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and 16b in APPENDIX IV) to Laca’s final-scene solo, ‘Chci, Jenůfka’ (II/viii/41),
which proceeds to a duet with Jenůfa (fig. 116c) and then a trio with the Kostelnička
(fig. 117). Although, as with ‘A vy, muzikanti’, these cuts would be taken even
further in 1907/8, the 1906 changes removed the entire duet with Jenůfa, as well as the
second ‘verse’ of Laca’s solo (‘Hle, ta jizva’, II/viii/163), thereby substantially
lessening the impression (so obvious in the 1904 version) of an operatic set number.
In addition to such larger scale cuts, which address not only formal
anachronisms but also the crucial question of dramatic pacing, the excision of several
short ‘orchestral interludes’ 19 is an important development: it would be taken much
further in Janáček’s revisions of 1907/8, thereby removing some of the more four-
square periodicity of the 1904 version. Although in his initial suggestions Hrazdira
appears to have been motivated simply by a desire to address a few of the opera’s
more obvious longueurs, the 1906 cuts, as evidenced by the musical sources, in fact
prepare the way for the far more extensive revisions of 1907/8.
3.3 The 1907/8 revisions
The revisions made to the opera by Janáček over the Christmas/New Year holiday of
1906/7, and continued during the course of preparations for the 1908 KPU vocal score,
combine types of change already used in the pre-première alterations (i.e. textural
changes) and the 1906 revisions (i.e. cuts). Both, however, were now taken much
further. Janáček had by this stage had ample time to absorb the experience and lessons
of two series of performances, given in 1904–5 and in autumn 1906. This, coupled with
the incentive of, firstly, the possibility of an award from the Czech Academy and then
19 ‘orch. mezihry’: Hrazdira’s term for the one-, two- or three-bar instrumental phrases that frequently
punctuate the voice parts; see APPENDIX II.
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