Janáčkova trnitá cesta k založení brněnské konzervatoře a jejímu zestátnění

Right after the declaration of independent Czechoslovakia Janáček got busy carrying out his long-standing dream of founding a conservatoire in Brno. As a representative of the Brno Organ School he started negotiations with the music school of the Philharmonic Club of the Brno Beseda in November 1918 about the possible unification of the two institutions into a conservatoire. At the same time he addressed Professor František Weyr, a leading cultural figure and deputy at the National Assembly that should itself produce an initiative to found a conservatiore in Brno. This request reached the meeting of the National Assembly on 10 December 1918 and a resolution approved that the government does all necessary action to urgent establishment of a conservatiore in Brno. Highly difficult negotiations started with many bodies involved: cultural comission of the National Assembly, Ministery of Education and National Enlightenment, Union for Improvement of Church Music in Moravia (founder of the Brno Organ School), The Brno Beseda, Union of Music Estates, and also the Prague conservatiore that had been demanding nationalization for some time. Janáček's idea at the very beginning was the conception of a high-school institute of music research based on psychology. This idea, however, had no positive response. After many negotiations and compromises a provisionally private conservatoire was founded in Brno in September 1919 with high state subsidy and an agreement that it would become a state institution if it proves successful. It was then divided into an elementary school, a conservatoire and a higher masterclass. Leoš Janáček became head of the school. Shortly afterwards the Prague conservatoire was nationalized as a secondary school with high school masterclass. This raised an outrage among the MPs from Moravia, trustees and teachers of the Brno conservatoire. Thanks to these protests the proposal of immediate nationalization of the Brno conservatoire got to the programme of the National Assembly as early as 16 January 1920. It was decided the the government prepare the appropriate law. This soon materialized and the Assembly nationalized the Brno conservatoire on 22 March 1920, but only as a secondary school. So Janáček wasn't successful with his idea of a high school/university institute and was, moreover, appointed a professor of the Prague masterclass and thus lost any control over the Brno conservatoire. His pupil Jan Kunc was appointed its head. Immediately at the beginning of the school year 1920/21 Kunc replaced Janáček's method of teaching harmony that had been traditionally taught at the Brno Organ School for several dozens of years by Otakar Šín's method that was taught in Prague. Janáček, however, kept on dreaming about his conception of the conservatoire and at least managed to arrange a possibility of visiting lectures of aesthetics and experimental psychology at the Masaryk University for his students.