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APPENDIX VI
Janáček, Jenůfa and the straw fiddle
One of the most distinctive aspects of Jenůfa’s sound-world is the striking use (in
more than the literal sense) of the xylophone in Act 1. It features nowhere else in the
opera, but reappears at nodal points throughout the Act. Moreover, as Janáček’s
annotations to the instrument’s line in the full score make clear, it is specifically
associated with the location of the action, which is set at a mill: ‘Late afternoon. A
lonely mill in the mountains. On the right, in front of the dwelling house, an extended
roof supported by wooden posts. Some bushes, some felled timber, in the background
a stream.’ 1 Although no mill-wheel as such is specified in this description, most
naturalistic productions of the opera do indeed include one, and often take the
xylophone’s musical cue to have the wheel visibly moving while the instrument plays.
Given the xylophone’s prominence at crucial moments throughout Act 1, it is
surprising to discover that, in Janáček’s original, pre-première conception of the
opera, the instrument appears to have played a somewhat lesser role. This is only
partly explained by the fact that it was Janáček’s removal of the self-standing
orchestral introduction (Úvod) which effectively threw the aural spotlight onto the
xylophone, making it the very first sound the audience hears. 2 A close examination
of the two surviving manuscript scores (ŠFS and ŠVS) shows that several of the
xylophone’s appearances during Act 1 were added by Janáček himself after the
original copying, probably in his October 1903 revisions to the opera (see CHAPTER 1,
1 ‘Podvečer. Osamělý, pohorský mlýn. Vpravo před domovním stavením síňka z dřevěných sloupů.
Stráňka, křoviny, několik pokácených dřev, vzadu strouha.’ Gabriela Preissová, Její pastorkyňa, Act 1,
opening.
2 The Úvod was never used as an introduction to the opera in Janáček’s lifetime; see CHAPTER 1, §1.2.
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