| Content | Karel Boleslav Jirák thanks Bohuslav Martinů for his letter. He did not know that BM's injury was so serious, he wishes him a speedy recovery. KBJ was still conducting Martinů's SMITH QUARTET WITH ORCHESTRA in Brussels in February 1939. KBJ writes in detail about the situation in 1939 when he was director of the Czechoslovak Radio music programme during the Protectorate. In order to work and let all sorts of other things on the air, he had to look for ways to get along with the occupiers. After the liberation, KBJ was accused of collaboration by members of the Czechoslovak Philharmonic Orchestra and the Czech National Theatre Orchestra and sent on "leave" from the radio. After a year and a loan, the investigating committee acquitted him of the charge of collaboration. The head of the radio Celestin Rypl was a real collaborator and after his acquittal and arrest he committed suicide. CR proposed to dismiss KBJ, Mirko Očadlík and Otakar Jeremias and wanted to replace them with BM, Václav Smetáček and Otakar Hřímalý. Through Karel Šebánek, BM eventually learned that KBJ was planning something against him, but this was a misunderstanding. After the war, Karel Novák threatened to break KBJ's neck. From May 1946 onwards, there were negotiations to elect KBJ as a professor at the Academy [of Performing Arts], and BM, Pavel Bořkovec and Jaroslav Řídký were also proposed. It is still expected that BM will come and propose other professors. Bořkovec and Řídký have been appointed, but no appointment has been made yet. KBJ then went to New York, but did not see BM there. KBJ was in a bad way, moreover, a year ago a student informed him that he had been in a relationship with his wife Marta Krásová for two years and asked KBJ to release her. Apparently she had left him because he had lost his former position. He has no job in Prague, so he teaches in Chicago, but has a mother, children and granddaughter in Prague. KBJ wants to meet BM. |