 1907/8 revisions (resulting in the KPU vocal score)
Janáček took this intensification a stage further, freeing up the vocal line from the
orchestral accompaniment (I/vi/115–17) in a manner that would come to typify the
1908 version (see below, §3.3.5): 5
Ex. 3.3
Although the vocal line revision in the above example was made after the 1904 première,
it is clear that some changes to the voice parts were made before this date. Among these
were alterations to the Kostelnička’s Act 1 intervention aria, ‘Aji on byl zlatohřivý’,
including not merely rhythmic adjustment (removal of duplets in favour of compound
time) but also the excision of some phrases of text (see Ex. 3.4). The modification of the
5 See also CO, 283–6.
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