Tag: Czech Music

Genial, esteemed, self-effacing and beloved – the conductor Libor Pešek has died.

Pešek was a regular presence on the podiums of his native land for some 70 years and did much to promote Czech music abroad.

In particular, he was instrumental in raising the awareness of the works of Josef Suk outside the Czech Republic, especially the wounded, even morbid scores of the composer’s maturity.

Suk, the pupil and son-in-law of Antonín Dvořák, lost both his mentor and his young wife, Otylie (Dvořák’s daughter), at the age of 30. Already, when Suk was a young man, Dvořák detected a melancholy strain in his music and set him the challenge of writing something sunny. The result was Suk’s Serenade for Strings, which became one of the composer’s most frequently performed works.

Suk could do Czech nationalism with the best of them, but as he entered his prime, his works became as gloomily introspective as anything by Gustav Mahler, without the ecstatic peaks. Pešek’s recording of the “Asrael Symphony” (which takes its name from the Angel of Death) did much to increase the work’s international reputation. It was a piece he performed not only in Liverpool, where he was music director, but also took with him (much to the chagrin of tour agents) to Spain and the United States.

Pešek, who studied with conductors Václav Smetáček and Karel Ančerl, began his professional career in the opera houses of Plzeň and Prague. He founded the Prague Chamber Harmony in 1958.

As his stature grew, he assumed posts with the Slovak Philharmonic (1981-82), the Czech Philharmonic (1982-90), the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic (1987-98), and the Czech National Symphony Orchestra (2007-19).

Pešek stepped down in Liverpool over budgetary difficulties, but continued to work with the orchestra in the capacity of laureate conductor for the next quarter century. Liverpool came to be regarded as “the best Czech orchestra this side of Prague.”

Among his many honors, he was made Knight Commander of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II. He retired from the podium at the age of 85. Most of his recordings were issued on the Supraphon and Virgin Classics labels.

Happily, he also appears to have been an amiable person, both professionally and personally, refreshingly lacking in ego and able to enjoy relaxed times with musicians, family, friends, and animals.

At the time of his death, Pešek was 89 years-old. R.I.P.

Pešek’s recording of Suk’s “Asrael Symphony” (with appropriately Halloweeny cover):

And a score from Suk’s happier days, “Pohádka,” or “Fairy Tale.” He arranged it from music he composed for a play called “Radúz and Mahulena,” in which true love conquers all. The work took on special significance for the composer, since he happened to be secretly in love with his teacher’s daughter and feared the day of reckoning, when all would be revealed. He needn’t have worried. Dvořák was delighted. Sadly, Suk’s happiness was to be short-lived.

Pešek also championed the music of Vítězslav Novák, another Dvořák pupil (and Suk’s classmate at the Prague Conservatory). See what you think of the “Slovak Suite.”

Also, Novák’s tone poem “Toman and the Wood Nymph,” in which a youth is seduced by an alluring dryad on St. John’s Eve:

Pešek certainly knew his way around the symphonies of Dvořák, if not always quite scaling the heights of the composer’s grandeur. I find he was often more satisfying in the “filler” material, as it were, and works like Dvořák’s lesser-known “American Suite.”

You don’t often encounter Dvořák’s earlier symphonies (i.e. those before No. 7), either in the concert hall or on the radio. I’ve always been partial to Pešek’s recording of No. 3. Here, the movements are posted separately (probably with ads in between). If you like it, you can let the feed run directly into No. 4.