Bohuslav Martinů - Music for Violin and Orchestra Vol. 3 (Bohuslav Matoušek; Christopher Hogwood)

Information

Composer: Bohuslav Martinů

• (01) Suite concertante for violin and orchestra, H 276
• (05) Suite concertante for violin and orchestra, H 276a
• (09) Rhapsody-Concerto for viola and orchestra, H 337

Bohuslav Matoušek, violin (1-8) & viola (9-10)
Czech Philharmonic Orchestra
Christopher Hogwood, conductor

Date: 2008
Label: Hyperion
https://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/dc.asp?dc=D_CDA67673

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Review

A major concertante piece is restored to public view, not once but twice!

Martinu’s Suite concertante has as chequered a history as any work I know. Commissioned in 1938 by Samuel Dushkin – who premiered Stravinsky’s Concerto and for whom Martinu had already written his then-still-unperformed First Concerto – Martinu planned a set of five Czech dances for violin and orchestra. Completed in early 1939, Dushkin’s efforts to secure a performance proved vain until 1943, and then in a violin-with-piano reduction, the orchestral version (minus its central Scherzo-caprice which is lost) only being premiered in 2000. Dushkin requested a revision but received a new four-movement work (1943-44) of which only the opening movement has much connection with its precursor. Successfully premiered in 1945 and published, the new Suite languished unplayed until 1999.

I am at a loss to explain such neglect. Both versions are delightful, appealing in idiom, avoiding full-concerto gravitas and brightly scored. The first version’s Meditation is rather elegiac and may, as Ales Brezina suggests in the booklet, reflect Martinu’s faltering liaison with his former pupil, Vítezslava Kaprálová. Matouek, who premiered the first version and revived the second (recording it with Hogwood for Supraphon), plays both with great understanding and finesse: the music needs lightness of touch and receives it here. Both versions of the Suite run out somewhat longer than Dushkin’s projected timings but the tempi feel right.

In the Rhapsody-Concerto Matouek shows himself as adept a viola-player as he is violinist, sweeter-toned than Telecky and a match for Imai and Bukac. Hogwood and the Czech Philharmonic again provide immaculate accompaniments, Hyperion’s sound in Prague’s Rudolfinum preferable to BIS’s in Malmö. (The rivals are all mixed-composer discs.) This third volume in Hyperion’s invaluable series is as desirable as its predecessors: highly recommended.

-- Guy Rickards, 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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Bohuslav Matoušek (born in Havlíčkův Brod, 26 September 1949) is a Czech violinist and violist. He studied in the classes of Jaroslav Pekelský and Václav Snítil at Prague's Academy of Music. Matoušek  has cooperated with such conductors as Kurt Masur, Zubin Mehta and Leonard Bernstein, and orchestras as the Czech Philharmonic and the Bohuslav Martinu Philharmonic Orchestra. In 1985 he co-founded and performed as the primarius of the Stamic Quartet. Matoušek teaches at The Academy of Musical Arts in Prague, and at The Janacek Academy of Musical Arts in Brno.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohuslav_Matou%C5%A1ek
http://www.bohuslavmatousek.cz/

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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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