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The apocalyptic visions of Lubos Fiser.

Article Excerpt
It is now more than three years since the death of Lubos Fiser (30.9.1935-23.6.1999), a distinctive and distinguished figure in post-war Czech music.

Fiser's path to the fulfilment of his destiny in life was not direct, since his mother did not regard composing as a respectable trade and wanted her son to become an engineer. Fortunately, however, after failing the entrance examinations for middle industrial school and a short episode working in a chemical plant, he was able to study at the Prague Conservatory and later at the Music Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts (AMU).

There he drew attention as early as 1960 with his graduation--the one-act opera Lancelot, for which Eva Bezdekova wrote a libretto on motifs from a medieval Flemish legend. That he showed great talent, richness of invention and outstanding ability as a musical dramatist in his very first major work will be clear enough from the fact that the piece has remained in opera company repertoire to this day.

According to Fiser's old friend, the composer Otmar macha, the success of Lancelot was one of the reasons why film makers soon noticed and exploited the composing talent of the young Fiser (let us remember that the composer's first film and television music was written in the early 60s). His huge melodic inventiveness and sense of the dramatic secured Fiser, alongside Zdenek Liska, for example a leading placae among the creators of Czech film music.

Several of his more than three hundred works for film won prestigious awards (e.g. Bludiste noci [The Labyrinth of Night]--Prix d'Italia 1969, Zlati uhori [GoldenEels]--Prix d'Italia 1980, Golet v udolf [Golet in the Valley] and Kral Ubu [Ubu Roi]--Czech Lion 1995 and 1996). In 1986 his television opera Vecny Faust [Eternal Faust] (1983-85) on a libretto by Eva Bezdekova and Jaromil Jires, won 1st Prize at the International Television Opera Competition in Salzburg. Nonetheless, despite the mastery he achieved in the field of film music the real core and originality of his personality as a composer is to be found in his concert music.

Let us look at least briefly at the vivid palette of his pieces for his favourite instrument, the piano, for which he wrote inter alia eight sonatos that continue to enjoy popularity. The often performed one movement 4th Piano Sonata was dedicated by the twenty-nine-year-old Fiser to the memory of his former-fellow student, friend and first performer of the 1st Piano Sonata--Antonin Jemelik. In 1962 the latter had died tragically (coal gas poisoning which at the time...

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