Rafael Kubelík’s Czech identity is powerfully asserted with works by Smetana (including movements from Má vlast), Dvořák, Janáček and Martinů, but the box also includes Austro-German repertoire (Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Brahms), Russian composers (Tchaikovsky, Borodin) and music by Bartók and Nielsen.

Kubelík’s recordings for EMI, now Warner Classics, have been by far less exploited and reissued than his recordings for DGG, and numerous recordings, including early pre-war rare performances with the Czech Philharmonic, find here there first release on CD:
• Smetana: Má vlast: Czech Philharmonic Orchestra - 1937
• Dvořák: Carnival Ov., In Nature’s Realm, Othello: Czech Philharmonic Orchestra - 1946
• Mendelssohn: Meeresstille und gluckliche Fahrt: Philharmonia Orchestra - 1949
• Mozart: Overtures: Philharmonia Orchestra - 1951-1952
• Gluck: Iphigenia in Aulis: Overture - Philharmonia Orchestra - 1952
• Mendelssohn: A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Philharmonia Orchestra -1952
• Bartók: Two Portraits, Op.5: Royal Philharmonic Orchestra - 1958
• Dvořák: Scherzo Capriccioso: Royal Philharmonic Orchestra - 1958
• Borodin: Prince Igor - Polovstian Dances: Wiener Philharmoniker – 1960

The Czech conductor Rafael Kubelík was born in 1914, the son of the celebrated violinist Jan Kubelík. He studied at the Prague Conservatory and made his debut conducting the Czech Philharmonic at the age of 19 in 1934. Kubelík conducted a broad repertory, and championed many modern works over a career of nearly five decades. His performances of Czech works, such as Smetana's patriotic Má vlast , are considered especially authoritative.

Kubelík made his first recordings for EMI while on tour to England in 1937 with the Czech Philharmonic; these were two movements from Smetana’s Má vlast. From 1942 to 1948 Kubelík was Music Director of the Czech Philharmonic, and in 1945 conducted Má vlast to celebrate the liberation of Prague from Nazi occupation.

In 1948, the year the Communist Party took power in Czechoslovakia, Walter Legge of EMI invited him to record with the Philharmonia in London and Kubelík took this as an opportunity to defect to the West. “I am an anti-communist and an anti-fascist’, said Kubelík. ‘I do not think that artistic freedom can cope with a totalitarian regime”.

Despite invitations over the years from the regime in communist Czechoslovakia, Kubelík did not conduct again in his homeland until 1990, when – following the Czech ‘Velvet Revolution’ led by Vaclav Havel – he led Má vlast at the opening of the Prague Spring Festival. This was the only time Kubelík conducted in public after 1985, when he retired as a result of ill health.

Over his international career, Kubelík held the position of Music Director for relatively brief and sometimes controversial periods with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (1950-53), the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden (1955-58) and the Metropolitan Opera, New York (1971-74). By contrast, he spent nearly 20 years as Music Director of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in the 1960s and 70s.

“A conductor renowned for his eloquent, deeply personalised interpretations ... His performances were considered highlights of the concert seasons by those who prized a warm, probing, grandly scaled style of music-making that was quickly being eclipsed by a more streamlined modern approach.” - New York Times (obituary)

“One of the great re-creative musicians of the post-war era – a composer nourished by the masters he conducted, and a conductor fired by the urge to compose.” - Gramophone

“Both performances confirm Kubelík as among the most sympathetic of Tchaikovsky conductors, a genuine listener who relates what he hears, not what he wants to confess through the music.” - Gramophone