CLASSICAL MUSIC : Celebrated Czech Cellist to Return for S.D. Reunion

Like many of his Czech colleagues, cellist Milos Sadlo describes the political revolution in his country as nothing short of a miracle.

“I believed that the situation must change, but if not in my lifetime, then in my children’s lifetime. It was hopeless,” said the 78-year-old performer.

Sadlo is back in San Diego to perform Dvorak’s Cello Concerto with the International Orchestra under the baton of Zoltan Rozsnyai on Thursday at 8 p.m. in La Jolla’s Sherwood Auditorium. It is a reunion of sorts. Sadlo first came to the city in 1968, when Rozsnyai was music director of the San Diego Symphony. For a year, Sadlo acted as the orchestra’s guest principal cellist and taught at the University of San Diego.

“After the occupation of Czechoslovakia by the Red Army in 1968, nobody was allowed to leave. I had the invitation to teach at USD, a three-year contract. But after a few months, the authorities began to hassle me and forced me to go back to Czechoslovakia.”

The Communist government would not allow Sadlo’s wife to join him in San Diego, as he had originally planned, so he returned to Prague after what he described as a rewarding year performing in San Diego and Los Angeles.

Because of his stature in the international music community, however, the Czech government allowed Sadlo to travel in the West when he was invited, but he could not arrange his own tours.

“Of course, I had to pay up to 40% of my concert fees to the state, which was actually better than the Russian performers. They often had to pay 50% to 60% of their fees to their state. I continued my teaching at the Charles University in Prague. I’m still there, in spite of my age. They need me.”

Over the better part of the century, Sadlo has enjoyed numerous celebrated collaborations. He recalled making one of the first recordings of Dmitri Shostakovich’s E Minor Piano Trio, with the composer at the piano, and violinist Isaac Stern.

“Since we were doing the recording on 78 r.p.m. discs, we had to do it in uninterrupted five-minute segments. At that time, there was no splicing possible to remove minor slips, and we had to get it right the first time because Shostakovich was impatient. He said it bored him to have to play a segment over again.”

If few of Sadlo’s pupils have come close to his own artistry, it may be that they have lacked his zeal for growth.

“In my long career I produced many excellent cello players, but there was something missing. There must be some inner force, something that is never satisfied. When I was 40 years old, I knew that I had reached a stage where I could not make progress any more without some significant new experience. So I spent a half year of my life with Pablo Casals.”

Sadlo described those months with the luminary cellist at his home in Prades, in the French Pyrenees, as the best of his life.

“At the end of my studies, I told him, ‘Maestro, you gave me the most fantastic inspiration to play. But I will do it for myself--I will never just copy you.’ ”

Chamber Music Mecca. San Diego State University’s weeklong chamber music festival continues with a performance tonight at 7 by the San Diego Brass Consort in Smith Recital Hall. In addition to the consort’s brass tactics, a faculty ensemble will play Messiaen’s infrequently heard “Quartet for the End of Time.” Wednesday evening, the Lark Quartet, in residence at SDSU for its second season, will give a traditional program of string quartets by Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms. The festival concludes Saturday with the Aequalis Trio, a touring ensemble that specializes in contemporary American music.

Play it again, Dan. Performances from SummerFest ‘89, San Diego’s world-class summer chamber music festival, will be broadcast throughout March on KPBS-FM (89.5). According to daytime classical music host Dan Erwine, one work will air each weekday morning. The local public station recorded all the SummerFest ’89 performances and plans to document this summer’s festival.

Organ notes. The Spreckels Organ Society has announced summer programs at Balboa Park organ pavilion, as part of the park’s anniversary celebration. To celebrate the newest addition to the mighty instrument--a thundering, 32-foot Bombarde for the pedal division--civic organist Robert Plimpton will play a recital June 10 at 2 p.m. On June 25, the San Diego Master Chorale will sing Haydn’s oratorio “The Creation” under the baton of Frank Almond and accompanied by Plimpton. In the first year of the Spreckels organ, this same oratorio was presented, a musical spectacle in 1916 San Diego. On July 18, Plimpton will accompany soprano Virginia Sublett in a concert that will pay tribute to programs given by Ernestine Schumann-Heink at the organ pavilion in its earliest days. The German-born diva, who maintained a residence in a short-lived artists colony on Mt. Helix, regularly sang in the park, accompanied by the original civic organist, Humphrey Stewart.

New and Unusual. “Ben Hur,” the epic 1926 silent film, will be screened Sunday at 7 p.m. in the sanctuary of San Diego’s First United Methodist Church. Noted theater organist Dennis James (he is the organist for the San Diego Symphony’s Nickelodeon Series) will play the score on the church’s pipe organ. Next Tuesday, the Orchestre National de France brings an all-Beethoven concert to Civic Theatre. Music director Lorin Maazel, who holds a similar post at the Pittsburgh Symphony, will be on the podium.