František Sláma (musician) - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

František Sláma was a significant Czech chamber music

Chamber music

Chamber music is a form of classical music, written for a small group of instruments which traditionally could be accommodated in a palace chamber. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small number of performers with one performer to a part...

performer. He was the first Czech cellist

Cello

The cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...

who focused on Early music

Early music

Early music is generally understood as comprising all music from the earliest times up to the Renaissance. However, today this term has come to include "any music for which a historically appropriate style of performance must be reconstructed on the basis of surviving scores, treatises,...

Biography

He was born in Bohemian-Moravian Highlands

Bohemian-Moravian Highlands

The Bohemian-Moravian Highlands is an extensive range of hills and low mountains over long, which runs in a northeasterly direction across the Czech Republic and forms the border between Bohemia and Moravia...

. Until the age of 18 he worked in the quarry. His meeting with the famous Czech cello pedagogue K. P. Sádlo

Karel Pravoslav Sádlo

Karel Pravoslav Sádlo was a Czech cellist and significant cello pedagogue....

proved to be a turning point in his life. Sádlo supported him, introduced him to the cello (1941) and tutored him for the Conservatoire

Prague Conservatory

Prague Conservatory, sometimes also Prague Conservatoire, in Czech Pražská konzervatoř, is a Czech secondary school in Prague dedicated to teaching the arts of music and theater acting.- Instruction :...

(1942–1948, cello with K.P.Sádlo, chamber music with Václav Talich). Between 1948-52 Sláma completed his studies at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague

Academy of Performing Arts in Prague

The Academy of Performing Arts in Prague is a university level school of music, dance, drama, film, TV and multi-media studies.- Faculties :*Film and TV School - FAMU*Music Faculty - HAMU*Theatre Faculty - DAMU-Notable alumni:...

. By this time he had already been a member of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra

Czech Philharmonic Orchestra

The Česká filharmonie is a symphony orchestra based in Prague and is the best-known and most respected orchestra in the Czech Republic.- History :...

(1948–1981, since 1962 sub-principal cello and cello section leader).

The legendary conductor Václav Talich

Václav Talich

Václav Talich was a Czech conductor, violinist and pedagogue.- Life :Born in Kroměříž, Moravia, he started his musical career in a student orchestra in Klatovy. From 1897 to 1903 he studied at the conservatory in Prague with Otakar Ševčík...

encouraged Sláma's enthusiasm for chamber music and had, alongside with K.P.Sádlo and later Milan Munclinger

Milan Munclinger

Milan Munclinger was a significant Czech flautist, conductor, composer and musical scientist.-Biographical:...

, a lasting influence on Sláma's musical development. During the next 45 years Sláma performed with leading chamber ensembles in Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...

. In 1946 he was a founding member of Talich's Czech Chamber Orchestra, between 1953-1976 the viol da gambist

Viol

The viol is any one of a family of bowed, fretted and stringed musical instruments developed in the mid-late 15th century and used primarily in the Renaissance and Baroque periods. The family is related to and descends primarily from the Renaissance vihuela, a plucked instrument that preceded the...

of Pro Arte Antiqua (one of the oldest European ensembles focused on medieval

Medieval music

Medieval music is Western music written during the Middle Ages. This era begins with the fall of the Roman Empire and ends sometime in the early fifteenth century...

and Renaissance music

Renaissance music

Renaissance music is European music written during the Renaissance. Defining the beginning of the musical era is difficult, given that its defining characteristics were adopted only gradually; musicologists have placed its beginnings from as early as 1300 to as late as the 1470s.Literally meaning...

) and between 1954-1997 a member of the ensemble Ars Rediviva

Ars Rediviva

Ars Rediviva was a Czech instrumental early music group, whose historically informed performances played a key role in the revival of Baroque music in Czechoslovakia.-Ars Rediviva chamber ensemble:...

, whose performances and recordings played an important role in the revival of the Baroque music

Baroque music

Baroque music describes a style of Western Classical music approximately extending from 1600 to 1760. This era follows the Renaissance and was followed in turn by the Classical era...

in Czechoslovakia.

With these ensembles he made a large number of recordings (with Supraphon, Panton, Columbia, DGG, Ariola, Nippon, etc.), which received several awards both in Czechoslovakia and abroad (e.g. Grand Prix du Disque

Grand Prix du Disque

The Grand Prix du Disque is the premier French award for musical recordings. The award was inaugurated by l'Académie Charles Cros in 1948 and offers prizes in various categories. The categories vary from year to year, and multiple awards are often made in any one category in the same year...

). He participated also in first performances of modern compositions (e.g. Ilja Hurník

Ilja Hurník

Ilja Hurník is a contemporary Czech composer and essayist. He entered the Prague Conservatory, then went on to the Prague Academy of Arts, where he studied with Ilona Štěpánová-Kurzová, daughter of Vilém Kurz.His 1953 sonata da camera, for flute, oboe, cello and harpsichord, has been recorded on...

: Sonata da camera, Jan Tausinger: Evocations).

Pedagogue and publicist

Since the 1970s he was a teacher at the Conservatoire in Prague. He also wrote about music and musicians, cooperated with Czech Radio (e.g. introduced Jordi Savall

Jordi Savall

Jordi Savall i Bernadet is a Catalan viol player, conductor and composer. He has been one of the major figures in the field of Western early music since the 1970s, largely responsible for bringing the viol back to life on the stage...

to the Czech audience).

In 2001 his book "Z Herálce do Šangrilá a zase nazpátek" (“From Heralec to Shangrila and Back Again”) was published - reminiscences about the Prague music scene between the 1940s and the 1990s as well as about Sláma's musical colleagues, conductors (Talich

Václav Talich

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Sir John Barbirolli, CH was an English conductor and cellist. Born in London, of Italian and French parentage, he grew up in a family of professional musicians. His father and grandfather were violinists...

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, etc.) and other personalities whom he had met (e.g. Adorján

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František Sláma Archive

František Sláma archive collection donated to his native village Heralec consists of more than 5000 negatives and photos, over 150 hours of authentic recordings and documents about Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, Václav Talich, Milan Muclinger, Ars Rediviva, etc. Live recordings of Ars Rediviva performances in Rudolfinum are also deposited in the Czech Music Museum (see: External links).

Biography

Pedagogue and publicist

František Sláma Archive

External links

See also