Václav Kucera
Czech Republic - 2017 †
Vaclav Kucera studied composition at Moscow Conservatory with Vissarion Shebalin and simultaneously graduated from musicological studies. He has worked for the Czechoslovak Radio, headed the Cabinet of Contemporary Musical Studies affiliated to the Union of Czecho slovak Composers and was scientifically active at the Institute of Musical Science in the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. From 1969 to 1983, he he has been secretary-general of the Union of Czech Composers and Concert Artists. In recognition of his work, he was awarded the state distinction For Outstanding Work in 1979 and the honorary title of Merited Artist in 1986.
During his early creative period when his idiom was basically tonal and his starting-points issuing from folklore with a tendency towards monumentalization, Vaclav Kucera composed The Distant Home, a sonata for violin and piano, the dance drama Brigands Fire, the ballet Festival Fairy-tale, and the cycle Songs of the Earth. His symphony for large orchestra of the beginning of the sixties represents a turning point after which Dramas for 9 Instruments, and the stereophonic concerti no The Pied Piper, stand for a movement towards new stylish certainties. In the seventies, his style, imbued with modern compositional technology not only in the instrumental and vocal areas, but also in the sphere of electronic music, is turning to new emotionality. This is especially evident in his works of the seventies, including besides others the cycles Diario, Orbis pictus and The Spring Manifesto, or the vast musical-dramatic fresco Lidice. An important part in the forming of his present performance is impersonated by his vocal cycles of the latest years, especially Bitter and Other Songs on the verses of Josef Kainar.
The compositions of Vaclav Kucera have won a number of distinctions : The Tableau for Piano and Orchestra the prize of Queen Maria-Jose in Geneva (1970), Lidice, a special recognition of the Czechoslovak Radio for the 25th anniversary of Czechoslovakia s liberation (1970), as well as the prize of the Italian Radio Prix d'Italia (1972), the cycle The Celebration of Spring the first prize in the competition of the Central Council of the Trades-Unions (1977), the string quartet the Consciousness of Continuities the prize of the Union of Czechoslovak Composers and Concert Artists (1983).
He is known for his very vast theoretical, musicological and publishing activities. He is among others the author of M. P. Mussorgsky - Music of Life, Talent, Mastery, World Outlook, New Trends in Soviet Music, a number of scientific studies, radio and TV musical-educational programmes as well as popularization lectures.
He has been a teacher of the department of composition at the Prague Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts.
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