Czech composer Petr Hapka died this afternoon after a long illness. He composed original music for more than 80 movies and worked with many of the most popular local musicians...
Hard to say, I am not that much of an expert on czech films as some of my friends are, but I would definitely recommend anything from his collaboration with Juraj Herz. For example Pana a netvor (Beauty and the Beast) a Deváté srdce (Ninth Heart) are very impressive movies - both are also among his best scores (see the opening post for the samples from both).
His collaboration with Juraj Jakubisko on Perinbaba and Tisícirocná vcela (A Thousand-year-old Bee) is among the classic films, although I am personally not that fond of Jakubisko. Fešák Hubert is also quite funny little movie...
He scored some of the fine movies in the 70s and 80s especially but except for those two Juraj Herz's films I wouldn't probably use anything he scored as an introduction to czech or czechoslovak films of the period...
Btw, he did have a few scores released... there was a three-part series devoted to his film music - first one of those is getting more difficult to find, unfortunately...
Last year i was overjoyed to finally find his wonderful "Perinbaba" soundtrack on a Czech-Score CD, playing it to my whole Family. To hear now that he has just passed truly makes me sad.
I confess that i only know "perinbaba", but with this he gifted the world with a truly wonderful score!
