Jiri Challupper
Jiri Challupper was born on 9 April 1914 in Horovice (Czech Republic) as Jiri Kovar. He was born into a well-off family. His father was a notary and his mother a skilled teacher and amateur musician. The mother took care of a musical education of Jiri and his older brother Josef from an early age. Both learned to play the piano from her. Already in 1915 the family moved to Tabor and the since 1924 Jiri received violin lessons by the local musican Hlad. In 1928 he continued his violin studies under renowned Otakar Sevcik in Pisek. A first concert tour of Jiri and his brother to France happened in 1933. Between 1934 and 1940 Jiri Kovar studied music at the conservatory in Prague, first under Jaroslav Ridky, later in the master class for composition of Vitezslav Novak.
In the 1930s Jiri Kovar fell out with his father over unknown reasons and in 1936 Jiri and his brother were adopted by a remote nobel relative of the mother, Marquis Francois de Challupper Deschaloup. In 1938 Jiri took the maiden name of his mother and called himself Jiri Challupper-Vildstejn.
Jiri Challupper planned to start und build his career in France, but this failed due to the begin of World War II and the invasion of Nazi-Germany into France. So Jiri Challupper remained in Prague and without the financial support of the father, he struggled to earn a living. From 1938 to 1940 he was a substitute violinist at the Prague Symphony Orchestra and from 1940 to 1942 librarian at the archive of the Prague Conservatory as well as teacher at the music school of the Union of Czech Musicians. At that time Jiri Challupper was also member of Society of Old Czech Music (founded by his brother) and the contemporary composers group „Pritomnost“. In 1943 Jiri Challupper published together with his brother the journal „Znova“ that contained concert reviews, music articles and also anti-Semitic content. The journal stopped publishing in 1944.
After the end of World War II Jiri Challupper was first arrested due to allegations of collaboration with the Nazi regime but released shortly afterwards. He then moved to Jindrichuv Hradec and worked as a teacher at the Masaryk Institute in Ostrava. Sometime later Jiri Challupper changed his position and lectured at the music school in Ceske Budejovice.
Jiri Challupper died on 25 September 1967 in Ceske Budejovice.
Jiri Challupper was a prolific composer. Unfortunately many of his compositions are lost nowadays. He composed a smyphony, several orchestral works, concertos and concertinos for piano and violin, 3 string quartets, 3 piano trios and lot more chamber music, songs and choral works.
Elegy for cello and piano
In my possession is the autograph manuscript of the "Elegy for cello and piano" by Jiri Challupper. According to a different source the work was composed in 1947. That might be correct but the manuscript mentions no date. The autograph is quite an interesting document because it shows the Francophile attitude Jiri Challupper had at that time: The title of the work and all tempo indications are given in French therefore the original title is "Elegie pour le violoncelle avec accompagnement de piano". Also Jiri Challupper signed the work as "Georges Challupper", the French version of Jiri.
The manuscript comes from the estate of renowned Hungarian cellist Vera Denes (1915-1970) and has a French (!) inscription by Jiri Challupper: "A Mme Vera Denes avec un sentiment tres respectueux par l'auteur". I have no information if the work was performed by Vera Denes nor anyone else. I also could not find a published score. For that reason I present the work here for information purposes:
