Broadcaster and composer Karel Janovický dies in UK at 93
Karel Janovický a Czech-born composer, pianist and broadcaster, died last week in the United Kingdom at the age of 93. Janovický escaped from communist Czechoslovakia in 1949 and settled in London, where he worked for the BBC and headed the station’s Czechoslovak section in the 1980s.
Karel Janovický, whose real name was Bohuš František Šimsa, left Czechoslovakia in October 1949 with his future wife Sylva, following the Communist takeover in February 1948.
He continued his studies in England, graduating from the Royal College of Music and eventually started working for the BBC. He spoke about it in an interview for Radio Prague in 2008:
“It took a long time for me to get some freelance work for the BBC at the beginning, and then I got into the gramophone department of Radio 3, which was the classical music station - in 1964 in fact - so it was quite late in the day. Before then I earned my living as a freelance musician, composer, teacher.”
It was at that time, shortly after arriving in the United Kingdom, that Bohuš František Šimsa changed his name to Karel Janovický, as his wife explained:
“That is because his name was identical with the name of his father. About a year after studying, when his compositions began to be played at various occasions, he realised that his father’s life could be endangered, if it was under his real name. So he decided he would choose a new, artistic name, and that is Karel Janovický.”
Between 1980 and 1990, Janovický headed the Czechoslovak section of the BBC. Besides that, he was actively involved in the activities of the Antonín Dvořák Society and was instrumental in bringing Czech vocal works and operas in the original Czech language to London theatres.
He devoted himself to the composition of modern classical music, especially chamber music, often for unusual combinations of instruments. He also wrote symphonies and choral works.
After the collapse of the communist regime, Janovický regularly came back to his home country. This is how he described his first visit, shortly after the fall of the Iron Curtain:
“None of us ever thought that the communist regime, after surviving for so long, could suddenly roll over on its back and give up the ghost, but it did.
“So, two months after the so-called Velvet Revolution, the fall of the communist regime, I got into the car with three of my colleagues from the BBC and we drove there, in the middle of winter, in January 1990.
“And not having been anywhere near the country for 40 years before, I was surprised how my memories of the places, of the people and of the language, and of the sound of the street even, were flooding in. I could remember all these places. It was a very exciting time.”
Janovický was also a life-long scout, with the nickname Joviš, and was actively involved in the Czech scouting movement following its renewal after 1989.
