PAVEL HRUBEŠ
COMPOSER
Organ cycle
´Minituares for organ´
by Pavel Hrubeš
On the occasion of MDA Tour
Music of Pavel Hrubeš is not often heard from concert stages. This music should mostly serve as background music for different radio and TV programmes (for example documents: Z rodu přemyslovců, Z rodu lucemburků, Pomozte dětem, cycle Potomci slavných, competitions Tutovka, Hry bez hranic, Videostop) or as film music (Tuláci, Waterloo po česku, Martina Sáblíková, Svět očima Zikmunda a Hanzelky, Z letopisů Máselné lhoty etc), as fairytale music (e.g. Tři dary lásky, Král který rád hrál, Tajemství Ďáblova chřtánu, Neklejte princi, Vápenička, Student Vilém. Sůva z nudlí, O vodníkovi Jakoubkovi and others) or as part of advertising spots and opening sequences of various broadcasts. (Studio Rosa, Objektiv, Videostop, Salon český, FKÚ pátrá, Golf magazín, World championships in figure ice skating 1994, World championships in ice hockey 2003 etc.). Music which is performed in religious buildings should also serve as means of lifting one´s spirits, expressing humility as well as a musical accompaniment of church services.
He already aligned with the mission of music as a seventeen year old student when he took over family organ tradition from his prematurely deceased father. (Pavel Hrubeš 1930-1974, imprisoned for several years in communist death camps, an organist and a layman priest). He kept this tradition in the chapel of the Church of Brethern in Kralupy and Prague, and later in the Czechoslovak Hussite church until his graduation from Charles University, when he had to take part in a different, this time obligatory service in the Army artistic ensemble of Vít Nejedlý in Prague as a singer of male choir.
After finishing his army service he did not get back to harmonium or organ, yet he never stopped seeking different opportunities to enjoy organs during his trips to different countries (various occasional performances and meetings or private concerts). In the following years he worked in different positions connected to music, first in the Czechoslovak radio as a radio presenter and dramaturgist, later in the Czechoslovak television as a musical director.
Because of the demands and success of his creative work he decided in 1987 to occupy himself only with composing and only occasionally with the work of a musical director in the Czechoslovak television. Gradually, he started to publish and distribute his own albums on different media. Sixty CDs had been published until 2017.
On the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of the formation of the Czech Republic in 2013 he was included by OSA (the association of copyright protection) among the twenty most often played and successful composers of the last twenty years. (www.osa.cz- author in, winter 2013)
The organ cycle Miniatures for organ was created in 2010. This set of tracks was originally made on the demand of Studio Fontana publishing house as a part of a musical library, designed for dubbing programmes and cultural events, exported around the World. (Album was published in Studio Fontana FN 308, 2010, recorded by Pavel Hrubeš.)
Thanks to his popularity with musical directors of various TV companies, Pavel Hrubeš made these tracks part of his concert program during the MDA Tour. The original tracks were altered with respect to author´s improvisation skills. Some tracks were added and therefore this album was created, basically an experiment in music and sounds, taking advantage of particular instruments of Prague organ builder Štěpán Emanuel Peter, St. Peter´s Dome in Kolín and the pipes of St. Patrick´s Cathedral in Dublin.
Pavel Hrubeš has always loyally served music and therefore it is necessary to believe that his organ music will serve a good cause, or at least will bring some fresh ideas.