English Translation

The foundation of the teaching staff was formed by the German professors who had left the Czech State Conservatory. Important Prague and foreign forces were used to supplement the teaching, such as Conrad Ansorge and Henry Marteau. Prof. Romeo Finke, who had also been transferred from the Czech Conservatory, was transferred to lead until 1927. In 1930, the Academy was divided into ten departments: I. Piano, II. Strings and Harp, III. Winds, IV. Organ, V. The Academy was founded in 1930, and in 1930 it became part of the faculty of the Conservatory and had taught composition at the Academy since its opening. Composition and conducting, VI. Singing and Opera VII. Drama, VIII. Music Pedagogical Seminar, IX. Rhythmic body training, X. Schlagwerk. In several hundred concerts and theatre performances, the pupils found the opportunity to show their skills in front of the audience and the press. Until 1938, a part of the performances took place every year in German provincial cities of the former Czechoslovak Republic in order to keep the relations between the Prague Institute and the Sudeten German population alive. Many graduates of the Academy are now working in important and leading positions in German music life and, through their own validity, promote the reputation of the Institute from which they emerged. However, no outsider can measure the unusual difficulties that the directorate, the faculty and the association supervising the Institute had to overcome. The state subsidy ridiculously low; the German municipalities – initially the helpers in need – deprived of their financial autonomy by Czech laws, gradually impoverished the German population: so the teachers had to get along with unspeakably low salaries, had to be taught close to 300 pupils in about 60 subjects of 40 teachers in seven full-day and four half-dayly available rooms, which were set up in the most needy way. The return of the Sudeten Germans to the Reich, which had long been longed for and became a fact in 1938, brought the Academy into a new great difficulty: it was suddenly cut off from its hinterland. Although the integration of Bohemia and Moravia into the Great German Empire did not change anything for the moment, it was expected that the Academy's new upswing would take place in the near future. In 1940 the redemptive act took place: the Academy was taken over by the Reich; as the "University Institute of Music". In a generous way, the question of space was first solved by reassigning the Rudolfinum, which the Czech government had set up as a parliament building, to its original purpose, and by providing an adjacent large building with about 50 rooms to the institute. The equipment of these rooms, including a stage hall with recessed orchestral space and all the necessary accessories, is in progress despite the war. Four new teaching organs (6- to 30-part) are commissioned, the other stock of instruments has been increased by numerous valuable pieces; the library is supplemented and accommodated in a dignified, purpose-oriented manner. New departments are added, especially one for school music and one for church music. The faculty has been expanded by important artists and teachers. Fidelio F. Finke prepares the institute to cope with the new and great tasks, which he will also be confronted with the ingenious policy of our leader Adolf Hitler, which will guide us in the coming centuries.