Roman Bělor speaks at Prague Spring 50

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04/12/2018 Added

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Roman Bělor gives his talk "Prague Spring Music Festival—Per aspera ad astra" Prague Spring 50. https://praguespring50.unl.edu/speakers#roman-belor

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[00:00:10.130]Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen,
[00:00:12.250]it's a great honor for me to be here and I would like
[00:00:14.720]to express my gratitude and admiration for what James
[00:00:19.960]and Mariana and others have done to make this meeting
[00:00:23.680]possible, because it's something really like a dream
[00:00:26.700]to come Nebraska and to find a place
[00:00:30.010]where people are so interested in Czechs
[00:00:32.230]and what the Czechs are doing, so I'll try to participate
[00:00:37.070]in extension of the interest.
[00:00:40.990]This week is dedicated to the Progue Spring 1968
[00:00:45.440]and as you see on the screen, I would like to bring
[00:00:50.460]some sun or something, some optimism to discussion,
[00:00:57.170]because in class days, I'm afraid, that the suicidal
[00:01:01.300]tendencies have grown, because the team of 1968
[00:01:05.490]is everything, but happy story.
[00:01:08.930]But I'm pleased to have a possibility to offer to you
[00:01:13.650]another Prague spring, Prague spring, that lasts
[00:01:18.370]much longer than seven months and Prague spring,
[00:01:22.270]that has existed already before Prague spring 1968
[00:01:26.900]and Prague spring, that has existed even before communists
[00:01:29.930]came to the power in 1948.
[00:01:35.350]Here we are, but I have a respect for the main team
[00:01:38.370]of the conference or meeting and so I will invite
[00:01:43.930]you to join me in the time machine and we will jump
[00:01:47.753]immediately in the middle of events of 1968,
[00:01:52.060]we will jump into the 12th of May 1968.
[00:03:26.874]And I will make now an impolite stop, maestro Karel Ancerl
[00:03:30.233]and the Czech filharmonic would excuse my stop
[00:03:37.542]of this video, because I wanted to draw your attention
[00:03:40.940]to the sign on the wall of Smetana hall,
[00:03:43.870]there's written fresca here 1968,
[00:03:46.600]so it was probably the first time when Prague spring 1968
[00:03:51.700]has appeared, because political term, 1968
[00:03:55.500]or Prague spring 1968 has appeared much later.
[00:04:34.630]That's the second stop, we are now in the middle
[00:04:39.640]or at the beginning of an opening concert
[00:04:41.440]of the Prague spring festival 1968
[00:04:43.650]and it should be said, that this was already 32rd year
[00:04:48.240]of the festival and maestro Karel Ancerl had a time
[00:04:52.951]for the Czech filharmonic, like anybody in the hall
[00:04:56.570]could have expected what would happen in let's say
[00:04:59.580]three and a half months, so it was an opening concert
[00:05:03.540]of the festival full of optimism, full of hopes
[00:05:06.100]and let's think about what kind of atmosphere people
[00:05:12.500]had felt at the time.
[00:05:15.080]I will give you just my impression, I was 10 years old
[00:05:18.110]at the time and I remember very well
[00:05:24.410]the broad optimism through the society and for myself,
[00:05:28.210]it was quite interesting, because my grandfather
[00:05:32.410]was a close friend of the founder of the Czech boy scouts
[00:05:36.010]movement and boy scouts movement was banned
[00:05:39.110]by the communists after 1948 and I've got a chance
[00:05:44.980]to become a member of a bot scout movement immediately
[00:05:48.100]in the beginning of 1968 and I have a witness something
[00:05:52.030]unbelievable, it was such an immediate rebirth
[00:05:55.510]of boy scouts movement and I was surprised by the fact,
[00:06:00.723]that I simply didn't know from where all those structures
[00:06:05.830]have appeared and you may know, that the communists
[00:06:08.690]were unable to distribute the goods well
[00:06:12.370]and in small department store in the middle of Prague
[00:06:16.540]called the children's house, immediately there appeared
[00:06:20.420]one special floor dedicated to the bot scouts
[00:06:23.230]and in few weeks, everything was available there
[00:06:28.213]from backpacks onto shoes, from shoes to the boy scouts
[00:06:32.930]hats, everything was there, so everybody who wanted
[00:06:35.610]to be a real boy scout had a chance to go there
[00:06:38.490]and buy everything, everything was there,
[00:06:40.227]it was a signature, that something special is happening
[00:06:43.529]and I remember the pride to go through the streets
[00:06:48.810]in the boy scouts uniform, but as maestro Ancerl didn't
[00:06:54.390]expect, that he will have to emigrate in one year
[00:06:56.820]and I didn't expect, that boy scouts movement
[00:06:59.860]will be banned again in a year, we were full of optimism.
[00:07:06.210]But I have said, that Prague spring festival is much longer
[00:07:10.950]than Prague spring 1968, nevertheless, there is a question,
[00:07:15.155]what has happened before 1968 with the festival,
[00:07:19.320]what has happened with the musical life of Czechoslovakia,
[00:07:22.540]what was happening before.
[00:07:24.721]Let me please to go back in the history and I will make
[00:07:29.610]a short historical survey to the musical life
[00:07:33.120]of Czech lands and Czechoslovakia.
[00:07:39.160]Something, what should be mentioned about Czech lands,
[00:07:42.460]it's a more exact term than Czech republic,
[00:07:45.850]because Czech lands is historical term
[00:07:48.170]describing the space, not just a national space.
[00:07:52.498]I have had in the past some special traits
[00:07:55.500]and one of them is unbelievably rick musical heritage.
[00:08:03.690]It's somehow based in a very detailed structure of music
[00:08:08.530]development and it started in 17 and went on in 18th century
[00:08:12.870]when almost last village had a cantor,
[00:08:15.810]who was teaching music and it lead to special situations,
[00:08:19.990]it was admired by neighbor nations, when even In the last
[00:08:25.370]village a carpenter or local servant was to play trumpet
[00:08:29.520]or violin and I'm afraid we cannot say this today,
[00:08:33.830]but at the time, it was something, what was not usual
[00:08:39.080]in other countries of Europe, so we were really super power
[00:08:43.190]in let's say folk music or in detailed distribution
[00:08:49.780]of musical knowledge throughout the country.
[00:08:55.858]And it led to the special situation nowadays,
[00:08:58.660]that we may say, that we are the smallest nation
[00:09:00.790]having the biggest musical heritage and to be sincere,
[00:09:07.020]sometimes we have a problem, that we don't have enough
[00:09:10.470]capacities, we don't have enough high quality capacities
[00:09:15.381]to present all our musical heritage and very often
[00:09:18.990]we have to ask other nations to help us.
[00:09:25.420]Just briefly I will jump through the centuries
[00:09:28.390]and through the music styles just to mention certain names
[00:09:33.000]that should be mentioned.
[00:09:34.110]There are some important Czech composers
[00:09:38.720]from renaissance period, we will jump to the baroque period
[00:09:45.100]and especially the name of Jan Dismas Zelenka should be
[00:09:48.250]underlined, because this was the person,
[00:09:50.760]that was respected by his colleagues at the time,
[00:09:54.760]like Han Sebastian Bach, Antonio Vivaldi
[00:09:57.821]Frederick Hendel, so he was a great personality
[00:10:01.320]with mental logic, but as I said, we had too many people
[00:10:05.890]and not too much work, so many of our composers
[00:10:09.330]and musicians were forced to leave Czech lands
[00:10:13.754]to find better job to be paid and to find economical
[00:10:18.900]background for existence, so were really,
[00:10:21.882]what was called conservatuar of Europe,
[00:10:26.420]we were distributing our musicians world wide,
[00:10:29.670]what was quite interesting and this is also something,
[00:10:34.380]what we most probably cannot offer
[00:10:36.860]to the other nations today.
[00:10:41.830]There are many important names, Usef Mislovachic
[00:10:44.920]was a big star on the top of his career in Italy,
[00:10:50.587]Stamits family has strongly influenced musical styles
[00:10:54.173]before arrival of romantism, so we may say they
[00:10:58.510]had an impact on Mozart, Heiden and others,
[00:11:04.220]maybe more famous coming after them.
[00:11:07.610]There's another generation of classical period,
[00:11:11.360]I would like to underline the name of Antonin Rejcha,
[00:11:13.850]who was a professor at the academy of Paris
[00:11:16.460]and among his pupil we can find great names,
[00:11:20.900]like Hector Parlios.
[00:11:23.550]And we are coming to this great period of romantic
[00:11:26.700]and post romantic music, this big triangle of stars
[00:11:31.740]of the Czech music, Bedrich Smetana, Leos Janacek
[00:11:34.550]and Antonin Dvorak, especially Dvorak
[00:11:36.920]has become I would say a global superstar
[00:11:39.850]of the classical music, but we are following
[00:11:42.960]from decade to decade the strengthening position
[00:11:46.030]of Janacek, Janacek is I would say now very close
[00:11:49.910]to the position of Dvorak and even maybe in the future
[00:11:53.820]he will skip of Dvorak, because especially in operatic world
[00:11:58.898]Janacek is big star.
[00:12:02.590]But they were not alone, there are other great personalities
[00:12:07.220]that should be mentioned, we are so rich in great composers,
[00:12:12.430]personalities, that we can afford to put many composers
[00:12:16.220]in the second or the third line, despite, that other nations
[00:12:19.325]would probably excel them as number one or number two.
[00:12:26.120]Very often I'm using as an example personality
[00:12:28.900]of Edward Elgar, a great British composer,
[00:12:32.420]but for me, Edward Elgar being a Czech
[00:12:34.750]would be in the second or maybe third line, I'm sorry,
[00:12:39.020]if someone is from Britain here.
[00:12:44.370]There are other great personalities of the 20th century,
[00:12:49.320]it's sad to mention, that many of them were later on
[00:12:52.890]victims of holocaust and tragedy, the second world war.
[00:13:00.260]Just jumping through the names, but their names
[00:13:05.517]and their faces should be mentioned.
[00:13:10.370]And there's one challenging question,
[00:13:12.640]whether we can consider Gustav Mahler and Erich
[00:13:16.400]Wolfgang Korngold as the Czech composers,
[00:13:18.540]because they were not Czechs, but they were Czech born
[00:13:21.020]composers, Mahler was born in a small village
[00:13:24.876]70 kilometers out of Prague in a small village of Kaliste,
[00:13:29.384]very far his young years in Yehlava and it's obvious,
[00:13:34.530]that he was strongly influenced by Czech bands
[00:13:38.610]and Czech songs, where he sometimes heard in his symphonies.
[00:13:43.220]And Erich Wolfgang Korngold, who became electron
[00:13:45.810]in US emigration, a big start of American movie soundtracks
[00:13:52.250]was born in Bernan, in Moravia.
[00:13:56.320]But having such a strong musical background,
[00:14:00.350]Czech lands were trying to find something,
[00:14:04.630]what was very popular in Britain already at the end
[00:14:07.370]of the 19th century to have its proper music festival.
[00:14:12.870]It should be mentioned what happens to other nations
[00:14:15.370]sometimes, that our first attempt failed.
[00:14:19.530]This is a facing page of the program
[00:14:22.290]of the first great Czech music festival,
[00:14:25.050]it was organized in the 1904, Antonio Dvorak
[00:14:28.907]was its president and I'm sorry to mention,
[00:14:33.890]that he died on the very same year later on,
[00:14:37.070]but this festival was expected to be number one
[00:14:39.990]and everybody expected, that next years we will have
[00:14:43.530]other festivals, but we had no other festivals later on.
[00:14:48.390]This festival was the first one and for a long time,
[00:14:51.980]also the last one.
[00:14:56.580]And I'm now jumping over the years until the year 1946,
[00:15:03.070]when we succeeded finally to found a real
[00:15:07.380]and I would say long existing music festival
[00:15:12.420]and it should be mentioned, that there were two challenging
[00:15:15.650]inspirations to found a festival in Prague,
[00:15:18.630]one of them was the first anniversary of the end
[00:15:21.130]of the second world war, what was a great reason
[00:15:23.850]to celebrate and the other reason was the 50th anniversary
[00:15:28.280]of the foundation of the Czech filharmonic orchestra.
[00:15:30.800]Czech filharmonic was found in 1986
[00:15:34.543]and Rafael Kubelik, who was a spriritus against
[00:15:38.290]or somebody, who has organized this foundation
[00:15:41.980]of a festival wanted to make Czech audience know,
[00:15:49.132]that Czech fil is celebrating its 50th anniversary.
[00:15:52.880]Two anniversaries have led to the foundation
[00:15:55.190]of the Prague spring festival, you see the poster
[00:15:58.110]of the first year.
[00:16:00.810]The first year was somehow dedicated to the musicians
[00:16:04.124]from allied countries from countries,
[00:16:07.360]who have participated on the defeat of the nazism,
[00:16:12.850]fascism and Japanese imperialism, so there the emphasis
[00:16:19.020]was put on Czech artists, Slovak artists,
[00:16:21.830]but there were many guests from Soviet Russia,
[00:16:25.560]from France, Britain and other countries.
[00:16:31.760]Here we see the face of Rafaeul Kubelik,
[00:16:34.372]who was very young at that time, he was born in 1912,
[00:16:39.250]so in 1946 he was just 34 years old, so it's quite
[00:16:45.730]interesting to know how strong positions were offered
[00:16:49.610]to young people at that time, because very often
[00:16:52.301]we are now speaking about young musicians,
[00:16:55.860]when they are 40 and when they are 45, but at the time,
[00:17:00.580]it's obvious, that big institutions were more courageous
[00:17:05.240]in engaging young people into the top position
[00:17:09.430]in artistic institutions.
[00:17:12.680]There's a photograph of president Edvard Benes,
[00:17:17.230]who was a patron of the festival in its first year
[00:17:20.661]and you can see him on the photograph with his wife Hana
[00:17:24.000]and piano virtuoso Rudolf Firkusny, who is considered
[00:17:29.480]to be also co founder of the festival,
[00:17:31.610]because he spent the second world war in emigration
[00:17:34.600]in the United States and he has brought many inspirations
[00:17:37.346]what I will mention later on.
[00:17:41.150]And there's a face, that is closely connected
[00:17:44.020]with the foundation of the festival.
[00:17:45.570]Leonard Bernstein, European debut has happened
[00:17:50.640]in the Prague spring festival 1946.
[00:17:53.267]And it's very probable, that Bernstein was invited
[00:17:56.790]on the basis of recommendation by both Firkusny
[00:18:02.928]and Martinu, who were during the second world war
[00:18:05.850]in States and who have followed the beginning
[00:18:07.910]of Bernstein's career.
[00:18:10.220]Prague spring festival had one of its pride
[00:18:13.820]is European debut of this famous,
[00:18:17.022]maybe the greatest personality of classical music
[00:18:20.410]of the second half of the 20th century composer,
[00:18:23.900]pianist and conductor.
[00:18:27.220]And just to see Firkusny and Martinu in the United States,
[00:18:33.070]this is a post war photograph, but it's nice to see
[00:18:36.420]these two gentlemen, who were both I would say,
[00:18:42.640]forced by the destiny to spend almost all their life
[00:18:45.546]in emigration.
[00:18:50.070]And the arrival and stay of Bernstein in Prague
[00:18:56.750]is documented in the library of congress of United States
[00:19:01.390]and you can find some interesting telegrams,
[00:19:05.380]something, what doesn't exist anymore,
[00:19:07.680]it's nice to see messages from Lenny Bernstein,
[00:19:11.100]saying off to Prague, everything beautiful,
[00:19:13.020]despite bad cold, for example.
[00:19:15.410]Or arriving by transport airlines Tuesday afternoon
[00:19:19.560]Prague, marvelous, success, love, Lenny, so that's it.
[00:19:26.150]To see something real documenting Bernstein
[00:19:34.220]as a conductor in Prague, there's a small part
[00:19:37.670]of a Czechoslovakia film news and it's very low
[00:19:44.400]technical quality, but it's nice.
[00:20:31.910]That's interesting, because the moderator
[00:20:34.630]has done a mistake, because they have rehearsed
[00:20:37.237]something totally else, it was not Gershlin.
[00:20:43.903]And to see something interesting, I have chosen
[00:20:49.040]a photograph documenting arrival or Russian artist
[00:20:52.690]to the Prague spring festival 1947.
[00:20:55.480]It should be again underlined, it was before the communists
[00:20:58.570]came to the power, so at the time, they were really
[00:21:01.251]invited guests, who came without weapons
[00:21:04.750]and other accessoruars.
[00:21:08.090]And I love this photograph, because just in the middle
[00:21:10.879]you can see with the hat Hans Dimitri Shostakovich
[00:21:16.780]on his right hand you can see, sorry,
[00:21:24.110]on his left hand is a violinist David Oistrach
[00:21:28.290]and some other famous personalities of Russian
[00:21:33.080]or Russian Soviet classical music.
[00:21:35.270]For levels of a technique, you can see in the second
[00:21:40.540]plan, a famous DC three plain Dacoto.
[00:21:45.650]That was so popular after the second world war
[00:21:48.870]and I think this was under Plivon peace
[00:21:51.230]from so called lend and lease system supporting Soviet
[00:21:54.940]union from the United States during the second world war.
[00:22:00.239]Russians are coming in a plane given to them by Americans.
[00:22:06.740]And here you can see a photograph of Jan Masaryk
[00:22:10.280]speaking to the members of the Czech filharmonic
[00:22:12.980]at the beginning of the concert of the Prague spring
[00:22:15.140]festival 1947.
[00:22:21.450]And now we are approaching to less optimistic teams.
[00:22:25.800]This is the facing page of the program.
[00:22:28.950]It was a last program of Kubelik at the Prague spring
[00:22:32.430]1948, because this concert was organized already
[00:22:39.300]after the communist Kudeta and Kubelikhas had already
[00:22:43.790]in his pocket an invitation for Edinburgh national
[00:22:48.380]festival and he decided to stay abroad in summer of 1948
[00:22:53.685]and it was the beginning of his emigration,
[00:22:56.050]that took 41 years of time.
[00:23:04.010]There's a short description of what was happening after
[00:23:09.830]and I tried to mention something, what was interesting,
[00:23:15.170]because the fact, that Kubelik emigrated and the fact,
[00:23:19.440]that Bernstein decided to boikot the communist
[00:23:22.450]Czechoslovakia was known all the time and I remember,
[00:23:26.694]that for example my father was a great fan of Rafael
[00:23:30.180]Kubelik, my father was a singer of the classical music
[00:23:33.300]and I remember many of his friends and at the time,
[00:23:38.200]if you have commands, like the best Czech orchestra
[00:23:40.690]is radio symphony orchestra of Bavaria,
[00:23:44.970]because Kubelik was a music and emigration,
[00:23:48.646]professional, radio symphony orchestra of Bavaria
[00:23:52.900]was considered as the best Czech orchestra
[00:23:54.940]thanks to the fact, that Kubelik was conducting
[00:23:57.530]this orchestra for almost 20 years.
[00:23:59.730]And in fact there's a lot of fantastic recordings
[00:24:02.410]of Czech music, Dvorak and other pieces by this final
[00:24:07.800]orchestra with Kubelik and after today,
[00:24:11.971]it could be considered as a real standard
[00:24:15.900]of how it should be done.
[00:24:21.980]Jumping over the time onto 1990, I have to mention,
[00:24:25.260]that the comeback of Kubelik and the comeback
[00:24:29.256]of both Kubelik and Bernstein was something
[00:24:32.063]of a high symbolic importance for everybody and even cynics
[00:24:39.080]were moved, when they came back.
[00:24:44.050]The tragic Kudeta organized by communist
[00:24:49.190]with the support of Soviet union led to the second
[00:24:55.013]emigration, the first emigration happened in 1938,
[00:24:58.890]so in 1948, we had the second emigration
[00:25:02.780]of important people, so just choosing three of them,
[00:25:08.460]pianist Rudold Firkusny, who I have already mentioned,
[00:25:11.960]Karel Husa, his composition was played yesterday night
[00:25:16.080]and another composer, that was successfully established
[00:25:20.260]in the United States and Canada Oskar Morawetz.
[00:25:25.526]And we're now jumping in the middle of 50s,
[00:25:28.170]at the beginning of the 50s and there's a beginning
[00:25:30.660]of certain historical paradox.
[00:25:33.470]Of course the program of the festival was not totally,
[00:25:36.620]but partly influenced by the communist ideology,
[00:25:43.040]so here you can see Mstislav Rostropovich famous
[00:25:46.810]Russian chelist after his victory in a competition
[00:25:51.832]organized by the Prague spring festival
[00:25:54.690]and as a victor he was offered a special concert
[00:25:59.540]at the festival and you can see him playing
[00:26:02.063]under the disgusting slogan with Soviet union forever
[00:26:07.360]and others two strange faces.
[00:26:11.550]The first communist president of Czechoslovakia
[00:26:15.400]and Russian dictator Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin.
[00:26:22.052]The other personality, that started his career
[00:26:25.420]in Prague being sent to Prague let's say on ideological
[00:26:29.670]basis was great Russian pianist Sviatoslav Richter.
[00:26:35.030]And I'm speaking about paradoxes, because almost all
[00:26:38.100]those people after years became enemies of the system
[00:26:41.970]and many of them have became dissidents and many of them
[00:26:45.130]emigrated, so it's a paradox of the history,
[00:26:47.880]that those who were sent to Czechoslovakia
[00:26:50.480]as representatives of Russia later on became
[00:26:53.487]Russian enemies, what was quite logical,
[00:26:56.210]because those were people of a high human profile.
[00:27:03.870]It's interesting, Prague spring has welcomed
[00:27:07.930]officially from the United States a famous Paul Robeson,
[00:27:14.180]I've chosen some examples from 50s and 60s.
[00:27:19.300]Paul Robeson was considered as a representative
[00:27:22.750]of oppressed people in the United States
[00:27:25.860]and we have yesterday discussed with our colleagues,
[00:27:28.380]that this strange position of Jazz,
[00:27:32.360]that was ideologically somehow with a great simplification
[00:27:37.640]considered as a music of oppressed part
[00:27:41.270]of American society was somehow tolerated
[00:27:44.448]by communist system, but not always.
[00:27:50.000]I love this photograph, because you can see this here
[00:27:53.660]the famous chelist Rostropovich as a pianist.
[00:27:57.840]And he's following on the piano
[00:28:00.160]his wife Galina Vishenevskaya established Russian singer,
[00:28:04.590]I love this photograph, because it's a rarity
[00:28:07.290]to see this famous chelist as a pianist.
[00:28:13.090]And later on, many important artists came
[00:28:15.280]to the Prague spring festival and almost everybody
[00:28:17.860]were some meaning in a profession came to Prague spring,
[00:28:21.578]following indicated, you can see the face of Herbert
[00:28:25.240]Karajan at the beginning of the rehearsal
[00:28:27.585]at the Prague Smetana hall in early 60s.
[00:28:34.329]You can see Zubin Mehta signing programs
[00:28:37.550]of the festival and there's small gallery of the guests,
[00:28:43.143]you can see again Karajan and Rostrophovich,
[00:28:46.450]Bernstein, many important people including Pavaroti
[00:28:52.470]and others, so I would say, to make it sure
[00:28:58.100]to everybody, who was important was at the festival.
[00:29:02.388]I like this photograph, because this photograph
[00:29:05.400]on the line of just following this opening film
[00:29:11.430]I have offered to you, because this is a visit
[00:29:15.350]of a Karel Ancerl as a music director
[00:29:17.650]at the concert, that was organized by the festival
[00:29:21.820]with Claudio Abbado as a guest conductor
[00:29:24.549]for the Czech filharmonic, so it's a rare photograph
[00:29:27.300]depicting meeting of Karl Ancerl
[00:29:30.160]with young at that time Claudio Abbad.
[00:29:36.170]And now we are back to the team of the meeting,
[00:29:42.400]we are in a summer 1968, it's a famous Photograph,
[00:29:49.220]by the way, there is a great exhibition in Prague
[00:29:53.317]in art industrial museum, the Museum of Decorative Arts.
[00:29:59.530]It's very interesting exhibition and his photographs
[00:30:05.620]from 1968 are also there, this one is one
[00:30:09.413]of the famous ones.
[00:30:14.940]On the very same day, on the 21st August, 1968
[00:30:20.470]there was something, what has happened in London
[00:30:22.990]on the very same day by coincidence of circumstances,
[00:30:26.690]Rostropovich was playing Advorak's chello concert
[00:30:30.950]in Royal Albert hall, there were rumors and protests
[00:30:33.500]in the hall and it is said and Rostropovich confirmed this,
[00:30:40.410]that it was one of the darkest moments of his life,
[00:30:43.810]because he was not exponent of communist regime
[00:30:49.810]was a target of protests of audiences in London
[00:30:55.600]and it is said, that he decided to give an encor
[00:30:59.315]dedicated this encor to Czechoslovakia and finished
[00:31:04.250]the concert in tears.
[00:31:09.730]And I put on the list of the photograph this official
[00:31:14.250]portrait, this official portrait is no more portrait
[00:31:20.900]made by Czech filharmonic, this portrait is made by
[00:31:23.320]Toronto symphony orchestra.
[00:31:25.497]Ancerl decided to leave the country after 1968
[00:31:29.770]and he became the music director of the Toronto
[00:31:32.330]symphony orchestra.
[00:31:37.840]That's the description of the beginning
[00:31:39.900]of the third emigration and again, Czech musical
[00:31:45.640]has lost many personalities, I have chosen,
[00:31:49.200]just as an example, an excellent Moravian composer
[00:31:54.210]Jan Novak, was not just a composer, he was one of the best
[00:31:59.860]of Latin language, he was for a certain period
[00:32:02.237]the president of international society of Latin language
[00:32:07.980]and he was known and respected specialist
[00:32:11.320]in that great language and we have lost almost
[00:32:15.990]complete generation of conductors, it's not so known,
[00:32:18.580]because Ancerl left the country for Toronto,
[00:32:22.220]Zdenek Macal left for United States,
[00:32:24.530]Martin Turnovsky also spent certain part of his career
[00:32:27.366]in the United States and in different orchestras
[00:32:30.598]in New York and there were others,
[00:32:33.357]like many other conductors.
[00:32:36.670]But life went on and Prague spring festival
[00:32:42.490]was facing to the potential boikot, many artists
[00:32:47.340]decided to boikot the festival in 1969,
[00:32:50.737]but this boikot was later on withdrawn,
[00:32:54.790]because the artists have found out,
[00:32:57.370]that they would boikot the audiences
[00:32:58.880]and not the communists, so they later on decision was
[00:33:05.180]withdrawn and here you can see Herbert Karajan,
[00:33:08.150]I like this photograph, it's a nice documentary,
[00:33:11.290]Herbert Karajan entering the entrance of the Prague hall
[00:33:16.910]and for fans of cars, it is also important photograph,
[00:33:20.310]because you can compare at the time a bit old fashioned
[00:33:26.290]Skoda car with Rolls Royce.
[00:33:32.810]This photograph is depicting a concert
[00:33:34.940]of a famous and legendary Smetana quartet
[00:33:38.580]and the interest of audience was so high,
[00:33:41.320]that the promoter decided to put a part of the audience
[00:33:45.670]on the stage, which is quite unusual in a hall.
[00:33:51.940]And jumping again, through the time,
[00:33:55.470]we are on the break of 1989 and 1990
[00:34:02.292]and this photograph is capturing arrival
[00:34:05.970]of Rafael Kubelik, he's come back to Prague airport.
[00:34:11.988]This the first photograph of legendary and famous comeback
[00:34:18.540]of Kubelik after 41 years.
[00:34:26.676]And to taste a bit atmosphere of time,
[00:34:30.040]I've again chosen small part of TV recording.
[00:34:42.292]It's the end of Smetana, you will see president Havel
[00:34:46.960]as the first standing ovations.
[00:37:14.360]Now we will see the faces of other famous conductor,
[00:37:16.930]who have conducted the opening concert of the festival,
[00:37:20.560]Charles Makeras for example, Czech conductor Libort Peschek,
[00:37:25.424]Auslav Neuman and again we are returning to Ancerl 1968.
[00:37:37.890]And the other moving moments was the closing concert 1990,
[00:37:43.503]because the other great personality, that returned
[00:37:45.717]to the festival was Leonard Bernstein and it is said
[00:37:50.790]to say, that his concert at the festival was his last
[00:37:55.610]European concert, so the faith is sometimes creating
[00:37:59.000]unbelievable stories, so the debut of Bernstein Europe
[00:38:03.110]was at the Prague spring festival,
[00:38:04.747]but also his last European concert was at the Prague spring
[00:38:08.100]festival 42 years later, so that's it.
[00:38:21.120]And now I would like to describe the period,
[00:38:24.450]that lasts since 1990, because we have no more reasons
[00:38:28.440]to excuse ourselves for something,
[00:38:31.850]we don't have any obvious enemy, just ourselves,
[00:38:35.880]so I'm pleased to say,
[00:38:37.390]that since 1990, we are responsible for ourselves
[00:38:40.360]and I'm very happy we can be here,
[00:38:43.270]because otherwise we wouldn't be here
[00:38:45.370]and I would like to just show you some examples
[00:38:50.170]of the fact, that we are doing our best to present
[00:38:53.140]interesting music and sometimes it's not just serious music,
[00:38:58.050]it's not just the serious job, sometimes it's also happy
[00:39:02.300]job and we are sometimes making crazy things.
[00:39:06.640]But before that, I would like to mention this connected
[00:39:09.420]to Mstislav Rostropovich, because Rostropovich,
[00:39:12.860]who emigrated from Soviet union promised
[00:39:17.403]to come back to Czechoslovakia, unless the last Soviet
[00:39:21.658]soldier would leave the country and I left this letter,
[00:39:26.890]because he's somehow confirming to Vaslav,
[00:39:29.080]that he would come, if the Russian army was withdrawn
[00:39:35.490]and it happened, so there's a confirmation of his decision
[00:39:40.500]to come and there is a facing page of the program,
[00:39:44.460]that was dedicated to the withdrawal of a Soviet army
[00:39:48.240]from Czechoslovakia and this festival was organized
[00:39:51.460]by our festival and it was in summer,
[00:39:55.730]so the festival orchestra was put together
[00:40:00.530]by musicians, who decided not to leave Prague for holidays.
[00:40:05.780]It has a funny title, big festival orchestra,
[00:40:09.073]what is an orchestra, that doesn't exist in fact,
[00:40:12.290]but it was a special orchestra, it was put together
[00:40:15.080]for this special occasion and it was played
[00:40:18.340]on the sixth of July, 1991 and Rostropovich was star
[00:40:23.350]of the program, it was conducted by Libort Peschek,
[00:40:27.516]there is a photograph of Rostropovich,
[00:40:30.620]this photograph is caught a bit later during his concert
[00:40:37.240]in Prague, but that's a nice portrait of Rostropovich
[00:40:40.690]as a celist, not as a pianist.
[00:40:43.240]And there is Havel's letter appreciating the fact,
[00:40:50.780]that Rostropovich kept the promise.
[00:41:01.750]And there's a photograph of Havel and Mstislav Rostropovich.
[00:41:19.930]And since then, we have done many things,
[00:41:22.580]we have had interesting guests at the concert,
[00:41:26.140]I found a photograph of the first lady,
[00:41:29.250]so I couldn't resist to put it on the list
[00:41:32.430]of photographs for today and I've chosen also
[00:41:38.330]Anshka Shankar as a representative of a bit different music
[00:41:42.160]and it has sense, because her father Ravi Shankar,
[00:41:45.810]who was a source of inspiration for George Harrison
[00:41:51.970]and many other artists, Ravi Shankar was a guest
[00:41:56.630]of the festival in 1958, so many years before Beatles
[00:42:01.760]started to exist.
[00:42:04.360]We had Herbie Hancock at the festival, what was nice meeting
[00:42:07.850]also very big source of joy for us, who love not just
[00:42:13.210]classical music, we have a series of concerts
[00:42:17.380]of MTT and SFS, what means Michael and San Francisco
[00:42:21.910]symphony orchestra, the abbreviations.
[00:42:25.680]Very fine orchestra, a very sympathetic conductor,
[00:42:28.050]very nice meetings.
[00:42:34.010]As a gift we have given one original copy of program
[00:42:41.330]conducted by Bernstein in 1946, what was a European premier
[00:42:45.140]of Copland symphony number three and he was very moved
[00:42:48.320]by that, so this is what should be mentioned.
[00:42:53.400]Wayne Shorter from the other music,
[00:42:59.692]we had meeting with Andre Previn and we also had
[00:43:03.590]a football match between BBC symphony orchestra
[00:43:06.250]and Czech radio symphony orchestra, it was very tough,
[00:43:10.460]but I have to say, that Czech radio symphony orchestra
[00:43:16.725]team, you say soccer, you don't say football,
[00:43:22.897]that team of Czech radio symphony orchestra was very hard
[00:43:26.840]and they almost erased the team of BBC symphony orchestra
[00:43:31.060]from surface, it was six to nil or something like that.
[00:43:41.510]And I like this photograph, because it's photograph
[00:43:46.440]from last festival and that was a concert of Toronto
[00:43:49.390]symphony orchestra, it was dedicated to the memory
[00:43:52.290]of Ancerl there, their music director
[00:43:56.560]and our great conductor, who spent the end of his life
[00:44:00.790]in emigration in Toronto, so it was quite moving concert
[00:44:04.270]and it was great meeting for us and people from Toronto.
[00:44:11.690]There were still certain members of the orchestra
[00:44:14.460]having personal experience with Ancerl
[00:44:17.790]and it was very nice and touching meeting.
[00:44:23.820]At the end I would like to put your attention to the fact,
[00:44:27.640]that the logo of the festival is quite interesting thing
[00:44:31.420]and the festival itself is something interesting,
[00:44:34.420]because it is an institution, that simply doesn't exist.
[00:44:37.770]We are excellent example of something,
[00:44:40.220]what is called intellectual property.
[00:44:47.867]Prague spring festival is a trademark logo
[00:44:50.311]and it's history, it's nothing else.
[00:44:54.090]We don't have houses, we don't have concert halls,
[00:44:57.040]we have nothing, except old fashion computers,
[00:45:02.010]but we are taking care of quite interesting institution,
[00:45:05.800]that is hanging in the air.
[00:45:11.400]And to make a third promotion, I'm pleased to present
[00:45:17.466]a photograph of a great maestro, who I have met in Prague
[00:45:25.250]and last year we have created, we have made true
[00:45:30.079]one dream we had for years, this dream was to invite
[00:45:34.500]Vienna filharmonic as one of the best orchestras
[00:45:38.260]to play Mavlost by Smetana, the reason was not just the fact
[00:45:42.260]that this is an orchestra, the reason was to overcome
[00:45:45.380]some heritage of the past, because Smetana was very often
[00:45:48.008]used and misused as a weapon against our neighbors,
[00:45:54.180]used as an argument during funny discussions
[00:45:59.270]concerning cultural differences between Czech lands
[00:46:02.390]and Germany Czech lands in Austria.
[00:46:04.885]It was for a such a symbolic victory over the past
[00:46:08.940]to have Vienna filharmonic play Smetana
[00:46:12.760]and they came and Barambun was conducting the piece.
[00:46:17.170]And we have persuaded them for years and at the end
[00:46:20.600]it finished by something, what was unexpected,
[00:46:22.740]because Barambun decided to have it as a main program
[00:46:26.430]of his last season and he conducted the piece
[00:46:29.020]with the Vienna filharmonic and Berlin 13 times
[00:46:35.892]when in Europe, it was conducted by Barambun
[00:46:40.897]not just in Prague and Vienna several times,
[00:46:44.390]but also in Munich, Paris, Berlin and other cities.
[00:46:54.040]Last interesting thing is, that a group of designers
[00:46:57.480]put together such a list of 100 most important design
[00:47:04.800]icons of the 20th century from Czechoslovakia
[00:47:08.300]or Czech lands and we were given number 37 on the list,
[00:47:12.720]so that's great to see this logo as an example
[00:47:17.968]of a legendary design icons of Czech lands
[00:47:21.857]of the 20th century and in fact,
[00:47:24.400]the logo of the festival is so good,
[00:47:26.310]because it was done by famous Czech painter tepograph
[00:47:31.574]and scenograph mister Musika.
[00:47:40.274]And he was a close friend of Kubelik,
[00:47:41.670]so this is another message from the past
[00:47:45.100]we have from Rafael Kubelik.
[00:47:47.250]And we are in a good society, because among those icons
[00:47:50.630]is this fantastic streamline Tatra 77,
[00:47:56.060]extremely expensive and beautiful car.
[00:47:58.800]There is this beautiful Jawa spring 1946, I have one.
[00:48:10.712]And this convertible, that was very popular
[00:48:14.320]at the beginning of 66 in my country.
[00:48:20.820]Each lecture should finish by some message
[00:48:24.160]or some summary, so this could the summary
[00:48:30.450]to be mentioned and I believe, that music is still
[00:48:34.960]so strong, that it can overcome even the strange periods
[00:48:40.580]of modern history, our modern history was quite complicated.
[00:48:45.050]Yesterday I was thinking about the fact,
[00:48:46.870]that this year and this should be mentioned,
[00:48:48.650]we are going to celebrate the century of independent state,
[00:48:52.030]it was founded in 1918 and I tried to count the years
[00:48:58.210]of a full democracy and I've a small problem,
[00:49:02.170]because if you count the first republic, it's okay,
[00:49:04.640]so we have 20 and you can count the period after 1990,
[00:49:08.170]it's about 28, so we have 48 years
[00:49:11.710]and we are missing some two years to be in the middle
[00:49:14.240]of the play, to be well balanced between dictatorships
[00:49:19.010]and democracy and I tried to put the question
[00:49:23.450]where we can count post world period 1945 to 48
[00:49:28.580]as a real democracy, I'm not sure, because it was already
[00:49:31.200]influenced by communist ideology and seven months
[00:49:35.490]of 1968 is also to be discussed, but it could be counted
[00:49:39.890]or not, so I decided to make some compromise,
[00:49:43.470]I will count those periods by 50% and I got these two years.
[00:49:50.130]With this mathematics, we have 50,
[00:49:52.180]so we are in a 50 50 position and now it's a great
[00:49:57.090]challenge or us to make the great balance right away.
[00:50:04.950]And at the end, I wanted to present
[00:50:07.790]this beautiful photograph of a great British player
[00:50:12.734]and conductor Trevor Pinnock, because on one harpsichord
[00:50:16.510]on the left side you can see an inscription musica curat
[00:50:20.530]corpus et animam and it would be nice end of my lecture,
[00:50:24.320]thank you very much for your attention.
[00:50:47.817]Thank you very much and of course we have some 15 minutes
[00:50:51.320]left and I'm ready to reply to your questions,
[00:50:55.030]if you have, please don't hesitate, otherwise I would give
[00:50:59.450]questions to myself and it's very dangerous.
[00:51:21.344]By saying twice in Washington with national symphony
[00:51:25.970]with Stenick Macelo conducting and I was in San Francisco
[00:51:31.330]symphony in 1968 I think, just after the RGN
[00:51:37.138]and Rostropovich played at the Warsaw cello
[00:51:41.000]and according to San Francisco examiner writer,
[00:51:44.080]he had tears in his eyes at that time
[00:51:47.340]and the first pianist I ever heard in my life live
[00:51:51.010]was Rudolf Jerkushny, he was in Columbia Missouri
[00:51:54.520]at the university of Missouri and I think that must have
[00:51:58.130]been about 1953 or 54, I've never forgotten
[00:52:02.600]any of those experiences.
[00:52:06.900]Thank you very much, I have met both gentlemen,
[00:52:14.550]I didn't mention, that Verkushny also was somebody,
[00:52:17.760]who came back after 1990, he died in 1994,
[00:52:21.520]but I was a lucky guy, because being the orchestra manager
[00:52:25.140]of the Prague symphony orchestra, I have toured Britain
[00:52:27.390]with the orchestra and we had Verkushny as a solist
[00:52:30.870]of the tour in 1992 and it was one of the greatest
[00:52:35.842]experiences I have from this profession,
[00:52:38.840]because it was a real gentleman, a gentleman
[00:52:42.017]I would say from old school, but on the other hand,
[00:52:46.284]he was full of beautiful and gentle humor
[00:52:51.210]and his memories were unbelievable,
[00:52:53.110]because he was a close friend of Buslav Martinu,
[00:52:55.360]but he was also a friend from school with younger
[00:53:04.300]in heritage of big Bata Shoe company,
[00:53:07.270]so his stories were unbelievable,
[00:53:09.337]and he was a personal pupil of Losianachic,
[00:53:11.950]so his memoirs will something like to read
[00:53:16.027]an encyclopedia, he was a very fine gentleman
[00:53:19.050]and excellent pianist.
[00:53:21.485]Zdanik Mazal came back to Prague, he was a permanent
[00:53:25.020]guest conductor of Prague symphony orchestra
[00:53:27.187]and for a certain period he was also a music director
[00:53:29.840]of the Czech filharmonic after 1990
[00:53:32.713]and has brought many interesting American programs,
[00:53:36.560]he was such a courageous person in choosing
[00:53:40.561]an unorthodox programmings,
[00:53:42.470]so Mazal is also quite interesting person.
[00:53:45.650]He's withdrawn from conducting, he retired,
[00:53:48.950]but I have him in mind as somebody of high courage
[00:53:53.500]as to the programs, thank you.
[00:53:56.970]I am the next person, I suppose,
[00:53:59.250]my name is Mila Suskova Piers and I'm very interested
[00:54:03.056]in the Czech culture in the United States
[00:54:06.160]and in fact I'm a student, I wanted just to point out,
[00:54:10.020]that actually we had Advorak, who came to have a concert
[00:54:14.690]here in Omaha in 1886, if I'm correct,
[00:54:20.250]he was invited by his childhood friend Rose Walter,
[00:54:26.342]who was founder of the Omaha newspaper
[00:54:30.020]and actually was from the Czech lands.
[00:54:33.130]But I have a question, there was a very famous Czech
[00:54:38.295]American family the Kubeliks, they were violinists
[00:54:45.120]and on and on, are they in any way related
[00:54:49.200]and or to Rafael Kubelik, would you know?
[00:54:54.620]Of course, Rafael Kubelik is the son of Jen Kubelik--
[00:54:58.684]The grandson of the first one.
[00:55:00.343]And Jen Kubelik was a superstar of his time,
[00:55:04.690]because at the beginning of the 19th century,
[00:55:06.420]he gave a concert at a stadiums, I cannot imagine
[00:55:09.120]how they made it with amplification,
[00:55:11.610]but it is known and it is documented
[00:55:15.280]and he played to the audiences of 3, 4000 people.
[00:55:19.620]He was very rich, by the way.
[00:55:22.900]It's interesting, that violinist could have been
[00:55:27.920]something like pop star of nowadays at the time
[00:55:31.280]and he toured several times United States.
[00:55:36.085]Rafael Kubelik is son of Jen Kubelik, very strong family.
[00:55:39.690]Elder Jen Kubelik is the grandfather.
[00:55:43.050]Thank you, thank you.
[00:55:46.930]I have a question, if I could ask you,
[00:55:50.830]I know, that John Cage, the American avant garde
[00:55:54.410]composer was in Prague some time, I think in the 1960s
[00:55:58.427]and I know this, because he was a member of the Czech
[00:56:01.670]mycological society, he was a mushroomer
[00:56:04.807]and was a card carrying member of that club,
[00:56:08.680]but I wonder, was he ever at the Prague spring festival
[00:56:11.790]or was that another occasion?
[00:56:14.390]He was not at the Prague spring festival,
[00:56:16.690]but you are right, he visited Prague in 60s,
[00:56:20.654]it was most probably connected with he fact,
[00:56:23.820]that I didn't mention among atoms to organize
[00:56:27.110]festivals, that Prague hopes, that in the period
[00:56:30.700]of a first republic festivals of international society
[00:56:34.410]of contemporary music.
[00:56:36.550]And one of great successes of 60s was,
[00:56:41.470]that after years, the friends of contemporary music
[00:56:45.120]succeeded to recreate this festival organized
[00:56:48.610]by this strong and famous international society in Prague
[00:56:51.480]in 1967 and I'm not sure, but I think that the visit
[00:56:55.190]of Cage was somehow connected with this congress
[00:56:58.630]and festival of international society
[00:57:00.720]of contemporary music in 1967.
[00:57:04.760]But this is something what was mentioned here,
[00:57:07.470]because we have concentrated on seven months of 1968,
[00:57:11.940]but especially in culture, it was mentioned,
[00:57:15.440]but maybe not the emphasis put on that,
[00:57:17.870]that there were some very interesting things
[00:57:21.100]having happened before 1968 in later 60s
[00:57:24.530]and this international society of contemporary music
[00:57:28.990]congress or festival.
[00:57:32.450]Excellent examples what was possible in culture at the time,
[00:57:36.760]very important and generally, my opinion is,
[00:57:40.100]that the year 68 was very important as a break
[00:57:44.850]in a communist period, I'm not very idealistic
[00:57:48.280]about 1968, especially I think, that the leaders
[00:57:52.710]were very weak and it was mentioned here,
[00:57:56.524]what might be discovered, they were cowards
[00:58:00.190]and general was somebody, who has helped a lot
[00:58:03.834]to communists to come to the power in 1948,
[00:58:07.030]so the expectations of nations was very very high
[00:58:11.340]given to the people, who were not so I'd say of a high
[00:58:17.420]moral standard, but I always had an appreciation
[00:58:21.070]for courage of people and what could be underestimated
[00:58:26.230]is this possibility to brief liberty for a certain time.
[00:58:32.940]I would describe the communist period as a concert.
[00:58:34.960]It would be described as a long concert,
[00:58:37.920]the first 20 years I would describe it as a Das Machabar
[00:58:42.430]and the second part as a boring brass music
[00:58:47.030]and in between we had a break, it was spring 1968.
[00:58:54.550]Thank you for the talk, I have a question,
[00:58:58.356]that maybe question about Cage, you really showed
[00:59:05.330]how various fissures and how the regime had depleted
[00:59:09.380]the ranks of Czech musicians and to some degrees
[00:59:12.060]certain musicians wouldn't come to the festival,
[00:59:14.560]but it's also obvious the regime tried to keep
[00:59:17.610]festival going as a way of advertising itself,
[00:59:21.950]how restrictive was the regimes in choice of music
[00:59:24.380]and artists, were they willing to allow certain
[00:59:29.520]kinds of experimentation and more avant garde
[00:59:32.280]artists or were they very conservative in their approach
[00:59:35.630]to programming?
[00:59:37.710]Of course we don't have this problem
[00:59:39.260]since 1990, but it should be said, it's true,
[00:59:42.770]that the festival was misused as a showcase
[00:59:46.400]of the so called socialist cultural policy
[00:59:50.550]and they were certain waves corresponding to the waves
[00:59:54.113]of a liberty of oppression in Czechoslovakia,
[00:59:57.890]so we the festival was somehow, there was indoctrination
[01:00:02.790]in the programming, not totally, but there were concerts,
[01:00:06.288]that were let's say concerts serving to the system
[01:00:11.990]in the early 50s and later on, again, in the early 70s
[01:00:15.630]during this I would say so called normalization,
[01:00:20.820]funny word I like, as a lover of paradoxes.
[01:00:29.440]You are right, but for example, from the end of 50s
[01:00:33.485]until 1970, the program was very liberal and everybody
[01:00:40.429]was invited from the world, there were no limits
[01:00:44.540]and also the programs were not limited
[01:00:48.210]as to the Czech participation, I mean artists
[01:00:51.770]from Czech republic and some programs were very courageous
[01:00:54.803]in 60s, many composers and musicians were limited
[01:01:01.240]before were given their chance in the fame of the festival.
[01:01:04.520]It was the same later on in 70s and 80s,
[01:01:07.780]because the ice is started to melt,
[01:01:12.770]so in 70s it was quite tough, but from the beginning of 80s,
[01:01:16.870]the situation started to change.
[01:01:20.610]Paradox is, that this had an influence on Czech artists
[01:01:25.890]or Czech and Slovak artists more than on foreign artists,
[01:01:29.180]because for an artists that was simply invited
[01:01:31.750]as a part of the fact, that we are free,
[01:01:34.110]but it was of course very.
[01:01:49.420]Would you say, that interest in Czech classical
[01:01:51.480]music in Prague is decreasing, especially with young people?
[01:01:57.770]It's a good question, I would say, that the promoters
[01:01:59.370]all over the world are fighting for the interest
[01:02:02.060]of younger generation and everybody's complaining,
[01:02:04.940]but the same complains, if you read the reviews
[01:02:08.389]from 20s and 70s, if you read the reviews from 50s and 60s
[01:02:13.327]and 70s, the reviewers are, and everybody's complaining
[01:02:17.850]the same way, it makes me remember this famous story,
[01:02:21.070]that what kind of a young generation we have,
[01:02:24.980]we were different, but it's not true and in fact,
[01:02:29.230]I would say, that the interest
[01:02:30.490]of a young generation is not bad.
[01:02:33.310]There was special problem in our country,
[01:02:36.930]because before 1989 some people have chosen musical carrier
[01:02:45.260]as a mean how to travel, how to realize their dream
[01:02:50.170]to be connected with the world, so it was, I would say,
[01:02:53.190]a bit false motivation and there was a small crisis
[01:02:58.040]after 1990, because many musicians were somehow depressed
[01:03:01.640]by the fact, that other professions are going ahead again,
[01:03:05.230]lawyers, scientists and so on, doctors of medicine and so on
[01:03:13.010]so there was a certain delusion among musicians,
[01:03:15.910]because for many of them, it was such a relative lose
[01:03:19.630]of the social position, but it has changed and nowadays,
[01:03:22.900]we have many young people, who decide to study music,
[01:03:26.420]because they love music and they don't expect
[01:03:28.630]to become rich and they don't expect to travel,
[01:03:30.770]because they can travel.
[01:03:38.860]Mary Mariah Shrankova Lavek, Mila is my teacher
[01:03:43.510]and Hannah and in english I'm Mary Shramek Lavek.
[01:03:48.490]My question is, I have a picture in my mind
[01:03:50.850]of a very elderly chelist, who is supposed to be guarded
[01:03:55.040]during some unrest by a soldier and the young soldier
[01:03:59.000]falls asleep on the chelists shoulder.
[01:04:03.150]And so now the chelist is guarding the soldier.
[01:04:06.440]I have something wrong, I thought it was Rostropovich
[01:04:09.376]and this soldier was Soviet, apparently that cannot be.
[01:04:14.490]Does anybody else have this picture and know the answer?
[01:04:20.170]I guess I'll look it up on the internet.
[01:04:25.130]I'm sorry, I cannot help you.
[01:04:32.550]Didn't he have, didn't Rostropovich have soldiers
[01:04:39.620]guarding them, guarding him?
[01:04:44.190]It's true, that Rostropovich supported,
[01:04:47.738]there was such a connection inside the Russian.
[01:04:53.754]And they were soldiers, weren't they?
[01:04:56.070]It's quite probable.
[01:05:24.506]Is there perhaps something among the members
[01:05:30.780]in the archives of the Czech philharmony,
[01:05:33.620]who had to play during normalization and other conductors.
[01:05:39.870]And then they played under the greatest Czech conductor
[01:05:43.530]again in 1990, did any member of the philharmony,
[01:05:49.020]perhaps make a comment on it, that it was a different,
[01:05:53.620]not a different orchestra, but that they played differently
[01:05:56.570]but the music became different, is there something
[01:05:59.832]in the archives, perhaps, but maybe I should correct
[01:06:04.700]my question, because musicians say they speak with tones
[01:06:12.630]and music and not with words, but I wondered,
[01:06:15.930]whether somebody put this into words?
[01:06:20.200]Is it too convoluted question?
[01:06:22.660]No, I don't think so, I think, that the change
[01:06:28.848]of the system had no impact on the way Czech filharmonic
[01:06:33.800]played, the Czech filharmonic had certain crisis,
[01:06:38.650]that was a bit connected with what I was speaking about,
[01:06:41.980]certain delusion, they thought they will always be
[01:06:46.640]a superstar of a society and members of many other
[01:06:52.790]orchestras had the same problem, but nowadays,
[01:06:56.960]they restarted their modern career,
[01:07:00.830]that is based on other values, not just on the fact,
[01:07:03.900]that they want to be different from the rest
[01:07:05.750]of the society, they now know, that they are a part
[01:07:07.920]of the society, the minister of culture created
[01:07:11.460]a special plan for the filharmonic, they are better paid,
[01:07:14.830]they are expected to work more and it seems to be,
[01:07:19.640]that it starts to work and this is now an example
[01:07:23.810]for orchestras and maybe this is an example
[01:07:25.990]for other culture institutions.
[01:07:31.970]It's a general problem of the society how to find
[01:07:34.840]financial sources for traditional music institutions,
[01:07:39.250]how to pay musicians, how to pay people in the theaters.
[01:07:44.300]I have certain ideas how to make it,
[01:07:46.170]but there are sharp discussions about that.
[01:07:50.180]In Germany, the problem was solved
[01:07:51.900]by a certain differentiation, Germany was not afraid
[01:07:56.500]to do big re-organization of musical life
[01:07:59.490]and musical life of Germany is very rich.
[01:08:01.620]In Germany maybe the strongest country,
[01:08:05.845]that has the musical life, they have many excellent
[01:08:08.500]orchestras and opera houses, but they were courageous
[01:08:12.320]to make certain cuts, but those cuts were done very well,
[01:08:17.070]they put the efficiency of existence of those institutions
[01:08:21.970]on higher level and it looks quite well.
[01:08:24.940]But we were not courageous to make such cuts
[01:08:26.870]and it's still in front of us and it will come.
[01:08:30.550]Because I have an example, there is an opera house
[01:08:32.605]in the city of Ustí nad Labem, close to the German border
[01:08:37.740]and everybody from Ustí nad Labem can come to opera house
[01:08:41.780]to Prague or to Dresden, I would recommend to go to Dresden,
[01:08:45.020]by the way, it's very close and there's a question,
[01:08:48.600]whether we are rich enough to pay dying opera house
[01:08:52.851]in Ustí nad Labem and it's challenging nowadays,
[01:08:57.220]because everybody can go to the cinema to follow
[01:09:00.180]direct transmission from a metropolitan opera in New York
[01:09:03.530]and pay 100 crown for that, what is about five dollars.
[01:09:07.510]If you can have an excellent high definition transmission
[01:09:10.990]from metropolitan opera and you pay five dollars for that,
[01:09:14.830]there's no reason to go to the bad opera house next door.
[01:09:21.285]Sorry to be tough, but that's it.
[01:09:27.557]Say something, you spoke about Ustí nad Labem.
[01:09:31.000]Well, in Vancouver, which is not the half of the greatest,
[01:09:36.812]well, we have quite a good opera and quite a good
[01:09:40.852]symphony, but every year a group of students
[01:09:46.393]from the university of British Columbia goes
[01:09:49.570]to Ustí nad Labem and performs there and they performed
[01:09:54.972]also Janachech and apparently some, I live in Vancouver,
[01:10:02.910]so it's sort of first hand information,
[01:10:06.840]but the Czechs in the audience came to those students
[01:10:13.370]and they started speaking Czech to them
[01:10:15.890]and they could not answer, because the only thing
[01:10:19.180]they knew was the text of Janufa, which they played there,
[01:10:24.912]which they sang there.
[01:10:27.130]That connects with another perhaps thought
[01:10:31.510]of the Czech language begins to grow through Yanacheck's
[01:10:39.723]operas, for example, the language doesn't grow,
[01:10:43.710]the people grow who try to learn it.
[01:10:47.291]In Victoria BC, they played Janufa last year
[01:10:54.761]and the students, the Czech courses at the university grew,
[01:11:02.500]because students came to learn Czech, I'll be quiet now.
[01:11:08.240]It's true, because nowadays operas are performed world
[01:11:12.930]wide in original languages, including Janacheck,
[01:11:15.260]which is quite demanding for let's say finished soprano
[01:11:19.196]to speak, because even more, because it's a special
[01:11:26.440]version of Czech, so it's quite demanding to learn Czech
[01:11:32.510]and to sing it, but they do it perfect way.
[01:11:36.200]I've heard Karita Martila famous Finish singer
[01:11:42.537]singing Czech, she was perfect, unbelievable.
[01:11:48.090]I think we have to take a break,
[01:11:50.070]I wanna thank for this beautiful talk
[01:11:53.880]and I think we're ready for a break,
[01:11:56.370]we have to change gears, thank you.
[01:12:10.525]I have just one small thing to say,
[01:12:12.120]I have brought a copy of oldest Czech music encyclopedia
[01:12:16.990]for local library, it's a fact similar and the origin
[01:12:22.550]was edited in 1569.

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Roman Bělor speaks at Prague Spring 50

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