Antonín Dvořák; Bohuslav Martinů - Piano Concertos (Ivo Kahánek)

Information

Composer: Antonín Dvořák; Bohuslav Martinů

• (01) Dvořák - Piano Concerto in G minor, Op. 33 B. 63
• (04) Martinů - Piano Concerto No. 4, H. 358 'Incantation'

Ivo Kahánek, piano

Bamberg Symphony Orchestra

Jakub Hrůša, conductor

Date: 2019

Label: Supraphon

https://www.supraphon.com/album/504510-dvorak-martinu-piano-concertos

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Review

Among Bohuslav Martinů’s five piano concertos, his Fourth (1956) is arguably the most original and inventive, and certainly the most difficult from the standpoint of coordinating and balancing ensemble and soloist. The orchestral writing alternates between sections of massive, complex scoring and the most delicately exposed concertante passages. The pianist, moreover, has to navigate buckets of notes and avoid being submerged by the thick textures. Ivo Kahánek does this and more. He brings assertive drive to the first movement’s chordal outbursts and vertiginous coda, the latter boasting more urgency and heft than in Robert Kolinsky’s relatively lighter traversal under Vladimir Ashkenazy (Ondine, 1/10). Kahánek’s full-bodied unfolding of the motoric solo about a minute and a half into the second movement gives a kind of Bachian weight to the left-hand pedal notes that contrast with, say, Rudolf Firkušný’s fluent lyricism (RCA, 4/95). Although Jakub Hrůša elicits a wide range of colours from his Bamberg musicians, Libor Pešek and the Czech Philharmonic handle the trickier rhythmic challenges more decisively; you only need compare the rapid interplay in the first movement’s opening pages to hear the difference, especially in the percussion.

The orchestral image is more blended and diffuse in the Dvořák Concerto, recorded two years earlier than the Martinů. As a consequence, the woodwinds lack the presence and vivacity that abound in the Aimard/Harnoncourt recording (Teldec, 1/04), although one must credit the robust yet well-defined strings. Kahánek makes Dvořák’s occasionally unwieldy keyboard-writing sound effortlessly idiomatic (the pianist uses the original text), and also points up the Allegro agitato’s debt to the first movement of Beethoven’s Fourth Concerto. He allows himself a discreet amount of wiggle-room in the finale’s wonderful ‘Stranger in Paradise’ second subject, and brings more than a few inner voices to the fore. Yet I miss the perkier accents, the overall spontaneity and clearer sound that still distinguish Vassily Primakov’s recording with Justin Brown and the Odense Symphony Orchestra (Bridge, 2/10) as my version of reference. Supraphon’s booklet contains an extensive and thoughtful interview with the pianist and the conductor, with English, French and German translations accompanying the original Czech text.

-- Jed Distler, Gramophone

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

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2019/Nov/Dvorak_Martinu_SU42362.htm

https://www.amazon.com/Piano-Concertos-Ivo-Kahanek/dp/B07VTYDW7X

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Antonín Dvořák (September 8, 1841 – May 1, 1904) was a Czech composer. He was the second Czech composer to achieve worldwide recognition, after Bedřich Smetana. Following Smetana's nationalist example, many of Dvořák's works show the influence of Czech folk music, such as his  two sets of Slavonic Dances, the Symphonic Variations, and the overwhelming majority of his songs. Dvořák wrote in a variety of forms: nine symphonies, ten operas, three concertos, several symphonic poems, serenades for string orchestra and wind ensemble, more than 40 works of chamber music, and piano music.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonín Dvořák

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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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Ivo Kahánek (born 1979) is a Czech pianist who won the Prague Spring International Music Competition in 2004. A graduate of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague under Ivan Klánský, he also studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London under Ronan O'Hora, and participated in master classes with many others. Kahánek performs regularly with the Czech Philharmonic, and has played with WDR Orchestra Cologne, Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra, etc. He has an exclusive contract with Supraphon since 2007, and also regularly appears on Czech Radio and Czech Television.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivo_Kahánek

https://ivokahanek.cz/en/

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