Karel Svoboda (19 December 1938 – 28 January 2007) was a Czech composer of popular music. He wrote music for many TV series in the 1970s.

Career

Karel Svoboda was born in

Prague Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...

Czechoslovakia Czechoslovakia ( ; Czech language, Czech and , ''Česko-Slovensko'') was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland beca ...

, and began his career as a pop composer after abandoning medicine in his third year of university. He became a member of the rock band Mefisto in 1963, where he played piano. Later, he composed music for the ''

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'' theatre in

and for many Czech singers. In 1969 he wrote a song titled "Lady Carneval" for Karel Gott, a major Czech pop star. Svoboda wrote a total of 80 songs for Gott, including and " Die Biene Maja". His long-time collaborator was lyricist . Svoboda composed TV scores for the German channel

ZDF ZDF (), short for (; ), is a German public-service television broadcaster based in Mainz, Rhineland-Palatinate. Launched on 1 April 1963, it is run as an independent nonprofit institution, and was founded by all federal states of Germany ( ...

for over 30 years. He wrote scores to many TV series in the 1970s and 1980s which a whole generation of Europeans grew up with. Some examples of these TV series are '' Vicky the Viking'', ''

Maya the Bee Maya the Bee () is the main character in ''The Adventures of Maya the Bee'', a German book written by Waldemar Bonsels and published in 1912. The book has been published in many other languages and adapted into different media. The first Ameri ...

'' and ''

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''. He also composed the score for the movie '' Three Wishes for Cinderella''. Svoboda wrote scores for almost 90 films and TV series. He also wrote scores for several musicals: * ''Noc na Karlštejně'' * ''

Dracula ''Dracula'' is an 1897 Gothic fiction, Gothic horror fiction, horror novel by Irish author Bram Stoker. The narrative is Epistolary novel, related through letters, diary entries, and newspaper articles. It has no single protagonist and opens ...

'' (world premiere in Prague on 13 October 1995) * ''Monte Christo'' (2000) * ''Golem'' (2006, book by Zdeněk Zelenka) Svoboda was found dead from gunshot wounds in the garden of his villa at Jevany on January 28, 2007. It is believed that he committed

suicide Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Risk factors for suicide include mental disorders, physical disorders, and substance abuse. Some suicides are impulsive acts driven by stress (such as from financial or ac ...

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References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Svoboda, Karel 1938 births 2007 suicides 2007 deaths Czech songwriters Czech film score composers Television composers Male songwriters Czech male film score composers Composers from Prague Suicides by firearm in the Czech Republic