The Academies of St John presented by the Society of Bohemian Journalists in the form of a series of orchestral concerts held in Prague took place as a part of celebrations in honour of St John of Nepomuk held each May from 1878 until 1885. The Society of Bohemian Journalists held the events for the purpose of raising money, and on an ideological level, the events were intended to create room for the presentation of orchestral works by Bohemian composers. The organizer of the Academy was the writer, poet, and journalist Jan Neruda, whose feuilletons and reviews in the newspaper Národní listy reflect on the academies that they produced, but on a broader level, they also reveal his attitude towards the saint and the traditional veneration of John of Nepomuk. As a source, this period correspondence of the direct or indirect participants in the Academies of St John or in another project with similar aims (the Slavonic Concerts of the Academic Readers Association) has not previously been exhaustively studied, and it offers insight into Prague’s concert life at the time., Petra Kolátorová., Rubrika: Studie, Obsahuje seznam literatury, and Anglické resumé na s. 296-298.
Studie Petry Kolátorové se zabývá osobností hobojisty Arnošta (Ernsta) Königa (1838-1915), významného hudebníka pražského hudebního života druhé poloviny 19. století., This contribution maps the activity of Arnošt König (1838–1915), an oboist of German origin, primarily in Prague’s musical life at the time. During the years 1870–1913, A. König was the professor of oboe at the Prague Conservatory, and from 1876 he was an oboist at the Prague Provisional Theatre and then at the National Theatre. Reviews and articles from the period show what an exceptional musician he was, as he earned recognition even beyond Bohemia. Many mentions praising him in the press have been preserved in connection with the difficulty for performers of Dvořák’s Serenade in D Minor, op. 44, in which A. König excelled repeatedly. It can be documented at least twice from Dvořák’s extant correspondence that performances elsewhere of the Serenade were cancelled because of its difficulty. Together with the aforementioned reviews, this fact shows that in Prague Antonín Dvořák (and others) had exceptional conditions for musical performances., Petra Kolátorová., Rubrika: Studie, and Anglické resumé na s. 287, anglický abstrakt 267.