Bohuslav Martinů - Piano Concertos Nos. 1, 2 & 4 (Giorgio Koukl)

Information

Composer: Bohuslav Martinů

• (01) Piano Concerto No. 4, H. 358, 'Incantation'
• (03) Piano Concerto No. 1 in D Major, H. 149
• (06) Piano Concerto No. 2, H. 237

Giorgio Koukl, piano

Bohuslav Martinů Philharmonic Orchestra, Zlín

Arthur Fagen, conductor

Date: 2010

Label: Naxos

https://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=8.572373

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Review

Koukl and Fagen complete their survey of Martinù’s piano concertos in fine style

Koukl’s splendid coupling of the Third and Fifth Concertos (3/10) has rightly drawn warm praise and this next instalment in his revelatory series of Martinù’s piano music carries on where the previous one left off. The same clarity and precision of touch is evident in his playing throughout, allied to a natural musicality and a positive sense of structure shared by conductor Arthur Fagen, who supports in exemplary fashion with the Bohuslav Martinù Philharmonic Orchestra of Zlín.

Wisely, the disc opens with the best-known of the three, the Fourth (1955-56). His most visionary concerto, its title – Incantation – really does not do justice to the extraordinary character of the music, nor its unique design. The two fantasia-like movements run the gamut of moods from the serene to the volcanic. Like Firkušný on RCA (nla) before him, Koukl highlights the music’s mercurial changes of atmosphere and elliptical construction with consummate skill and is warmly recorded. Ondine’s sound for the fine Kolinsky disc is better still, glorious even, but by comparison to Koukl, Kolinsky now seems as concerned with the technical as the expressive challenges.

Kolinsky remains a formidable rival, none the less, not least in the serious-minded and more conventionally laid out Second Concerto (1934). Here, to be honest, there is little to choose between them. Completists will want Koukl to set alongside Vol 1 (Kolinsky’s had the 1953 Overture and Les fresques de Piero della Francesca) and the inclusion of the exuberant First (1925), placed centrally between the two more high-minded concertos, is a huge bonus. From the very opening it is a delightful romp through French neo-classicism with lively tunes and piquant orchestration. Warmly recommended.

-- Guy Rickards, Gramophone

More reviews:
ClassicsToday  ARTISTIC QUALITY: 8 / SOUND QUALITY: 8

https://www.classical-music.com/reviews/orchestral/martinu-piano-concertos-vol-2/

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2011/Feb11/Martinu_pc124_8572373.htm

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2011/Dec11/Martinu_PCs_8572373.htm

http://www.classical.net/music/recs/reviews/n/nxs72373a.php

https://www.allmusic.com/album/martinu-piano-concertos-nos-1-2-4-mw0002060352?1641778946514

https://www.naxos.com/reviews/reviewslist.asp?catalogueid=8.572373&languageid=EN

https://www.amazon.com/Martinu-Piano-Concertos-Nos-Bohuslav/dp/B0043XCKS0

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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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Giorgio Koukl (born 1953, Prague, Czechoslovakia) is a composer and pianist/harpsichordist. He studied with Rudolf Firkušný, Nikita Magaloff, Stanislav Neuhaus and Carlo Vidusso. Koukl is considered now as one of the major world specialists of Parisian music of the 1920s and of the "silver age" composers from Saint Petersburg. He has recorded the only existing complete set of solo piano music of Bohuslav Martinů for Naxos. He has also recorded the complete solo piano music of Alexander Tcherepnin, and several CDs dedicated to the music of Witold Lutoslawski, Alexandre Tansman, etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giorgio_Koukl

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