One of the most enduringly popular conductors to come out of Eastern Europe during the postwar era, Rafael Kubelik had the good fortune to outlive the communist Czech regime from which he exiled himself, and to return to his homeland a hero late in his career. Throughout his career, Kubelik was a very popular conductor, and a critical favorite as well on two continents, especially where late Romantic and modern works were concerned.

The son of violinist Jan Kubelik (1880-1940), Rafael Kubelik studied at the Prague Conservatory with the intention of becoming a composer. He made his debut before the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra at age 19, and in 1939 became the Music Director of the National Opera in Brno, Czechoslovakia. In 1941 he became the Music Director of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, a post he held until 1948. In 1948, with the establishment of a communist dictatorship in Czechoslovakia, Kubelik left his homeland, and became an exile for the next 40 years.

He became the conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1950, at a difficult time in the orchestra's history. Founded 1891 by Theodore Thomas, who was also the orchestra's conductor until 1905, when Frederick Stock succeeded him. Stock had held the conductor's post until his death in 1942, after which the orchestra had gone through a turbulent period, and three music directors in barely eight years, one of whom--Wilhelm Furtwangler--had resigned before ever taking the appointment because of the controversy over his alleged wartime activities.

Kubelik's three years with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra were, at the time, a frustating period. By temperament a persuasive rather than a dictatorial figure, and a diplomat rather than a martinet, he lacked the ability to control the orchestra. Additionally, at age 36, Kubelik's musical sensibilities had been shaped in the early twentieth century rather than the late nineteenth, as had been the case with his immediate predecessors--he programmed far too much modern music for the taste of critics and subscribers. Ultimately the fit just wasn't right between Kubelik and the orchestra, and he gave up the appointment after three years, to be succeeded by Fritz Reiner.

Where Kubelik was fortunate was that his appointment coincided with the orchestra making its first major move into long-playing records, on the Mercury label. Among the most celebrated of his two dozen recordings with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra was a riveting performance of Mussorgsky's Pictures At An Exhibition, and one of several acclaimed performances of Smetana's My Fatherland. Following that appointment, Kubelik served for three years, from 1955 thru 1958, as Music Director of the Covent Garden Opera in London, where he conducted the British premieres of Janacek's Jenufa and Berlioz's Les Troyens. From 1961 until 1979, he held the post of Music Director of the Bavarian Radio Symphony in Munich, with which he also recorded extensively (for Deutsche Grammophon), and became the principal conductor of the Metropolitan Opera in New York during the 1973-74 season as well. He also was a most welcomed guest conductor in Chicago on many occasions throughout his later career. During 1973, he moved to Switzerland and became a Swiss citizen.

Kubelik was celebrated as a master of rich orchestral color, which was brought out most vividly in the late Romantic and post-Romantic scores for which he was most popular. This included much of the late nineteenth century Russian repertory, and virtually all of the nationalist music of the era, especially the work of his fellow countrymen Antonin Dvorak, Leos Janacek, and Bedrich Smetana. He recorded the latter's Ma Vlast (My Fatherland) at least four times on as many different labels, from the monaural era into the digital era, the last at a live performance in Prague during 1990 at a concert commemorating the liberation of the country from Communist rule, a recording of which was later released on the Supraphon label. He also appeared as guest conductor with virtually all of the world's major orchestras, and recorded extensively in England, America, and Germany.

With the fall of the Communist dictatorship, Kubelik, who had been ill intermittently for several years, returned to Czechoslovakia for the first time in four decades with the intention of resuming full-time his intended career as a composer. As it was, he had authored five operas, several symphonies, and various works for soloist and orchestra, vocal works, and chamber pieces, although he was far and away best known as a conductor. He died in Lucerne in 1996 after a long illness.

Rafael Kubelik was among the last conductors to have studied and started his career before World War II (Sir Georg Solti is now the sole active survivor of that generation), and embodied a tradition of robust post-Romantic music making that was ideally suited to the recording medium as well as the concert hall--the sheer number of his recordings that remain in print (including four versions of Ma Vlast), and their equal distribution between the "historical" and modern sections of classical music departments, speaks volumes about his enduring popularity and the validity of his performances, recordings, and interpretations. In Czech music, he had few, if any, equals, but he was also well-suited to the general late Romantic European repertory, and his complete Beethoven and Mahler cycles remained in print for many years. Although relatively little of his operatic work was preserved on record, the small number of these are also well regarded, especially his Rigoletto. ~ Bruce Eder

Bartok Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta Mercury [7]

Dvorak Symphony No. 8 Deutsche Grammophon [7]

Mahler Complete Symphonies Deutsche Grammophon [6]

Mussorgsky Pictures At An Exhibition Mercury [8]

Smetana My Fatherland Supraphon [8]

My Fatherland Deutsche Grammophon [7]

My Fatherland London [5]

My Fatherland Mercury [7]

Verdi Rigoletto Deutsche Grammophon [6]

The Boston Symphony Orchestra is one of the most prominent U.S. symphonic ensembles, with deep roots in the Germanic practices that formed the model for American orchestral culture. The orchestra's catalogue of recordings on the RCA Victor label in the middle of the 20th century, artistically ambitious and sonically top-notch thanks to the ambiance of Boston's magnificent Symphony Hall, continue to set a standard. The Boston Symphony Orchestra was formed in 1881 with principal support from banker Henry Lee Higginson, who also spearheaded the construction of Symphony Hall and its opening in 1900. Its membership consisted largely of German-trained musician, and its first conductor, George Henschel, was a friend of Brahms. Subsequent conductors were German or, in the case of Arthur Nikisch, Hungarian. Especially important was Karl Muck, a former conductor of the Berlin Court Opera (now the Berlin State Opera), who led the orchestra from 1906 to 1908, and again from 1912 to 1918 after the leadership of Max Fiedler in the interim. Muck stepped down and was held in an internment camp in Georgia after espousing pro-German sympathies during World War I. But beginning with Pierre Monteux in 1919, the Boston Symphony boasted a series of internationally renowned and non-German conductors. Monteux was French; Serge Koussevitsky, who led the orchestra from 1924 to 1949, was Russian and a towering figure who commissioned numerous modern works and led the world premieres of Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms and Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra, among many other now-standard works, and founded the annual Tanglewood Music Festival and its associated talent-development classes, with the BSO in residence. Koussevitsky was succeeded by Alsatian-French Charles Münch (1949-1963) and the Austrian-Jewish Erich Leinsdorf, whose RCA recordings were central to collections in the LP era in the U.S. Leinsdorf was succeeded for several years by the ailing William Steinberg and in 1973 by Japanese-born Seiji Ozawa, whose leadership was artistically controversial but long, and also marked by significant recordings, mostly on the Deutsche Grammophon label. Another conductor with an operatic background, James Levine, followed Ozawa in 2002; he stepped down due to ill health and Latvian conductor Andris Nelsons, who had taken on Mahler's vast Symphony No. 8 ("Symphony of a Thousand") as an emergency replacement for Levine, was named conductor. His contract has been extended through 2022, and he has led the orchestra in new recordings with Deutsche Grammophon, including a live cycle of the symphonies of Dmitri Shostakovich. A notable feature of the orchestra's musical life is the existence of the Boston Pops light music orchestra, with personnel drawn from the ranks of the BSO; under conductor Arthur Fiedler (son of Max), that group attained unprecedented popularity on American radio and television as well as in live concerts. The Boston Symphony Orchestra has also been heard on the scores of two films by director Steven Spielberg, Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan, with the scores' composer, John Williams, as conductor. ~ James Manheim

Bedrich Smetana was one of the great composers of his country's history and one of the leaders of the movement toward musical nationalism. His father was a violin teacher who gave Bedrich his first lessons and referred him to keyboard, harmony, and composition lessons when the boy requested them. His father tried to get Bedrich to apply himself in academics, but Bedrich was too focused on music to be a good student.

Bedrich Kittl, director of the Prague Conservatory, in 1844 found Smetana a job as a music teacher to the family of Count Leopold Thun while continuing music studies. He remained with the count for three and a half years, but he quit to undertake a concert tour, which turned out to be a financial failure.

Franz Liszt aided Smetana in finding a publisher for some early piano music and in 1848, Smetana founded a successful piano school.

Although he established a strong local reputation as a pianist, his piano compositions (mostly lighter works) did not earn him any special distinction as a composer.

In 1860, the Austro-Hungarian Empire granted internal political autonomy to Bohemia. A movement began to search for a genuine Czech voice in arts, including the establishment of a national theater. In 1862-1863, Smetana composed The Brandenburgers in Bohemia, his first opera, which was a success at its premiere on January 5, 1866. His next opera was Prodaná nevesta (The Bartered Bride), his most famous and enduring opera today, but a failure when it premiered on May 30, 1866.

In 1866, Smetana became conductor of the Provisional Theater, re-forming its administration and attempting to raise standards. His next opera, Dalibor (1871), was criticized for its Wagnerian elements. He had also written Libuse, but could find no producer. But in 1874, he had a large success with a light, popular opera, The Two Widows.

However, a severe whistling in the ears (graphically depicted in his autobiographical string quartet From My Life) led to deafness by the end of that year, symptoms of tertiary syphilis. He continued to compose and wrote his orchestral masterpiece Má Vlast (My Country) from 1874 to 1879. Three more operas were premiered successfully, including Libuse, but the last was The Devil's Wall (1882). By now, Smetana was seriously ill. The brain damage from syphilis led to madness, and he was confined to an asylum where he died. National mourning was proclaimed and he was given a burial at the Vyshehrad, one of the national sites depicted in Má Vlast.