Bohuslav Martinů - Échec au Roi; The Revolt (Jiří Bělohlávek)

Information

Composer: Bohuslav Martinů

• (01) Échec au Roi (Šach králi; Check to the King), jazz-ballet, H. 186
• (12) Vzpoura (The Revolt), ballet-sketch, H. 151

Vladimír Olexa, speaker (2, 4, 6, 7, 10)
Kateřina Kachlíková, alto (5)
Prague Symphony Orchestra
Jiří Bělohlávek, conductor

Date: 1987
Label: Supraphon

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Review

"... it was the urban sophisticate who turned this sharp ear upon the music he heard in Paris in the 1920s and 1930s for the two ballets on the second record. Echec au Roi (1930) brings onto a single games board pieces from chess, dominoes and backgammon as well as playing cards. The libretto by Andre Coeuroy, a respected author and critic, allows Martinu plenty of scope for jazzy pastiche: there is a blues, plenty of jazz, quotations of fanfares, and an ouverture espagnole that is not so much a Spanish Overture as an allusion to the Ruy Lopez opening in chess. The Revolt (1925) is to a text by the composer. The revolt in question is by notes-black and white, high and low-which have been abused. The action is pretty surreal, and ends in a call for a general strike which brings out conservatories and instrument makers, drives critics to suicide and Stravinsky off to a Pacific island. There is plenty of occasion for pastiche again, pleasantly in a Night Club scene and a Music Hall foxtrot. Matters are returned to normal by Inspiration. It is all very smart."

-- John Warrack, Gramophone

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Bohuslav Martinů (December 8, 1890 – August 28, 1959) was a Czech composer of modern classical music. Martinů began as a violinist of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra. In the early 1930s he found his main font for compositional style, the neo-classical as developed by Stravinsky. With this, he expanded to become a prolific composer, who wrote almost 400 pieces, included 6 symphonies, 15 operas, 14 ballet scores and a large body of orchestral, chamber, vocal and instrumental works. He is compared with Prokofiev and Bartók in his innovative incorporation of Central European ethnomusicology into his music.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohuslav_Martin%C5%AF

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Jiří Bělohlávek (24 February 1946 – 31 May 2017) is a Czech conductor. He was a graduate of the Prague Conservatory and the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, and later studied conducting, for two years, with Sergiu Celibidache. He was chief conductor of the Czech Philharmonic (1990–92, 2012–17), the BBC Symphony Orchestra (2006-2012) and the founder of the Prague Philharmonia. Bělohlávek gained international renown and repute for his performances of the works of Czech composers and has made recordings for the Supraphon, Chandos, Harmonia Mundi, Warner Classics and Deutsche Grammophon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ji%C5%99%C3%AD_B%C4%9Blohl%C3%A1vek

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