Biography:

Pavel Staněk ( June 3 , 1927, Prague – March 5 , 2025, Ostrava ) was a Czech composer , conductor and choirmaster .

Life

Pavel Staněk was born on June 3, 1927 in Prague to a family of a postal clerk and a teacher. When he was ten years old, he lost his father, who taught him to play the violin , in a traffic accident . This temporarily interrupted his path to music. He grew up with his mother and younger sister, and in the final phase of the Protectorate he was totally deployed . After 1945, he graduated from a real gymnasium and then from the Prague Conservatory , majoring in double bass . Since, as a gymnasium graduate, he did not have to attend general education subjects, he joined the Czechoslovak Song and Dance Ensemble in 1950 as a conservatory student . After graduating from the conservatory, he received an offer to become a choirmaster there in 1951, which ended his career as a bassist. In 1954, he served as a conductor of the Artistic Ensemble of the Ministry of the Interior during his military service , from where he was transferred to the Music of the Castle Guard a year later . He introduced a saxophone section, began using concert singers, operetta and opera arias were added to the repertoire, and the orchestra became one of the best military bands in Czechoslovakia. He was dismissed for political reasons in 1961. He subsequently won a competition for the position of conductor at the then musical Divadlo na Fidlovačce and, at the same time, became choirmaster of the ČKD Prague choir .

A turning point in his life was 1963, when he became the head of the renewed Ostrava Radio Orchestra (ORO), where he managed to assemble an exceptionally high-quality ensemble from the best local musicians in a short time. He expanded the usual repertoire of radio orchestras of popular music to include more demanding and complex forms, newly using elements of electronic music, for example in the compositions Snění slicné zahradnice , Ostrov kormoránů , etc.

He also wrote theatre and television music (the musical The Groom for a Cat for the Tyl Theatre in Pilsen, music for the production Sadness Befits Elektra at the Ostrava Theatre, and for the television series The Dispatcher and the Girl from the Colony ). He wrote most of his compositions during his time on the radio. Approximately 150 of them were published after 1990 by eight foreign publishers, primarily Rundel Musikverlag, Germany.

The most significant creative period came after his retirement in 1990. Staněk began to devote himself intensively to demanding compositions, both chamber ( Three Movements for Viola and Piano , Wind Quintet ) and for large wind orchestras ( Columbus – the Great Journey of 1492 , Adagio and Presto con Fuoco for large wind orchestra , Czech Dance Suite ). His works were included as mandatory pieces in international competitions, where he was invited to be a member of the juries. He also devoted himself to choral work ( Good Water ), and some of his work reflected the influence of Moravian folk music ( Moravian Suite , Moravian Impressions for wind orchestras , Moravian Longing I. and II. for women’s choir a capella ).

With the progressive loss of vision in recent years, he devoted himself to smaller forms, choral work and arrangements of folk songs. Before going completely blind, he completed two masses, Missa lyrica (with chamber wind harmony) and Missa simplicis a capella . Subsequently, he also wrote arrangements of folk songs for choir and small pieces for piano school. Profile CDs of his work for wind orchestras were recorded by the Royal Netherlands Orchestra in The Hague ( The Music of Pavel Staněk ) and the Central Music of the Czech Army (published by Clarton 1994, 1995). The LP Snění sličné zahradnice was released by Panton .

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