Synopsis

On today’s date in 1990, Czech-born composer Karel Husa returned to his hometown of Prague to conduct a concert of his own music after more than forty years in exile. Husa left Prague in 1948 after the post-War communist takeover of Czechoslovakia, and in 1954 accepted a teaching post at Cornell University. He was granted U.S. citizenship in 1959.

At that festive 1990 homecoming concert in Prague’s Smetana Hall, broadcast nationwide by Czech radio and TV, Husa conducted the Czech premiere of his Music for Prague 1968, a composition that had received thousands of performances all over the world, but none, until that night, in the city that inspired it.

Husa had written it in the summer of 1968 after troops from the Soviet Union had invaded his homeland to suppress a growing Czech democratic movement. Music for Prague, 1968 soon became a classic of wind band repertory.

One of Husa’s American students, composer Thomas Duffy, traveled to Prague to attend the concert. “Husa conducted vigorously,” Duffy recalled, and after the performance noted that, “Twice, when I felt that the volume of applause was already overwhelming, Husa presented the V for victory sign to the house — and the volume doubled.”

Music Played in Today's Program

Karel Husa (1921-2016): Music for Prague 1968; Eastman Wind Ensemble; Donald Hunsberger, conductor; CBS/Sony MK-44916