Music by František Škvor for the Karol Plicka's film The Earth Sings – the beginning of Slovak national music? : some remarks on the origin and importance

Karol Plicka (1894–1987), musicologist, etnographer, photographer, violinist and teacher devoted the main part of his professional life to Slovakia. During the interwar period he became the most significant slovak foklorist. The invention of sound film inspired him to make a film as an artefact with Slovak ethnographic subject matter, and the result was the first Slovak fulllength film The Earth Sings (1930–1933). The aim of the film makers was to present images from the Slovak countryside from spring to autumn. Situations presenting the life of the common people, which dominate the film, offer the opportunity to present folklore: ceremonies, dances, children's games, and of course music. Plicka regarded music as exceptionally important in the film. His original aim was to add original folklore sung and played directly by the film protagonists, but that turned out to be technically impossible, in the end it was necessary to write an original film score, and he chose František Škvor, the composer and conductor of the National Theatre in Prague, to fulfil the task. Škvor's music contains originally composed music, music inspired by slovak folklore melodies and concrete quotations of slovak folk music. In my contribution I want to focus the ideological basic of the film, which I find very important for the whole conception of Škvor's score, and concrete musical elements, which was used by the composer. Of course, I want to focus the significance of the Škvor's music for the development of the Slovak national music, which was then, at the beginning of 1930s, very actual problem of Slovak musical life.