Henry Swoboda

Czech conductor and musicologist (b. 29.10.1897 - d. 13.08.1990).

Swoboda was one of the founding members (along with James Grayson and Mischa Naida) of the Westminster recording company in 1949. He recorded prolifically for this in the early 1950s as well as for Concert Hall and its associated Musical Masterpiece Society and Guilde International du Disque. On one slightly later recording (1959) he accompanied Ruth Slenczynska in Saint-Saëns’ second piano concerto, conducting the Symphony of the Air (issued on Decca). Of the works he set down for Westminster, several were first recordings and, apart from some concertos with noted soloists, practically none were easily obtainable in other versions at the time. Whereas Concert Hall, and in particular the Musical Masterpiece Society, were interested in making available cheap versions of repertoire works. Swoboda set down a number of popular items for them, in particular symphonies by Haydn and Mozart. Westminster also undertook - presumably under Swoboda’s influence - the promotion and preservation of the art of several conductors not otherwise well documented by the record industry, especially Hermann Scherchen. The Westminster recordings were mainly - and, in Swoboda’s case, exclusively - made in Vienna with the Symphony Orchestra or the State Opera Orchestra. Some of the earlier Concert Hall and Musical Masterpieces Society recordings use pseudonymous groups such as “The Concert Hall Symphony Orchestra”. Properly identified orchestras were the Winterthur Symphony Orchestra and the Nederlands Philharmonisch Orkest (Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra). The latter was a pick-up band using players from various Dutch radio orchestras, unrelated to the present-day orchestra of the same name.

Swoboda studied under Václav Talich in Prague and Vienna. He was an assistant conductor at the Prague Opera (1921-1923), worked for EMI Electrola in Berlin (1927-1931), guest conducted in Edinburgh, Berlin, Dresden and Vienna and was a conductor and programme planner for Prague Radio (1931-1938). He settled in the United States in 1939 and became an American citizen in the 1940s. Post-war, he appeared in Europe and Southern America but did not actually conduct publicly in the United States till 1960, when he appeared at the Empire State Music Festival. Thereafter he was conductor of the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra (1962-4), visiting professor and conductor of Texas University orchestra (1964-8).