Vladimír Soukup


Vladimír Soukup was a Czech post-romantic composer.

Biography

Vladimír Soukup was born in Prague, capital of the Czech Republic. He first studied privately the composition with, then in 1955 he studied with composer Jaroslav Řídký at the Prague Academy of Performing Arts. His output can be divided in two main categories. Regarding "absolute" music, orchestral and chamber music has always been Soukup's main concern. In particular he wrote during his whole career a large amount of sonatas and concertos for various instruments. Apart the Concerto for Trombone, Strings and Timpani, written for Miloslav Hejda, all his concertos and sonatas have not been composed for specific performers, but include specific features of the techniques of each instrument. So, although virtuosic, they're relatively easy to play. This part of Soukup's output also includes four symphonies and several shorter orchestral and chamber compositions.
From the 1970s, a second trend began in Soukup's output with the composition of many stage works and choral/vocal works. Nearly all of them are based on Czech texts and poems.
All of these compositions, ranging from the post-romantic style to a more modernist one, are overall expressionistic, written in an always dramatic mood. His works have been compared to Prokofiev, Martinů, Honegger and Bartók. A published piano reduction score of his Piano Concerto is held in the Gorno Music Library at the College-Conservatory of Music, The University of Cincinnati. In the same library are typeset librettos and typeset piano scores of his opera Susy in Bath, plus a published score and parts for his Trio for Violin, Cello and Piano. Soukup told : "I want to attract contemporary listener not by sound effects or technical experiment, but by convincing emotional confession."
Vladimír Soukup died on 3 March 2012, aged 82.

Works

The following lists show all his compositions in the genre symphony, and selected works in the other genres.

Symphonies