October 2006 News Archive
Page last updated December 29 2006
CONTENTS
Important Czech composer Viktor Kalabis dies aged 83
The Dvořák Society has learned with great regret of the death of the Czech composer Viktor Kalabis.
There is an on-line Radio Prague English language tribute to the composer at www.radio.cz/en/article/84693 [or see this PDF version (requires free Adobe Acrobat reader, or Macintosh users can use Preview)]. Many will have their own memories, but our member Peter Herbert has sent the following message —
It is with great regret that I have to pass on the information that Viktor Kalabis has died at the age of 83.
He was born on February 27th 1923 and died on September 18th 2006.
His death marks the passing of one of the most important of the large number of Czech composers of the 20th century. His was nearly always a readily approachable style, though some of the romanticism of early works is not so readily recognisable in more recent compositions.
He spoke very little English himself and relied for translation on his lovely wife, the great harpsichordist, Zuzana Růžičková, for whom he wrote hs first Piano Concerto as a wedding present. It was one of my own life’s great pleasures to sit between them at Birmingham a few years ago to hear a revival of that very work. The one thing that annoyed him in the midst of the adulation he received was that they were not performing a more recent work!
In recent years he devoted much of his time and energy to the Bohuslav Martinů Foundation, of which he was President from 1990 to 2003.
There is a notice of his death [in Czech] at: www.ucps.cz/portal/cz/01-01-clanek.php?see_ID=892&chci_kategorii=3
Some information about his life can be found at: www.musica.cz/comp/kalabis.htm#Czech
Kalabis was a man of many talents and his personal devotion to his career in music means that he will be remembered for all time and deservedly so. It was his misfortune to live nearly all his life under the domination of totalitarian regimes. That his music still shone through this gloom and marked him as a free and independent voice is all the more remarkable. Like several of his contemporaries, he found international recognition in spite of and no thanks to his country’s political masters.
If in later years he took so much time to encourage others and often younger musicians, this was absolutely typical of his life and art as a whole.
His presence will be sorely missed by friends, musicians and all of his countrymen but they will be forever grateful for his many and great achievments.
PETER HERBERT
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Radio Prague on-line English language tribute to the late Viktor Kalabis
First posted October 31 2006
The on-line English language tribute to the late Viktor Kalabis is available here as a PDF file (requires free Adobe Acrobat reader, or Macintosh users can use Preview)
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