Who was Antonín Tučapský?
“Songs only exist when they are sung — not when they are just printed out and tucked away in a library or archive somewhere. People should sing more, everything, not just folk songs, folklore, but everything else. Singing is really an encouragement for everyone…”
A composer with a Moravian soul who, together with Petr Eben and Zdeněk Lukáš, is still considered a giant of contemporary vocal and instrumental creation.
Antonín Tučapský was born on March 27, 1928 in Opatovice near Vyškov in the family of a rural shoemaker. As a boy, he began playing the violin and clarinet. His musical direction gradually led him further from his native region — in Wallachia, he worked in a dulcimer band, and in Brno, he completed professional music studies. At the age of 21, he became a singer in the Moravian Teachers' Singing Association — by that time he was already composing, writing and arranging songs and developing his composing and conducting talents.
He worked at schools in Kroměříž, Nový Jičín and Ostrava — there for the longest time. By then he was known primarily as a conductor and choirmaster of the Moravian Teachers' Choir Association. At the beginning of Husák's normalization, he was gradually denied work in the cultural sphere and in education, and paradoxically he ended his musical career as a warehouseman on a Prague housing estate construction site.
In March 1975, he and his second wife Beryl decided to leave Czechoslovakia and start a new life in Great Britain. He settled in London and worked as a professor of music theory and composition at Trinity College of Music. In his new circumstances, he focused primarily on composing.
He is the recipient of many awards in England (e.g. UNESCO Award: Honorary Fellowship from Trinity College) and in the Czech Republic (e.g. Doctor Honoris Causa of Masaryk University in Brno, Honorary Citizen of the City of Vyškov).
Antonín Tučapský died on September 9, 2014 in Frimley, England.
Antonín Tučapský's compositional work is very extensive, containing over 600 vocal, vocal-instrumental and instrumental works in solo, chamber and orchestral ensembles. His choral work is predominant, ranging from individual arrangements of folk songs to choral compositions to cantatas, oratorios and opera. His instrumental compositions are also significant, such as sonatas and suites for various instrumental ensembles and chamber compositions.
A typical feature of Tučapský's work is the folk melody newly created in his imagination and the effort to create a tonality accessible to a wide audience. His compositions are performed all over the world. However, he still considered himself a Czech, or rather Moravian composer — years later, an English critic wrote that Antonín Tučapský's music is more Moravian than Czech. This assessment could not have been more accurate, the composer himself said: "Yes, the Moravian is still in me, I carry it within me and protect it as a rare and valuable investment, and this strengthens me spiritually."
More here:: http://www.antonintucapsky.com
Life and work over the years
1928 March 27th born in Opatovice near Vyškov
1941 the family moves to Medlovice
1947 high school diploma from the teacher training institute in Valašské Meziříčí
1947 studied music education and musicology at the Faculty of Music and Performing Arts, Masaryk University in Brno
1951 graduation
1949 member of the Moravian Teachers' Singing Association
1951 briefly a teacher at the Higher Music Pedagogical School in Kroměříž
1951 two-year military service in Nýrsko in the Šumava Mountains
1953 assistant choirmaster and accompanist of the Slovak National Theatre Opera in Bratislava
1954 return to Kroměříž
1955 wedding with Marie Vémolová
1955 music teacher at the pedagogical school in Nový Jičín
1956 birth of daughter Jana
1958 birth of son Vladimir
1959 assistant professor of music education at the Pedagogical Institute in Ostrava
1959 two years conductor of the Czechoslovak Radio Children's Choir in Ostrava
1962 in Vyškov he conducts the PSMU for the first time
1964 after the death of Jan Šoupal, conductor of the PSMU
1965 title of associate professor
1967 conducts PSMU for the first time at Prague Spring
1972 divorce of the Tučapskýs
1972 marriage to Beryl Musgrave
1973 expelled from the PedF Ostrava, removed from the position of conductor of the PSMU
1975 with his wife Beryl leaves Czechoslovakia for Great Britain
1975 new housing and employment in London
1975 Professor of Composition at Trinity College of Music, London
1979 gramophone record Choral Music
1982 Royal Society of Musicians of Great Britain — first Czech
1983 moving to their own house in Kingsbury, North London
1984 Composer of the Year in Ireland and England
1985 UNESCO Prize — Honorary Fellowship of Trinity College — for 10 years of artistic work in England
1989 London premiere of Tučapský's oratorio Stabat Mater
after 1989 numerous returns to the homeland...
1990 author's concert in Opava — the first author's concert after 1989, thanks to PhDr. A. Jíša
1992 author's concert in Vyškov
1996 awarded the title of Dr. hc at Masaryk University in Brno
1996 Retires from Trinity College of Music
1998 on his seventieth birthday appointed honorary citizen of the city of Vyškov, ceremonial concert
1998 Olomouc Archbishopric Award for Spiritual Creation
1998 Bedřich Smetana Award for lifetime achievement as a composer
2005 1st year of the Antonín Tučapský Festival in Vyškov
In 2006, the company SOMM released a CD with a recording of Tučapský's oratorio Stabat Mater (and the cantata Mary Magdalene), by the author of the highly acclaimed
2008 OSA Annual Award for the Most Successful Classical Composer
2010 UNESCO Karl Lichtenstein Club of Castelcorn Prize for lifetime compositional work and pedagogical activity
2011 at Velehrad he receives the Order of St. Cyril and Methodius, awarded by the Olomouc Archbishopric
2012 Gratias agit award awarded by Minister of Foreign Affairs Karel Schwarzenberg for promoting the good name of the Czech Republic abroad
2012 last time in the Czech Republic
2013 wife Beryl dies, moving to Camberley
2013 Antonín Tučapský's music archive transferred to the Moravian Museum in Brno
2014 September 9 Antonín Tučapský dies in Frimley Hospital at the age of 86