Suk, Josef

Suk, Josef (yô`zĕf sk), 1874–1935, Czech composer and violinist, grad. Prague Conservatory, 1891; pupil and son-in-law of Dvořák. While still at the Prague Conservatory, he and three of his fellow students founded the Czech Quartet, of which Suk was second violinist. Though his early works were influenced by Brahms and Dvořák, he developed in his later works a chromatic polyphony approaching atonality. His second symphony, Asrael (1907), expresses his grief at the deaths of Dvořák and of his wife, Dvořák's daughter. Suk joined the faculty of the Prague Conservatory in 1922 and later became its rector.

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Suk, Josef 

Born Jan. 4, 1874, in Křečovice; died May 29, 1935, in Beneišov, near Prague. Czech violinist and composer.

Suk studied violin under A. Bennewitz and composition under K. Stecker and A. Dvořák. From 1891 to 1933 he played with the Bohemian Quartet, with which he toured Russia frequently, beginning in 1895. Until 1904 he performed as a soloist. In 1922 he became a professor at the Prague Conservatory, and from 1924 to 1926 and from 1933 to 1935 he served as the conservatory’s rector. In his First Symphony (1897) and other orchestral, instrumental, and chamber works, Suk developed the traditions of the Czech classics. After 1904, traits of expressionism appeared in his compositions. A collection of Suk’s works for piano was published in the USSR in 1955.

REFERENCES

Belza, I. Ocherki razvitiia cheshskoi muzykal’noi klassiki. Moscow, 1951. Pages 460–466.
Berkovec, J. Josef Suk, 2nd ed. Prague, 1962.