On Saturday, 18 May, the Philharmonic will for the first time add its Besední dům to the Brno Museum Night. Visitors, for whom the viewing of the foyer with its installed exhibition and information material is not enough, will have the opportunity to take an hour-long guided tour of the palace (from 7:00 p.m. every hour): it will lead across the ceremonial staircase into the large hall (talk about the history of the Besední dům and its current function with a mini concert), then through the office of the chief conductor to the directors' lounge (talk about the Philharmonic and another mini concert) and then to the sound room (an ensemble rehearsal room where visitors will hear a third mini concert and can have their questions answered); when leaving they will once again see the hall from the gallery and pass through the small hall (with a bust of Břetislav Bakala) back into the foyer. A musical performance will be performed in the first half of the evening/night - students and choirs of the Smetanova Art School, and then in the second half by the members of the Philharmonic.
It is interesting that an exhibition on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the birth of architect Theophil Hansen, the creator of a number of prominent buildings in Vienna and Brno, including Besední dům, is currently organised in the Vienna Ringturm – the most space in the promotional brochure focuses on this. We have hopes that the exhibition will also come there in the autumn.
On Friday, 7 July, we will celebrate the 90th birthday of Professor Alena Veselá-Štěpánková. The Philharmonic, of which she is an honorary member, owes her especially for her purposeful persistence and diplomatic skill, which she once used to defend the collapsing Besední dům from conserving and long-term, if not permanent closing.
The manuscript of an unpublished essay of 1968 appeared in the materials on Besední dům during the preparations for the Museum Night:
The End of Besední dům (from the cycle Předčasné reportáže)
It started with a statue that once, a long time ago, fell to the courtyard from the balustrades; what it represented, nobody knows: it was not too visible up there and it broke after the fall. The hole that it left was officially inspected and received an inventory number. Water leaking through the hole then one day found its way to the hall during rain and its trickle was recorded in stereo by the Czechoslovak gramophone enterprise 1.
From then on, the number of committees visiting Besední dům increased significantly2. A decisive step towards repairs was taken, however, when the first large block of plaster from the façade fell on a member of the SNB; the competent institutions decided to place signs bearing the inscription "Caution: Falling Plaster" without delay in appropriate places. They were not installed, however, the Heritage Office did not approve them as stylistically inappropriate; a tender for their artistic design had remarkable results but then the signs were no longer necessary because all the plaster had fallen down by then. However, even other things were falling off the façade, a ledge here, a piece of the frieze there, a plaque here, a stone vase there; passers-by became used to these phenomena over time and were concerned when nothing fell off for a long time.
The gradual collapse of individual rooms inside the building became an everyday thing as well; a commotion was caused only by a piano that fell from the conductors' room of the Philharmonic to the rear wing of the restaurant on the ground floor and partially blocked it: thanks to the outraged intervention of the restaurant staff, their facility was quickly transferred into the third zone of difficulty. On the other hand, the burial of both sound rooms on the second floor was completely smooth; because none of the rehearsing members of Moravan, VSMU, Brno Beseda and Lýska´s Children's Choir (who were working in the hall on the first floor where the larger of the two sound rooms fell) saved themselves, the choir activity in Brno stopped altogether 3.
However, the hall served its social and cultural mission for a long time after that; the collapse of the left part of the gallery remained almost without noticing because it occurred during a concert of the Creative Group A4. The operation in the hall was partially restricted only after the collapse of both staircases; however, the Philharmonic continued to fulfil the plan of rehearsals, although entrance through the windows on ladders from the street used to be rather uncomfortable in the winter. There was a significant improvement in working conditions, however: the holes in the walls and the ceiling finally resolved the long-standing issue of insufficient lighting5.
Meanwhile, Host do domu6 ceased publication; an investigation initiated under pressure from subscribers, who did not receive three issues in a row, it was found that the editorial staff was destroyed by the scores gathered in the Secretariat of the SČS two floors up for the purposes of the spring composer show: they found their way through two floors to the editor's area of Host. The remains of editor-in-chief Skácel were discovered in the rubble completely intact; the barely opened bottle of slivovitz proves that the incident occurred unexpectedly.
It cannot be accurately estimated when the last signs of life left Besední dům; they never ceased because the restaurant is still open today. It is certain that musicians, writers and singers all took a hard hit; human casualties were not reported. The rubble is subject to the care of historical monuments. It is rumoured that the amount of 13.70 Koruna was approved to repair a doorknob of the former Regional Concert Agency, worn out by excessive polishing; negotiations are now in progress on the proposal for this full amount to be used to build a tasteful panel that would properly acquaint our working community with the important monument of the once cultural city.
Notes:
1 W. A. Mozart: Symphony in G minor WITH THE TRICKLING OF WATER; Brno Philharmonic Orchestra, directed by Martin Turnovský
2 The statement of an unnamed member of the Philharmonic "If they came to concerts like this, we would have the highest attendance in the world" can be, however, considered exaggerated
3 Brno Beseda rehearses every Tuesday and Friday in the building of the Conservatory. Become a member!
4 It is only mentioned by a reviewer of Lidová demokracie: "…on the other hand, Berger's otherwise remarkable piece Nausea symphonica, in all its introverted targeting, uses somewhat external and outdated means (cutting drum with a kitchen knife, rigorous dodecaphonic, collapse of the gallery, tuning of string instruments into fifths…"
5 A group of former members of the Philharmonic greeted this even with a congratulatory telegram from the Institute for the Blind
6 The remarkable fact that Host do domu was appearing and was not entering, as it should be, can be explained by the specificity of the Brno cultural situation
The essay speaks not only about the emergency situation of Besední dům in 1986 and the related
difficulties of members of the Philharmonic, but it also describes other contemporary facts – cultural institutions operating in Besední dům, lengthy negotiations of committees, the price level, Czech grammar, verbal clichés, the common habit of sending telegrams and it reminds of the then literary hit – Mňačka's Oneskorené reportáže.
