Vaclav Kucera (born 29 April 1929 in Prague) was studying composition at Moscow Conservatoire under Vissarion Shebalin in 1951-1956, and simultaneously graduated from musicological studies. He was working in the Czechoslovak Radio, headed the Cabinet of Contemporary Musical Studies affiliated to the Union of Czecho slovak Composers, was scientifically active at the Institute of Musical Science in the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. In 1969 to 1983, he had been the leading secretary of the Union of Czech Composers and Concert Artists. Since 1972 he has been working as a teacher of the department of composition at the Prague Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts, at present as a docent in the subject of modern compositional trends. In recognition of his past activity, Vaclav Kudera was in 1979 awarded the state distinction “For Outstanding Work”, and in 1986 the honorary title of Merited Artist.
As a composer, Kucera has always been more and more concentratedly heading from his admiration for Janacek, Stravinsky and Prokofiev and from an effort to express the character of Czech and Moravian melodious ness towards a modern musical idiom. His compositional expression has the character of an individually tinged expressiveness and an effort at a synthesis whose pronounced feature is the utilization of new musically technical means to express socially important arguments of the present time. Out of the early creative period when Kucera's idiom was basically tonal and his starting-points issuing from folklore with a tendency towards monumentalization, let us mention The Distant Home, a sonata for violin and piano, the dance drama Brigands Fire, the ballet Festival Fairy-tale, and the cycle Songs of the Earth. The symphony for large orchestra of the beginning of the sixties represents a turning point after which Dramas for 9 Instruments, and especially the stereophonic concerti no The Pied Piper, stand for a movement towards new stylish certainties. In the seventies, Kucera's style, imbued with modern compositional technology not only in the instrumental and vocal areas, but also in the sphere of electronic music, is turning to new emotionality, which is the controlling force of his effort at a synthesis of style. This is especially evident in his paramount works of the seventies, including besides others the cycles Diario, Orbis pictus and The Spring Manifesto, or the vast musical-dramatic fresco Lidice. Roughly about 1980 sets in an effort at a greater cogency and monumentality, at a simplification and better arrangement of shape, an intensification of expressiveness and at forming new communication dimensions, which are again growing up even trom national roots. This tendency is perceptible e. g. already in the quartet The Consciousness of Continuities and in the quadrophonic relievo Spartacus. It can be extensively followed in the melodrama The Bird, in the composition of a capriccio for violin and guitar “Homage a Paganini”, in the Cardiograms for piano, the Wagnerian Inventions and further compositions of the eighties. Even certain antipoles are made up here, represented e. g. by “Goghs Self-Portrait', extreme in expression, on one side, and by a quasi-simplified orchestral Ballad and Romance on the other side. An important part in the forming of Mr Kucera's present performance is impersonated by his vocal cycles of the latest years, especially “Bitter and Other Songs” on the verses of Josef Kainar.
The compositions of V. Kucera have won a number of distinctions: The Tableau for Piano and Orchestra the prize of Queen Maria-Jose in Geneva (1970), Lidice a special recognition of the Czechoslovak Radio for the 25th anniversary of Czechoslovakia s liberation (1970) as well as the prize of the Italian Radio Prix d'Italia (1972), the cycle The Celebration of Spring the first prize in the competition of the Central Council of the Trades-Unions (1977), the string quartet the Consciousness of Continuities the prize of the Union of Czechoslovak Composers and Concert Artists (1983).
The compositional summary of Kucera must not overlook his vast theoretical, musicological and publishing activities. He is among others the author of “M. P. Mussorgsky - Music of Life”, “Talent, Mastery, World Outlook”, “New Trends in Soviet Music”, a number of scientific studies, radio and TV musical-educational programmes as well as popularization lectures.
Web: http://www.musica.cz/comp/kucera.htm