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Fig. A6.2 Hans Holbein the Younger, ‘Das Altweyb’ (1538)
the fact that Jenůfa’s brand of Slavism is specifically Moravian. 22
Another aspect of the xylophone of which Janáček will certainly have been
aware is its use as a symbol of death. This association is evident as far back as the
first half of the sixteenth century, when Hans Holbein the Younger’s series of
woodcuts of the Dance of Death included one picture (‘Das Altweyb’) showing a
skeleton dancing in front of an elderly woman whilst playing a one-row xylophone
(see illustration above). 23 Janáček would hardly have needed to consult the history
books to have been aware of this link, however, for on 30 March 1884 he had
22 By the time Pazdírek’s dictionary of music appeared in 1929, the authentically Czech-sounding but
misleading term slamozvuk had been jettisoned in favour of the term xylofon and the description is of
the four-row concert xylophone popularised by Guzikow, with 36 wooden bars; Pazdírek characterises
its tone as ‘hollow and harsh’ (‘dutý a ostrý) and gives the variable range as ‘(g) c 1 až g 3 (c 4 )’, i.e. (g) c'
to g''' (c''''), a full 3½ octaves; PHSN i, 429. It was Guzikow who extended the instrument’s range to
3½ octaves; see James Blades/James Holland, ‘Xylophone, §2: Europe’, NG2, xxvii, 619.
23 Published in book form as Les simulachres et historiees faces de la mort (Lyon: M. et G. Trechsel,
1538).
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