Julius Fučík studied composition under Dvořák at the Prague Conservatory but was soon to emerge as one of the great ‘march kings’ of his time. He gained worldwide fame for his immortal Entry of the Gladiators, but after the composer’s death in 1916 his music collection was acrimoniously broken up by his family, with many scores subsequently lost. Half the contents of this album come from handwritten manuscripts preserved in Prague that have no known printed parts. Painstaking editorial work has been carried out allowing us to hear the full range of Fučík’s works in these premiere recordings.