Josef Adamik: composer in disguise.

Few of the inhabitants of Valasske Klobouky have any inkling that they have a great Czech symphonic composer living among them. And something of the kind wouldn't even occur to members of our cultural community. After all, every beginner knows that the first condition for being an artist is to be in Prague....

But concealed under the mask of a jovial village uncle, a teacher at a music school, is one of the most interesting of Czech composers. Anyone who wants to study Czech music of the seventies and eighties will inevitably encounter his name, and will definitely be astounded at his work, highly individual in the context of the period, and the reflection of exceptional talent.

Josef Adamik (1947) was one of the most gifted of Miloslav Istvan's students. After graduating from JAMU (the Janacek Academy of Performing Arts in Brno) he took himself off to Valasske Klobouky, where he still works today as a teacher at an arts-orientated basic school. Here on the sidelines he created several remarkable pieces that always met with a favourable response from the public and performers--Josef Adamik always had a great understanding of the musician's soul and the instruments for which he was writing (At one of the Brno autumn festivals in the later seventies his piece Nebeske pastviny [Heavenly Pastures], was included at the request of the orchestral). He was much less interested or talented, however, when it came to the intrigues necessary for building a career, and in any case his voluntary isolation made this difficult even had it been in his character.

He kept up his connection with JAMU with postgraduate studies, when he wrote several unusual pieces: Stinovani [Shadowing] for flute, 4 violins and piano (1975), Vox humana for bassoon and piano (1975), Song for mixed choir, oboe, trombone and percussion on a text by Walt Whitman (1975-76), a single experiment in the field of electro-acoustic music Z tajemne laboratore v Bilych Karpatech [From the Secret Laboratory in the White Carparthians] (1977-79) and most notable the extraordinarily ambition Wind Quintet with Children's Toys (1977-79), in which he explored the idea of alternative ensembles and createcd several equal versions: The complete versions for instruments and children's toys, the version for instruments, the version for toys and solo versions for the different instruments (the five movement Sonatina for solo flute, Four Inventions for oboe, the three-movement Zatisi s klarinetem [Still Life with Clarinet], Two Etudes for bassoon and Chorale for french horn). When composing these pieces the composer refused the usual acceptance of chance results and chose to work through all the variations in detail, but the performers are allowed to put together their own order of movements marked only by graphic symbols.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

During this demanding project Adamik already started to suffer from the health problems that in the end became a source of inspiration for his 2nd Symphony (1983), an imposing work in which independently of outside influence (he had almost no up-to-date-information on international trends) he arrived at his own version of postmodernism. Here an archaistic "Beethoven-Schubertesque" texture gradually disintegrates under the force of its own logic. The composer himself characterised the works as a "musical allegory of human life marked by an excessively high dose of suffering".

This was followed by the more objectively conceived 3rd Symphony and the fantasy Tance labilni a nepravdepodobne [Dances Unstable and Improbable] (1983-84) for chamber orchestra, the only Adamik piece to have been released on an official recording (AGON, Arta Records F1 0018-2111, 1991). We should also mention at least the Nonet (1981), to which Petr Kofron devoted the first of his Trinacti analyz [Thirteen Analyses] (H+H, Jinacovice 1993).

During 1985 Adamik's health problems led him to decide to give up composing. Nor did a one-year episode of teaching at the Kromeriz Conservatory bring any change for the better; he found more understanding in the school environment, but no proper accommodation. In the end he went back to Valasske Klobouky, where he was gradually overwhelmed by the limited conditions and growing problems at his work place. His unconventional, hypersensitive nature met with hostile attitudes in his surroundings. Around 1998 the crisis culminated in a sense of threat. At least a temporary return to composing brought some relief. In 1999 he wrote two monumental cycles: the piano Vzpominky na lepsi casy [Memories of Better Times] and II ritorno for clarinet and piano. In both cases these were collections of many smaller pieces in archaicising mood. The undertones of historic music, which have always accompanied Adamik's work, are here uncovered and stripped of all modernist elements. These pieces are astounding for the radical simplification of techniques. Adamik seems to be giving up not only modern forms of expression, but the whole of modern civilisation. His new work became an experiment in the true sense of the word: what would a man of today achieve if he were thrown four centuries back, and given only the means of expression known around 1600? It is the music of a world without flickering screens, exhaust fumes, third-party insurance and the ever present ominous whirring of electric appliances. In both these long cycles we sense the testimony of a human being in an extreme situation. They are both tragic and full of poetry. A music melancholic and consoling, containing both extreme simplicity and instrumental refinement. It is a voice that comes from the distance and from the deep.

Josef Adamik is still teaching in Valasske Klobouky. In recent years his material circumstances have become even more straitened. He no longer has much strength left for systematic composing. His case is a dumb reproach to a society more interested in advertising, scandals, stupidities and noise than in genuine talent.