In his decade from 1987 as chief conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, the Czech musician Libor Pešek, who has died aged 89, transformed it into an ensemble of international standing, renowned as “the best Czech orchestra this side of Prague”. Having been offered the post after only two concerts with the orchestra, he had no conscious intention of changing its sound: “It must simply have happened through spiritual engagement with my colleagues in the orchestra.”
The aim, he said, had been not to build a Czech sound but a “Liverpool sound” and happily, “the combination of British restraint and my Slavic heart-on-the-sleeve appeared to be attractive to our Liverpool public”.
