Page:The music of Bohemia.djvu/51

Rh A special analysis would be necessary to discover Novák's melodic and harmonic richness in chamber music, piano compositions, and especially in songs. His Pan, op. 43, a poem in tones for piano solo, is one of the most marvelous works of the modern piano literature. It consists of five parts: Prologue, Mountains, Ocean, Woods, Woman.

Simultaneously with Novák came another Czech modernist from Dvořák's class in composition, Josef Suk (1874), the second violinist in the famous Bohemian String Quartet. He is a composer of absolute subjectivity with inclination to mysticism; a real poet, in both the most complicate symphonic forms and in short piano sketches. He wrote the first composition made under the suggestion of the great war in Bohemia, his Meditation, op. 35, for string orchestra, in which is heard the prayer from the old St. Wenceslas' Chorale: "Do not let thy nation perish!" with a new solemnity of accent.