Thread - More extra details

The competition for a new march as announced in January of 1920. Suk had already started sketching a work for the Sokol celebration the prior year. Suk's initial version lacked the opening fanfares, which were added in time for the premiere. After winning the contest, Suk assigned his copyright interest to the work to the Sokol Festival Jamboree Committee in late 1920 as per terms of the competition rules. The committee issued the work in Veselý's piano arrangement (2 versions - with and without the fanfares) and in the composer's own setting for piano duet under the imprint of the Czechoslovak Sokol Community (Československá Obec Sokolská) in 1921. They also published a facsimile score of the piano duet setting (with the fanfares) in a 1923 commemorative album and made copies of the orchestral score and parts available on rental and sale in the years before WW II. The Sokol Committee also seems to have been involved in the work's entry for music to be performed at the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics. According to the Suk catalogue of 2005, it is unknown if the composer's manuscript score of the orchestral setting (now lost) was sent to Los Angeles or a copy made from copyist-prepared full score now in the National Library.

In 1948, the Arts Society (Umělecká beseda) issued an 80-page volume containing a facsimile of the original piano duet setting, a corrected reprint of the 1921 issue of the same, and an engraved full score of the composer's orchestral setting which included the choral material added in the 1930s. The editor for this volume was Otakar Šourek, who provided a preface and other text about the work and its complicated history. These optional chorus parts featured text by Petr Křička, who first composed the verses for a trio (1931), then proceeded to write those for other parts of the composition only later (1937). The necessary musical adjustments for that purpose were physically inserted into the manuscript score held in the Sokol Community Library by poet's brother Jaroslav with Suk's approval.

The work received a second prize (silver medal) in the competition for a march to open the Tenth Olympic Games (1932) in Los Angeles. It was likely performed there and a new dedication was written by the composer for the occasion: Poctěno v soutěže X. světové olympiady v Los Angeles 1932 (Honoring the Games of the 10th Olympiad in Los Angeles, 1932). The chorus parts were probably added to the trio section for this event. The work was recorded on March 22, 1932 in Prague for HMV under the baton of František Stupka. The final version (Op.35c, with additional choral materal) was first performed in Prague by the Czech Philharmonic December 11, 1937 at a Czechoslovak Sokol Community festival concert. Sokol (Falcon) was a Czech nationalist gymnastic movement founded in 1862. Though suppressed in the Communist era, they survived in expat communities and have re-emerged in the Czech Republic in recent years.