Kdo je na světě nejmocnější?

The 31-year-old Bohuslav Martinu° completed this entertaining comic ballet for children and adults shortly before relocating to France. Stylistically, many aspects of the elegant, humorous music already anticipate his Parisian compositions. Alongside a minuet, a waltz à la Rosenkavalier, and a polka, the work also includes rhythmic jazz movements such as shimmy and foxtrot which were particularly popular in the French metropolis at that time. The plot of the English fairy tale, originating from India, is set in a royal court populated by mice: the mouse princess is not allowed to marry her mouse prince because her parents wish her to take the most powerful person in the world as her husband. But even the sun king who is concealed behind the cloud duke is not good enough. Although the wind succeeds in dispersing the clouds, it fails in competition with a defiant wall which has become the new favourite of the choosy royal mouse parents. Ultimately, the mouse prince triumphs with the aid of a trick: with a little help from his friends, he burrows under the wall which immediately collapses and is finally permitted to wed the princess after all.