Bedřich Smetana (; 1824, Litomyšl, Bohemia 1884, Prague, Bohemia) was a Czech composer who pioneered the development of a musical style which became closely identified with his country's aspirations to independent statehood. He is thus widely regarded in his homeland as the father of Czech music. Internationally he is best known for his opera The Bartered Bride, for the symphonic cycle Má vlast ("My Fatherland") which portrays the history, legends and landscape of the composer's native land, and for his First String Quartet From My Life.

Smetana was naturally gifted as a pianist, and gave his first public performance at the age of six. After his conventional schooling, he studied music under Josef Proksch in Prague. His first nationalistic music was written during the 1848 Prague uprising, in which he briefly participated. After failing to establish his career in Prague, he left for Sweden, where he set up as a teacher and choirmaster in Gothenburg, and began to write large-scale orchestral works. During this period of his life Smetana was twice married; of six daughters, three died in infancy.

In the early 1860s, a more liberal political climate in Bohemia encouraged Smetana to return permanently to Prague. He threw himself into the musical life of the city, primarily as a champion of the new genre of Czech opera. In 1866 his first two operas, The Brandenburgers in Bohemia and The Bartered Bride, were premiered at Prague's new Provisional Theatre, the latter achieving great popularity. In that same year, Smetana became the theatre's principal conductor, but the years of his conductorship were marked by controversy. Factions within the city's musical establishment considered his identification with the progressive ideas of Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner inimical to the development of a distinctively Czech opera style. This opposition interfered with his creative work, and may have hastened the health breakdown which precipitated his resignation from the theatre in 1874.

By the end of 1874, Smetana had become completely deaf but, freed from his theatre duties and the related controversies, he began a period of sustained composition that continued for almost the rest of his life. His contributions to Czech music were increasingly recognised and honoured, but a mental collapse early in 1884 led to his incarceration in an asylum, and his subsequent death. Smetana's reputation as the founding father of Czech music has endured in his native country, where advocates have raised his status above that of his contemporaries and successors. However, relatively few of Smetana's works are in the international repertory, and most foreign commentators tend to regard Antonín Dvořák as a more significant Czech composer.

Biography

Family background and childhood

Bedřich Smetana was born on 1824, in Litomyšl, east of Prague near the traditional border between Bohemia and Moravia, then provinces of the Habsburg Empire. He was the third child, and first son, of František Smetana and his third wife Barbora Lynková. František had fathered eight children in two earlier marriages, five daughters surviving infancy; he and Barbora had ten more children, of whom seven reached adulthood. The Smetana family came from the Hradec Králové region of Bohemia. František had initially learned the trade of a brewer, and had acquired moderate wealth during the Napoleonic Wars by supplying clothing and provisions to the French Army. He subsequently managed several breweries before coming to Litomyšl in 1823 as brewer to Count Waldstein, whose Renaissance castle dominates the town.

The elder Smetana, although uneducated, had a natural gift for music and was a competent violinist who played in a string quartet. Bedřich was introduced to music by his father and in October 1830, at the age of six, gave his first public performance. At a concert held in Litomyšl's Philosophical Academy he played a piano arrangement of Auber's overture to La Muette de Portici, to a rapturous reception. In 1831 the family moved to Jindřichův Hradec in the south of Bohemia – the region where, a generation later, Gustav Mahler grew up.

In 1835, František retired to a farm in the south-eastern region of Bohemia. whose departure for Prague in 1838 may have influenced Smetana's own desire to experience life in the capital. The following year, with František's approval, he enrolled at Prague's Academic Grammar School under Josef Jungmann, a distinguished poet and linguist who was a leading figure in the movement for Czech national revival.

Apprentice musician

First steps

Smetana arrived in Prague in the autumn of 1839. Finding Jungmann's school uncongenial (he was mocked by his classmates for his country manners), However, the Prague idyll ended when František discovered his son's truancy, and removed him from the city.

An older cousin, Josef Smetana, a teacher at the Premonstratensian School in Plzeň (Pilsen), then offered to supervise the boy's remaining schooling, and in the summer of 1840 Smetana departed for Plzeň. He composed several pieces for her, among which are two Quadrilles, a song duet, and an incomplete piano study for the left hand. He also composed his first orchestral piece, a B flat minuet.

Student and teacher

By the time Smetana completed his schooling, his father's fortunes had declined. Although František now agreed that his son should follow a musical career, he could not provide financial support. and no immediate prospects. Lacking any formal musical training, he needed a teacher, and was introduced by Kateřina Kolářová's mother to Josef Proksch, head of the Prague Music Institute – where Kateřina was now studying. In 1846 Smetana attended concerts given in Prague by Berlioz, and in all likelihood met the French master at a reception arranged by Proksch. At the home of Count Thun he met Robert and Clara Schumann, and showed them his G minor sonata, but failed to win their approval for this work – they detected too much of Berlioz in it.

Early career

Revolutionary

Smetana's concert tour to Western Bohemia was poorly supported, so he abandoned it and returned to Prague, where he made a living from private pupils and occasional appearances as an accompanist in chamber concerts. For a brief period in 1848, Smetana was a revolutionary. In the climate of political change and upheaval that swept through Europe in that year, a pro-democracy movement in Prague led by Smetana's old friend Karel Havlíček was urging an end to Habsburg absolutist rule and for more political autonomy. In June 1848, as the Habsburg armies moved to suppress rebellious tendencies, Prague came under attack from the Austrian forces led by the Prince of Windisch-Grätz. As a member of Svornost, Smetana helped to man the barricades on the Charles Bridge. The nascent uprising was quickly crushed, but Smetana avoided the imprisonment or exile received by leaders such as Havlíček. This encouragement was the beginning of a friendship that was of great value to Smetana in his subsequent career. Despite Liszt's lack of financial support, Smetana was able to start a Piano Institute in late August 1848, with twelve students. After a period of struggle the Institute began to flourish and became briefly fashionable, particularly among supporters of Czech nationalism in whose eyes Smetana was developing a reputation. Proksch wrote of Smetana's support for his people's cause, and said that he "could well become the transformer of my ideas in the Czech language." In 1849 the Institute was relocated to the home of Kateřina's parents, and began to attract distinguished visitors; Liszt came regularly, and the former emperor Ferdinand, who had settled in Prague, attended the school's matinée concerts. He also wrote numerous short experimental pieces collected under the name Album Leaves, and a series of polkas.

Private sorrows and professional disenchantment

In the years between 1854 and 1856 Smetana suffered a series of personal blows. In July 1854 his second daughter, Gabriela, died of tuberculosis. A year later his eldest daughter Bedřiška, who at the age of four was showing signs of musical precocity, died of scarlet fever. Smetana wrote his Piano Trio in G minor as a tribute to her memory; it was performed in Prague on 1855 and, according to the composer, was received "harshly" by the critics, although Liszt praised it. Smetana's sorrows continued; just after Bedřiška's death a fourth daughter, Kateřina, had been born but she, too, died in June 1856. By this time Smetana's wife Kateřina had also been diagnosed with tuberculosis. The political climate in Prague was a further source of gloom; hopes of a more enlightened government and social reform following Franz Josef's accession in 1848 had faded as Austrian absolutism reasserted itself under Baron Alexander von Bach.

Years of travel

Gothenburg

Smetana initially went to Gothenburg without Kateřina. Writing to Liszt, he said that the people there were musically unsophisticated, but he saw this as an opportunity "for an impact I could never have achieved in Prague." and become conductor of the Gothenburg Society for Classical Choral Music. In summer 1857, Smetana came home to Prague and found Kateřina in failing health. In June, Smetana's father František died. That autumn Smetana returned to Gothenburg, with Kateřina and their surviving daughter Žofie, but before doing so he visited Liszt in Weimar. The occasion was the Karl August Goethe-Schiller Jubilee celebrations; Smetana attended performances of Liszt's Faust Symphony and the symphonic poem Die Ideale, which invigorated and inspired him. Liszt was Smetana's principal teacher throughout the latter's creative life, and at this time was crucially able to revive his spirits and rescue him from the relative artistic isolation of Gothenburg. He also began composing on a more expansive scale. In 1858 he completed the symphonic poem Richard III, his first major orchestral composition since the Triumphal Symphony. He followed this with Wallenstein's Camp, inspired by Friedrich Schiller's Wallenstein drama trilogy, and began a third symphonic poem Hakon Jarl, based on the tragic drama by Danish poet Adam Gottlob Oehlenschläger.

Bereavement, remarriage and return to Prague

Kateřina's health gradually worsened and in the spring of 1859 failed completely. Homeward bound, she died at Dresden on 1859. Smetana wrote that she had died "gently, without our knowing anything until the quiet drew my attention to her." After placing Žofie with Kateřina's mother, Smetana spent time with Liszt in Weimar, where he was introduced to the music of the comic opera Der Barbier von Bagdad, by Liszt's pupil Peter Cornelius. This work would influence Smetana's own later career as an opera composer. Later that year he stayed with his younger brother Karel, and fell in love with Karel's sister-in-law Barbora (Bettina) Ferdinandiová, sixteen years his junior. He proposed marriage, and having secured her promise returned to Gothenburg for the 1859–60 winter.

Meanwhile, the defeat of Franz Josef's army at Solferino in 1859 had weakened the Habsburg Empire, and led to the fall from power of von Bach. This had gradually brought a more enlightened atmosphere to Prague, and by 1861 Smetana was seeing prospects of a better future for Czech nationalism and culture. Smetana responded that "a prophet is without honour in his own land."

National prominence

Seeking recognition

In 1861, it was announced that a Provisional Theatre would be built in Prague, as a home for Czech opera. Smetana saw this as an opportunity to write and stage opera that would reflect Czech national character, similar to the portrayals of Russian life in Mikhail Glinka's operas. Smetana then turned his attention to an opera competition, organised by Count Jan von Harrach, which offered prizes of 600 gulden each for the best comic and historical operas based on Czech culture. and received Sabina's text in February 1862, a story of the 13th century invasion of Bohemia by Otto of Brandenburg. In April 1863 he submitted the score, under the title of The Brandenburgers in Bohemia. and he had difficulty expressing himself in what was supposedly his native tongue. To overcome these linguistic deficiencies he studied Czech grammar, and made a point of writing and speaking in Czech every day. He had become Chorus Master of the nationalistic Hlahol Choral Society soon after his return from Sweden, and as his fluency in the Czech language developed he composed patriotic choruses for the Society; The Three Riders and The Renegade were performed at concerts in early 1863. In March of that year Smetana was elected president of the music section of Umělecká Beseda, a society for Czech artists. Meanwhile, Bettina had given birth to another daughter, Božena.

On 23 April 1864, Smetana conducted Berlioz's choral symphony Roméo et Juliette at a concert celebrating the Shakespeare tercentenary, adding to the programme his own March for the Shakespearean Festival. His hopes were again dashed by his affiliation with the perceived radical Liszt, the appointing committee choosing the conservative patriot Josef Krejčí for the post.

Almost three years passed before Smetana was declared the winner of Harrach's opera competition. Music historian Rosa Newmarch believes that, although The Brandenburgers has not stood the test of time, it contains all the germs of Smetana's operatic art.

Opera maestro

In July 1863, Sabina had delivered the libretto for a second opera, a light comedy entitled The Bartered Bride, which Smetana composed during the next three years. Because of the success of The Brandenburgers, the management of the Provisional Theatre readily agreed to stage the new opera, which was premiered on 1866 in its original two-act version with spoken dialogue. The opera's first performance was a failure; it was held on one of the hottest evenings of the year, on the eve of the Austro-Prussian War with Bohemia under imminent threat of invasion by Prussian troops. Unsurprisingly the occasion was poorly attended, and receipts failed to cover costs. When presented at the Provisional Theatre in its final form, in September 1870, it was a tremendous public success.

Back in 1866, as the composer of The Brandenburgers with its overtones of German military aggression, Smetana thought he might be targeted by the invading Prussians, so he absented himself from Prague until hostilities ceased. The quality of Smetana's production of Glinka's A Life for the Tsar angered Glinka's champion Mily Balakirev, who expressed himself forcefully. This caused prolonged hostility between the two men. On 1868 Smetana, representing Czech musicians, helped to lay the foundation stone for the future National Theatre; This opera soon became the basis of a series of attacks on Smetana, followed by a concerted effort to drive him from his position as Provisional Theatre conductor. In an increasingly bitter public correspondence, Pivoda claimed that Smetana was using his position to further his own career, at the expense of other composers.

Pivoda then took issue with Dalibor, calling it an example of extreme "Wagnerism" and thus, unsuited as a model for Czech national opera. "Wagnerism" meant the adoption of Wagner's theories of a continuous role for the orchestra and the building of an integrated musical drama, rather than a stringing together of lyrical numbers. but was withholding its premiere for the future opening of the National Theatre. The machinations of Pivoda and his supporters distracted Smetana from composition, Smetana was deeply offended, and blamed his old adversary, Balakirev, for inciting negative feelings against the opera. After its first performance at the Provisional Theatre on 1874, Smetana's supporters presented him with a decorative baton. He had become totally deaf in his right ear, and in October lost all hearing in his left ear also. After his subsequent resignation the theatre offered him an annual pension of 1,200 gulden for the continued right to perform his operas, an arrangement which Smetana reluctantly accepted. Money raised in Prague by former students, and by former lover Fröjda Benecke in Gothenburg, amounted to 1,244 gulden. This allowed Smetana to seek medical treatment abroad, but to no avail. His spirits were further lowered at this time by a deterioration in his relationship with Bettina, mainly over money matters. "I cannot live under the same roof as a person who hates and persecutes me", Smetana informed her. Although divorce was considered, the couple stayed unhappily together.

Late flowering

In worsening health, Smetana continued to compose. In June 1876 he, Bettina and their two daughters left Prague for Jabkenice, the home of his eldest daughter Žofie where, in tranquil surroundings, Smetana was able to work undisturbed. Before leaving Prague he had begun a cycle of six symphonic poems, called Má vlast ("My Fatherland"), and had completed the first two, Vyšehrad and Vltava, which had both been performed in Prague during 1875. In Jabkenice Smetana composed four more movements, the complete cycle being first performed on 1882 under the baton of Adolf Čech. The long-delayed premiere of Smetana's opera Libuše finally arrived when the National Theatre opened on 1881. He had not initially been given tickets, but at the last minute was asked into the theatre director's box. The audience received the work enthusiastically, and Smetana was called to the stage repeatedly. Shortly after this event the new theatre was destroyed by fire; despite his infirmities, Smetana helped to raise funds for the rebuilding. The restored theatre reopened on 1883, again with Libuše By the winter of 1882–83 he was experiencing depression, insomnia, and hallucinations, together with giddiness, cramp and a temporary loss of speech. He started a new opera, Viola, based on the character in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, but wrote only fragments as his mental state gradually deteriorated. On his family, unable to nurse him any longer, removed him to the Kateřinky Lunatic Asylum in Prague, where he died on 1884. Tests carried out by Prof. Emanuel Vlček in the late 20th century on samples of muscular tissue from Smetana's exhumed body provided further evidence of the disease. However, this research has been challenged by Czech physician Dr Jiří Ramba, who has argued that Vlček's tests do not provide a basis for a reliable conclusion, citing the age and state of the tissues and highlighting reported symptoms of Smetana's that were incompatible with syphilis.

Smetana's funeral took place on , at the Týn Church in Prague's Old Town. The subsequent procession to the Vyšehrad Cemetery was led by members of the Hlahol, bearing torches, and was followed by a large crowd. On the funeral evening, a scheduled performance of The Bartered Bride at the National Theatre was allowed to proceed, the stage draped with black cloth as a mark of respect. The younger daughters eventually married, living out their lives away from the public eye. In 1936 the museum moved to the former Waterworks building on the banks of the Vltava, and since 1976 has been part of the Czech Museum of Music. A particular feature of all his later music is its descriptive character – all his major compositions outside his operas are written to programmes, and many are specifically autobiographical. Smetana's champions have recognised the major influences on his work as Liszt, Wagner and Berlioz – the "progressives" – while those same advocates have often played down the significance of "traditionalist" composers such as Rossini, Donizetti, Verdi and Meyerbeer.

Piano works

All but a handful of Smetana's compositions before his departure for Gothenburg had been piano works. Some of these early pieces have been dismissed by music historian Harold Schonberg as "bombastic virtuoso rhetoric derived from Liszt". Under Proksch, however, Smetana acquired more polish, as revealed in works such as the G minor Sonata of 1846 and the E flat Polka of the same year. The set of Six Characteristic Pieces of 1848 was dedicated to Liszt, who described it as "the most outstanding, finely felt and finely finished pieces that have recently come to my note." In this period Smetana planned a cycle of so-called "album leaves", short pieces in every major and minor key, after the manner of Chopin's Preludes. The project became somewhat disorganised; in the pieces completed, some keys are repeated while others are unrepresented. After Smetana's final return from Gothenburg, when he committed himself primarily to the development of Czech opera, he wrote nothing for the piano for 13 years. Smetana's choral music is generally nationalistic in character, ranging in scale from the short Ceremonial Chorus written after the death of the composer's revolutionary friend Havlíček, to the setting of Song of the Sea, a substantial work with the character of a choral drama.

Towards the end of his life Smetana returned to simple song-writing, with five Evening Songs (1879) to words by the poet Vítězslav Hálek. His final completed work, Our Song (1883), is the last of four settings of texts by Josef Srb-Debrnov. Despite the state of Smetana's health, this is a happy celebration of Czech song and dance. The piece was lost for many years, and only received its first performance after rediscovery in 1924.

Chamber

Apart from a juvenile fantasia for violin and piano, Smetana composed only four chamber works, yet each had a deep personal significance. The Piano Trio in G minor of 1855 was composed after the death of his daughter Bedřiška; its style is close to that of Robert Schumann, with hints of Liszt, and the overall tone is elegiac. It was 20 years before he returned to the chamber genre with his first String Quartet. This E minor work, subtitled From my life, was autobiographical in character, illustrating the composer's youthful enthusiasm for his art, his friendships and loves and, in a change of mood, the onset of his deafness represented by a long harmonic E in the final movement above ominous string tremolos. His second String Quartet, in D minor, written in 1882–83 in defiance of his doctor's orders to refrain from all musical activity, was composed in short snatches, "a swirl of music of a person who has lost his hearing." It represents Smetana's frustrations with his life, but is not wholly gloomy, and includes a bright polka. Smetana studied passages from Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Weber and Berlioz before producing his Triumphal Symphony of 1853. Though this is dismissed by Rosa Newmarch as "an epithalamium for a Habsburg Prince", Smetana's biographer Brian Large identifies much in the piece that characterises the composer's more mature works. Despite the symphony's rejection by the Court and the lukewarm reception on its premiere, Smetana did not abandon the work. It was well received in Gothenburg in 1860, and a revised version was performed in Prague in 1882, without the "triumphal" tag, under Adolf Čech. These insights enabled Smetana to write the three Gothenburg symphonic poems, (Richard III, Wallenstein's Camp and Hakon Jarl), did not return to purely orchestral music before beginning Má vlast in 1872. In his introduction to the Collected Edition Score, František Bartol brackets Má vlast with the opera Libuše as "direct symbols of [the] consummating national struggle". Má vlast is the first of Smetana's mature large-scale works that is independent of words, and its musical ideas are bolder than anything he had tried before. To musicologist John Clapham, the cycle presents "a cross-section of Czech history and legend and impressions of its scenery, and ... conveys vividly to us Smetana's view of the ethos and greatness of the nation." Despite its nationalistic associations this work has, according to Newmarch, carried Smetana's name further afield than anything he wrote, with the exception of The Bartered Bride Overture. Smetana dedicated Má vlast to the city of Prague; after its first performance in November 1882 it was acclaimed by the Czech musical public as the true representation of Czech national style.

Opera

Smetana had virtually no precursors in Czech opera apart from František Škroup, whose works had rarely lasted beyond one or two performances. He drew on existing European traditions, notably Slavonic and French,

Although a follower of Wagner's reforms of the operatic genre, which he believed would be its salvation, Smetana rejected accusations of excessive Wagnerism, claiming that he was sufficiently occupied with "Smetanism, for that is the only honest style!" The predominantly "national" character of the first four operas is tempered by the lyrical romanticism of those written later, particularly the last three, composed in the years of Smetana's deafness. The first of this final trio, The Kiss, written when Smetana was receiving painful medical treatment is described by Newmarch as a work of serene beauty, in which tears and smiles alternate throughout the score. Smetana's librettist for "The Kiss" was the young feminist Eliška Krásnohorská, who also supplied the texts for his final two operas. She dominated the ailing composer, who had no say in the subject-matter, the voice types or the balance between solos, duets and ensembles. and London in 1895, Its trademark overture, which Newmarch says "lifts us off our feet with its madcap vivacity", Smetana himself was later inclined to disparage his achievement: "The Bartered Bride was merely child's play, written straight off the reel".

Reception

Even in his own homeland the general public was slow to recognise Smetana. As a young composer and pianist he was well regarded in Prague musical circles, and had the approval of Liszt, Proksch and others, but the public's lack of acknowledgement was a principal factor behind his self-imposed exile in Sweden. After his return he was not taken particularly seriously,

Smetana's first noteworthy public success was his initial opera The Brandenburgers in Bohemia, in 1866 when he was already 42 years old. His second opera, The Bartered Bride, survived the unfortunate mistiming of its opening night and became an enduring popular triumph. The different style of his third opera, Dalibor, closer to that of Wagnerian music drama, was not readily understood by the public and was condemned by critics who believed that Czech opera should be based on folk-song. Thereafter the machinations which accompanied Smetana's tenure as Provisional Theatre conductor restricted his creative output until 1874.

In his final decade, the most fruitful of his compositional career despite his deafness and increasing ill-health, Smetana belatedly received national recognition. Of his later operas, The Two Widows and The Secret were warmly received, while The Kiss was greeted by an "overwhelming ovation". Nevertheless, the first few performances in October 1882 of an evidently under-rehearsed The Devil's Wall were chaotic, and the composer was left feeling "dishonoured and dispirited". This disappointment was swiftly mitigated by the acclaim which followed the first performance of the complete Má vlast cycle in November: "Everyone rose to his feet and the same storm of unending applause was repeated after each of the six parts ... At the end of Blaník [the final part] the audience was beside itself and the people could not bring themselves to take leave of the composer."

Character and reputation

Smetana's biographers describe him as physically frail and unimpressive in appearance, yet at least in his youth he had a joie-de-vivre which women evidently found attractive. He was also excitable, passionate and strong-willed, determined to make his career in music whatever the hardships, over the wishes of his father who wanted him to become a brewer or a civil servant. His personal life became stressful; his marriage to Bettina was loveless, and effectively broke down altogether in the years of illness and relative poverty towards the end of his life. Little of his relationships with his children is recorded, although it is reported that, on the day that he was transferred to the asylum, Žofie was "crying as though her heart would break". There is broad agreement among most commentators that Smetana created a canon of Czech opera where none had previously existed, and that he developed a style of music in all his compositions that equated with the emergent Czech national spirit. A modified view is presented by music writer Michael Steen, who questions whether "nationalistic music" can in fact exist: "We should recognise that, whereas music is infinitely expressive, on its own it is not good at describing concrete, earthly objects or concepts." He concludes that much is dependent upon what listeners are conditioned to hear.

According to musicologist John Tyrrell, Smetana's close identification with Czech nationalism, and the tragic circumstances of his last years, have tended to affect the objectivity with which his work has been assessed, particularly in his native land. Tyrrell argues that the almost iconic status awarded to Smetana in his homeland "monumentalized him into a figure where any criticism of his life or work was discouraged" by the Czech authorities, even as late as the last part of the 20th century. As a result, Tyrrell claims, a view of Czech music has been propagated which downplays the contributions of contemporaries and successors such as Dvořák, Janáček, Josef Suk and other lesser-known figures. This is at odds with perceptions in the outside world, where Dvořák is far more frequently played and much better known. Harold Schonberg observes that "Smetana was the one who founded Czech music, but Antonín Dvořák ... was the one who popularized it."

Notes and references

Sources

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External links

Category:Article Feedback Pilot Category:1824 births Category:1884 deaths Category:19th-century Czech people Category:19th-century composers Category:Burials in the Czech Republic Category:Czech Austro-Hungarians Category:Czech composers Category:Deaf musicians Category:Opera composers Category:People from Litomyšl Category:Romantic composers

Name	Vlastimil Hort
Caption	Hort at the Thessaloniki Olympiad 1988
Birthname	Vlastimil Hort
Country
Birth date	January 12, 1944
Birth place	Kladno, Czechoslovakia
Title	Grandmaster
Rating	2474 (March 2010)
Peakrating	2620 (January 1977)

Vlastimil Hort (born 12 January 1944) is a chess grandmaster of Czech nationality. He was one of the world's strongest players during the 1960s and 1970s and reached the Candidates stage of competition for the world chess championship, but was never able to compete for the actual title. Hort was born in Kladno, Czechoslovakia and was a citizen of Czechoslovakia for the first part of his chess career, winning national championships in 1970, 1971, 1972, 1975, and 1977. He achieved the Grandmaster title in 1965 as a Czechoslovak citizen. While playing for Czechoslovakia he won a number of major tournaments (Hastings 1967-8, Skopje 1969, etc.), gaining recognition as one of the strongest non-Soviet players in the world. This led to him representing the "World" team in the great "USSR vs. Rest of the World" match of 1970, where he occupied fourth board and had a commendable +1 score against the formidable Soviet Grandmaster Lev Polugaevsky — in some regards his greatest result. He defected to the West after the 1985 Tunis Interzonal, moving to West Germany and winning the national championship of his new homeland in 1987, 1989 and 1991. Despite advancing age he has remained an active tournament competitor, representing the unified Germany and playing inter alia on "Veterans" teams in Scheveningen system matches against teams of Woman Grandmasters.

Zonals and interzonals

Hort participated in a number of Zonal and Interzonal qualifying tournaments to select a challenger for the world title, generally with good results but without reaching the final stages of the Candidates process. He did reach the stage of the Candidates matches of 1977-8 but was eliminated in the first round, in a close match versus the former world champion Boris Spassky. Hort's long-standing reputation as one of the great sportsmen of chess was enhanced by an event during this match. During the latter stages of the competition, Spassky fell ill and was unable to play. During Candidates matches, each player was allotted a fixed number of rest days to accommodate such situations, but Spassky exhausted his entire allocation of time-outs yet was still unable to compete. At this point Hort would have been entirely within his rights to claim the match won by forfeit, and indeed many of his peers would have done so. In the event, however, Hort made the sporting gesture of offering Spassky one of his own time-outs so that the ex-champion could complete his recovery. Spassky (a noted chess gentleman in his own right) did so and went on to win the match by the narrowest possible margin, eliminating Hort from that Candidates cycle but ensuring that he would be remembered by chess fans for his gallantry. The penultimate game of the match was rather bizarre in its conclusion, as Hort had established a clearly winning position, but inexplicably forgot about the factor of time, and he sat thinking until his time elapsed, making Spassky the winner of the game. With a draw in the next and final game, Spassky won the match. The following day Hort gave what was then a world record simultaneous display in which he took on over 600 opponents. He explained that he gave the display to get the stupid loss against Spassky out of his system.

Sousse Interzonal 1967

Against this background, it is particularly ironic that perhaps Hort's most significant "victory" was in a game that, in fact, he did not even play. The 1967 Interzonal tournament at Sousse included among its participants not only Hort, but also the great but volatile Bobby Fischer. While leading the tournament, Fischer was involved in a dispute with the tournament organizers regarding playing schedule that resulted in his forfeiting a game with the Soviet player Aivars Gipslis. While accounts of subsequent events differ, it is clear that he was persuaded to resume play, but then did not appear for his game with Hort, who was awarded a victory by forfeit. Negotiations with the organizers went downhill from this point, and Fischer withdrew from the tournament to begin his penultimate estrangement from grandmaster chess. Hort went on to finish the Interzonal in a tie for sixth with Samuel Reshevsky and Leonid Stein, but did not advance to the Candidates matches, Reshevsky becoming the successful Candidate following a three-way tie-breaking match.

Sporting spirit may flow in the family veins, as Hort's son pursued a career as a professional footballer.

Olympiad career

Hort played for Czechoslovakia in the Chess Olympiads of 1960, 1962, 1964, 1966, 1968, 1970, 1972, 1974, 1980, 1982, 1984 and for Germany in 1988, 1990, 1992.

Sample game

The following is a sample game from the 1967 Zonal tournament (qualifying event for the Sousse Interzonal) held at Halle, East Germany that well illustrates Hort's capacity for converting a positional initiative into a winning attack. His opponent in this game was a prominent Yugoslav International Master (later Grandmaster). Note that if Black captures the Queen in the final position, White has an elegant mate with 29. Nf4+ Kh4 30. g3+!

Hort-Minić, King's Indian Defense: 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.Be2 O-O 6.Bg5 c5 7.d5 h6 8.Be3 Kh7 9.Nf3 Re8 10.O-O Nbd7 11.Qc2 e6 12.dxe6 Rxe6 13.Rad1 Qe7 14.Rfe1 Nxe4 15.Nd5 Qd8 16.Bd3 f5 17.Nf4 Re8 18.Bxe4 Rxe4 19.Rxd6 Qc7 20.Rxg6 Rxf4 21.Bxf4 Qxf4 22.Rxg7+ Kxg7 23.Qc3+ Nf6 24.Re7+ Kg6 25.Ne5+ Kh5 26.Rg7 Be6 27.Qh3+ Qh4 28.Ng6 1-0.

References

External links

Category:1944 births Category:Living people Category:Chess grandmasters Category:Czech chess players Category:German chess players Category:German people of Czech descent Category:People from Kladno Category:Chess Olympiad competitors