The article summarises the position of George Frideric Handel, Joseph Haydn and Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy in the music history of the Bohemian Lands, especially in the 18th and 19th centuries. Haydn became one of the leading figures of Bohemian music life during his life-time. Handel’s sacred compositions were known in Bohemia soon after he settled permanently in England. Handel’s and Haydn’s oratorios belonged to the core repertoire both of the Bohemian 19th century music societies and of private concert organisers; Handel’s music was performed arranged either by Mozart or by the controversial Viennese Kapellmeister and composer Ignaz Franz von Mosel. Mendelssohn was the only composer who matched Handel and Haydn in the number of performances of his oratorios in Bohemia.
The paper aims to demonstrate how the techniques of disciplinary power in prenatal care affect pregnant women. I will illustrate my argument using the results of ethnographic research conducted at the Division of Risk Pregnancy at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology in a hospital in Central Slovakia. The analysis of ethnographic material indicates that although pregnant women are objectified and disciplined in prenatal care, they consider and evaluate the practices of the medical staff. Prenatal care interferes with other social roles which pregnant women play in their life. I interpret the ethnographic material in terms of the concept of disciplinary power developed by Michel Foucault, and in the terms of the theory of moral emotions by Jonathan Haidt. I argue that risk assessment is a part of the techniques of disciplinary power, and that the explicit ascription of feelings of the uncertainty, fear, guilt, and shame to a certain kind of behaviour in pregnancy helps to identify norms that regulate biological reproduction.
This article analyses anti-obesity discourse in post-war Czechoslovakia, particularly in the country’s late socialist period. The article conceives of the discourse on obesity as a tool of biopolitical, rather than totalitarian, power, examining the ways expert knowledge, power, and morality worked together to produce a socialist subject. On the first level, it analyses the expert anti-obesity discourse as an example of the expertisation of public discourse in socialist Czechoslovakia. Second, it shows the construction of obesity in contrast to bodily ability, and the stigmatisation of the ‘fat’ body. On the last level, the article focuses on the gendered aspects of the discourse and demonstrates the ways in which the anti-obesity campaign supported the heteronormative framework of late socialism. By examining expert and media discourses, the article argues that the campaign against obesity served as a means to construct a proper socialist body and induce a moral panic about the state of socialism.
Leo Kestenberg worked from 1918–1932 for the Prussian Ministerium für Wissenschaft, Kunst und Volksbildung (Ministry of Science, Arts and Public Education). His department looked after opera houses and all music teaching institutions, from nurseries to the Academy of Arts. Implementing the policy of modern thinking, Kestenberg had a decisive influence in shaping the music development of the Weimar Republic, including bringing Paul Hindemith, Franz Schreker, Artur Schnabel and Otto Klemperer to Berlin. Based on his ideas, music education became law; in the field of music education, Prussia became the leading region inside Germany. Kestenberg succeeded due to the post-war situation: besides caring for political and military matters, the political system paid great attention also to culture and especially music. While Kestenberg’s activities at first enjoyed a postive response, even among conservative circles, in the following years, especially after 1933, as a socialist, democrat, Jew and foreigner, he was seen as the epitomy of the hated ‘Weimar System’.
Together with the hitherto unpublished letter of 6 September 1831, Tomášek sent the score of his Requiem op. 70 to the Zurich publisher, music writer and composer Hans Georg Nägeli. The author of the letter expressed his firm belief that due to the “prosperity of music practice in Switzerland” and the influence of the reputable Nägeli, it should not be a problem to find opportunity and funding to put on the enclosed work in that country. With gratitude, Tomášek puts Nägeli in mind of the fact that he had published some of his piano works between 1803 and 1805, calling him “the one to determine the spirit in the music world”. He briefly mentions several of his earlier compositions and, with a great deal of sarcasm, criticizes the contemporary “swamp of bad taste”, in which the audience has recently fallen, misguided by the “mendacious” Rossini and his followers. Tomá‰ek draws Nägeli’s attention to an enclosed article of his called “On Criticism in Relation to Music”, in which he appealed to “all respectable priests of art” to cultivate sensible criticism. He encourages Nägeli not to let his “whip” (meaning his feared sharp pen) “rest until things have changed”.
This study deals with the relationship of Prince Joseph Adam von Schwarzenberg to music and theatre and with the way in which his theatrical preferences revealed themselves in the repertoire of his private castle theatre in Cesky Krumlov from 1766 until 1768. Through a careful study of the extant sources (correspondence, libretti, scores and parts, accounting books etc.), the author has managed to specify the reasons for the precipitous renovation of the castle theatre in late 1765 and early 66 and to determine what specific dramatic works were performed there. Among other things, she has succeeded in compiling the entire list of performances planned for the fourteen-day wedding celebration in the summer of 1768. The author furthermore focuses on information about the musicians who were then in the princes services and also about commissioned musical instruments and musical scores and parts., Helena Kazárová., Obsahuje seznam literatury, and Anglické resumé na s. 45.