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corresponds to the present figs 122–122b, with Barena expressing relief that Laca’s
knife has not cut Jenůfa’s eye, and Stařenka bemoaning the grief she has to deal with
from the ‘boys’ and (in a line cut by autumn 1903) exclaiming what madness it is to
play with knives (‘Co je to za rozum laškovat s nožem v ruce!’) before the Foreman
runs back on stage. Like the surrounding bars as they survive in the 1904 version, this
passage is in 3/4, with a key signature of four flats. It is built around an agitated
figure of semiquaver sextuplets (initially flutes and strings) followed by triplet
quavers (strings) with a held pedal (clarinet and bassoon plus tremolo lower strings).
This texture is used to effect a build-up over a pedal D flat (from 198v/2), becoming
harmonically diffuse (199v) but finding its footing again (199v) and climaxing on a
chord of D flat major before the music starts building a second ascent (200v/1 =
I/vii/262).
The excision of both these passages suggests that Janáček undertook a radical
overhaul of the entire Act 1 ending at some point before he handed over the score to
the Brno National Theatre in October 1903. Indeed, it was perhaps this, the most
thoroughgoing of the pre-première revisions, to which Janáček was referring when he
wrote to Camilla Urválková: ‘I am so taken up and overworked with the final revision of
my opera […]’. 6
Generally, however, although the changes made by autumn 1903 featured a
sizeable group of major revisions as outlined here, the overriding trend is one of
clarification, with Janáček recasting the notation of many passages, whilst leaving
their musical substance broadly intact. With the exception of the two passages from
the end of Act 1 detailed above, there were no major cuts: these would come later.
6 Němcová 1974, 135; see CHAPTER 1, §1.2.
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