Sunday Music Show | All stories

Today’s Sunday Music Show looks back at the work of a great Czech musician – a man of musically royal blood – who died last week at the age of 81: the inimitable Josef Suk, a violinist who set the standard for how Czech classical music is played everywhere in the world. Here to paint a picture of how the maestro was regarded at home and abroad, and to illustrate his import to classical music, is music journalist and critic Dr Petr Veber, who heads the department of classical music at our sister station Vltava.

Some might argue that Czechs are not exactly a nation of warriors, and that the last time they really fought was at the notorious 17th century Battle of White Mountain, which they lost. But that of course couldn’t be further from the truth. Troops from Bohemia and Moravia took part in many wars, including the two greatest conflicts of the 20th century.

This week’s Sunday Music Show is devoted to a musician going by the name of Xindl X –a musician who combines rap, folk, hip hop, jazz and blues as the mood takes him; a musician whose lyrics are laced with irony and who says he writes protest songs which portray a world without God, morals or love -a world of scumbags of the generation X.

In today’s edition of our Sunday Music Show, we listen to music by singer Marta Kubišová, one of the country's best loved performers, whose song A Prayer for Marta has entered history books.

In the last months of our Sunday Music Show we tried to give you quite a broad selection of musical genres and personalities in the Czech Republic, from modern classical to jazz to pop. To keep up the spirit of diversity so – and hoping that our faithful listeners could expect about anything at this point - I’ve opted to take you somewhere on the musical map where we haven’t been yet – welcome to the world of minimal techno, as offered up by DJ Ladida.

In this edition of the Sunday Music Show we look back at one of the most successful Czech bands of the 1990s, the rock group Lucie. Founded by singer and guitarist Robert Kodym together with bass guitarist Petr Chovanec (P.B.CH), the band went on to great success in the years following the Velvet Revolution. Most recently their music featured in an episode of Cesko-Slovensko Superstar (the Czech/Slovak version of pop idol), where contestants tried to match the strength of the original.

Welcome to Radio Prague’s Sunday music show this week dedicated to Eva Pilarová is one of the legends on the Czech music scene. In the course of her impressive career she sang swing, jazz, rock’n’roll, middle of the road pop and even funk and folk music.

Last Thursday, Czech Radio lost one of its most esteemed colleagues and the Czech Republic one of the major figures in modern music with the death of Ladislav Simon at the age of 82. His music has been a staple of television, radio and contemporary classical music for more than half a century and he was tirelessly involved in the artistic management of some of the country’s leading cultural institutions, such as the National Theatre, and the founding of Czech Television and the Prague Philharmonia.

This edition of our Sunday Music Show, is devoted to the popular singer-songwriter Jaromír Nohavica. The prolific folk singer continues to be among the Czech Republic's most beloved musicians.

This edition of our Sunday Music show takes you through two decades of Čechomor, once known as the 'Czechomoravian Music Society', a band of former rockers who have breathed new life into traditional Czech music.