Martinů, Bohuslav (1890-1959)

[Richard Barrett]

After the thread on his Sixth Symphony followed by the RR thread on Czech music in which some strong enthusiasm was shown, I thought it might be good to start a thread all about this (IMO) greatly underrated composer. I have a lot to say about his work but time constraints mean I'll have to save it for now and leave you with this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIN28gEWJdY

[Nick Armstrong]

Great idea Richard.

Haven't got much to add at the moment as I am still making my first inroads... In addition to the Thomson 6th Symphony (jayne's insightful posts on the relevant Building a Library thread much recommended!), my routes in at the moment are:




and





.


That Theramin &c. fantasia is EXTRAORDINARY !!!!

[Bryn]

Though I did not know what it was at the time, the first Martinu I heard and took note of (even though I knew not who composed it or what work it came from) was a short extract from The Frescoes of Piero della Francesca used for a television programme with (IIRC) a religious bent. The first I heard, knowing what it was called, and who it was by, was probably the Double Concerto for Two String Orchestras, Piano, and Timpani. I was hooked. Then I heard the Field Mass and was totally bowled over by it. One of the most memorable opera performances I have ever attended was Martinu's Julietta (in an English translation) with the E.N.O. conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras. I have to admit that I have not found any of his other operas as enticing, though Juliette came close.

[muzzer]

Any recommendations of budget boxes.....

[teamsaint]

If you search for " Martinu. piano Trios" on Amazon, it brings up quite a few on the first page, with a startlingly high quality of cover art,IMO.
One or two are of the usual dull type, but overall very good. I wonder which ones actually sound good? ( don't know them at all).

Oh,and FWIW,this is a double CD i really wouldn't want to be without.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00000J7OS/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[richardfinegold]

The VCs with Suk are outstanding

[Pulcinella]

I second ts's choice of a bargain 2CD set.
For a chamber music selection, this Hyperion Dyad is hard to beat:

http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/r/Hyperion/CDD22039

[Richard Barrett]

FWIW,this is a double CD i really wouldn't want to be without.

That's certainly something I would strongly recommend to someone who'd heard the Sixth Symphony and was wondering what to listen to next.

Martinu's chamber music is an area I haven't really explored yet, but I've yet to hear an orchestral work of his that doesn't contain at least one moment that haunts the memory, and many of them (like the Sixth Symphony) are full of these. I listened again to that work yesterday and found that its stylistic eclecticism came to the fore, not a feature I generally admire in music but here it seems to be rather a sequence of "surrealistic" (in the original sense) encounters, which would relate it to the opera Julietta (which I also saw at ENO while a student I think, which would put it at the end of the 1970s, is that right Bryn?) and indeed to the dreamlike forms of many of his other works. A strange feature of Martinu's music is the way there often seem to be almost literal quotes of material from one work to another, as if (like the amnesiac characters in Julietta) he has forgotten that he'd used it before. On the other hand some pieces seem to open doors into musical worlds that nobody had thought of before or since, like the hallucinatory vision in the finale of the Third Symphony (sweetly consonant solo strings over chromatic woodwind figurations, coming to a close and then returning, before leading to a disjointed and unsettling coda concluded by anxious low piano punctuation).

One of my favourite Martinu pieces (from the time when recordings of his music was more or less only available in the form of sporadically-released Supraphon LPs on vinyl of questionable quality): Toccata e due canzoni - no information as to the performers on this upload but it seems a good performance and recording - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMZw...=RDWMZw0uoRc4w

[Conchis]

Any recommendations of budget boxes.....

There is a Brilliant 3 CD set of the symphonies, conducted by Neeme Jarvi. I own it, and have listened to it, once.

Obviously, I need to pay more attention before passing judgement but Martinu doesn't make a strong initial impression on me. I remember seeing his opera Juliietta at ENO a few years back in an excellent production by Richard Jones. At the time, I thought the production was superior to the opera - the only time I've ever felt that about an opera production.

[Bryn]

In response to #8, indeed, the Julietta production we each attended was in 1978. Re. the Toccata e due canzoni, I had to chuckle at its misattribution to Tippett on the cover of a Hogwood recording of it.

[Pulcinella]

The VCs with Suk are outstanding

Yes they are: it might have been you that made me aware of them, Richard.

Just listening again to The Epic of Gilgamesh, on an early BBC MM CD (BBCSO and Chorus/Belohlavek).

[zola]

There was a highly regarded release last year involving Maxim Rysanov which I can recommend.

http://www.gramophone.co.uk/review/martin%C5%AF-rhapsody-concerto-viola-sonata

[Richard Barrett]

There is a Brilliant 3 CD set of the symphonies, conducted by Neeme Jarvi. I own it, and have listened to it, once.

Obviously, I need to pay more attention before passing judgement but Martinu doesn't make a strong initial impression on me.

It's a matter of taste and of what you're listening for, of course, but I would say that for me also most of the symphonies make little impression. I find the Third and Sixth very strong works but I would be hard put to remember much about any of the others.

I hadn't noticed until looking at the Gramophone review linked by Zola that the cover photo has Martinu looking rather as if he's about to say "I have a cunning plan, your lordship..."

[Pulcinella]

It's a matter of taste and of what you're listening for, of course, but I would say that for me also most of the symphonies make little impression. I find the Third and Sixth very strong works but I would be hard put to remember much about any of the others.

Do try the fifth again, Richard.
It never fails to cheer me up, regardless of how uncheered I feel (and even if I'm NOT uncheerful to start with I feel more cheerful afterwards!). Such joyous life-affirming music, for me, anyway.

[Barbirollians]

There is a dazzling set of the piano concertos 2-4 with Firkusny on RCA but they seem to be deleted .