Suk, Josef

Suk, Josef yôˈzĕf so͝ok [key], 1874–1935, Czech composer and violinist, grad. Prague Conservatory, 1891; pupil and son-in-law of Dvořák. While still at the Prague Conservatory, he and three of his fellow students founded the Czech Quartet, of which Suk was second violinist. Though his early works were influenced by Brahms and Dvořák, he developed in his later works a chromatic polyphony approaching atonality. His second symphony, Asrael (1907), expresses his grief at the deaths of Dvořák and of his wife, Dvořák's daughter. Suk joined the faculty of the Prague Conservatory in 1922 and later became its rector.

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