Czechs mourn an exiled legend
OrchestrasIt is 50 years today since the death, from diabetes, of the vital Czech conductor Karel Ancerl.
A survivor of the Theresienstadt concentration camp, after his wife and child were murdered, Ancerl served as artistic director of the Czech Philharmonic from 1950 to his self-exile in 1968. Dedicated, intense and apolitical, he raised the orchestra to international fame.
Ancerl found a new life as music director of the Toronto Symphony until his sudden death, aged 65, on July 3, 1973.
Some of his letters are published today by our Prague partners, Opera Plus.
Still the best Oedipus rex (1965, with Desailly’s narration). Also a chilling Symphony of Psalms (1966) and a beautiful recording (c. 1964) of the Symphonie espagnole with Haendel. He wasn’t Talich but he got results.
An amazing conductor. His rendering of the Shosta10 is still unsurpassed today, despite its (good) dry Mono.
Try also his Mahler9 while we are at it.
It is surpassed by Stokowski, Silvestri, and that scumbag Smetáček.
All those are easily surpassed by many,both conducting and playing wise… Kirill Petrenko ´s new Berlin Phil account….and by many others ,including the recent Noseda/LSO recording, and a terrific performance with the Verbier FO under Temirkanov.
Why the epithet for Smetáček? Curious…
I’m curious as well. I have liked his recordings.
It was in one of Ancerl’s letters referred to in the article. You should read them
Ciccio, I didn’t know Stokie had recorded the Shosta10….
Live with the CSO it’s in their CSO Boxed set (expensive) but you can also find it on YT
Agree about the superb OEDIPUS REX, which was released in the U.S. on the budget record label Turnabout/Vox.
We still remember him fondly here in Toronto. As the child of two Nazi camp survivors myself, I listened and still listen with wonder to the beautiful music Maestro Ancerl could create despite having survived such horrors.
Talich, Ancerl, Neumann, Kubelik… what a generation (or two) of conductors!
These letters are well worth 15 minutes of your time. He details the early days of Czech Nazi collaboration and resistance for one thing. Some is very personal, some is amusing e.g. “Smetáček is a complete scumbag and is afraid to play anything that he believes would harm his career.” Ancerl was a fabulous conductor and a great mensch, ask anyone who remembers him from Toronto…………..
John Kelly: “Smetáček is a complete scumbag and is afraid to play anything that he believes would harm his career.”
– Well, isn’t it pretty much the (virtual)world of today?
“X is a complete scumbag and is afraid of expressing one single personal thought, in the believe he might harm his profile and loose work, family & friends?”….
My father Kurt Epstein survived the war with Karel Ancerl. The two were part of an unlikely threesome that kept up one anther’s spirits in the work camp where they were imprisoned by giving each other talks on their field of expertise. My father was an olympic water polo player so Karellearned a lot about the sport while my father learned a lot of music.
Wonderful.
Hello Helen, I am Veronika who visited you from Germany 1979/1980(?) and wanted to translate your book “Children of the Holocaust”. It didn’t happen…I fell in love. I have been living in Britain in the last 40 years (now in Wales). Remembering and thinking of you and of how young we were! Best wishes.
I played in the Toronto Symphony all four years he was music director. We did some wonderful concerts with him. He was so looking forward to a European tour (and introducing me to Budvar), but his health was deteriorating fast, and he soon passed away. We played The Moldau at his memorial service–without the two final chords.
Dear Mr Sauer, please contact me at agon.orchestra@post.cz. We are going back to Toronto next year to film documentary about Karel Ančerl. Thank you.
Dear Mr. Sauer, What was his repertoire during those four years? What kind of sound did he try to obtain from the Toronto Symphony The sound of the Czech was so distinctive in those days. Thank you.
He did some Mahler, but no Bruckner. I also remember some Martinu Symphonies and all the Beethoven Symphonies. He also conducted the Kazimierz Serocki Trombone Concerto with myself as soloist. It was a long time ago!
http://www.karel-ancerl.com/
In January 2022 Supraphon released a magnificent fifteen cd box set of live recordings by Ancerl. They ought to gather together and release all their studio recordings by him in a cube – a huge undertaking I know, but it’s such an important legacy, and some of the individual cds are difficult to obtain now.
I heard my first Verdi Requiem under Ancerl’s inspired direction at Massey Hall with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and Toronto Mendelssohn Choir in either 1972 or early 1973. Utterly memorable!
Had the wonderful opportunity to perform the Dvorak
Wind Serenade with Robert Marcellus conducting. With a recent appearance with Ancerl and the Cleveland Orchestra, Marcellus had the opportunity to discuss the Serenade
with Ancerl……
Remembering one of the inner movements…..
the characterization between the old people’s dances and the young people’s dances…..a revelation…….
In the early 1960s the Czech Philharmonic toured New Zealand with Ancerl as conductor. I had never heard an international orchestra at that stage and the magnificence of this concert blew my mind. Highlights were excerpts from Romeo and Juliet (Prokofiev) and the Dvorak Violin Concerto played by Josef Suk, a descendant of the composer. In the intervening years I have managed to hear most of the great orchestras of the world despite living most of the time in this remotest of countries. And I’ve yet to hear anything to beat that Czech concert. I have the records of the two works mentioned above and play them often. I would also recommend Ancerl’s Mahler 9 and his Janacek records.
What a cruel fate to have to end his life in exile. In 1968 it was Czechoslovakia and now it’s Ukraine. Do we ever learn anything from history?
@ Duncan McLennan: In 1969 i was in Dunedin’s art gallery; chatting to the friendly caretaker at the exit, he remembered, marvellously the effect on him of this very tour…your words could have been his! That first thrill of an “international” (but in fact still very national), orchestra. The Czech Phil/Ancerl had already been the lynchpin of my teens and this was confirmation.
Ironically, at this time a marvellous “New Prague Quartet” toured NZ and had a residence at ??NZ University. This was the Prague City Quartet, already on tour in NZ when occurred the Prague Spring of 1968. They decided (like Ancerl), not to return.