Today we celebrate the birthday of one of Dvorak’s composition pupils: one Julius Fucik, who was born in Prague on today’s date in 1872. Fucik studied with Dvorak at the Prague Conservatory, where he also took lessons in violin and bassoon – and perhaps only a bassoonist could have conceived of a work with a prominent bassoon part entitled “The Old Bear with a Sore Head.”

In 1897 he was appointed bandmaster of the 86th Austro-Hungarian Regiment and started writing works for wind band. Fucik’s first appointment with the Regiment took him to Sarajevo, and in 1910 he became bandmaster of the 92nd Regiment stationed at Theresienstadt, or Terezin as the town is now called. Now, in the years before World War I, “Sarajevo” and “Theresienstadt” did not have the ominous connotations of political assassination, concentration camps, and ethnic cleansing that they do for us today.

Fucik retired from the military in 1913 and died in Berlin in 1916.

But speaking of connotations, even if you’ve never heard of Julius Fuick, chances are you’ve heard his “Entry of the Gladiators,”, since it was taken up by American circus bands as the unofficial anthem of life under the big top.

Julius Fucik (1872 - 1916): The Old Bear with a Sore Head (Alan Pendlebury, bassoon; Royal Liverpool Philharmonic; Libor Pesek, cond.) Virgin 59285

Julius Fucik (1872 - 1916): Entry of the Gladiators (Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra; Frederick Fennell, cond.) Brain 7503