Miloslav Kabelac (1908-79), a highly original and individual musical thinker, enjoyed considerable renown during the 1950s and 60s as the leading Czech composer of his generation. However, around 1970 he apparently offended the powers that were, and his many recordings and publications disappeared. Now, after more than two decades of what seemed to be total obliteration, Kabelác's music has, during the past year, made its first appearances on CD, mostly with reissue of broadcast performances from his period of prominence. For comment on those releases, together with further background information, see Fanfare 17:2, pp. 280-81, and 17:3, pp. 214-15. In both those reviews I cited The Mystery of Time as perhaps Kabelác's most distinctive and compelling work, in urgent need of representation on disc. And now its sole previous recording returns to the catalog, bringing to eight the number of works by this composer currently available, although only one is a newly recorded performance.

The Mystery of Time, composed in 1957, is a work of tremendous power and originality. In some ways it is comparable to the Sinfonia Sacra of Andrzej Panufnik, although its aesthetic impact is quite different. But it shares with the Polish work a number of characteristics, among them a ready accessibility, despite the renunciation of most traditional formal and harmonic procedures, and of the sophisticated nuances, embellishments, qualifications, and other devices associated with “expressive“ music. There is little sense of vulnerable humanity in Kabelác's music—of a subjective point of view. Rather, it seems to suggest an impersonal landscape, governed by a supreme order far removed from the judgments or concerns of living creatures. The Mystery of Time represents Kabelác's unusual metaphysical attitude in its most fully and successfully realized manifestation, conjuring the vast expanse of time that stretches from the infinite past to the infinite future, its unwavering forward momentum suggesting the inexorable motion of the heavenly bodies.

The form has been described as a sort of passacaglia, but only in a loose sense: It is not based on contrapuntal development over a recurring bass line, but it does involve a gradual accumulation of energy through the evolving development of simple motivic elements. The work begins with an ominous murmur strongly reminiscent of the opening of Shostakovich's Eleventh Symphony (which dates from the same year), with regard to both mood and actual content. Basic, elemental intervallic material is introduced into a static void, slowly building momentum through a process of imperceptibly altered repetition that must be described as proto-Minimalist. The effect suggests the implacable passage of time viewed from the perspective of a dispassionate eternal consciousness. With great deliberateness the twenty-five-minute work gradually builds in intensity through motivic metamorphosis and interlayered levels of rhythmic acceleration in a grim, inexorable crescendo that eventually culminates in a revelatory cosmic orgasm, before finally returning to the static void.

Karel Ancerl was a close friend of Kabelac and a consistent champion of his music, introducing The Mystery of Time throughout Europe and even in the United States. This recording dates from 1960, and the performance is sympathetically conceived and solidly executed. Of course, a new recording, in modern sonics, would be most welcome, but this reissue provides a valuable opportunity to discover one of the most unforgettable European works of the mid-twentieth century.

Hamlet Improvisation was composed in 1963 and represents a later development in Kabelác's musical language—more terse, angular, dissonant, and gestural—but with much the same underlying metaphysical outlook. The title is enigmatic, as the work has no improvisational elements and its connection with Shakespeare's play or the hero thereof is tenuous at best. The composer's own explanation suggests the obfuscatory philosophical doubletalk that passed for musical commentary in Eastern Europe during the Soviet period. However, the piece, in which angry, dissonant passages alternate with moments of eerie mystery, might have been less misleadingly entitled Contrasts for Orchestra or some such. It make a strong impact as an abstract statement and is another of Kabelác's most important works. This is music of far greater competence and depth than that of other figures from Eastern Europe who have momentarily seized the popular fancy.

With Hamlet Improvisation we have the unlikely case of two currently available recorded performances, each conducted by Ancerl. The other recording (Praga PR 255 000) is taken from a live performance in 1966; this new Supraphon reissue is from a studio recording made the same year and is much better.

- Walter Simmons, Fanfare

Ten famous composers are represented on this fantastic 10-CD set, with each disc focusing on some of the best-known music from each conductor. You’ll hear some of the most celebrated compositions from Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven, Frederic Chopin, Antonin Dvořák, Leos Janacek, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Bedrich Smetana, Johann Strauss, Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky and Antonio Vivaldi. Selections include the wistful Largo from Dvořák’s New World Symphony, the solemn entrance of the piano in Tchaikovsky’s Concerto in B flat minor, the festive Ode to Joy from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, the sweet bird song and summer storm from Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, and an inexhaustible amount of other musical treasures. This box set is truly a “Best of ” the best—the perfect present for you and your nearest and dearest, who like beautiful music in top quality.

A superb collection of very early Kubelik recordings, including numerous world premieres.

This is an excellent collection honoring Rafael Kubelík. The two jam-packed CDs of live 1940s broadcasts include his central repertoire, works he championed very early on, and indeed multiple world-premiere recordings. Not least is the first-ever recording of Shostakovich’s Ninth Symphony, a live concert dating from December 1946; we also get a live reading of Dvorak’s Piano Concerto with Rudolf Firkusny, from the first-ever Prague Spring festival, and, although the booklet doesn’t identify the premiere recordings, I’d be surprised if any earlier performances of the Martin? Fourth Symphony or Memorial to Lidice, or Dobiás’ Stalingrad Cantata, exist.
 
The collection begins with Dvorak’s Eighth, in quite constricted sound - turn up the volume more than normal - but glittering with the kind of brilliance Kubelík brought to the piece for his entire career. Aside from a prominent trumpet flub in the finale, it’s a highly accomplished live reading by the Czech Philharmonic, revealing they and the conductor were masters of the symphony even in the besieged year of 1944. The piano concerto, in sound which suggests that the orchestra is playing somewhere very far away, nevertheless powers forward with energy and vigor. Firkusny plays the old “revised” piano part, with the absolute command which explains why he has long been associated with this piece. Luckily for us, the recording of his piano is much better than we’d expect from the murky-sounding orchestra. Firkusny’s cadenza is especially fine, although more recent interpreters - Aimard with Harnoncourt, say - are more to my liking in the poetic slow movement with its beautiful opening horn solo.
 
Shostakovich’s Ninth - the first recording of the work - is given a performance unlike any since. The outer movements are remarkably speedy affairs, with some live sloppiness but a lot of spirit and neoclassical sharpness; by contrast the second movement sprawls over ten minutes, the slowest I’ve ever heard it. Compare 10:33 to Vasily Petrenko’s 8:46, Leonard Bernstein’s 8:10, or indeed Rudolf Barshai’s 5:43. The scherzo is rather languid, too. All in all a fascinating account of how different it is from the way the symphony is performed today, and it’s worth overlooking the constant audience noise. What may cause distress is the fact that distortion in the tape results in the entire symphony sounding like it is being performed in E rather than E flat!
 
Bohuslav Martin?’s Fourth, a celebratory masterpiece inflected with joy, energy, and inner peace, receives a great performance here (1948). It’s hard to imagine a more thrilling scherzo than Kubelík’s, whirling forward in a great rush of excitement, but by contrast he really milks the gorgeous romanticism of the slow movement, unafraid to play up the different moods - doubt at the beginning, something very like love after 6:00. Belohlávek’s recent recording on Onyx with the BBC Symphony may be preferable in the finale, where the new account’s freer tempos underscore the triumph of the ending, which Kubelík - maybe intentionally - leaves more ambivalent. The recorded sound is sufficient to give the orchestral piano its place, although you will miss some bass lines and timpani and the incredible colors of the opening pages. Supraphon engineers have, as elsewhere, used technology which removes the hisses and pops but at the expense of a slightly constricted acoustic.
 
The disc is rounded out with Martin?’s Memorial to Lidice - a moving rendition which goes more slowly and tragically than many, although Eschenbach’s reading on Ondine is the most anguished I’ve heard - and a novelty, the Stalingrad Cantata of Václav Dobiás. Written in 1945, the cantata for baritone, male chorus, and orchestra is an eleven-minute paean to the Soviet forces, or at least I’m assuming so, because the sung texts are not provided. The music sounds a bit like a ramshackle Nevsky Cantata, with the same wildness and raw masculine energy but without the tunes or distinction. It counts as a welcome rarity, though, because recordings of Dobiás are otherwise basically non-existent.
 
These are valuable historical broadcasts all around, then, from the world premiere recordings of Shostakovich’s Ninth and probably a few other works too, to the Dvorak concerto from the first Prague Spring festival. Rafael Kubelík’s conducting is consistently superb and insightful; his Martin? is energetic but powerful, his Shostakovich like nobody else. This can all be had in more modern recordings - the Dvo?ák symphony from Mackerras or Kubelík himself, the Martin? from Belohlávek or Thomson - but as a two-disc monument to Kubelík’s superb work with the Czech Philharmonic, this can’t be beaten. For a one-CD tribute to that pairing of great artists, though, we must remember the unforgettable Smetana concert they gave after the end of the Cold War.
 
-- Brian Reinhart , MusicWeb International

This compilation presents a selection of the recordings that were the fruit of the cooperation between the conductor and the orchestra. Sawallisch's programs in Prague repeatedly included pieces by Mozart and Beethoven, as well as major works by Czech composers (Smetana, Janacek, Martinu, Kalabis, Eben, etc.). Sawallisch's relationship to Czech music is probably best described by the following quotation from a contemporary review: 'He apprehends and interprets music by Czech composers as though he himself had been brought up in their language.' the precious Czech Radio live recordings are released by Supraphon for the very first time to mark the 90th anniversary of the late conductor's birth.

Live recording from the work’s world premieres on 11 and 12 December 2008.

This is not the first case of a premiere performance of a work by Bohuslav Martinu (1890-1959) decades after his death. On 11 December 2008 the sold-out Rudolfinum in Prague heard for the first time a work which ranks among Martinu’s most significant and which the composer himself highly esteemed. Martinu originally composed the opera Juliette in Czech. However, so as to ensure appropriate publicity for the work, he wanted – already armed with a French libretto – to place extracts from the most relevant scenes on French radio. Yet Three Fragments from the Opera Juliette (The Key to Dreams) was not broadcast on the radio and had to wait some 70 years for its first performance. This was entrusted to the safe hands of that most competent of conductors Sir Charles Mackerras, who has devoted a great part of his life to discovering Czech music and promoting it on world stages. Thanks to Martinu’s dreamily beautiful music and the remarkable engagement of all the interpreters, the conductor’s December leave-taking of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra was transformed into a joint triumph. After experiencing Magdalena Kožená in the role of Juliette, it is hard to imagine another star singer in her place. The Australian tenor Steve Davislim, who performed in the role of Michel, was a splendid partner to Magdalena Kožená in the lyrical and dramatic position. On this CD, Three Fragments is supplemented by the orchestral suite from the same opera, which sensitively treats the music of all three Acts and corresponds with the “dreamy logic” of the original.

REVIEWS

"I don’t think I’ve ever heard a performance of any part of this score that captures its sheer beauty and fantasy so well." -- International Record Review, June 2009

"Mackerras directs a wonderful performance and while Kožená sings the title-role beautifully she is in excellent company. The Czech Philharmonic Orchestra play superbly throughout, not least in the sensible coupling of Zbyn?k Vost?ák’s expert arrangement of three of Julietta’s orchestral episodes. I cannot recommend this scintillating disc highly enough."-- Gramophone, June 2009

"Magdalena Kožená is magnificent as the volatile Julietta and is excellently matched by Steve Davislim’s Michel. Davislim is also terrific in the opera’s almost unbearably poignant finale. Along with three orchestral excerpts, including the opera’s prelude, these fragments provide a fitting tribute to Mackerras’s profound understanding of Martin?’s musical character." -- BBC Music Magazine, June 2009

"The sure hand of Charles Mackerras, a master of exceptionally high calling, succeeds in drawing out all the wealth of the score, letting the music shine with its most beautiful colors as he wields a world-class ensemble, the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra. The bright, at times seemingly transparent mezzosoprano of Magdalena Kožená proves to be ideal for the role of Julietta, a girl losing her memory, a being from another world, sensuous and yet ungraspable. Davislim proves to be an ideal partner for her."-- Das Opernglas, June 2009

"Sir Charles Mackerras can scarcely be equalled for the way he lives this music, for the way it breathes and blooms under his direction. Thanks to the crystal-clear luminosity of the Czech Philharmonic’s finely detailed sound and the extraordinarily sensitive performances of world-class singers Magdalena Kožená and Steve Davislim, Mackerras has succeeded in fully revealing the suggestive quality of the music, carrying listeners away to a world of dreamlike surrealism. In the hands of Mackerras, a Martin? expert, the score becomes a magical tome." -- Fono Forum, July 2009

Halina Czerny-Stefánska, who was born in Kraków in 1922 and died there in 2001, achieved international fame as an interpreter of Chopin. On the 150th anniversary of the Polish composer's birth, the state-owned record company Polskie Nagrania produced a comprehensive collection of his works, featuring a number of her exemplary recordings, which form a major part of this set. One incident makes particularly clear what high esteem Chopin interpreter Czerny-Stefánska had achieved in the world of music: Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 1 was released in the West as an LP featuring the brilliant, short-lived pianist Dinu Lipatti. Fifteen years passed before it transpired that the artist on this recording was not Lipatti, but Czerny-Stefánska, with the conductor Václav Smetácek. The mistake was admitted and corrected.