Editorial.

A major theme in this issue of Czech Music is the manufacture of musical instruments in the Czech Republic. When we look back on the history of instrument-making here, it is hard not to feel a certain nostalgia and a certain bitterness. In the Austro-Hungarian period and in the inter-war period under the First Czechoslovak Republic this was a country with literally hundreds of instrument makers of all kinds, from the smallest to world famous firms. The communist nationalisation programme after 1948 and replacement of private enterprise by central planning had devastating consequences for the music instrument industry, just as it had for the rest of the economy. There were, it is true, a few exceptions that remained capable of competing on world markets in terms of quality, but these were truly exceptions and--above all--they cannot be used as arguments for the theory that is still heard too often, that "actually nothing so very terrible happened". Since the revolution of 1989 things have changed and there are reasons for optimism, but the threat posed by cheap Asian manufactures is becoming ever more real.

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The interview with the opera and theatre director David Radok gives me great pleasure. Not just because this remarkable and versatile artist tends to avoid publicity and only rarely agrees to interviews, but because of the nice interview itself. Starting with this issue you will no longer find the Profiles supplement, but we shall be continuing to publish material of the kind that has appeared in the supplement over the last years, and simply putting it in the magazine, which will therefore be somewhat thicker. Finally I would like to draw your attention to the fact that you can order older numbers of Czech Music--if they are still available, we shall be happy to send them to you. You will find a list of contents of the magazine in past years at our new web pages www.czech-music.net. Our new e-mail is [e-mail].

See you again in May

PETR BAKLA

EDITOR