Home | Business News | Browse by Publication | C | Czech Music

Vaclav Talich: a man can work under any circumstances.

Article Excerpt
Vaclav Talich is to Czech performance what Smetana or Dvorak is to Czech composing. He took the great tradition of Czech 19th-century music and gave it the shape that remains modern to this day. When we look at his activity in the Czech Philharmonic, the National Opera and elsewhere, we soon realise that he was perhaps the most hardworking of Czech musicians--and especially abroad he was often compared with the greatest conductors of his time. For that reason alone (although there are many others), he is a figure worth attention. The course and meaning of his life, however, far transcends the field of music, since his destiny, like that of all great artists, sets up a mirror to the age in which he lived, and also to the standards of today.

**********

APPRENTICESHIP YEARS

He was born on the 28th of May 1883 in Kromeriz, but from the age of two grew up in Klatovy. His was not the childhood of an infant prodigy and his memories of student bands, playing at dances or performing the Ryba's Mass--where he played the tympani--are slightly reminiscent of the times of F. L. Vek. At the Klatovy Grammar School he early developed a fascination with Latin and Greek literature and it was to remain his great literary love throughout his life. From 1896 he studied the violin at the Prague Conservatory and even joined the exclusive class of Professor Sevcik. The scholarship that he won on the personal recommendation of Antonin Dvorak allowed him to study without material worries. He could attend concerts, university lectures, keep up with Herben's Cas (Time journal) and passionately discuss new literature with his fellow students.

After graduating he spent a year as first violinist in the Berlin Philharmonic, but he was so impressed by its conductor, the legendary Artur Nikisch, that the twenty-one year-old Talich decided to became a conductor himself. As a result of tuberculosis, however, he soon had to leave Berlin, and go to Russia to regain his health. His experiences in Odessa, where in 1905 he lived through the famous docking of the Battleship Potemkin, and then in Tbilisi, were often adventures in life rather than art, but he was pleased at any opportunity to lay aside his violin and take up the conductor's baton. Talich got his first chance of a longer engagement in Ljubljana in 1908-1912. During these years he also married and managed to "slip over" to Leipzig, where he improved his knowledge of musical theory and composition under Max Reger.

There followed three years as a conductor in Pilsen and three years "unemployed"...

View this article FREE - Now for a Limited Time, try Goliath Business News
Free for 3 Days!