Bohuslav Martinů - Piano Concertos Nos. 3 & 5; Concertino (Giorgio Koukl)

Information

Composer: Bohuslav Martinů

• (01) Piano Concerto No. 3, H. 316
• (04) Piano Concerto No. 5 in B flat major (Fantasia concertante), H. 366
• (07) Concertino for Piano and Orchestra, H. 269

Giorgio Koukl, piano

Bohuslav Martinů Philharmonic Orchestra, Zlín

Arthur Fagen, conductor

Date: 2010

Label: Naxos

https://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=8.572206

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Review

Koukl’s Martinu survey expands further with these scintillating performances

Close on the heels of Ondine’s marvellous issue of Martinu’s Second and Fourth Piano Concertos (1/10) comes the first in a complete survey of all five from Naxos. Fresh from his seven-disc exploration of the solo piano music, Giorgio Koukl starts with the Romantic Third (1947) and coruscating Fifth (1958), alongside the neo-classical Concertino (1938) from his Parisian period. The three – given in that sequence – make a fascinating programme, especially in these buoyant and exuberant performances.

Martinu’s piano concertos have tended to be overshadowed by those for other instruments, not least for violin and cello, recordings of which have appeared or been reissued recently. None of the three works here ranks, perhaps, in the top flight of this composer’s output but they are all firmly in the next rung down and all should be better known. No 3, with its occasional flashes of Brahmsian or even late-Mozartian sonorities, has never sounded lighter or more vivacious than here. Firkusny, Martinu’s longtime friend and champion (for whom the piece was written), recorded it along with Nos 2 and 4 with Libor Peek (RCA, 4/95), a fine performance but one which is trumped here by the sheer vivacity – and virtuosity – of Koukl’s playing. In the Fifth, which has often sounded mechanical in previous recordings, the music leaps off the page. The finale in particular is hugely enjoyable.

No less impressive is the account of the bracing Concertino, a product of the composer’s full pre-war maturity. Its slighter dimensions perhaps justify the title but not its often serious demeanour; yet the music smiles throughout. Koukl receives splendid support from the Bohuslav Martinu Philharmonic Orchestra of Zlín under Arthur Fagen and Naxos’s sound is first rate, clear and bright with the right balance between soloist and orchestra. Warmly recommended.

-- Guy Rickards, Gramophone

More reviews:

ClassicsToday  ARTISTIC QUALITY: 9 / SOUND QUALITY: 8

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2010/Apr10/Martinu_8572206.htm

http://www.classical.net/music/recs/reviews/n/nxs72206a.php

https://www.naxos.com/reviews/reviewslist.asp?catalogueid=8.572206&languageid=EN

https://www.amazon.com/Martinu-Piano-Concertos-Nos-Concertino/dp/B002WEC708

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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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