Otakar Ostrčil (25 February 1879 in Prague – 20 August 1935 in Prague) was a Czech composer and conductor. He is noted for symphonic works Impromptu, Suite in C Minor, and Symfonietta, and in his opera compositions Poupě and Honzovo království. Compositional career Ostrčil was born, and spent his entire life, in Prague, the center of the Czech musical community of his generation. He studied philosophy at Charles University, attending the classes of Otakar Hostinský, and simultaneously studied composition and music theory privately under Zdeněk Fibich. From his early student days he was a close friend of Zdeněk Nejedlý, whose outspoken voice in musicology formed Ostrčil's greatest critical support. He worked as a conductor at the Vinohrady Theater (1914–1919) and later at the National Theatre (Prague) (1920–1935), which was one of the most influential positions in Czech musical life. He also worked as a pedagogue at the Prague Conservatory, teaching conducting. Ostrčil wrote six operas: Jan Zhořelecký (written as a student under Fibich, 1898, unperformed), Vlasty skon (Vlasta's passing, premiered 1904, to a libretto previously considered by Smetana and Fibich), Kunálovy oči (Kunál's eyes, 1908), Poupě (The Bud, 1912), Legenda z Erinu (A Legend of Erin, 1921), and Honzovo království (Honzo's Kingdom, based on a short story by Leo Tolstoy, 1934). His most significant orchestral music includes Symphony in A (1906), Impromptu (1912), Suite in c minor (1914), Symfonietta (1922), Léto (Summer, tone poem, 1927), and Křížova cesta (The Way of the Cross, orchestral variations, 1929). He also composed various works for chamber and choral ensembles. As was the case with his main musical influence, Gustav Mahler, his rigorous conducting schedule rarely allowed free time for composition, with the exception of the summers when the theater was not in season. Influences Like his contemporaries, Vítězslav Novák, Josef Suk, and Otakar Zich, Ostrčil composed in a densely orchestrated, thickly contrapuntal style that was heavily influenced by Mahler, Richard Strauss, and the early works of Arnold Schoenberg. At times, the extreme linearity of his work (as in the orchestral preludes to Legenda z Erinu and the climactic sections of Křížova cesta) goes beyond functional harmony; in these moments he can easily be aligned with the Viennese expressionists, whom he much admired. At the very end of his career, with his final opera Honzovo království, he turned to an ironic sort of neoclassicism reminiscent of Paul Hindemith or even Dmitri Shostakovich: the work