František Chaun

During his lifetime he was known as a versatile artist who was active – to remain within the sphere of music life – as a composer, pianist, and singer. Besides that, he was a painter (his work in this field consists of hundreds of paintings), an author of shorter literary works, and a comic actor. Apart from all that, he was also a graduated pharmacist.

His compositional output is not very extensive, consisting of around thirty completed scores of orchestral, chamber or vocal compositions. He studied privately with Jindřich Feld and Klement Slavický, but just as much as in his other artistic pursuits he adopted and stuck to an intuitive, autodidactic approach to music.

He tended more towards the traditional branch of the 20th century music, with the exception of a rationally conceived orchestral composition entitled The Castle (1964 – 65). This work of art is a part of one of the most peculiar feats on Chaun’s part: the Kafka inspired orchestral trilogy from the years 1964 to 1969 (The Metamorphosis, The Castle, The Trial).

He frequently chose unconventional compositional solutions that betrayed a sense for hyperbole, yet, at the same time, he was inclined towards philosophical contemplations. An interesting facet of his legacy is represented by his music for tape compositions, several of which he created at the “Acousti” studio in Paris.

As far as the number of compositions is concerned, the most fruitful period of Chaun’s life was the second half of the 1960s, when such compositions as the Trio for clarinet, French horn and double-bass (1965 – 67), Hommage á Dubuffet, the Double Concerto for violin, violoncello and chamber orchestra (1969) or Five Images (Pět obrázků) for orchestra (1970) were written.

Titles for sale:
Castle
Hommage a Dubuffet
Metamorphosis
Trial
Trio for Clarinet, French Horn and Double Bass

Titles for hire - see Complete catalogue