Bohuslav Martinů - Sinfonietta La Jolla; Toccata e Due Cazoni; Concerto Grosso (Ondřej Kukal)

Information

Composer: Bohuslav Martinů

• (01) Sinfonietta La Jolla, H. 328
• (04) Toccata e Due Canzoni, H. 311
• (07) Concerto Grosso, H. 263

Josef Hála, piano
Petr Jiříkovský, piano (7-9)
Prague Chamber Orchestra
Ondřej Kukal, violin & conductor

Date: 1997
Label: Supraphon
http://www.supraphon.com/album/1382-martinu-sinfonietta-la-jolla-toccata-e-due-canzoni-concerto

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Review

ARTISTIC QUALITY: 10 / SOUND QUALITY: 10

This splendid disc was originally released on the Panton label, but happily reappears here on Supraphon. The fact that the conductorless Prague Chamber Orchestra can play this rhythmically tricky music with such confidence bespeaks long familiarity with Martinu's personal idiom. These are, one and all, fabulous pieces, particularly the Toccata e due canzone, a masterwork if ever there was one, and a much darker and more emotionally draining essay than the neo-baroque title might suggest.

Here's the bottom line: these are simply the finest versions of all three works. Tempos are lively, balances true, those long, syncopated, lyrical cantilenas in the first movements of the Tocatta and Sinfonietta soar as if self-propelled. No detail of Martinu's ceaselessly inventive orchestration passes unobserved, and his busy rhythms and obsessive ostinatos never turn mechanical (a potential issue in the Concerto Grosso especially). As usual, the Czech woodwinds (oboes especially) are a joy, and pianist Josef Hála plays delightfully in all three pieces. Excellent sonics offer an ideal combination of warmth and clarity. It doesn't get any better than this.

-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday

More reviews:
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2009/Jan09/Martinu_Jolla_su39582.htm
http://www.allmusic.com/album/martinu-sinfonietta-la-jolla-toccata-e-due-canzoni-concerto-grosso-mw0001835345
http://www.amazon.com/Jolla-Toccata-Concerto-B-Martinu/dp/B001JCZXW8

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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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Ondřej Kukal (born 14 August 1964 in Prague)is a contemporary Czech conductor, violinist and composer. From 1979–1985 he studied the violin at the Prague Conservatory. In 1996 he accepted the position of concertmaster of the Prague Chamber Orchestra, and since 2002 Kukal has been a chief conductor of the Hradec Králové Philharmonic Orchestra. He has been a regular guest of leading Czech orchestras, including the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra and the Prague Symphony Orchestra. Most of his compositions (more than 30 opus numbers) are published and regularly interpreted at home and abroad.
https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ond%C5%99ej_Kukal
http://www.fhk.cz/en/42/Conductor/

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