Rudolf Tulácek Ed: David Heyes

Rudolf Tulacek was one of the leading Czech double bassists of his generation and was a respected and influential teacher at the Janacek Academy of Music in Brno. He was born in Jicin, Bohemia on 25 August 1885 and began to study the double bass at the age of eleven, having already studied flute and violin. So rapid was his progress that he soon became a member of the Jicin Municipal Orchestra and in 1901 entered the Prague Academy of Music to study with Frantisek Cerny, one of the Czech capital's leading bassists and teachers. Tulacek graduated in 1907 with the highest commendations from his professors, performing the Geissel Concerto at his public graduation concert, and in 1909 was offered the post of Solo Bassist in the Zagreb Opera Orchestra. From 1920 he was also a Professor at the Zagreb State Academy of Music, and subsequently became Concert-Master of the Zagreb Philharmonic. His many recitals attest to his perfect technique, supreme musicality and complete command of the instrument, and concerts included music by Cerny, Dvorak, Geissel, Kukla, Láska, Misek, Simandl, Stein and Tenaglia, alongside his own compositions. In 1937 Tulacek became Professor of Double Bass at the Brno Academy of Music and in 1948 became the first Double Bass Professor at the newly founded Janacek Academy of Music in that city, where he taught until his death on 17 September 1954. After Tulacek's death the former Principal of the Brno Academy wrote: 'I liked him very much because he was not only an excellent and exemplary professor - very meticulous and conscientious, but also an immensely good person, mild and quiet, who never harmed anybody and was loved by all who met him.' Rudolf Tulacek studied composition at the Prague Academy of Music and later with Antonin Dvorak, and his music displays the lyricism and melodic qualities typical of the salon music of the day, alongside compositions of great virtuosity and energy.