František Malotín

“How did you perceive the atmosphere in the 1950s?” — “I well realised the terror I went through — and I am not a particularly heroic person, I took great care, and valued deeply that me and my brother did not meet such a fate as was prepared for us. Military service, Auxiliary Technical Battalions etc. We were docile. I did not work against communism but even for communism. I really valued the opportunity to complete my studies. I took it as a certain gift or a coincidence. Or an accident, in which I don’t believe, in short a strange providence that I was saved from this fate.”

“How did your father took it?“ — “It was amazing. I really admire it. His contemporaries did not survive — either due to poor health or they committed suicides. My father was rather modest and he never clung to his property. Therefore he could survive all of this.” — “What did your father do?” — “He was given a job. He was to start working in a quarry. He may have started on the job, spent there a day or two, but then he was diagnosed with angina pectoris and it was stated that he couldn’t work there for health reasons. I don’t know in fact how he got another job — a very low job. He was a driver’s assistant in a vegetables warehouse. He loaded and carried boxes with vegetables. He didn’t work there long as his health deteriorated.”

“There is naturally a big difference between recording in the studio and playing in front of the audience. It is also different when you play before the audience in Prague and abroad. This is much stronger. There is also a certain hierarchy o orchestras. One played feeling that however good one played, it wouldn’t be appreciated, since you are a member of this and that orchestra. But when we arrived in the West, it was difference. The environment we have now here, we didn’t know then. Stocks of all things, different behaviour of people, relaxedness, contact with people, for instance in the stores, simply a different world. All of this has an impact on you and gives you certain energy. When the orchestra stands before the audience in such an environment, the feeling is altogether different. The end of a song, huge applause, sometimes even standing ovation. This did not happen to us in Prague, since we were just the radio symphonic orchestra. But there we arrived as the Symphonic Orchestra of the Czechoslovak Radio, which was assessed by its performance. So we even experienced chanted applause. What this gave to us, the players. And there were encores which had no end.”

“Mostly we went by coach but the first big trip was by train. But don’t think we arrived comfortably in a big city, were accommodated in a good hotel, where we could relax after a long, tiring journey, and then went to pay in the evening. It was different. We lived in the railway cars. To save money, these were not even sleeping cars, just couchette cars. We travelled dozens, hundreds of kilometres, arrived in a city and had time only for the most necessary things. We said we went to a museum but in fact we went to a supermarket. We had our families at home, we bought jeans or something very usual, which was not available back home, oranges, bananas for children. Then we went for a sitting rehearsal, a minor acoustic rehearsal — to make sure there was enough room, check where we would sit, arrange the microphones. Then there was a dinner pause. To save — we just received our per diems — we carried portable cookers. The conditions were dire, all of this due to financial reasons. And they wanted to save money as well, so they invited our symphonic orchestra. We played well and were cheap. And we, to save on the low per diems, took our cookers with us. But even the Czech Philharmonic traveled in this way back then.”

“Well, my father was the administrator of his, then already the state farm. He managed it for a year or two. Then he was notified to take up his personal belongings and to move out. No question where he should go or what he should do. Well, you see, my father was still at an age, in which he was to work. They did not consider where he should go or what to do. My father worked in way he was used to and everything worked fine until the moment he was forced to leave. Then he had to give up everything, including his personal belongings and furniture. The villa was large, built in 1911. There was a lot of furniture, he din’t know where to move it, there was nowhere to put it. In the neighbouring village, Lhotka Bydžovská, one kilometre distant, there was a former peasant who leased a derelict hut to my father, the former granny flat.”