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most of the critics there were former pupils of his. 44 Reaction from the Prague critics
was much less positive, with reviewers picking on the work’s Naturalism and folk-
inspired music (aspects that had been emphasised in the anonymous programme note;
see APPENDIX I) 45 to find fault by making damning comparisons with Smetana. A
positive three-part review article in the periodical Jeviště by Josef Charvát (one of
Janáček’s former students) provoked controversy when the editorial board sought to
distance itself from Charvát’s praise of the Act 1 ensemble ‘Každý párek si musí’.
This editorial intervention in turn prompted a spirited defence by Janáček himself. 46
Despite these difficulties, a series of repeat performances followed, as well as
one-off ‘touring’ performances in České Budějovice (11 May 1904) and Písek (30
May 1904). However, the standard of performances, rather than improving, soon
deteriorated. 47 A review of the Brno performance given on 15 April 1904 in Lidové
noviny said that the music had become ‘an unbearable racket, a chaos of notes, the
singing was all over the place and the choruses were unarticulated shrieks.’ 48 Two
further isolated performances in Brno, on 7 December 1904 (attended by Kovařovic,
as noted by some of the players in their parts) and the following 7 February, were the
last until a significant three-performance revival in September and October 1906.
44 Janáček to Artuš Rektorys, 21 March 1908 (JA i, 52).
45 Czech original (‘O významu Její pastorkyně’) in Němcová 1974, 140; Engl. trans. (‘On the
significance of Jenůfa’) in JODA, JP 28. This programme note, the Czech original and translation of
which are given here in APPENDIX I, is thought to be either by Janáček or, at the very least, based on
information supplied by him (JODA, 54). Its wider importance is that it introduced several of the topics
which were to feature repeatedly in the critical history of Jenůfa.
46 See Němcová 1974, 144–5 and JODA, 57–8. Charvát’s three-part article, ‘Její pastorkyňa’, appeared
in Jeviště, i (1904), 15-17, 76–9, 103–10; a concluding fourth part seems to have been dropped as a
result of the controversy. Janáček’s response is reproduced in Němcová 1974, 145; Eng. trans. in
JODA, 57–8.
47 See above, fn. 42.
48 Lidové noviny, 17 April 1904, quoted in Němcová 1984, 27.
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