Bohuslav Martinů (1890-1959)

[jidlomonster]

I'd like to bring a new CD to the attention of all readers of this forum.  I've been closely associated with it and hope that all lovers of Martinů's music will share my enthusiasm.

When I wrote my book on the Martinů symphonies, I spent some time discussing his unknown early orchestral works. None of them had ever been commercially available, and I expressed the opinion that they probably never would be. How delighted I am that they are now starting to appear, and that I have been able to play a large part in their rehabilitation, having edited the scores for publication and produced the orchestral parts.

Martinů: Early orchestral works Volume 1, on Toccata Classics, is the first CD in a planned series of six. It includes the following pieces:

1. Prelude en forme de scherzo: Martinů's orchestration of one of his Eight Preludes for piano, H181. A tiny curtain-raiser to the series, here receiving its first recording.

2. An untitled work, without even a tempo designation, known only by its number in Harry Halbreich's catalogue (H90). Long assumed to be incomplete and therefore never performed or recorded before. Mysterious and enigmatic, yet showing the obvious influence of Debussy and Ravel.

3. Posvícení. As far as we know, this is only Martinů's second piece. A short suite for flute and strings, played continuously and lasting about seven minutes. Thoroughly cheerful and invigorating, and entirely deserving of its place on this disc.

4. Nocturno No. 1. This piece was first broadcast on Radio Brno in the 1960's. More recently, it has been thoroughly edited by Sandra Bergmannová of the Martinů Institute in Prague and received some modern performances. Very solemn and reflective.

5. Little Dance Suite. Intended for performance by the Czech Philharmonic under Václav Talich in 1920, but withdrawn by Talich at the rehearsal stage. Also broadcast on Brno Radio in the 1960s. More recently, Roman Válek has performed the third movement in concert. Despite the title, this piece is 40 minutes long - morover, it is a delight from start to finish. It is a major re-discovery, and the spectacular finale alone is worth the price of the disc.

Ian Hobson conducts Sinfonia Varsovia on this CD. The performers quickly became very enthusiastic about this project, and their commitment is evident in every bar. A podcast is available at

<https://soundcloud.com/toccataclassics/martinu-early-orchestral-works>

where I talk with Martin Anderson about these works, with illustrative excerpts. If you wish to order a copy, please visit www.toccataclassics.com.  All tracks are available as mp3 downloads too. 

I do hope that you will enjoy this very special and important issue!!

Michael Crump

[Hattoff]

Excellent, I look forward to hearing these works.
Are they radically different from his later style? because, indeed, he had his own musical language which I love.

[jidlomonster]

If you know works like the Czech Rhapsody, First String Quartet or Magic Nights, all written just before the Little Dance Suite, then you'll know that Martinů at this time was producing a lot of very attractive music which only fittingly shows signs of the composer that he was to become.  And he seems to be trying on lots of hats.  Two of the works here (Orchestral movement H90, and Nocturne H91) show the same fascination with Impressionism as does Magic Nights.  They are slight but beguiling pieces.

Little Dance Suite has no sign of this influence.  Instead, Smetana and Dvořák loom large over this score, as they do over the Six polkas for piano and the ballet 'The Shadow' both written not long before. (We are hoping to do this ballet in a later volume).  Only in its joie de vivre and infectious rhythm does the Dance Suite remind me of later Martinu.  The orchestration is expert and highly pleasing but still somewhat generic, apart from in the third movement Scherzo and trio.  Here the wind players have the scherzo to themselves and Martinu divides the strings in a very novel way to deliver the trio.

No-one would hear any of this music and say 'That must be Martinů'.  But I think it's wonderful music.  After working on the score of the Little Dance Suite for six months, I still could not dislodge the tunes from my head.  That must say something about their quality!

[bhodges]

Michael, welcome to GMG, and congratulations, both on the book and on the new CD release. You'll find many Martinů admirers here (including me), who will I'm sure find this very interesting.

If you like, feel free to introduce yourself formally in the "Introductions" section of the board, and hope you enjoy your time here.

PS, coincidentally, tomorrow night I'm hearing the Double Concerto, for the first time live since I heard it some ten years ago by the Nieuw Sinfonietta Amsterdam - magnificent piece, and a shame it doesn't show up more often in the concert hall (at least here).

--Bruce

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Food for thought

Something interesting I found: this is a (partial) transcription from the book Martinu's Mysterious Accident. A conversation between two musicologists (I think: their names are not familiar to me). Some intriguing theories put forth regarding Martinu's style and approach.

*********

Extracts from a conversation held between Jiri Kratochvil and Michael Beckermann on Martinu's music

Kratochvil: What does Martinu's music mean to you?

MICHAEL BECKERMANN: It seems to me that Martinu is one of the great cartographers, mapping a certain aspect of the human imagination. In my view, the experience in question is that place in the imagination that causes time to stand still and allows us to imagine paradise. This is, of course, elusive, and in Martinu's compositions it is always being lost and found. ......
He's quite simply plugged into one of the great tendencies of human consciousness: the search for an unattainable point of rest in our travails, our suffering, our journey. In order to do this, he first had to cultivate and master the process of forward motion in music, and he is  almost unique in the many ways he can create a sense of flow. Then he had to figure out how to get from one state to another, and I think that alone is worth serious study. The Symphony no. 6 is filled with such moments. No composer, not even Beethoven, explored this world of idyllic space more fully.........He is exploring a realm of the human spirit which most composers are afraid to look at. You don't get patted on the back for cultivating an image of the lost paradise we all crave, the womb in the tower that we've all been tossed out of.......Not to go into Zen zone here, but it seems to me that the human mind processes information in many different ways, and is remarkable in its ability to simultaneously control many different images. Most of these images locate the mind/body in time, and suggest or imply moving forward in time. But some aspects of consciousness allow us to contemplate the negation of time, or a more circular time that doesn't move "forward", but either circles or stands still.....it must follow that listeners who are profoundly moved by the composer's works sense what Martinu is doing - and they can respond to it because they too, have been to those idyllic spaces, and they, like Martinu, realize the futility of preserving them..........In a wonderful passage about The Plays of Mary he says that the composer merely arranges things, it is the duty of the audience to use their imagination to recompose, reorder the material. According to Martinu, the relationship between composer and audience is cooperative.
Two things follow: I believe that the audience should understand that Martinu's main thrust is creating and departing from perfect worlds. Second, it explains why Martinu's reception has been so skewed. The audience simply doesn't know, or doesn't have the opportunity to reprocess the musical images.
......I think that much of what he does is a conscious rebellion against certain aspects of what he perceived as a Teutonic tendency to "bully" the listener. In other words, Wagner tries to force you into an inevitable acceptance of his creative will by leading you, rather forcefully, through a composition. Martinu juxtaposes images, and it's your job to put them together. That's the radical difference.

Jiri  Kratchovil: Could you also explain what you mean by "creating and departing from perfect worlds."

Beckermann: It's simple; Martinu rarely stays in these idyllic spaces he creates. Much of the real drama of a piece consists of approaches to a "state of grace" and then departing from it, often suddenly. Sometimes there is only a fragment of it, other times it is almost the entire piece, but it's never alone.
The two words Nadia Boulanger uses to describe Martinu are "brilliance" and "purity". Michael Henderson (to whom she wrote this in a letter), quotes Honegger who, it seems to me, said similar things about Martinu's music: "It can win the most sophisticated and the most simple listener,"......As far as brilliance, I think some of that is explained by the bustling surface of his music, which in turn depends on his mastered the laws of musical motion. He creates a kind of fluidity by that elusive combination of repetition and elaboration. But in most of his great works he stops for a paradisal respite.

Could you describe the "Martinu sound"?

Beckermann: There is no single Martinu sound, but a collection of sub-dialects. Martinu's key sound is the presence of lyrical moments syncopated in a rather special way, usually surrounded by passages meant to suggest an opposing state. He employs several "fake" twentieth-century styles (Neo-Poulenc, Neo-Stravinsky, Neo-Ravel) and some all-purpose dissonance, but his core style is the syncopated folk stylization. That's what he believes in, if you will. He doesn't believe in most of the dissonance - its there to set off the jewels......His "uniqueness" lies in two areas: first, a sonic one. Martinu discovered/created a particular sound world which is his alone. It itself seems bipartite. There is a Martinu "sound" of the syncopated folk stylization, and a "process" whereby this sound is contrasted with other, usually dissonant, sound worlds. The second area of Martinu's uniqueness involves his creation of a pastoral world, which is the protected space of nation, memory, childhood. This appears in almost every work of his.

[snyprrr]

I missed the discussion concerning the four volumes of Hyperion's 'Complete Music for Violin and Orchestra'. After looking over, I only find Vol.2 (with the Violin/Piano Concerto) to be somewhat crucial to the Discography. The 2 Concertos can be had WITH the Concerto-Rhapsody on Supraphon, and the tiny Arts label has the Duo Concertante and the Concerto for 2 Violins- leaving what, really? The Flute/Violin Concerto and the Concerto de Camera? Sure, I didn't find the flute bit elsewhere, but, I'm not trying to go full bore obsessive here.

What's the skinny on Martinu's violin front? (Those Hyperion discs are just so tempting and inviting and I'm trying to asssssuage my inclination!!)

Might as well ask everyone's Top7 Martinu:

1) Symph. 6
2) Fresques
3) Parables
4) Harpsichord or Oboe Concerto          Serenades 1-6?
5) Inventions                                        Sinf. Giocosa or La Jolla or Left-hand or...
6) Lidice
7) 3 Ricercare or Toccata e 2 Canzone

[North Star]

Double Concerto for two string orchestras & percussion
Oboe Concerto
Julietta
Nonet no. 2
Gilgamesh
Folk cantatas
Piano Concerto No. 4

[Daverz]

Symphonies
Piano Quartet
Spalicek
Double Concerto
Cello Concerto No. 1
Harpsichord Concerto

[snyprrr]

Double Concerto for two string orchestras & percussion
Nonet
Julietta
Nonet no. 2
Gilgamesh
Folk cantatas
Piano Concerto No. 4

Symphonies
Piano Quartet
Spalicek
Double Concerto
Cello Concerto No. 1
Harpsichord Concerto

Just the kind of choices I was looking for. More please!! No one yet has any of the above mentioned Violin Works... yes, the Nonet should be there.

[Daverz]

Martinu's wife said that the Harpsichord Concerto was the happiest thing he ever wrote.

[vandermolen]

Symphony 4
Symphony 6
Symphony 3
Frescoes
Parables
Gilgamesh
Lidice

I also like the 'Incantations' piano concerto and don't know the Harpsichord Concerto. I have been thinking about how great symphonies 6 and 3 are (I always loved No. 4 since coming across that fine old Martin Turnovsky recording on LP).

I have been greatly enjoying this set:
[asin][asin]B0014C5XLE[/asin][/asin]

[snyprrr]

Martinu's wife said that the Harpsichord Concerto was the happiest thing he ever wrote.

Milhaud's?,... Martin's?,... no, give me Martinu's or, for a grittier Modern approach, Gerhard.

Symphony 4
Symphony 6
Symphony 3
Frescoes
Parables
Gilgamesh
Lidice

I also like the 'Incantations' piano concerto and don't know the Harpsichord Concerto. I have been thinking about how great symphonies 6 and 3 are (I always loved No. 4 since coming across that fine old Martin Turnovsky recording on LP).

I have been greatly enjoying this set:
[asin][asin]B0014C5XLE[/asin][/asin]

It appears there is already some consensus brewing. Let me re-evaluate:

1) Sym. 6
2) Fresques
3) Parables
4) Harpsichord Cto.      ... notice?, mostly Late Works. huh
5) Nonet
6)
7) Lidice

I think you almost HAVE to leave one slot open for people's personal choice, but, I mean, no one can really argue here, can they? I suppose the next five slots might be more up for contention? Martinu's a fun Composer to do this with, no?

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

      ... notice?, mostly Late Works. huh

Not really a surprise. His last decade was consistently his best.

[snyprrr]

Not really a surprise. His last decade was consistently his best.

I forgot... The 'Estampes'.

'Fresques', 'Parables', "Estampes',... Symphonies 7-9.


I never hear any word concerning, I think, three Late Sonatas, clarinet, viola, and,... trumpet??

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

I never hear any word concerning, I think, three Late Sonatas, clarinet, viola, and,... trumpet??

The Viola Sonata is a nice piece, again from his last decade. I have it on a Naxos chamber-music disc. I've never even heard of sonatas for clarinet and trumpet.

[vandermolen]

I don't know the chamber works but the Concerto for a Double String Orchestra is a fine work which I should have included in my list. As someone who teaches History I have also been interested in Martinu's powerful music responses to the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia in 1938 (a low point in British History) and the tragedy at Lidice following the assassination of 'The Butcher of Prague', Heydrich (a better moment in British History).

[Mirror Image]

I need to listen to Martinu's works for violin and piano. I've got this set lying around waiting to be heard:

[Mirror Image]

If any of you...



...haven't heard this recording, then, run, don't walk, right over to Amazon and buy it. It's so freakin' great. What's nice, but disappointing at the same time, is this disc offers a glimpse of Mackerras conducting some of Julietta. Beautiful recording all-around.

[Ken B]

I don't know the chamber works but the Concerto for a Double String Orchestra is a fine work which I should have included in my list. As someone who teaches History I have also been interested in Martinu's powerful music responses to the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia in 1938 (a low point in British History) and the tragedy at Lidice following the assassination of 'The Butcher of Prague', Heydrich (a better moment in British History).

+1 to historical remarks

[Ken B]

If any of you...



...haven't heard this recording, then, run, don't walk, right over to Amazon and buy it. It's so freakin' great. What's nice, but disappointing at the same time, is this disc offers a glimpse of Mackerras conducting some of Julietta. Beautiful recording all-around.

Are you back amongst us John?