Zdeněk Košler’s father, a violist in the orchestra of the Prague National Theatre, was his son’s first music teacher: later mentors included Grunfeldova for piano, Jeremiaš and Řidky for theory and composition, and Dědeček for conducting. Having started his professional career as a coach for the Czech Choir in 1945, in 1948 Košler joined the music staff of the Prague National Theatre and in the same year entered the Prague Academy of Music where until 1952 he studied conducting with Doležil, Brock and Karel Ančerl. He made his conducting debut at the National Theatre in 1951 with Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia, and his debut as an orchestral conductor in the same year with the Prague Symphony Orchestra, continuing to work as a conductor at the National Theatre until 1958 and in 1956 taking the first prize in the Besancon International Conducting Competition. Appointments as chief conductor of the Olomouc Opera and the Ostrava Opera followed two years later and in 1962 respectively.

The following year Košler won first prize and the gold medal at the Mitropoulos International Conductors’ Competition in New York, which resulted in his working as Leonard Bernstein’s assistant with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra for the 1963–1964 season. He joined the Komische Oper in East Berlin as a conductor in 1965, working with its celebrated director Walter Felsenstein, and was later appointed chief conductor of the company. The same year, 1965, saw Košler conducting a distinguished production of Richard Strauss’s Salome at the Vienna State Opera, with Anja Silja in the title role. In 1966 he became first conductor of the Prague Symphony Orchestra and from 1968 onwards he was a frequent guest conductor in Japan, where he also taught at the Geijutsu Daigaku University in Tokyo. Košler took up two concurrent appointments in 1971, as chief conductor of the Bratislava National Theatre and as resident conductor of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, and between 1980 and 1985 was chief conductor of the Prague National Theatre where he led a complete cycle of the operas of Smetana, several of which he also recorded with the same forces. He continued to be active as a guest conductor until his death.

Košler was a deeply musical conductor, whose recordings are characterised by the natural music-making for which the very best Czech musicians are notable; he was able to secure from a wide range of orchestras performances that were imbued with vitality as well as emotional depth. He commanded a large repertoire that included many contemporary works as well as all the major pillars of the Czech nineteenth- and twentieth-century repertory. His discography, which was made with many different and sometimes obscure companies, is also large and reflects his skill as a conductor of large-scale choral works, as well as of the orchestral repertoire. One of its highlights is Martinů’s Cello Concerto No. 2, of which Košler conducted the first performance.

© Naxos Rights International Ltd. — David Patmore (A–Z of Conductors, Naxos 8.558087–90).