Martinu: Violin Concertos, Rhapsody / Suk, Neumann, Czech Po

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MARTIn? Violin Concertos: No.1; No. 2. Rhapsody-Concerto 1 • Josef Suk (vn, va 1 ); Václav Neumann, cond; Czech PO • SUPRAPHON 3967 (72:31)


As recently as 32:4, I had occasion to review a four-disc Supraphon collection of Martin? works for violin and piano, a repackaging of recordings made between September of 1996 and April of 1998. The violinist on that set was Bohuslav Matoušek, a name probably not as familiar to U.S. audiences as that of world-renowned violinist Josef Suk, the soloist on this current Supraphon offering. In the aforementioned review, I noted that Suk had also explored some of Martin?’s music on disc, but not to the extent that Matoušek had. Here, on this compilation of twice previously released material, we are able to hear Suk in recordings made in 1973 (the two violin concertos) and 1987 (the viola work). What has me questioning this release is that it’s the exact same recording that was already released once before in 1998 as a mid-priced Supraphon CD (111969). Its present 2009 reincarnation sports a new album cover, but is the same recording and is still selling at the same midprice of $11.99. Is this yet another case of getting people to repurchase something they already own by pouring an old wine into a new bottle? Or is it yet another sign that so many record companies today are running on empty, simply recycling their back catalogs over and over again?


Bohuslav Martin? (1890–1959) was a 20th-century composer with strong ties to his 19th-century Czech forebears, Josef Bohuslav Foerster and Josef Suk, the composer. But Martin? left his homeland for Paris, where he studied with Roussel, encountered the music of Debussy, the jazz-infused musical and social cultures of Les Six, and the neo-Classicism of Stravinsky. In the early 1940s, Martin? spent time in the U.S., writing for leading American orchestras. He returned briefly to Czechoslovakia, but exiled himself to Switzerland when his country became a Soviet satellite in 1948. Martin?’s music is an assimilation of many influences and styles. Hard-driving motor rhythms and acidulous harmonies are recurrent and prominent features; but never far from the surface beats the heart of a profoundly Romantic soul that resonates with the melodic inflections of native Bohemian song. Listen to the Andante of the Violin Concerto No. 1 to hear a Czech-tinged tune that almost cries out to be set to words; or to the lyrical, rhapsodic outpourings of the Andante moderato of the Violin Concerto No. 2 and the Molto adagio of the Rhapsody-Concerto for viola.


This is gorgeous music that should be in everyone’s collection; and as performed by Josef Suk in his prime and the great Czech Philharmonic under one of its great conductors, Václav Neumann, these performances are rather more idiomatic, I think, than Isabelle Faust’s fairly recent recording of the Violin Concerto No. 2 with Ji?í B?lohlávek and the Prague Philharmonia, and a bit more so, too, than Jennifer Koh’s rendition of the same piece with Carlos Kalmar and Chicago’s Grant Park Orchestra. Though I must say I was quite smitten by Koh’s playing on a Çedille recording of the Schuman sonatas (see 30:6), so much so, in fact, that reviews by Robert Maxham and William Zagorski prompted me to acquire Koh’s Martin? and Szymanowski CD, which I hadn’t yet heard at the time of my Schumann entry.


The Suk/Neumann collaboration is strongly recommended; but don’t be fooled by the new packaging. It’s the same recording at the same price that’s now on its third circumnavigation of the globe.


FANFARE: Jerry Dubins


Product Description:

  • Release Date: January 23, 2009


  • Catalog Number: SU3967-2


  • UPC: 099925396725


  • Label: Supraphon


  • Number of Discs: 1


  • Composer: Bohuslav Martinů


  • Conductor: Václav Neumann


  • Orchestra/Ensemble: Czech Philharmonic Orchestra


  • Performer: Josef Suk