Bohuslav Martinů - Le Raid merveilleux; La Revue de Cuisine; On Tourne (Christopher Hogwood)

Information

Composer: Bohuslav Martinů

• (01) Le Raid merveilleux (The Amazing Flight), mechanical ballet, H. 159
• (06) La Revue de Cuisine (The Kitchen Revue), jazz-ballet, H. 161
• (16) On Tourne, ballet, H. 163

Czech Philharmonic Orchestra
Christopher Hogwood, conductor

Dates: 2003 (H. 159 & H. 163), 2004 (H. 161)
Label: Supraphon
http://www.supraphon.com/album/1414-martinu-le-raid-merveilleux-la-revue-de-cuisine-on-tourne

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Review

An exhilarating collection of ballets from the jazz age

La Revue de cuisine was the only one of these three ballets (all dating from 1927) performed in the composer’s lifetime and the suite from it is familiar through several recordings. This one is different: Christopher Hogwood has now edited the score, adding two interludes and a funeral march. Since Martin
Like many composers in the 1920s Martinu found that jazz, or its dance-band derivations, expressed the spirit of the age and La Revue contains a catchy Charleston as well as a tango, which Brezina’s notes claim as a parody of Ravel’s Boléro (actually premièred the following year). The ensemble of six players at times echoes Stravinsky in this vivid performance.

Le Raid merveilleux celebrates the two French pilots who failed to cross the Atlantic two weeks before Lindbergh succeeded. Martin
On tourne (‘Roll the cameras!’) is a half-hour puppet-and-cartoon ballet. The setting is maritime with a fish, a lobster, a pearl and a diver as characters. All is high spirits and the lobster’s love life, where he courts first the fish and then the pearl, is represented by ‘daring’ American syncopation.

These vividly scored echoes of the 1920s show how important jazz derivations were in establishing Martinu’s mature style; they receive fine performances, well recorded.

-- David Hurwitz, Gramophone

More reviews:
ClassicsToday  ARTISTIC QUALITY: 10 / SOUND QUALITY: 10

http://www.classical-music.com/review/martinu-24
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2004/July04/Martinu_Raid.htm

http://www.allmusic.com/album/martinu-le-raid-merveilleux-la-revue-de-cuisine-on-tourne!-mw0001552040

http://www.amazon.com/Kitchen-Revue-Tourne-Marvellous-Flight/dp/B0002ABTD0

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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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Christopher Hogwood (10 September 1941 – 24 September 2014) was an English conductor, harpsichordist, writer, and musicologist. Founder of the early music ensemble the Academy of Ancient Music (1973), he was an authority on historically informed performance and a leading figure in the early music revival of the late 20th century. Although best known for baroque and early classical repertoire, he also performed contemporary music, especially the neo-baroque and neoclassical schools, including many works by Stravinsky, Martinů and Hindemith. Hogwood also made many solo recordings of harpsichord works.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Hogwood

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