Supraphon's properly pitched, 24-bit remasterings of Sviatoslav Richter's 1956 Schumann Fantasiestücke, Waldszenen, and G minor Marsch convey a richness in the bass and boosted midrange presence quite different from the brighter, leaner sonic image characterizing Deutsche Grammophon's Dokumente and Originals series transfers. Richter habitually omitted Grillen and Fabel from Fantasiestücke, yet he played the other six pieces beautifully. The pianist's gorgeous legato touch justifies his unorthodox stretching out of Warum's last section, while his supple and sharply honed fingers make easy work of Aufschwung and Traumes Wirren. Although Richter likened the recording studio to "the torture chamber", he sounds free as a bird throughout his ravishingly tinted, technically dazzling Waldszenen. Lastly, a live November 1959 C major Fantasy stands out for a sense of risk and forward impetus in the first two movements that's largely absent from Richter's 1961 EMI studio effort, despite the cramped sonics. If you've missed these recordings in the past, don't hesitate now.

--Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

Antonín Dvorák had a passion for chamber music; he liked playing it with friends, and perhaps soon came to realize how good a commercial commodity such pieces represented. He wrote the first of his two piano quartets at the age of 34, by which time many a publisher was interested in his works. The Czech media voiced their satisfaction that Dvorák had moved beyond foreign influence, with the Slavic spirit having prevailed in his music. Cases in point include his Moravian Duets, Op. 20, and Serenades, Op. 22, created at the same time. The publisher Fritz Simrock bitterly regretted having rejected the first quartet, persistently reminding the composer: "I would gladly take a piano quartet, preferably even two". When in the summer of 1889 Dvorák got down to writing his second quartet, he complained of having a "slow hand", yet stressed that he had plenty of ideas: "My head is full of it... I have finished three movements of a new quartet with piano, and the finale will be ready in a few days. It has gone smoothly beyond expectation, with the melodies rolling in to me." The sheer beauty of the piece was cogently described by the prominent Vienna-based critic Eduard Hanslick: "The quartet requires that the listener be considerably attentive and well informed, which, however, really pays off." The ensemble bearing the composer's name have linked up to the feted tradition of their great teachers - Ivan Moravec, Josef Vlach and Milan Škampa. They present Dvorák at his finest, both conventional and sophisticated.

This splendid disc was originally released on the Panton label, but happily reappears here on Supraphon. The fact that the conductorless Prague Chamber Orchestra can play this rhythmically tricky music with such confidence bespeaks long familiarity with Martinu's personal idiom. These are, one and all, fabulous pieces, particularly the Toccata e due canzone, a masterwork if ever there was one, and a much darker and more emotionally draining essay than the neo-baroque title might suggest.

Here's the bottom line: these are simply the finest versions of all three works. Tempos are lively, balances true, those long, syncopated, lyrical cantilenas in the first movements of the Tocatta and Sinfonietta soar as if self-propelled. No detail of Martinu's ceaselessly inventive orchestration passes unobserved, and his busy rhythms and obsessive ostinatos never turn mechanical (a potential issue in the Concerto Grosso especially). As usual, the Czech woodwinds (oboes especially) are a joy, and pianist Josef Hála plays delightfully in all three pieces. Excellent sonics offer an ideal combination of warmth and clarity. It doesn't get any better than this.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

This 4-disc set contains all of Dvorák’s piano quartets and quintets, plus his string quintets, the Sextet, and the Intermezzo (Nocturne) for string quintet–a movement that journeyed from the Fourth String Quartet to the Double Bass Quintet (the arrangement here), finally winding up as the Nocturne for String Orchestra. It remains one of the most harmonically forward-looking and poignant pieces that Dvorák ever wrote, and it’s no wonder that he loved it. One of the great things about the internet is the fact that everyone can use it to express their opinion. One of the worst things about the internet is that everyone can use it to express their opinion. In the latter category we find a whole host of what I call “dot-com cowards,” anonymous posters who feel they have a duty to share their views with the rest of us without having the guts or decency to stand behind their opinions by letting us know just who they are. Many of these people post on Amazon.com, where one such moron described these performances as “insensitive” and “heavy-handed,” and among the worst available.

It’s a pity, really, that such people are given a forum to display their ignorance, the evidence of which is strengthened by their need for anonymity and enchanting freedom from any feeling of obligation to describe a performance accurately. It’s not that I personally disagree with their judgment. It’s rather that the statements of what purport to be musical facts are audibly untrue. Consider, for example, the Panocha Quartet’s performance of finale of the “American” String Quintet. Is this “heavy handed?” Or how about the Suk Trio in the Second Piano Quartet’s first movement. Insensitive? Please.

The fact that we are dealing with Czech musicians does not guarantee that they will be successful in Czech music. The reason that these are great performances stems from the fact that they are played by great musicians generally. The Panocha Quartet is one of the supreme ensembles of its kind, period. The Suk Trio, similarly, which tackles the two Piano Quartets, is a superb ensemble, and not just in Dvorák (try their Beethoven). Anyone reading this will already know to take the random “reviews” posted on sales sites with a big grain of salt, but it still infuriates me to see audibly first class performances maligned by people too cowardly even to post their names.

-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

DVO?ÁK Czech Suite, op. 39. Polonaise in E?. Waltzes, op. 54 (arr. J. Burghauser) ? Jakub Hr?Îa, cond; Prague Philharmonia ? SUPRAPHON SU 3867 (55:10)


It is easy to lose count of just how many top-notch orchestras there are in Prague: the Czech Philharmonic, Prague Philharmonic, Prague Symphony, Prague Radio Symphony, and the conductorless Prague Chamber Orchestra. Last but far from least is the Prague Philharmonia: soft, silky strings, colorful winds, shining brass; they, too, have it all. What a lovely disc! No masterpieces, you may carp? Just Dvo?ák being Dvo?ák is enough. The Czech Suite is filled with an easy charm, and Burghauser?s arrangements of the eight waltzes for piano are sensitive to the composer?s every nuance. Note that these are not the so-called Prague Waltzes , nor do they include Dvo?ák?s well-known arrangements for strings of the first and fourth op. 54 Waltzes. They may lack the blazing fire of the op. 46 Slavonic Dances , but have more character and color than the op. 59 Legends . If Burghauser?s orchestrations sometimes lean slightly toward Tchaikovsky, so does Dvo?ák?s 1879 Polonaise.


Hr?Îa, a 25-year-old maestro, has been conducting since elementary school. He has already led a dozen Czech and Slovak orchestras, from the Czech Philharmonic on down, has directed a world premiere at the National Theater, Prague?s foremost opera house, teaches in Berlin, conducts in Paris, and has founded a new-music ensemble. He leads relaxed, gracious performances, which succeed because every detail is fully realized: every melody caressed, every harmony sounded, every rhythm caught. I recently commented that you can?t go wrong with any number of recordings of the Czech Suite , but this may be the loveliest of them all.


Supraphon?s 2005 recording in Prague?s Domovina Studio is natural and clear; one imagines this young orchestra sounds exactly as it does on this disc. Burghauser?s orchestral arrangements have been recorded at least once before, by the Prague Symphony under Ji?í B?lohlávek on a 1982 Supraphon disc, but don?t let that keep you from this delicious program.


FANFARE: James H. North

To listen to Moravec is to be reminded of another era, one in which there was no political correctness surrounding Bach and the modern piano. He gives a warm, richly rhetorical reading of the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue, one that is seemingly without ego and entirely compelling. The Mozart sonata is another highlight: Moravec was of course a supreme interpreter of his music and this reading of K333 is a gem. If I have qualms about the rhythmic freedom of the first movement of the Moonlight, they are offset by a lolloping Allegretto in which Moravec finds such airiness of texture that it never sounds too slow, and a fearlessly impulsive finale. Moravec’s Chopin is always special and even in a piece as familiar as the Op 27 No 2 Nocturne it is rendered fresh by the myriad shadings and colourings combined with an ear for Chopin’s inner lines.

The Op. 15, No 2 Nocturne, so often over-sweetened, here has a meditative quality, and even in the turbulent inner section the piece’s fundamental solemnity is never overshadowed. The Fourth Ballade is another highlight, the pianist repeatedly drawing out lines previously hidden. It’s a spacious view of the piece, Moravec allowing the detail to tell without losing sense of the piece’s architecture. The encores are similiarly captivating, whether in the inner voicings drawn out of the Op 63 No 3 Mazurka or in his enraptured ‘Clair de lune’, rapturously received. A fitting tribute to a great artist.

– Gramophone

The Pavel Haas Quartet is yet another exceptional young ensemble from the Czech Republic, and this debut recording is a major statement. They are coached by Milan Škampa, violist of the Smetana Quartet, and their performance of Janácek's "Intimate Letters" reveals their mentor's influence in details such as the quick tempo for the finale. Otherwise this is very much an individual performance of a work that seems able to absorb just about anything interpretively that you might care to throw at it.


In this case, we hear an unusually wide range of tempo contrasts, but also extreme care in making transitions from one section to the next. The frantic outburst in the middle of the second movement offers a particularly telling example, and the collective virtuosity required to phrase with such unanimity is really astonishing. In short, this is yet another first-rate performance of this glorious work, one of the pinnacles of the quartet literature. It also makes the ideal coupling with the Second String Quartet of Pavel Haas.


Haas is best known today for his brief Study for Strings, written in the Terezín concentration camp and first performed under Karel Ancerl and his orchestra of Jewish musicians. A pupil of Janácek, and the one composer often said to most resemble him in style, Haas died at Auschwitz in 1944. The Second Quartet's subtitle, "From the Monkey Mountains", refers to a popular Czech resort area and highlights the music's sources of inspiration: nature, folk music, and many of the same sights and sounds that Janácek evokes in his music (chamber or otherwise).


One unusual feature of this quartet is the inclusion of percussion in the finale ("Wild Night"). It works splendidly, though the piece also can be played without it. The only serious competition for this music comes from the Kocian Quartet on Praga, a disc containing all three Haas quartets, and good though that performance is, this one is even better, if only slightly so. Part of the reason stems from the perfectly balanced ensemble and beautifully smooth string sonority, a specialty of the best Czech quartets from the Smetana to the Panocha, Prazák, and Talich Quartets. This quality allows the players to really dig into the music without ever making an ugly sound (except when the music asks for one).


For example, that nasty explosion just before the end of "Intimate Letters", or the grinding sonorities of "Coach, Coachman, and Horse" in the Haas quartet, really stand out, much more so than in performances where a generalized timbral harshness is mistaken for intensity of expression. Kudos also to percussionist Colin Currie, whose trap-set playing meshes ideally with that of the quartet, neither too prominent nor too reticent, giving the Haas finale all of the color and personality that it needs. Great sonics too. A stupendous release! [10/16/2006]
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

When viewed with the distance of time, the album confirms its importance in the repertoire of the two great artists. The famed tone of Josef Suk’s violin is completely in the composer’s service, the instrument talks and sings, while Panenka’s take on Beethoven still astonishes with its wealth of articulation, purity of style and crystal-clear tone.

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

SMETANA The Two Widows • Jaroslav Krombholc, cond; Maria Tauberová ( Karolina ); Drahomira Tikalová ( Anežka ); Ivo Židek ( Ladislav ); Eduard Haken ( Mumlal ); Antonin Zlesák ( Toník ); Miloslava Fidlerová ( Lidunka ); Prague Natl Theatre O & Ch • SUPRAPHON 3926 (2 CDs: 124:45 Text and Translation)


Of the eight completed operas of Smetana, The Two Widows (or, in the original Czech, Dv? vdovy ) was finished fifth. It was the fourth to be performed, however, ahead of the historical pageant Libu?e , in its original and revised versions. Both versions, too, were considerable successes at their respective debuts, and especially valuable to a composer whose work was almost always under attack for political and musical reasons by powerful interests preferring a more Germanic style.


The original version of The Two Widows debuted within less than three months of its completion, in 1874. The story, drawn from a comedy by Pierre-Félicien Mallefille, concerned a pair of sisters who treat their mutual widowhood very differently. One, Karolina, relishes ruling her broad estates benignly, and contemplates entering politics. The other, Anežka, dresses in black and keeps the memory of her husband sacrosanct, avoiding a young man of leisure whom she once cared for while still married. When that young man turns up on Karolina’s lands while Anežka is visiting—pretending to poach the wildlife, and missing constantly—it’s time for a little scheming intervention. Low comedy was provided by the buffoonish bass role of Mumlal, Karolina’s gamekeeper.


Like the original Bartered Bride , this first version of The Two Widows was a comedy with dialogue. Smetana himself conducted that premiere, and wrote in his diary, “I received numerous wreaths and flowers, also a beautiful ornamented silver baton and silver wreath. . . . I was called out repeatedly after each act. Perfect success of the opera.” But the composer ultimately judged otherwise, for the second version made a few important changes clearly designed to give The Two Widows , well, legs. Smetana and his well-wishers wanted to see his operatic works performed abroad. As in the case of Carmen , which saw its debut a year later, the best way they saw to boost the international chances of an opera-with-spoken-word was to make it all music, all the time.


The recitative Smetana created in place of spoken text for his revision was fluent and varied in character, freely phrased and capable of moving between different levels of speech-song and concerted pieces. An example occurs in act II, scene 4, from recitative to parlando, and smoothly into an excellent trio (“Tob?, vdovo truchlivá”). Richard Strauss is said to have admired the way Smetana used recitative informally in The Two Widows , and saw it repeatedly while writing Der Rosenkavalier . Perhaps he was doing more than just thinking of this very scene, with its simple but beguiling waltz tune that starts midway through, with its sideslips into the relative minor.


The revision also involved the creation of what some might charitably call a secondary plot: a tiresome bit of wheezy humor, with interfering Mumlal sticking his head between two otherwise anonymous lovers, getting kissed, doing it again, and getting his nose boxed in stereo. It has the same rustic quality as Va?ek’s circus misadventures in The Bartered Bride , save that there, the incidents were truly woven into the story. Here, they simply pad the second act. Musically, it is another matter. Mumlal’s act II aria isn’t very interesting, but I find the trio scene for Mumlal, Toník, and Lidunka a delight.


Indeed, the opera displays a relatively high level of lyrical inspiration and craftsmanship throughout. While act I is slow—in part because it bore the larger amount of converted dialogue, in part because Mallefille’s original one-acter wasn’t really ideal for conversion into two acts—it has some choice content, including a short but delightful overture, a proud aria by Karolina (“Tot je jiná”), a hauntingly beautiful song for Ladislav (“Aj, vizte lovce tam”), and a wonderful concertato for all four main characters. Act II is almost pure gold: an attractive prelude, a heartwarming aria for Ladislav (“Když zavitá máj”), and a sparkling duet for Karolina and Anežka in which the latter quotes her sister’s earlier musical paean to non-marital freedom and tosses it astutely back. There’s a wonderful and lengthy scene for Ladislav and Anežka, where he reads a letter he’s written her, over music. (The liner notes claim this melodrama as unique, but as anybody familiar with opera should know, the ploy of reading a letter over powerful music was made very popular years earlier, with its best known example being a similar letter-reading scene in Verdi’s La traviata .) There is also a magnificent scene for Anežka, who finally regrets her behavior to Ladislav, addresses her husband beyond the grave, and lets go of what she has perceived as faithfulness, seeking the joys of living, instead. Not to be missed either are a series of concerted numbers for several voices, and, of course, one excellent polka.


There isn’t any available competition for this album. The 1970s recording for Supraphon is currently out of print and unattainable on most Web sites. (I just found a used version selling for over $360, but that’s ridiculous.) František Jilek led a spirited reading with a well-rounded but never outstanding cast. Its best feature is, frankly, the sound. It is far better than what Supraphon could accomplish in 1956, and that’s the date of this boxy reissue under Krombholc. Digital re-mastering hasn’t done a thing to rebalance the neglected midrange frequencies, or to deal with the constriction of the original tapes. But Krombholc, a fine conductor in his own right, has the advantage of a superior Karolina—almost Marschallin-like in her brightness, ease of phrasing, and coloratura—and a richer, slightly darker, more lyrical Anežka, who does full justice to her act II scene. Ivo Židek is slightly off his best, bright but occasionally pinched at the top, sometimes sliding in an unconvincing fashion. But he has a good, lyric voice, fine enunciation, and an ardent approach to this music that requires more than heft and vocal perfection. My only real disappointment in the cast was Eduard Haken, whose dark bass occasionally wobbles, and who goes disastrously askew when asked to do any figurations. Otherwise, he’s more than satisfactory, as are Zlesák and Fidlerová in their minor parts. All the performers sound thoroughly at home in their parts, and have that sense of rightness in scenes together that only comes from working in close proximity for a length of time.


A less appealing reading would still get a recommendation on the strength of the score, though the deficiencies would be noted. Here, the reservations are few. Definitely recommended.


FANFARE: Barry Brenesal

I consider this recording of Dvorak's cello concerto the best I have ever made. And even though later on I recorded the concerto another seven times, it is the one that means the most to me. Throughout my life I have remained faithful to that which Vaclav Talich taught me.' - Rostropovich Supraphon returns to the most celebrated recording of the most frequently performed cello concerto and it's release, directly mastered in pure analogue, is a very special treat for lovers of the warm, rich vinyl sound. A delicacy for true connoisseurs!