An Example of Šturm's Treatment of Baroque Form

Abstract

The legacy of Franc Šturm comprizes also some compositions in neobaroque style. The most explicit example is the Suite for piano from 1932. The cycle, in five movements (Prelude, Fugue, Andante, Passacaglia, Fuga à tre temi), is based, as regards their sequence and character, on old models, however, with visible compositional transformations. Horizontal and vertical structures follow a new aesthetics of sound, which are founded on harmonies of the fourth. Harmonic relations between contrapuntal passages are not in keeping with the traditional functional system and thus produce completely new solutions of sound. As regards the form and the sound of the cycle the movements are thematically interconnected. The least expressive are the two fugue movements, where the strict form does not allow any essential innovations; so, they reflect no more than school counterpoint. The slow movement, the Andante, is most interesting as it offers an original solution of polyphonic texture of three independent lines which, through piten and interval relations, produce an organic whole without repetition. Complicated combinations of tones do not follow any strict rules, so that they are conceived as an interesting kind of polymelodics, a point where contacts with baroque models are fully cut off. The Suite is an early work of Šturm, composed as an echo of neobaroque style during the twenties and thirties of our century, which, with the renaissance of strict contrapuntal forms, promised an important point of departure for new musical thinking. Later he realized that the acceptance of old formal structures does not suffice and that contemporary relations of sound demand also different formal solutions.