Jaroslav Smolka

A composer, musicologist, music director, pedagogue, Smolka belongs to the generation that entered the music scene in the 1950s.

In 1956 he graduated from Charles University in the field of musicology, and from 1960 to 1964 he undertook doctoral studies in music history under Mirko Očadlík. He also studied composition at the Academy of Performing Arts with Václav Dobiáš in 1953–1955. Karel Janeček, Smolka’s instructor in music theory, influenced his student both as an artist and as a scientist.

Since 1962 Smolka has been teaching history of music at the Department of Music History and Theory at the Music Faculty of the Academy. In 1991 he became a professor, and since 1997 he has been the head of the department. He is the author of several musicological books, e.g. Czech Music of Our Century (1961), Czech Cantatas and Oratorios (1970), The Fugue in Czech Music (1987).

He also concerns himself, among others, with the work of Bedřich Smetana, and has published many essays and reviews in music magazines. In the years 1960–1962 he worked as the chief dramaturge of classical music for Supraphon, and from 1970 to 1972 he assumed a similar position in Panton.

As a music director he has masterminded several hundreds of recordings, and in 1994 he established music direction as a field of study at the Music Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts. Between 1996 and 2001 he was engaged as a dramaturge by the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra.

As a composer, he initially drew on V. Novák and B. Bartók, later on he became influenced by Neo-Classicism and the avant-garde of the so called New Music. He has also applied himself on a long-term basis to editing historical compositions, focusing on the 18th-century Czech music for organ. He has, for instance, revised fugue suites by Czech anonymous authors of the 18th century. Of quite some significance are Smolka’s editions of works by the Czech Baroque composer Jan Dismas Zelenka.

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