Although he had been an American citizen for a decade, a fierce stirring of pain, anger, and patriotism for the besieged land of his birth set Karel Husa's pen in motion. The result was Music for Prague (1968), along with Apotheosis of this Earth, the composer's most celebrated works. Although not a tone poem, the composer gives the listener a gripping account of the invasion and conquest of the Czech capital in that year of seemingly universal tragedy, made all the more eloquent by implication rather than delineation. For the Western musical world, Husa became a modern Sibelius, Prague his own grimly defiant Finlandia. The work's final triumph would be long in coming but eventually complete. The work was commissioned by the Ithaca College Concert Band and premiered by that ensemble under Kenneth Snapp on January 31, 1969. There soon followed an orchestral arrangement which the composer gave with the Munich Philharmonic in that city one year later to the day. But the work would not be heard (understandably) in his homeland until 1989. With the fall of the old regime and the election of Vaclav Havel, Husa returned to give the Czech premiere of Music for Prague in that city with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra.

As with many of his other works, the composer, as eloquent with word as with tone, has provided insightful notes to Music for Prague, and the interested listener is urged to read them on the recording jacket or the preface to the score. The three-movement work begins softly, nebulously (as so often with Husa), yet discordant, as though an unspecified anxiety was descending upon a metropolis as it goes about business as normal. Suddenly there is a brass alarum. A smattering of an old medieval Czech hymn tries to rise. Snare drum tattoos break out; as in Shostakovich's Leningrad Symphony, the former heroes are now the oppressors. A solo piccolo, said by Husa to be a bird call, a symbol of liberty, closes the first movement. The following one opens with Mussorgskyan bell chords, but here there is no rejoicing, forced or otherwise. Rampant long-held siren-like tones and an anguished wandering melody evoke barren nocturnal streets. The finale opens with a muffled side drum; flecks of pitched percussion glint and vanish. A sharp unmuffled snare tattoo and brash fanfare announces a vigorous and ironic section of nervous counterpoint, grows to a forte, and moves inexorably forward until checked by resolute declamatory brass. Chaos ensues, and the scene is repeated to carry through as the coda. It could be considered an open ending, for at the time of its composition, vindication—social and personal—would be a long time in coming.

© Wayne Reisig, All Music Guide