Josef Horák (24 March 1931 – 23 November 2005) was a
Czech
Czech may refer to:
* Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe
** Czech language
** Czechs, the people of the area
** Czech culture
** Czech cuisine
* One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus
*Czech (surnam ...
bass clarinet
The bass clarinet is a musical instrument of the clarinet family. Like the more common Soprano clarinet, soprano B clarinet, it is usually pitched in B (meaning it is a transposing instrument on which a written C sounds as B), but it plays no ...
ist.
It was not until the 1950s that classical performers began to adopt the bass clarinet as their primary instrument. Horák is credited as having performed the first ever solo bass clarinet recital on 23 March 1955.
In October 2005, the First World Bass Clarinet Convention was held in
Rotterdam
Rotterdam ( , ; ; ) is the second-largest List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city in the Netherlands after the national capital of Amsterdam. It is in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of South Holland, part of the North S ...
,
Netherlands
, Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...
, at which Horák was the guest of honour. He played his last concert there, together with the pianist Emma Kovárnová (his wife and duo partner for more than 40 years) as "Due Boemi di Praga."
See also
*
Bass clarinet
The bass clarinet is a musical instrument of the clarinet family. Like the more common Soprano clarinet, soprano B clarinet, it is usually pitched in B (meaning it is a transposing instrument on which a written C sounds as B), but it plays no ...
External links
Josef Horák official site
1931 births
2005 deaths
Bass clarinetists
Czech clarinetists
{{Clarinetist-stub