Návrat Jana Nováka do USA

The impossibility of return is a significant feature of the production of artists in exile. Analogous to Bohuslav Martinů, Jan Novák became a composer in exile owing to the political situation in Czechoslovakia. Just one year before the communist putsch in 1948, Novák studied with Aaron Copland and Bohuslav Martinů in Tanglewood and in New York. The principles of free thought and creation outside prescribed limits became integral to his personality. In 1968, after twenty years of confronting political obstacles, Jan Novák decided to return to the free world. Nevertheless he did not return to the USA. In 1984 Rafael Kubelík planned to perform Novák's cantata Dido in New York with the composer in the role of narrator, but an injury sustained by the conductor prevented any performance within Novák's lifetime. Dido was finally performed by the New York Philharmonic in 1986, two years after Jan Novák's death; but he was never to return either to the USA or to the country of his birth for the recognition that was his due.