Other Czechoslovak composers, like Smetena and Dvorak, treat folk material as signs of innocence; Bartok later found tragedy in the overturning of folk harmonies with the strains of modernism.

Mr. McKenzie would also like to present a program devoted to Czechoslovak composers, made up of Jiri Kylian's "Overgrown Path" and Tudor's "Echoing of Trumpets."

Written before the Czechoslovak composer was arrested and eventually exterminated by the Germans, it is a busy, muscular three-movement piece full of the no-nonsense energy and confidence that Hindemith once brought to European music.

"Landscape," created to music by Bartok in 1981, is a companion to "Streams," which Ailey set to music by Miloslav Kabelac, a contemporary Czechoslovak composer.

Czechoslovak composers provide the music in both cases.

Haas, a Czechoslovak composer whose teachers included Leos Janacek, composed several works in prison, three of which survive.

One might have thought, listening to a Met audience hotly cheering Janacek's 70-year-old work, that the Czechoslovak composer was one of the house favorites, up there with Verdi, Wagner and Mozart.

In addition to the pieces mentioned above, the program included "Streams," a 1970 plotless piece to music by the Czechoslovak composer Miloslav Kabelac and a fervent repeat of the 1960 "Revelations."

Both were also influenced by central European modern dance and were attracted to Czechoslovak composers.

Aside from John Clapham's "Dvorak," which is useful on the music but decidedly skimpy on the life, there are no satisfying recent biographies of the Czechoslovak composer in English.