Jan Novák’s oeuvre has not received the attention it undoubtedly deserves. His music is noted for its lightness, elegance, humor and slight provocation, and, in addition to Martinů and jazz, was inspired by Latin, which he perfectly mastered and applied (almost exclusively) in his works. The young Martinů Voices ensemble presents Jan Novák’s choral pieces, with two of them released on CD for the very first time. A special guest on the album is the composer’s daughter, flautist Clara Nováková.

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

Two centuries after the prosperous era of Charles IV, Prague enjoyed its second Golden Age, under the reign of the art-loving Emperor and King Rudolf II, as it became a busy cultural centre, attracting artists from all over Europe. Like in a melting pot, a variety of musical styles mingled together in the city: the Franco-Flemish polyphony, represented by the world’s most accomplished composer at the time, as well as the vigorous tradition of literary brotherhoods with the archaic polyphonic repertoire of the previous generations. The focal point of the album is the recently rediscovered Prague manuscript of polyphonic masses, with the fabulously survived Missa Presulem ephebeatum by Heinrich Isaac, one of the most significant masters of the Franco-Flemish polyphonic style. Petrus Wilhelmi de Grudencz’s Presulem ephebeatum, whose thematic material inspired Isaac, attests to his mass being connected with Bohemia and Prague. The album contains a number of other extraordinary pieces, including Josquin Des Prez’s celebrated Stabat Mater, with the added sixth voice, which has been uniquely preserved in this form in Bohemia. Cappella Mariana, made up of stellar early music singers (Hana Blažíková, Barbora Kabátková, etc.), have performed Renaissance polyphony to great acclaim at Europe’s most prestigious concert venues and festivals. Vocal polyphony of Renaissance Prague in the perfect harmony of the Cappella Mariana voices.

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REVIEW:

There is an ancient depiction of Bohemia as a rose, with Prague at its center, which presumably is the source of the disc’s title (and stylized cover art), although, from a marketing standpoint, the exclusive Latin inscription on the CD’s front cover is more likely to result in bewilderment for prospective listeners than the ready offer of a credit card number. What exactly is this recording anyway? A line of very small type on the back cover offers a clue: “Music in Renaissance Prague”. Okay, now we’re (sort of) getting somewhere, and yet, with no other information, the list of mostly unfamiliar composer names on the program–Petrus Wilhelmi de Grudencz; Lupus Hellinck; Joannes Sixtus Pragensis; Pierre de Bonhomme; Kryštof Harant; Johannes Tourout; Jacobus Regnart–does little to incite more than curiosity. But wait: there’s a Mass by Heinrich Isaac, a motet by Jacob Obrecht, a Stabat Mater by Josquin, all claimed to be “world-premiere” recordings (as are many of those other pieces). What gives?

I could go on, but the point is, even for someone who knows and cares more than a little about “Renaissance music”, this program and its purpose remains something of a mystery, most importantly: what do these composers and works have to do with Prague, and why have we never heard of them before? Nothing on the outside packaging gives us a clue. So, a look at the liner notes should resolve our questions, right? Wrong. There is plenty of information, but the translations (the English ones in my case) are somewhat awkward and sketchy regarding the music’s origins and selection for the recording.

It turns out that “Music in Renaissance Prague” refers to polyphonic music found in manuscripts housed in that city, which was then (and remains) a significant cultural center that attracted musicians from all over Europe. One of the manuscripts was only relatively recently rediscovered, and contains works not necessarily found elsewhere, thus the world-premiere designation for pieces such as the Isaac Mass and Josquin Stabat Mater (in a unique version with an added sixth voice). The recording begins with the very early, and apparently once very well-known piece by Petrus–Presulem ephebeatum, trabeatum, radiatum venustemus sedulo (the first letters spelling the composer’s name)–from which Isaac garnered the cantus firmus for his Mass.

The best part about all of this is, I can assure you that if you do care about Renaissance vocal music, especially in the manner of the Franco-Flemish masters of the mid-15th/mid-16th centuries such as Josquin–and of a comparable caliber–you will enjoy every minute of this excellently programmed and exceptionally well-sung recording. In fact, while the music is uniformly first rate, you may be even more impressed by the performances by the Czech ensemble Cappella Mariana, six singers (two sopranos, alto, tenor, baritone, bass) whose artful interpretations, expert ensemble execution, and vibrant, perfectly tuned sound give well-deserved life to whatever they sing, whether or not we’ve heard of the composer or work in question.

In fact, while the Isaac and Josquin pieces are certainly worthy of a place in the recording catalog, highlights for me also include Hellinck’s In te, Domine, speravi and Regnart’s glorious seven-part tribute to his teacher Jacobus Vaet, Defunctum charites Vaetem (sound clips). What we learn from listening to this hour-long program is that, even if those illustrious Franco-Flemish composers never physically appeared in the Czech capital, their music did, and it had a notable influence on the composers who later worked there, especially in the time of Rudolf II (he became King of Bohemia in 1575 and moved the court to Prague in 1583). You may also, like me, make the happy discovery of this very special vocal ensemble, Cappella Mariana and its artistic director Vojt?ch Semerád, whose careful research and dedication to bringing this music to our attention is much appreciated. If only the packaging had made a more effective and clear presentation of the program’s content–but then, that’s why we have reviews…

– ClassicsToday (David Vernier)

The reissue of the recordings made in 1978 and 1988 pays tribute to the unforgettable Czech tenor Vilém Pribyl’s superb performance of three extraordinary Czech song cycles. The artist dazzled several generations of music-lovers in Bedrich Smetana’s and Leoš Janácek’s operas. His professional career was mainly connected with Brno, where he lived and worked for three decades. Moreover, Pribyl performed as a guest at the National Theatre in Prague, and he also impressed audiences in Edinburgh, London (Royal Opera House), as well as in France, Italy and the USA. The three song cycles are deemed to be the best works in the genre created by Smetana, Dvorák and Janácek. They are fundamentally different in terms of inspiration. While in his short cycle Evening Songs Smetana sumps up his lifelong endeavours and experiences, Dvorák’s Biblical Songs represent the composer’s intimate prayer and thanksgiving. In The Diary of One Who Disappeared, Janácek’ depicts the story of a village boy who madly falls in love with a beautiful gypsy girl. The benchmark historical albums are as enchanting today as they were decades ago. An engrossing recording of three Czech mature song cycles, as performed by Vilém Pribyl.

Following their critically acclaimed debut album, the Belfiato Quintet have gone back a century in time, to the "father of the wind quintet" Antonín Rejcha's life was adventurous and turbulent indeed. When he was 10, he ran away from his Prague home, and would live in turn in Bonn, Hamburg and Vienna, before finally settling in Paris. He presented his first symphony at the tender age of 17. Rejcha became a friend of Beethoven's, who played the viola in the same orchestra, he made the acquaintance with Haydn, and his teachers included Salieri. A keen experimenter, he liked to write in quintuple time, was fascinated by Gypsy music with micro-intervals, playing with numbers and chords, polyrhythm, polytonality and counterpoint. Moreover, he was an accomplished theorist and a renowned teacher, also working as a professor at the Conservatoire de Paris. His students included Liszt, Berlioz, Franck and other distinguished composers. Rejcha was the first to write truly masterful wind quintets, making full use of the instruments' timbres and technical potential. Notwithstanding it's being challenging to perform, his music comes across as bright, airy and gracious. The Belfiato Quintet selected three - the most beautiful and most engrossing - of Rejcha's 24 wind quintets, which they have recorded at the acoustically exceptionable Rudolfinum hall in Prague. It would seem that the virtuoso and passionate musicians have found in Rejcha a kindred spirit.

Supraphon’s survey of music in 18th-century Prague includes two sonatas by Frantisek Benda, one by Carl Heinrich Graun that used to pass as a work by Benda, a sonata by Josef Antonín Gurecký, and two by Frantisek Jiránek. Of these musical figures, Benda may be the best known; Dr. Charles Burney met him and considered him original in his time (although, like Giuseppe Tartini, Benda placed primary importance on the singing quality of his compositions for violin).


The program, played at a pitch approaching A=415, opens with Benda’s Sonata in Bb Major. In the opening Largo, violinist Lenka Torgersen demonstrates, with sonorous support from cellist Libor Masek, with what vocal purity Benda’s lines can flow; but she brings a lively playfulness to the ensuing Allegro , and to the following rapid movement. The first of Jiránek’s two sonatas, in F Major, shares in its opening Adagio the singing quality of Benda’s works, but Torgersen encrusts the Allegro that follows with spunky ornamentation and gives the final Tempo di Menuet an ingratiatingly zesty performance. The third sonata on the program, again by Benda, brings another engaging dialogue in the graceful opening Siciliano between the solo violin and the continuo group. The Allegro that follows contains some brief passages on the G-string; and, digging into them, Torgersen reveals the strength in this register of the 1760 violin by Sebastian Klotz upon which she plays, a register earlier composers generally avoided because of the massiveness and therefore the balkiness of the lowest string. She also spits defiantly in the movement’s across-the-string staccatos. These staccatos reappear in modified form during the thematically similar finale.


The sonata formerly attributed to Benda (and bearing catalog numbers for both composers) demands from the performers a similar lyrical affinity, especially, perhaps, in its Andante . Gurecký’s four-movement work (the others on the program all fall into three movements) includes in its second movement passages novel in harmony and some attempts to extend the violin part’s ambit upward; but its overall style fits into that prevalent in the rest of the program. The recital closes with a Sonata in C Major by Jiránek, at more than 12 minutes the longest of the program’s works. Its Adagio gives Torgersen an opportunity to indulge in pregnant rhetorical pauses, and Luks offsets its singing lyricism with flashing runs. The ensemble makes an especially strong case for the gavotte and variations that constitute the finale.


Leila Schayegh, Václav Luks, and Felix Knecht made a selection of Benda’s sonatas on Glossa 922507, Fanfare 35:6, as did Hans-Joachim Berg and Naoko Akutagawa on Naxos 8.572307, Fanfare 35:4. Berg produces a tone more nasal in quality and occasionally sounds as though he shifts awkwardly between positions, but he has the advantage of playing Benda’s ornamentation. Schayegh, on the other hand, playing some of the sonatas with fortepiano, deploys a tone lighter in weight but flexible and expressive. For those interested only in Benda’s works, it might be a toss-up, but for the entire program, Torgersen’s is hard to beat, with its lyrical and at times jaunty performances, and deserves to be recommended to almost all listeners.

FANFARE: Robert Maxham

For the 60-year-old Franz Xaver Richter, a composer of Moravian origin living and working in France, the spring of 1769 was a true watershed in his career. When, two years previously, he joined a competition held by Concert Spirituel, a major French music institution, he evidently had in mind being employed as a musician in Paris. The contestants' task was to compose a "motet à grand chœur", encompassing a sequence of arias, ensembles and choruses, set to the Latin text of Psalm 136, Super flumina Babylonis. Although Richter failed to win the competition, his work arouse great interest and on 28 March 1769 it premiered within the Concert Spirituel series at the Tuileries Palace, at the largest music venue in Paris at the time. Less than a month later, Richter was appointed the Maitre de Chapelle de Notre Dame de Strasbourg. The motet Super flumina Babylonis undoubtedly played a significant role in his being named to the prestigious post. Over the first years he spent in Strasbourg (1770-73), Richter wrote three settings of Psalm 50, Miserere mei Deus, intended for the night liturgy of Tenebrae, a religious service held during the three days preceding Easter. In addition to Super flumina Babylonis, the present album features the third setting of the Miserere, in F minor, in a premiere recording. In their fourth album of Richter's music, Czech Ensemble Baroque discover the yet to be mapped legacy of the distinguished 18th-century composer.

C. STAMITZ Viola Concerto in D, op. 1. J. V. STAMIC Viola Concerto in G. A. STAMITZ Viola Concerto in B? • Jan P?ruška (va); Ji?í B?lohlávek, cond; Prague Philharmonia • SUPRAPHON 3929 (57:51)


Jan P?ruška’s survey of the Stamitz (Stamic is the Czech spelling) family’s works for viola and orchestra sandwiches Jan Václav Stamic’s Concerto between two by his sons, Carl and Anton. If viola jokes circulated as widely in the composers’ era as they do today, they didn’t inhibit the composition of brilliant solo works for an instrument that seems at least subsequently to have acquired the reputation of being played by failed violinists (the difference between an onion and a viola being that nobody cries when you cut a viola, and so on). Carl’s Concerto features imposing tuttis and brilliant passagework (some of it almost Baroque in its dogged reliance on bariolages and arpeggios) built on ingratiating thematic material and strutting its fashionable style in textures that set the virtuosic solo in high relief, especially in the final movement. P?ruška plays warmly in the slow movement and commandingly in the outer ones, roughing up his tone only in the very highest registers; in his hands, the viola seems even at this date fully worthy of the Concerto that Walton later wrote for it. The engineers place his viola center stage in very clear and lifelike recorded sound. And even if the Concerto can’t quite maintain musical interest throughout, the textures and gestures almost suffice—after all, works in a new genre (think of early color or wide-screen movies) often depend for their effect more than later critics might prefer on the medium rather than on the message. And in this case, the medium still makes a striking impression.


Jan’s Concerto sounds older, and in the context of the other works, arguably stodgier, than Carl’s, though it still cuts a dashing figure. The strings don’t back off so far during the tuttis, and the solo part, fighting for attention, doesn’t sound generally so brilliant as it does in the concertos of Stamitz fils ; but the prominent continuo by itself isn’t a sign of age: even Haydn employed a sort of figured bass.


Anton’s Concerto, like his brother’s, comes from an era farther removed stylistically than chronologically than that of his father. It’s more restrained in the brilliance of its display, however, than Carl’s Concerto, perhaps because, as in his father’s works, the strings don’t provide such a springboard from which the soloist can vault—or perhaps because of the more subdued key in which it’s written.


Collectively these pieces, played with such aplomb by both soloist and orchestra and so brightly recorded, make a very appealing showcase for the solo viola. They make a case that violists and lovers of string instruments might wish had been decided more favorably by succeeding musical judges. But, as the recording proves, it’s not too late. Strongly recommended.


FANFARE: Robert Maxham

Taneyev (1856–1915) composed three quintets, each with a different instrumental line-up. The Piano Quintet of 1911 was the last of them, but before that he had written a G major String Quintet for two violins, viola and two cellos and a String Quintet in C major for two violins, two violas and cello. With such a variety of timbre, the three works make for a fascinating two-disc set, especially when played with such sensitivity and thought as by the ensemble here.

Allied to his secure structures and well-considered counterpoint, Taneyev also had a musical heart, often passionately expressed and with a dynamic, romantic impulse. Those are qualities that come across clearly in these performances: they have a strong backbone, but equally are alert to the lithe interplay between the five instruments to create substantial canvases in sound.

– The Telegraph (UK)

Receiving great acclaim worldwide along with the most noteworthy triumphs, the Czech Chamber Orchestra, revived by Jozef Vlach, brings us Legendary Recordings. Josef Vlach is far from being as well known as he deserves to be. Vlach co-founded the orchestra at the age of 23 after Vaclav Talich was falsey accused of collaborating with the Nazis and was banned from working with the Czech Philharmonic. The maestro was known for requiring the utmost artistic quality, diligence and engagement from his musicians. Under his supervision, the orchestra performed in Osaka in 1960, the Salzburger Festpiele in 1962, toured in USA, Germany, the UK and many other countries.