Zdenko Nováček

Dr. Zdenko Nováček, CSc. was a Czechoslovak musicologist, educator, music editor, organizer of musical life, and public figure.

He came from Plzeň, where he studied at the Men’s Teacher Training Institute (where he was taught musical subjects by pedagogue and composer Josef Bartovský). He continued his musical education at the Prague Conservatory and Charles University, and from 1949 he lived and worked in Bratislava.

For a time, Zdenko Nováček served as the director of the Institute of Musicology at the Slovak Academy of Sciences (SAV), and later as the senior editor of symphonic music and editor-in-chief of music broadcasting at Czechoslovak Radio in Bratislava.

As a supporter of Marxist-oriented thought, he focused on musical aesthetics and (Czecho-)Slovak musical traditions. He summarized his ideas in two publications: Introduction to the Study of Aesthetics (1952) and Chapters from Musical Aesthetics (1982). He paid particular attention to the history of the workers’ choral movement in Slovakia, to prominent figures connected with the history of Bratislava (Liszt, Beethoven, Mozart, Hummel, Rubinstein), and to musical residences in western Slovakia. Among his most popular books is Bratislavy : sprievodca po hudobnej Bratislave minulosti a dneška (Musical Monuments of Bratislava: A Guide to the Musical Bratislava of the Past and Present, 1966).

Despite his extensive scientific, educational, and journalistic work, the main focus of Nováček’s activity lay in holding various leadership and party positions. In 1962, Zdenko Nováček became the director of the Conservatory in Bratislava, a post he held until the end of his life. From 1976, he also served as editor-in-chief of the journal Hudobný život (Musical Life).

“He loved young people and enthusiastically followed their achievements at ‘his’ school, which he helped to build and develop into a place with high professional, human, and material standards.” — T. Ursínyová, Večerník, Bratislava, August 18, 1987

From the moment he arrived in Bratislava, he was an active member of the Union of Slovak Composers and held other high-ranking positions. He was a deputy of the Federal Assembly and chairman of the Cultural Committee of the House of Nations, as well as a member of various expert commissions and advisory boards (such as the advisory board of SĽUK, the editorial board of Slovenská hudba, the Cultural Commission of the Society for the Dissemination of Political and Scientific Knowledge, the advisory board of the Slovak National Theatre, and the advisory board of the Bratislava City Museum).

He was also a member of several foreign musicological and musical societies, including the Internationale Gesellschaft für Musikwissenschaft, Gesellschaft für Musikforschung, Neue Bachgesellschaft, G. F. Händel Gesellschaft, and Internationale R. Strauss Gesellschaft.