Czech Music | All stories

Today we look at some very diverse recordings - from a 17th century hymnal, to a marvelous - but hard to find - CD of Martinu and Brahms by one of the Czech Republic's best cellists, Jiri Barta. And we also look at a re-released recording of Dvorak's Fifth Symphony, still sounding fresh after over fifty years.

A new CD has been released of an undeservedly forgotten Czech opera from the 1920s; we also find out what gives Janacek's piano its very particular sound, and there's a chance to hear a hundred-year-old recording of Czech bagpipes.

In Encore today we review two recent CD releases. One is an anthology covering the best part of a millennium of Czech music, and the other a celebration of the work of one of the most undeservedly neglected Czech 20th century composers, Vitezslava Kapralova.

Today we look at the least known of the founding trilogy of Czech classical music in the 19th century, that's Zdenek Fibich, who is now remembered very much in the shadow of his better known contemporaries, Smetana and Dvorak. I'm joined by musicologist Patricia Goodson. Could you tell me something about Zdenek Fibich, who he was?

Today we remember an extraordinary Czech musician, Zuzana Navarova, who died last week of cancer at the tragically early age of 45. Her band Nerez became hugely popular in the 1980s. This was a time of growing popularity of singer song-writers, but Zuzana Navarova was different. Music critic Petr Doruzka remembers:

Our guest in Encore works just down the corridor here in the main Czech Radio building in the heart of Prague. He's the pianist Jan Simon, executive director and soloist in residence of one of the most important orchestras in the Czech Republic, the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra.

Few musicians in the Czech Republic have anything like the charisma of Ida Kelarova. Half Czech, half Romany, she has thrown herself into the world of Romany music, and with her strong, deeply resonant voice and immense energy, she captivates audiences at concerts she gives both in the Czech Republic and abroad. As children, Ida, and her sister Iva, who is also a well-known musician, were surrounded by music, brought up from their earliest childhood to sing and play, but nobody in the family ever talked about their Romany roots or the ancient Romany

Jaroslav Jezek is one of the legends of Czech 20th century music. His jazz composition "Dark Blue World" lent its name to a film, released in 2001, about Czech pilots serving in Britain's Royal Air Force during the Second World War. The film powerfully evokes the atmosphere of the time, thanks not least to Jaroslav Jezek's music on the soundtrack.

This week we talk with the Czech musicologist Jiri Strelec about Dvorak's much-loved opera, Rusalka. The opera is about a water-nymph, who, through a witch's magic spell, leaves her underwater home to live on land - but with tragic results.

Dig through your collection and put on a dusty piece of vinyl and listen to it crackle and pop. There is something warm and comforting about those tiny imperfections that is never present in the pop music of today. Jan Jelinek is the type of musician who loves that old sound. In fact, Jelinek likes it so much he scours through his record collection looking for those perfect inbetween moments. He uses his laptop and sampler and records the hisses and pops of old vinyl and the micro fragments of beats from classic jazz and soul records. From it he