Bohuslav Martinů (1890-1959)

[Luke]

Excellent detailed overview of Martinu's Paris years: could read this all night, very happily!

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2006/Feb06/Martinu_introduction.htm

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

the Concerto da camera keeps growing on me--one of the composer's darkest works, almost a Double Concerto with the sustaining pedal.

I finally gave this a concentrated listen. I see what you mean - it's really very serious and kind of spiky-sounding, almost like Prokofiev or Bartok at times. An intriguing piece.

[Mirror Image]

I finally gave this a concentrated listen. I see what you mean - it's really very serious and kind of spiky-sounding, almost like Prokofiev or Bartok at times. An intriguing piece.

I've heard nothing but great things about that composition. Can't wait to hear it. It's apart of Hogwood's The Complete Music For Vioin And Orchestra series. It's on the second volume.

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

The accompanying Piano/Violin Concerto is pretty awesome too...

I read a remark by Hogwood that Martinu was the "most 15-second recognizable composer of the 20th century" or words to that effect (meaning the composer whose style is easiest to recognize if you've got only 15 seconds to do so). Hard to disagree, I think.

[The new erato]

I've heard nothing but great things about that composition. Can't wait to hear it. It's apart of Hogwood's The Complete Music For Vioin And Orchestra series. It's on the second volume.

Which IMO overall is the most rewarding of a superb series.

[Luke]

The accompanying Piano/Violin Concerto is pretty awesome too...

I read a remark by Hogwood that Martinu was the "most 15-second recognizable composer of the 20th century" or words to that effect (meaning the composer whose style is easiest to recognize if you've got only 15 seconds to do so). Hard to disagree, I think.

Well, alongside Janacek, Ravel, Arvo Part, Gavin Bryars, John Ireland, Tippett, a few others....interestingly to me, these are all, along with Martinu, among the composers I respond to most, and it's true that I find music which is most deeply individual and therefore personal to be the most compelling.

[Mirror Image]

Well, alongside Janacek, Ravel, Arvo Part, Gavin Bryars, John Ireland, Tippett, a few others....interestingly to me, these are all, along with Martinu, among the composers I respond to most, and it's true that I find music which is most deeply individual and therefore personal to be the most compelling.

I love Janacek, Ravel, Part, and Ireland, so kudos to you there. For me, especially lately, I have fallen for composers like Martinu and Bloch who wrote more in a rhapsodic style. Even their most spiky, dissonant music has this lyrical feel to it. I also enjoy these composer's way with harmony, which, for me, is what makes music much more attractive.

[Popov]

The accompanying Piano/Violin Concerto is pretty awesome too...

I read a remark by Hogwood that Martinu was the "most 15-second recognizable composer of the 20th century" or words to that effect (meaning the composer whose style is easiest to recognize if you've got only 15 seconds to do so). Hard to disagree, I think.

Very hard indeed, there's something in the drive and color of his music that makes it somehow unique while, I don't know how to translate it -sorry, dejando poso. I love all the works of his I know, especially his Symphonies 3 to 5.

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Much obsessive listening to the Violin/Piano Concerto in recent days. I'd had the disc for a couple of years but had only listened to it once or twice - enough to convince me it was a nice piece, but not enough to get its hooks into me.

It really is one of M's best concertos, even if it seems out of whack chronologically. Composed the same time as the 6th Symphony, but sounds like something he would have written 10 years earlier. (This caused me some initial confusion on first hearing.)

[Scarpia]

Much obsessive listening to the Violin/Piano Concerto in recent days. I'd had the disc for a couple of years but had only listened to it once or twice - enough to convince me it was a nice piece, but not enough to get its hooks into me.

It really is one of M's best concertos, even if it seems out of whack chronologically. Composed the same time as the 6th Symphony, but sounds like something he would have written 10 years earlier. (This caused me some initial confusion on first hearing.)

Listened to another selection from this release:



The other concerto for piano trio and string orchestra H231.  A wonderful work, again with quirky counterpoint and a slow movement which is perhaps something like the slow movement from Brandenburg Concerto No 2, continuously evolving melody from the string trio, although Martinu includes a splendid climax where the full orchestra enters.  Great music, performance and surround sound recording.

[Luke]

Just posted this on the Poulenc thread, but it belongs here much more:

.....But the Poulenc I return to again and again and again is the chamber music, above all those last, late sonatas. It's very hard to top these, really - they have Poulenc's typical potency, all those 'hooks', melodic, harmonic and rhythmic that expect with him, but they are so plangently expressive, so filled with something disturbing. Where was I reading somewhere recently Ned Rorem's view of French music (profoundly superficial) as compared to German (superficially profound)?* Absurdly generalising, hugely biased, perhaps - but a grain of truth in it: all the orchestral behemoths, exaggerated climaxes, extreme tempi, comple counterpoint and tortured chromaticism in the world can't create profundity if there's nothing really there. Poulenc needs none of these things in order to write music which is profoundly moving, in the late sonatas.

Interestingly, Martinu, subject of so much interesting chat at the moment, and really French in his aesthetic too, was explicitly opposed to exaggeration, dynamic forcing, over-emphasis - there's a fabulous long quotation of his, one of my very favourite bits of writing-on-music, which he wrote as a prgoramme note to go with the First Symphony, which I wish more composers....and more listeners....would take on board. I think it applies to Poulenc too, which is why I'm posting it here, but maybe I'll post it on the Martinu thread too; after all, I'd better make copying it out worth it!

The concept of elevated thought is certainly incontestable, the question really becoming what we consider elevate thought to be. What I maintain as my deepest conviction is the essential nobility of thoughts and things which are quite simple and which, not explained in high-sounding words and abstruse phrases, still hold an ethical and human significance. It is possible that my thoughts dwell upon objects or events of an almost everyday simplicity familiar to everyone and exclusively to certain great spirits. They may be so simple as to pass almost unnoticed but may still contain a deep meaning and afford great pleasure to humanity which, without them, would find life pale and flat. It could also be that these things permit us to go through life more easily, and, if one gives them due place, touch the highest plane of thought. One must also recognize the truth that a work so great and weighty as the Ninth Symphony of Beethoven could have been conceived only at a certain moment in history with the convergence of certain conditions, and could not have been written just by anyone and just at any time. A different point of view could falsify creative activity at the start, and could force the composer in a tragic and pathetic attitude, which would result in nothing else than a tour de force. It is possible a priori for intended tragedy and pathos to be not tragic at all, and every composer must be wary of false magnitude. Each composer and each creator of our epoch feels himself, to a certain extent, obligated to espouse sentiments of grandeur and tragedy. But this is no natural human feeling.

I have long pondered over the question, and should like here to note its consequences upon the course of music. The tendency, the desire to be greater than one is, can lead directly to an over-emphasis which, to say the least, is not essential music. Over-emphasis can certainly strain the limits of music and sound, and by sound I mean dynamics. One inevitably comes to the point where the actual instruments can no longer support the weight of an expression which exaggerates dynamism; they cannot support expression and still keep faith with certain aesthetic laws which we rightly prize. Even the natural capacity of our ears and nerves is strained. There is still another grave consequence which dynamics conceal: the tendency to mask a lack of real music and to replace it with noise. The result adds nothing to the true beauty of the art, for the sheer excitation of the nerves cannot be a just aesthetic goal. I am aware that this way of expression has its admirers, but I am not thereby convinced that this is the true realm of music, for my aim is something different. I know, too, that that is the way of many in our epoch, but neither can this justify for me the use of noise in music. Sheer orchestral power does not necessarily imply either grandeur or elevation.

If we look at the question from the point of view of technique, the consequences are characteristic. This dynamic urge necessarily displaces the balance of the basic funtion in the orchestra. The strings, which have traditionally furnished the basic element, can no longer do so, their fortissimo sonority being covered when the composer leans heavily upon the brass and percussion. In this way the whole conception of a work becomes 'brass', while we lose the charm, the amiability even the passion of the stringed instruments and their great variety of expression. We are aroused but not exactly happy, and that we must leave a concert in a state of fatigue is in itself not a favourable sign.

Sorry, that's alenghty quotation, but it's one that I didn't want to cut! And in a Poulenc thread too - I'd better post it on the Marinu thread now, also


*remembered - a typically great Scott Morrison review of a disc of Francaix at Amazon. Which I bought on the strength of the review...

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Concerto Quest

Concerto listening continues: in the last few days I've heard  the 1st Cello Concerto (very good, probably one of M's best), the 4th Piano Concerto "Incantations" (fantastic piece from his late years, dreamlike but also energetic), and the 3rd Piano Concerto (Martinu doing his best Beethoven imitation - critics don't seem to like this work much, but I find it quite affecting).

Which raises a question: What do you think are Martinu's best concertos? There are only 6 symphonies but there are approx. 25 concertos, so it's a much harder question to answer (esp. since I haven't heard 'em all). My list at the moment would be:

Double Concerto (Piano/Tympani)
Piano Concerto No. 4
Violin/Piano Concerto
Violin Concerto No. 2
Rhapsody-Cto. for Viola
Cello Concerto No. 1

I have good memories of the 2-Piano Cto., based on hearing it once in concert; but never since then, so I'm not sure where it belongs. Sometimes I think the Haydnesque Sinfonia Concertante belongs, sometimes I don't (it's a slight work, but very nice). And Inventions (the mini-PC mentioned above) is a nifty piece of work.

Jury's still out on Piano Concerto No. 2 and Cello Concerto No. 2. They have good parts, but on the whole I struggle with them. On the other hand, I'm thinking the Concerto da Camera coupled with the Pn/Vln Cto might make the top shelf, based on my first hearing.

[SonicMan46]

String Quartets w/ the Panocha Quartet - recent arrival and just beginning a second 'more serious' listening to these varied works which were written over nearly a 30-year period (1918 to 1947); the Panocha Q. do not disappoint but DD in recent pages has elegantly express his feelings on these performances; the recorded sound is remarkably good (made from 1979-82) - 

[not edward]

Which raises a question: What do you think are Martinu's best concertos? There are only 6 symphonies but there are approx. 25 concertos, so it's a much harder question to answer (esp. since I haven't heard 'em all). My list at the moment would be:

I've heard all the concerti except the first piano concerto, and my list would be your first four:

Double Concerto (Piano/Tympani)
Piano Concerto No. 4
Violin/Piano Concerto
Violin Concerto No. 2

with my own personal jury still out on Concerto da camera and the Double Piano Concerto (which I've not listened to in too long).

I've never really grown to love the cello concerti, for whatever reason, and I think the Rhapsody-Concerto falls a little short of the best late Martinu.

[snyprrr]

Concerto Quest

Concerto listening continues: in the last few days I've heard  the 1st Cello Concerto (very good, probably one of M's best), the 4th Piano Concerto "Incantations" (fantastic piece from his late years, dreamlike but also energetic), and the 3rd Piano Concerto (Martinu doing his best Beethoven imitation - critics don't seem to like this work much, but I find it quite affecting).

Which raises a question: What do you think are Martinu's best concertos? There are only 6 symphonies but there are approx. 25 concertos, so it's a much harder question to answer (esp. since I haven't heard 'em all). My list at the moment would be:

Double Concerto (Piano/Tympani)
Piano Concerto No. 4
Violin/Piano Concerto
Violin Concerto No. 2
Rhapsody-Cto. for Viola
Cello Concerto No. 1

I have good memories of the 2-Piano Cto., based on hearing it once in concert; but never since then, so I'm not sure where it belongs. Sometimes I think the Haydnesque Sinfonia Concertante belongs, sometimes I don't (it's a slight work, but very nice). And Inventions (the mini-PC mentioned above) is a nifty piece of work.

Jury's still out on Piano Concerto No. 2 and Cello Concerto No. 2. They have good parts, but on the whole I struggle with them. On the other hand, I'm thinking the Concerto da Camera coupled with the Pn/Vln Cto might make the top shelf, based on my first hearing.

Beat me to the punch,...good, glad to see someone else is as obsessive as I! And yes, this IS the kind of topic that can get obsessive.

I just looked through the Library and noticed I had cut off my Martinu-ism during my last bout of research frenzy (The Unfinished City). Oh oh, looks like you might have triggered a relapse. Oh noooo!

M;s Harpsichord Concerto is what you would expect: vintage, perfect. I only wish it were coupled with the Milhaud.

There are two "Piano Trio" Concerto/inos. He wrote the second when the first went missing?, or something like that. I have No.2, from the '20s, and, eh, mmm, y'know, it is what it is. I'll have to recheck.

Then there's the Supraphon disc with Sinfonietta Giocosa (for piano) and Divertimento (for piano left-hand). I think the SG is the most felicitous Mozartean/Poulencian creation. This really is the "one" for that sheer Mozartean grace and happy/sad melody. The Divertimento, at the moment, has left a bit of a less impression. Must recheck.

What about the Sinfonietta La Jolla. Is that concertante?

I remember that Chandos/Wallfisch disc of the Cello Concertos. Nothing wrong with that, was there?

Ah yes, and then there's the Oboe Concerto, which I have on that super great Philips disc with Honegger and Martin (Holliger). This one has the same qualities as the Harpsichord.

Oh, now I'm tempted to get that Virgin/Hickox disc again.



All the violin/orchestra stuff I've heard so far has excited me the least. I dunno. But that violin/piano cto. definitely has the curiosity piqued.

That's all I've got. Over to you...

[snyprrr]

And, you all are counting SQ No.7, Concerto da Camera, as a concerto? It's the only SQ I haven't heard. Let me check YouTube.

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Oh oh, looks like you might have triggered a relapse. Oh noooo!

Dude...don't blame me 

What about the Sinfonietta La Jolla. Is that concertante?

Oh, you just reminded me of the quasi-PCs! Yes, the La Jolla, a de facto piano concerto, is a wonderful piece...as is Toccata e Due Canzoni.

I remember that Chandos/Wallfisch disc of the Cello Concertos. Nothing wrong with that, was there?

Nothing at all. I'm just wondering if the 2nd CC is in the same class as the 1st (which exists in 3 versions...a rebuke to Martinu skeptics who say "he never revised his work"). It opens magnificently, with an American-type open-air feel; but it doesn't maintain that level of inspiration. Maybe my opinion will change with more listening.

Oh, now I'm tempted to get that Virgin/Hickox disc again.

Get it, for the Sinf. Conc. There's also a version by Hogwood on Arte Nova floating around out there.

But that violin/piano cto. definitely has the curiosity piqued.

Get it. Do not pass go, do not collect 200 dollars...

And, you all are counting SQ No.7, Concerto da Camera, as a concerto?

Of course not!! It's a string quartet, dude.

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Excellent detailed overview of Martinu's Paris years: could read this all night, very happily!

Found a fascinating tidbit via that link - a review of the 2nd Piano Concerto by, of all people, Elliott Carter:

Martinů's extreme musicality and freshness of expression are directly winning qualities. He does not always give an impression of unity because he juxtaposes all kinds of music in one piece, even in one movement. In this work he seemed to be playing off Hindemith against certain romantic composers, but the effect is somehow natural and convincing.

In particular, the bit about "he juxtaposes all kinds of music in one piece, even in one movement" reminds me of Carter's own aesthetic.

[just Jeff]

Love this cover, I will eventually even listen to the music.

[snyprrr]

That is nice!