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In today’s Sunday Music Show we will feature the greatest hits by the Czech pop-music composer Karel Mareš who died last month at the age of 84. A composer, lyricists, pianist, screenplay writer, theatre and film director, theatre manager as well as an occasional actor, this inconspicuous “man at the back” had a significant influence on the development of Czech popular music of the 1960s.

In this week’s edition of the Sunday Music Show well be focussing on music in Czech film – rock and pop hits from the 1960s up to the Noughties. Everything from more recent films like Rebelové (Rebels) to family classics like Saxana and S tebou mě baví svět – sure to be fired up on the DVD or re-watched on TV during the upcoming holiday season.

In this edition of Sunday Music Show, Peter Smith plays hits from chart topping Czech artists including 4Life and Kristof. There is also a chance to hear the vocal talents of Helena Vondrackova's less famous niece, Lucie.

The independence of Czechoslovakia, which we celebrate each October 28, was the result of a movement of many decades, and when at least it came, in 1918, after four hard years of war, the joy must have been very palpable. There are so few alive today who can remember that period, but it is certainly not lost to us, and one of the ways we can relive it is through the music of the day.

This week’s Sunday music show is devoted to a refreshing female duo called Two Voices. At first glance they have little in common - Jana Rychterova is a classic chanson singer, who writes her own lyrics and accompanies herself on the guitar while mezzo-soprano Edita Adlerova studied opera. What brought them together is a sense of humour and a natural talent to entertain the crowd.

“The Great Lady of Chanson”, “Edith Piaf from Prague” or a “Chanteuse with a Slavic Soul” – that’s how critics have described Hana Hegerová, the Czechoslovak singer who turns eighty on Wednesday. After a career spanning almost half a century, Hana Hegerová saddened her fans a couple of months ago by announcing her retirement from the stage and cancelling all her scheduled concerts.

This edition of Sunday Music show is dedicated to the poet and lyrics writer Pavel Vrba who died last week at the age of 73. In a career spanning over five decades, Mr Vrba authored lyrics to more than 2,000 songs. His prolificacy along with a wide range of singers, musicians and bands he worked with made his lyrics a phenomenon in the Czech pop culture.

In this week’s Sunday Music Show we highlight some of brightest new rock and pop acts in the Czech Republic. Listen to fresh tracks from Bek Ofis and a brace by Prague funk outfit Monkey Business – as well as a classic from the first winner of Czech Pop Idol.

In today’s Sunday Music Show we bid farewell to a fixed star of the Czech music firmament – Psí Vojáci is no more. Last weekend the band announced that it was wrapping up more than 30 years on the stage and in the studio – no long farewells – personal and health problems had got the better of them they said.

For a lot of Czechs, Pavel Bobek is THE voice of country pop, thanks to his hugely popular Czech-language versions of hits by U.S. singers like John Denver and Kris Kristofferson. He is also a trained architect, and was a close friend of Jan Kaplický, who died in 2009 after a long and fruitless struggle to have one of his plans realised in Prague. In this, the second part of a two-part interview, Pavel Bobek speaks about Kaplický and aspects of his own career. But first he discusses his love of Johnny Cash, whose songs he recorded on his most recent