Page 689 - Liverpool Philharmonic 22-23 Season Coverage Book
P. 689
Pesek and the Czech National Symphony Orchestra at Proms in Prague in 2013
ALAMY
He took the RLPO on tour, including to the Proms for 11 consecutive years. However, one of
his proudest moments was taking them to Prague in 1988, when Czechoslovakia was still run by
a communist regime to “show off my new love” to his home city.
In 1992 he insisted that their American tour include the Asrael Symphony. It was not a popular
choice with the tour agents but according to Sandra Parr, the orchestra’s artistic planning
director, “he won the audiences on the east coast of the US over with his commitment to the
work”.
Pesek was particular about his batons, insisting on a precise length and weight. On one occasion
he arrived with the RLPO in Santiago de Compostela in Spain without one. “They didn’t have
one there, so the harpist lent me some wire and I conducted Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony with
wire,” he recalled. “It was a little heavy and metal, but it was fine. Just too long.”
Libor Pesek was born in Prague in 1933, the son of Ludvik Pesek, a taciturn civil servant who
worked in the ministry of food, and his wife Anna (née Altmanova) who during the war worked
in a cigarette factory. Neither was from Prague and young Libor often spent holidays with his
extended family in the Bohemian countryside.
