Find articles | Year of Czech Music 2024

The director of Collegium 1704 talks about Zelenka, the greatest Czech Baroque composer, and his uniquely bold and distinctive approach composition – which still has the capacity to shock and overwhelm today.

Johannes Brahms was a big supporter of Antonín Dvořák and justly so, for the Czech master, who made it big in America, composed music full of bucolic good humour and Romantic richness. 

The Czech composer and conductor Vítězslava Kaprálová demonstrated astonishing musical gifts, creating stylish and surprising music in almost every genre, before a tragic early death at the age of 25.

One of Janáček’s greatest works, the Glagolitic Mass sets Old Church Slavonic in the composer’s inimitable melodic style. Organist Daniela Kosinová talks about this unique piece – and its fearsome organ solo.

Janáček was heavily influenced by folk music and speech inflections of his native Moravia. The vast majority of his greatest works come from his final decade, inspired by his infatuation with Kamila Stösslová.

A festive opera of pomp and pageantry, Smetana’s Libuše forms a central place in the Czech musical and national imagination. Soprano Mária Porubčinová talks about taking on the unique leading role.

Dramaturg Aleš Březina explores Bohuslav Martinů’s unique operatic forey into the world of dreams, which combined avant garde surrealism with a wide array Czech musical influences.

Bohuslav Martinů was a true cosmopolitan: Czech, but spending much of his life in France and the United States, writing in an eclectic style that drew on many influences. 

The father of Czech music, Bedřich Smetana was born 200 years ago. We celebrate his bicentenary by exploring his works, from the popular Má vlast to less-heard piano music. 

Written while the composer was imprisoned in the Theresienstadt ghetto, Viktor Ullmann’s powerful opera imagines an end to death.

Bedřich Smetana was the fountainhead of the national school of Czech composition – and this year all eight of his operas will be ambitiously presented by the National Moravian-Silesian Theatre.