Zdenka Bokesová

PhDr. Zdenka Bokesová, b. Hanáková, was the first Slovak musicologist, music critic and theoretician. She ranks among the most productive authors who have ever reflected on Slovak musical life. In her work there is a tendency of a gradual shift from professional contributions to journalism and from musicology to the educational and organizational issues of musical life.

She came from Moravia and graduated from grammar schools in Prostějov and Bratislava. She studied piano and at that time also completed her studies in musicology at the Faculty of Arts of Comenius University in Bratislava under Dobroslav Orel. Two years later she defended her dissertation on the Czech polyphonist Jiří Rychnovský, a Czech composer.

She entered the local musical life in the late 1930s, devoting herself to the work of the modern generation of the Moyzes school of composition (Alexander Moyzes, Dezider Kardoš, Andrej Očenáš and others). She was a supporter of the socialist regime, towards whose aesthetics she tried to direct our musical creation. As a critic, for example, she denounced Suchoňov's opera Krútňava (1949) as too Christian, in response to which it was withdrawn from the programme and had to be reworked. She promoted and popularised Slovak music and performers and spread musical awareness through her lecturing activities.

She summarized her theoretical views on the role of music criticism in her article On Music Criticism (Slovenská hudba, no. 2/1958). She demanded from the critic not only professional knowledge, but also knowledge of people's lives, so that in his critical activity he could penetrate the collective social consciousness. She wrote for practically all the Bratislava daily newspapers (Slovenský večerník, Slovenská politika, Robotnícke noviny, Čas, Pravda, Ľud...).

Zdenka Bokesová was also an important personality in the field of the organisation of Slovak culture. She stood at the birth of all musical institutions that were founded in 1949. She participated in the founding of SĽUK, the opera at the Jozef Gregor Tajovský Theatre (Banská Bystrica), and the Slovak Philharmonic. She also contributed to the development of the Union of Slovak Composers and as an official she also served on various editorial boards.

"...a critic whose opinions were not dependent on others, who gave priority to Slovak national education, a critic who did not hide her opinions behind incomprehensible phrases or pseudo-science... When she wrote about concerts or opera performances, her criticism did not remain only on the periphery of events, did not get bogged down in irrelevant details, but was able to apply more aesthetic postulates, which she herself had already fought her way to in her early years as an excellent piano student at the Academy of Music and Drama." (NOVÁČEK, Zdenko: Kritička Zdenka Bokesová. In: Hudobný život, 1981, č. 23. s. 7)