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Monday, April 22, 2019

Bohuslav Martinů - Songs (Martina Janková; Tomáš Král)


Information

Composer: Bohuslav Martinů
  • (01) Songs on One Page, H. 294
  • (08) Songs on Two Pages, H. 302
  • (15) New Slovak Songs, H. 126
  • (45) New Chap-Book, H. 288

Martina Janková, soprano
Tomáš Král, baritone
Ivo Kahánek, piano

Date: 2019
Label: Supraphon
https://www.supraphon.com/album/448092-martinu-songs

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Review

This deeply touching disc gathers together four sets of Martinů’s songs, both early and late. Two thirds of it is given over to the New Slovak Songs, a striking sequence of folk arrangements dating from 1920, when Martinů was still in Czechoslovakia, though they remained unpublished until 1970. The work of a composer who was still finding his voice, they’re shaded towards art songs, offsetting melodic directness with accompaniments that embrace post-Romantic and Impressionist harmonies in their illustration of both the natural and emotional worlds of the texts.

The remaining three sets, in contrast, are original compositions to folk poetry, written during Martinů’s exile in the United States. Remarkable in every way, they pare the Czech folk idiom down to its absolute essence, their terse vocal lines supported by the sparest of accompaniments. There are elements of modernist abrasion in the piano-writing for The New Chap-Book of 1942 that glance back to the works of Martinů’s Paris period in the 1930s. In the Songs on One and Two Pages, however, dating from 1943 and 1944 respectively, we find only the simplest piano chords that frequently drift towards harmonic irresolution. In all three sets, many of the songs last less than a minute, and the effect is at once fragmented and timeless, suggesting brief, painful memories of the country from which Martinů was now tragically separated by war.

Though Martinů probably intended each set to be sung by a single performer, Martina Janková and Tomáš Král divide the songs between them, depending on the sex of the protagonist, turning dialogues into duets when necessary, and Janková’s clear, silvery soprano offsets Král’s light, warm baritone throughout. Nothing is over-dramatised or tipped towards sentimentality, though Janková can often be extraordinarily poignant – the grieving ‘My mother, my mother’, which opens New Slovak Songs, really gets under your skin – while Král is amorous and witty, engaging and soulful by turns. Pianist Ivo Kahánek, meanwhile, binds the songs together with playing of understated dexterity and emotional restraint. It’s a lovely disc, most beautifully done.

-- Tim Ashley, 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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Martina Janková (born 1972, Orlová) is a Czech operatic soprano. Janková began her musical training in Ostrava and then pursued further studies in opera at the City of Basel Music Academy. She has been successful in a number of opera contests, including winning first prize at the competition Neue Stimmen in Gütersloh. Janková has been a member of the Zürich Opera since 1998, and is particularly known for her portrayals in operas by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and George Frideric Handel. As a concert performer and recitalist, Janková has appeared in Poland, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Italy and Japan.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martina_Jankov%C3%A1
http://www.martinajankova.com/en/

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The Czech baritone, Tomáš Král, studied at the Janáček Academy of Performing Arts in Brno under Adriana Hlavsová and at master-classes with Julie Hasler in Versailles, Howard Crook in Paris, Peter Schreier and Joel Frederiksen. Since 2005, Tomáš collaborates regularly with Czech ensembles such as Collegium 1704, Collegium Marianum, Musica Florea, and other European ensembles and orchestras. He has presented himself at numerous European venues and festivals. Král also devotes himself to opera. Král has taken part in many recordings including the music of Jan Dismas Zelenka, Bach and Leoš Janáček.
http://tomaskral.me/

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