Otakar Ostrčil (1879-1935)

Osiřelo dítě (Op. 9, 1906)

When Otakar Ostrčil premiered “Osiřelo dítě” in 1906, he was in the early years of his tenure as a Czech and German instructor at a small academy in Prague, as well as the conductor of a local amateur orchestra. He would finally land his most important post as the head of opera at the National Theater in 1920 — following in the footsteps of famed Czech conductor and composer Karel Kovařovic.

This ballad for mezzo and orchestra was premiered by the Czech Philharmonic in 1906. While the text is of folk origin, the music does not resemble any folk idiom; it is an operatic scena of lush Romantic quality. Ostrčil loved opera, and eventually became the head of the National Theater in Prague and an operatic composer in his own right. He was one of the founding fathers of Czech modernism, along with contemporaries Vítězslav Novák, Josef Suk, and Josef Bohuslav Foerster. Zdeněk Nejedlý, the Czech musicologist and music critic who dominated the early twentieth-century musical scene of Prague, dubbed him the “continuer of the Smetana line and the heir of Fibich.”

Within the ballad, there are three speakers: the child, the father, and the mother. The young child asks her father where her mother is, only to be told she has died. She runs to her mother's grave and begs for her to return. Her mother appears and tells her she will summon her in the morning. The child falls gravely ill and dies. While the text is heartbreaking, the music is sublime, demonstrating Ostrčil's penchant for heightened musical drama. Personally, I see the child's death as freedom from her terrestrial form only to be reunited in happiness and peace with her mother.

The psychological element of this ballad was not uncommon during this period, or to Ostrčil, for that matter. Indeed, Strauss's Salome appeared a year prior to this ballad, only to be followed by Elektra a few years later. Ostrčil was also responsible for the disastrous Prague premiere of Wozzeck.

Enjoy this peformance by the exquisite Soňa Červená and the Prague Symphony Orchestra!