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In this week's Encore we're going to be talking about a fascinating late eighteenth century Czech composer, who led a colourful life in various European cities: Jan Ladislav Dusik, also known as Dussek. He was born in 1760 not far from Prague, and in a life that spanned fifty-two years he worked in Amsterdam, Hamburg, Saint Petersburg, Paris, London, and even Lithuania. At the time his compositions were extremely popular.

...and I felt happy within these songs, in which sorrow is not reckless, laughter is not crooked, love is not ridiculous and hate is not apprehensive, where people love with their bodies and souls, where they draw knives or sabres in hatred, dance in joy, throw themselves into the Danube in despair, where, for that matter, love is still love and pain is still pain, where the original emotion is not yet devoid of itself and where values are still unravaged; and it seemed to me that within these songs I was at home, that I had my roots in there.

Music experts who follow the endlessly surprising musical output of violin improviser and innovator Iva Bittova would agree that one of her most sophisticated recordings has been her treatment of Bela Bartok's 44 Duets for two violins. Obviously, Bittova, who usually makes music on her own, needed a partner for this album. Her choice was a former colleague Dorothea Kellerova - they both studied violin with the same professor. Only few people were aware that even back then Kellerova had her own band, with the strange name "Quakvarteto", which over

When the "Year of Czech Music" was launched in January, the jazz flute player, Jiri Stivin, complained that this year's celebrations were focusing far too much on classical music. So I make no apology for departing from our usual classical themes in this week's Encore to look at a musician whose music comes closer to the beer hall than the concert platform. The thirty-year-old singer Raduza shot to fame a decade ago, when she shared a stage with Suzanne Vega here in Prague. She accompanies her songs on the accordion, and despite a huge and still

Folk songs from Eastern Europe were a strong inspiration for the great composers Leos Janacek and Bela Bartok. Both of them travelled through the countryside - Janacek in the Slovak-Moravian borderland, Bartok in Transylvania - and recorded village singers using wax cylinders - the only equipment available at the time. The material they collected is still much sought after.

It's a hundred years since the premiere of one of the great Czech operas, "Jenufa", by Leos Janacek. The centenary was marked in style last month with an international Janacek Festival in Brno, the capital of Moravia, the eastern part of the Czech Republic, where Janacek lived and worked nearly all his life, and where the opera was first performed in January 1904. "Jenufa" was the work that first drew serious attention to Janacek as a composer.

Welcome to Encore, our monthly look at the world of Czech classical music. Today we're going to be departing from the security of Dvorak or Smetana, and delving into the rich world of contemporary Czech experimental music. We'll be looking at the work of the Czech Republic's foremost experimental musical ensemble, the Agon Orchestra, which - aptly enough - is housed in one of Europe's most modern theatres, Prague's Divadlo Archa. The Agon Orchestra's director is Ivan Bierhanzl.

When Josephine Baker died in Paris in 1975, over twenty thousand people lined the city streets to watch her funeral procession. She is remembered as one of the great performers of all time, overcoming poverty and racial discrimination in the American south to become a legend in her lifetime. In the 1920s her shows in her adopted Paris combined song, dance and humour and took the city by storm, with an overt sensuality that for the time was almost revolutionary. During the Second World War she worked with the French Resistance, proving that her

After her 1998 solo concert in New York's Weill Recital Hall, the New York Times' critic described the young Czech harpist Katerina Englichova's playing as "feisty", with a "vigor and precision of touch", adding that for someone so slender she made "a surprisingly large sound on the harp." Indeed you shouldn't be deceived by appearances. With her long blond hair and slight frame Katerina may look the typical harpist, but, as we'll be hearing in this programme, her playing proves that the harp is an instrument of many different moods and not just

Prague's Jewish Museum recently released a CD that is nothing short of miraculous. At the height of the Nazi occupation of Prague during the Second World War, the Czech Jewish jazz musician, Fritz Weiss, made nearly thirty recordings with the Emil Ludvik Orchestra. Weiss was musical leader of the band and also made all the arrangements. Amazingly, he continued to work with the band even after he was sent to the Terezin ghetto. In Encore today, we'll be telling the story of these extraordinary swing recordings, made literally in the shadow of the