In the editorial archive, we also hold a true treasure: see the photo. A songbook titled Songs from Prague from the 1930s, which includes the song “My Little Song…”. This melody served as the main theme of the film When the Strings Weep. What makes it particularly remarkable is that it was performed and recorded for the film by the violin virtuoso Jaroslav Kocian himself. The film sequences in which Kocian appears and plays are, in fact, the only surviving recordings of his performance. Although he toured the entire technologically advanced world of his time, no other recordings of his playing have been preserved.
Years ago, Czech Television broadcast a copy of this performance from the film When the Strings Weep, which had been discovered by the film enthusiast Karel Čáslavský for his programme The Search for Lost Time.
These glimpses shed light on Jaroslav Kocian’s personality from yet another perspective. He did not shy away from media popularity, even in mainstream commercial film. Written records and rare photographs testify to his cheerful and, as one might say, “down-to-earth” nature. In past decades, the United works Club of Ústí nad Orlicí published brochures documenting his fondness for humour. One of them, Kocian on His Travels, describes, among other things, his journey by ocean liner to America. The account includes a personal testimony that another star of what we would today call show business, Isadora Duncan, was also travelling on the same ship.
The archives in Ústí nad Orlicí also contain photographs from shaving competitions held at the local swimming baths, in which Jaroslav Kocian, full of energy and humour, once took part. Interestingly, these photographs were brought to the editorial office of the Bulletin in the 1990s by their discoverer, the seafarer Rudolf Krautschneider.
An excellent source on the life and work of Jaroslav Kocian is the book Jaroslav Kocian by Antonín Šlajs, published by the Regional cultural centre in Pardubice in 1958. The book contains extensive factual material, as well as recollections by his distinguished contemporaries and by the author himself, one of Kocian’s pupils.
Remarkably, there are still a few of the very last living witnesses of Jaroslav Kocian in Ústí nad Orlicí… It may sound incredible, but during my visit to a retirement home, a local native, Marie Sikorová, reminded me, even after many years, of her personal encounter with the Master, who once read her palm when she was a little girl…
And the years go by…
Mirek Němec