Taking a stroll through the archives

The twenty-strong Radiojournal Orchestra was founded on 1st October 1926. Its first principal was Jozka Charvát (1884-1945), Janáček's pupil from the organ college in Brno, a conductor of opera who had been conducting radio concerts since 1925. As early as 2nd October the new ensemble found itself performing its first public concert in the Radiopalác in Vinohrady. Fairly soon afterwards the orchestra received a new conductor, Otakar Pařík (1901-1955) who worked for the radio from 1927 to the end of the Second World War.

The Radiojournal Orchestra's public concerts lasted until 10th March 1927. Shortly after this the radio acquired a spacious hall in National House in Vinohrady, from where it dispatched its entire orchestral production until June 1935. Then it moved into the modern studio of the current radio building on Fochova street, where it is located to this day.

The end of the public concerts also meant an end to the more serious programmes. The repertoire continued to focus chiefly on light entertainment programmes, whilst the musical projects with higher artistic ambitions took the form of transmissions of concerts given by the Czech Philharmonic. At any rate, the radio ensemble at this stage was not sufficient; this small group of musicians was unable to perform a more demanding repertoire.

In January 1929, not long after the departure of the orchestra's first conductor Jozka Charvát for the National Theatre opera company, the radio orchestra welcomed another conductor, Otakar Jeremiáš (1882-1962). Until this time he had worked as director of the music school in České Budějovice; in Prague he was known chiefly as a serious composer. Jeremiáš focused on the educational role of the radio which was to become a propagator of cultural values. Along with Jeremiáš's appointment, the post of director of the musicians' union was filled by Karel Boleslav Jirák (1891-1972) who worked closely with programme staff member Mirko Očadlík (1904-1964). The latter later became the radio's programme director and from 1948 he worked as head professor at the Department of Musical Science at Charles University's Philosophical Faculty. Thanks to these three men the musical repertoire at the radio increasingly acquired greater importance. This occurred in association with the orchestra's higher standard of performance and its enlargement: in 1931 the orchestra had 45 members and five years later it already had 70. In 1939 the Czech Radio Orchestra boasted 73 members. With the radio's support, another orchestra was created in parallel - the Prague Radio Orchestra. What was remarkable then was that the players themselves demanded a more challenging programme: in 1931 they submitted a memorandum to the radio management requesting that the amount of "light" music be restricted in favour of a more demanding repertoire. According to this draft, the obligations associated with the production of popular music were to be assumed by a station outside Prague.

Works by Czech classics had their right of domicile on the radio and there was also capacity for experimentation. The repertoire took heed of composers' jubilees and anniversaries and works by Janáček, Suk, Novák, Foerster and Ostrčil were part of the daily programme. The orchestral management also inspired younger composers to write new works intended for radio broadcast, thus, for example, two chamber operas by Bohuslav Martinů appeared: Voice of the Forest (1935) and Comedy on the Bridge (1937). Otakar Jeremiáš also worked with the orchestra on a number of international opera works.

The international prestige of the radio orchestra began to increase. Several live broadcasts abroad (Zagreb 1930, New York 1934 - Jirák conducted Dvořák's Stabat Mater, France and Yugoslavia 1938 - Janáček's Glagolitic Mass) in fact reinforced the Prague Radiojournal Orchestra's entry into the international association of radio stations. The culmination of these endeavours was a concert given on 5th March 1935 (J. Suk: Fantasia in G Minor, L. Janáček: Sinfonietta), broadcast from Prague to over one hundred stations throughout the world.

Distinguished musicians came to the radio from abroad to conduct their own works or those of their national composers: Alfredo Casella (1931), Sergei Prokofiev (1934, 1938), Ottorino Respighi (1935), Pancho Vladigerov, Alexander Grechaninov, among others.

The Nazi occupation caused a turning point in the life of society as a whole, including the radio. The ensuing strict censorship severely affected the orchestral repertoire. Radio broadcasts were deprived of Jewish composers and members of nations who were fighting Germany. In this atmosphere Czech music inspired patriotic sentiment more than ever before. Apart from works by Smetana and Dvořák, the radio orchestra's programmers also managed to broadcast the premiere of Jeremiáš's fantasia based on the Hussite hymn Go Not in Fear of This Great Lord, Novák's work about the victims of Nazi repression De profundis and Vycpálek's Czech Requiem.

In 1945, after sixteen years working as principal conductor for Czech Radio, Otakar Jeremiáš left to take up a similar post in the National Theatre's opera company. He was replaced by Karel Ančerl (1908-1973) who had worked occasionally with the radio orchestra back during the pre-War era. Ančerl's era was short (1947-1950) but significant. He introduced new, particularly contemporary, works onto the radio broadcasting agenda and also onto the concert platform. He also invited Talich's pupil and conductor at the National Theatre's opera company Jaroslav Krombholc to rehearse with the orchestra, along with Janáček's pupil and promoter of his works Břetislav Bakal from Brno, and Alois Klíma who had held an engagement at the Prague radio during the War. Ančerl performed consequential works such as Novák's Autumn Symphony, Stravinsky's oratorio Oedipus Rex, Iša Krejčí's Variations for Orchestra, also Dvořák's Requiem, Janáček's Glagolitic Mass and Sinfonietta, Novák's The Tempest, among others. In the recording studio he concentrated on opera: recordings were made of The Bartered Bride, The Brandenburgers in Bohemia, The Two Widows and Viola which featured soloists from the National Theatre and the 5th of May Grand Opera Company.

Towards the end of Ančerl's short term the orchestra undertook its first foreign tour to Poland (1949). The Radio Symphony Orchestra regularly participated in the Prague Spring festival from 1948 onwards.

After Karel Ančerl was appointed principal conductor of the Czech Philharmonic in 1950, his place in the radio orchestra was assumed for a full twenty-one years by Alois Klíma (1905-1980). During the period after the political coup in February 1948 it was not possible to maintain active international relations and it wasn't until the 1960s that the orchestra was able to start travelling on extensive European tours: the first big tour to West Germany, France, Switzerland and Italy took place in 1961. After that, similar concert tours were no longer a rarity. Foreign interest in music performed by the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra raised its prestige and self-assurance.

The orchestra's active musical life and demanding schedule could no longer be left to the responsibility of one conductor alone. In 1951 Klíma's colleague Alois Jiráček (1920-1966) was appointed second conductor. The engagement of Josef Hrnčíř (1921) also brought welcome assistance, who was later entrusted with the task of conducting another, smaller ensemble, the Prague Radio Orchestra. Hrnčíř was also a frequent guest with the large symphony orchestra with whom, during his thirty-five-year-long career, he made around 800 recordings and presented the premieres of three hundred new symphonic works. Jiří Stárek (1923) was a prospective talent for the orchestra, engaged from 1952 in the smaller Prague Radio Orchestra yet maintaining considerable ties with the symphony orchestra. He worked here until his departure for the West in 1968.

Although episodic, Václav Talich's (1883-1961) contribution to the orchestra's development was considerable. In 1953 he became artistic adviser to the orchestra after his forced departure to Bratislava; he was still able to return to Prague, but not to the National Theatre or the Czech Philharmonic. His recordings of Smetana's Carnival in Prague or the overture to Wagner's opera Tristan and Isolde today occupy their place among some of the best radio recordings.

The orchestra naturally also welcomed other Czech conductors. Of the many, we might mention Dr Václav Smetáček, head of the FOK Symphony Orchestra, the Brno-based head of the Radio Orchestra and later State Philharmonic Břetislav Bakala, and conductor at the National Theatre Jaroslav Krombholc. Karel Ančerl also returned occasionally, now head of the Czech Philharmonic. Václav Neumann was also appointed, who, among other things, conducted a concert given by SOČR at the Prague Spring Music Festival in 1966 featuring pianist Arthur Rubinstein. The orchestra also worked extensively with Jaromír Nohejl, head of the Moravian Philharmonic in Olomouc, and with leader of the Vlach Quartet and excellent chamber conductor Josef Vlach.

The orchestra gained valuable experience also working with foreign conductors. SOČR's development was aided by Hermann Abendroth, at that time, in 1951, the almost seventy-year-old director of the Leipzig Radio Orchestra, or Franz Konwitschny, head of the State Opera House in Berlin. The latter conducted the radio orchestra in 1956 - to great acclaim - in a performance of Orff's cantata Carmina Burana for the first time. The performances of Italian conductor Antonio Pedrotti, American Dean Dixon and Frenchman Jean Fournet were highly popular; frequent guest conductors also included the Hungarian conductor György Léhel from Budapest radio, Eugene Goossens from Great Britain and others.

Charles Munch was of particular importance in this context, who first came into contact with the Radio Symphony immediately after the War in 1946. At that time he wrote down in the orchestral chronicle the words: "The Czechoslovak Radio Symphony Orchestra is sensitive to gesture, technically secure and it expresses a Czech warmth - the result is the success of our concert". His Prague concert on 27th March 1967 was particularly memorable in which he performed Honegger's Second Symphony, Debussy's The Sea and Bohuslav Martinů's Sixth Symphony. The composer dedicated the latter to him and Charles Munch conducted its premiere with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1956. His concert with the Radio Symphony Orchestra was his last in Prague; he died on 6th November 1968.

Audiences were given a special treat during concerts in which well-known composers conducted their own works: highly popular at the time, Arthur Honegger performed in Prague with the orchestra during the post-War years. In 1949 he wrote the following in the orchestral chronicle: "I owe my profound gratitude to the Czechoslovak Radio Symphony Orchestra for their excellent performance of my works in Prague". Other eminent musicians to leave behind recordings in which they featured as conductors include Aram Khachaturian during the 1950s and Ernst Křenek in the 1960s.

Members of the Radio Symphony Orchestra naturally sought to apply their artistic talents outside the orchestra as well, performing solo or chamber works. Such aspirations had already been supported by Václav Talich with the creation of various smaller musical ensembles who contributed to the improvement and cultivation of the orchestra's cultural expression as a whole. Members of the Radio Orchestra appeared with other musicians in the Pešek Chamber Harmonia, in Vlach's Czech Chamber Orchestra, and they also founded the Czech Wind Quintet (1957). The Prague Chamber Orchestra, performing without a conductor, was established in 1951. The attraction of its performance style soon took its members abroad where the thirty-six-strong orchestral ensemble without conductor and baton caused a sensation. The more the Prague Chamber Orchestra's concert engagements increased, the more this led to disputes with the broadcasting management. After lengthy negotiations at ministerial level, the Prague Chamber Orchestra finally became independent in 1964 and its members were relieved of their obligations for the radio.

At the same time efforts were being made to resolve the matter of two orchestras working for a single radio station - the Prague Radio Orchestra and the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra. The result was a merger between the two and the extended ensemble now bore the official title Czechoslovak Radio Symphony Orchestra in Prague, numbering 115 musicians. Its director was Alois Klíma; Josef Hrnčíř and Jiří Stárek were appointed its conductors.

After his departure from his director's post, Alois Klíma was replaced by Jaroslav Krombholc (1918-1983). With his acceptance of the radio position he confirmed his resolve not to be seen exclusively as an opera conductor. The radio provided him with the conditions to carry out long-awaited plans: as a unique interpreter of the stage works of Smetana, Dvořák and Janáček, he was now able to create their counterparts in the symphonic and cantata spheres. Krombholc's interest also lay in contemporary composers (V. Dobiáš, K. Šrom, J. Seidl, T. Vačkář) and the great names in world music (Debussy, Shostakovich, Prokofiev). Dr Václav Holznecht later assessed his contribution to the radio with the words: "The orchestra has had good conductors in the past, but it yearned for an injection which could only be administered by someone with a certain suggestion of exceptionality. This special contribution cannot be underestimated and Jaroslav Krombholc has it. Moreover, his many years' experience in orchestral conducting and his musical sensitivity are certainly invaluable here. After Talich, he has that penetrating and detailed study approach and he ensures its fulfilment".

When Krombholc resigned from his position due to his worsening state of health, the ensuing short period without a principal conductor was supervised by the experienced radio practician Josef Hrnčíř. This vacant post was eventually filled by František Vajnar (1930) who, in the studio, directed his attention towards opera works (Foerster's Eve and Dvořák's The Peasant a Rogue were published by Supraphon), and the stage melodramas of J. A. Benda (Ariadne on Naxos, Medea). After dubious conduct on the part of the radio's top management he relinquished his post and returned to the National Theatre.

The arrival of Vladimír Válek (1935) heralded the start of what is to date the last, highly consequential stage of SOČR's work. In practice, everything about the radio orchestra has changed. Válek began to implement his uncompromising requirements for high artistic quality, he introduced strict discipline, the average age of the musicians was reduced and new orchestral members arrived, often having acquitted themselves at international competitions for their relevant instruments. This was an investment that has truly paid off. The orchestral sound acquired a new sheen and soaring energy. Principal conductor Válek set the fundamental pillars of his repertoire: Dvořák - Janáček - Martinů - Brahms - Mahler. His ambition was to transform the radio ensemble into a first-rate concert orchestra. "The orchestral management of the time really tried to dissuade me. I didn't argue with them because I knew that all radio orchestras perform to concert standard. However, I acted as I saw fit. Today, no-one questions the merit of our public concerts". Indeed they don't - every year they are sell-outs. Another consequence of the remarkable changes occurring in the artistic direction of SOČR is its extensive touring programme (Italy, Germany, Spain, England, Austria, Switzerland, France, Greece, Turkey, Japan, South Korea, China, Tai-wan, the USA). The orchestra has thus also made their presence felt abroad and, in an international context, it regularly features on the programmes of the Prague Spring International Music Festival or performs as part of international exchange projects with countries from the European Broadcasting Union (EBU).