Josef Spacek and Petr Popelka once again in the story of Martinu's music and life! "I'll also be writing a violin concerto for an American, the same person Stravinsky wrote one for; that will be good advertising for me, but also a lot of work." For Bohuslav Martinu, the violin was the instrument especially close to his heart, but it was also companion. He played in the Czech Philharmonic as a violinist, and it was the violin that took him to Paris, the city which enchanted him and become his home for 17 years before the war drove him to America. More than once, the violin was his introduction to the "high society" of the music world. The American from the quoted letter was the star violinist Samuel Dushkin. The violinist praised the work and Martinu ("He really is a nice fellow. [...] he has a very exceptional sense for the violin"), but he constantly demanded more and more changes to the concerto, and in the end the performance did not take place. The score was lost, then it was rediscovered and finally premiered in 1973 by Josef Suk with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Georg Solti. At the time when Martinu's First Violin Concerto was being written, it was the same American Dushkin who was collaborating with Igor Stravinsky on a different work based on music from the neoclassical ballet The Fairy's Kiss; together, they were creating a lovely suite titled Divertimento for violin and piano. In 1943, it was Mischa Elman, another star violinist, who commissioned Martinu's Second Violin Concerto. Elman also gave the concerto it's world premiere with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Serge Koussevitzky. With a new look at Martinu's violin concertos, Josef Spacek and Petr Popelka are following up on their acclaimed album with Martinu's Concerto for violin, piano, and orchestra (Supraphon 2023). Once again, they prove that there is always something to discover and to admire in the music of Bohuslav Martinu.

Exciting music by Shostakovich and Prokofiev played by a violinist of the new generation In 2022, it was with Shostakovich's First Violin Concerto that Daniel Matejca, 17 years old at the time, triumphed at the competition Eurovision Young Musicians. Reviewers at journals including Gramophone, BBC Music Magazine, and Classica enthusiastically compared his Supraphon debut album of the complete sonatas for solo violin by Eugene Ysaye (2023) with recordings made by today's star violinists. It was clear that after that solo album, Matejca would soon return to the studio to record Shostakovich's First Concerto. The composer wrote it in 1947/48 for David Oistrakh. Shostakovich, however, had been labelled a "formalist", and is prominent use of Jewish musical motifs was another obstacle under the antisemitic Soviet regime, so the premiere of this exciting work was postponed until after Stalin's death. Sergei Prokofiev worked on his First Violin Concerto intermittently between 1914 and 1917. Full of contrasting passages, the work differs sharply from Shostakovich's dramatic concerto. Daniel Matejca is in his element in both concertos, playing with stirring energy and technical virtuosity, expressing a wide range of emotions, ranging from rawness to delicacy and captivating depth. The conductor Tomas Netopil is an experienced accompanist in the best sense of the word, shaping the orchestra's sound with a wide range of dynamic and colours, but above all keeping in perfect step with the soloist as he tells his story. The recording also features sound of extraordinary colour, presence, and spatial plasticity.

Karel Husa and the Belfiato Quintet - music inspired by freedom, recollections, and birds / Following the Prague Symphony Orchestra (CD Music for Prague, 2021) and the clarinettist Anna Paulova (2023), the Belfiato Quintet has also headed down the path of discovering the remarkable works of Karel Husa, a Pulitzer Prize and Grawemeyer Award winner, and one of the most prominent figures of Czech 20th-century music. Husa went to Paris to study underNadia Boulanger and Arthur Honegger. After the communist putsch of February 1948, he decided to remain abroad, working at Cornell University in the USA most of his life. He never forgot his homeland, however. This can be heard, for example, in his colourfulSerenade for Wind Quintet, Strings, Xylophone and Harp, which draws upon material from his earlier Evocations de Slovaquie. In these works, the composer relived his difficult decision not to return to his homeland. About Recollections for wind quintet and piano, the composer said: "Recollections are vivid, but not exactly precise. The way we remember things is a mix of accuracy and fancy... To accomplish all this, I wanted the composition to develop from simple tones and to return to them, all the while researching new combinations and sonorities in the quintet." Husa put his love of birds into his Five Poems for wind quintet, "for these wonderful creatures, who embellish our lives so magically"; he employs a wide range of musical resources including microtones and aleatory. In the Serenade, the superb BelfiatoQuintet is joined by the Prague Philharmonia led by Emmanuel Villaume, and inRecollections by Matous Zukal, a major talent among today's young pianists.

Martinu in the hands of the Pavel Haas Quartet - revealing and captivating / Pavel Haas Quartet, one of the very top ensembles on the worldwide chamber music scene, has been devoting itself to works for quartet by Bohuslav Martinu for a number of years and has given complete presentations of them, including a series of concerts at London's Wigmore Hall. Martinu's deep affinity for the quartet genre is evident throughout his oeuvre: "I can't tell you what pleasure I feel when working with those four voices... I somehow feel at home with the quartet, intimate, happy... Being independent, free, they do as they wish, and despite that, they create harmonious interplay, forming something, a new entity and a harmonic whole". For this recording, they have chosen the 2nd, 3rd, 5th, and 7th quartets - four widely different worlds that together create an exciting musical arch spanning more than two decades of the 20th century. The Second String Quartet was Martinu's breakthrough, earning himinternational attention, then in the Third the composer gave himself plenty of room for experimentation. The Fifth (Paris, 1938) is full of emotions and inner tension, while in the post-war Seventh (New York 1947), Martinu seems to have returned to Dvorakian romantic lyricism and melodiousness. In interpretations by the Pavel Haas Quartet, these works are heard with an new, unexpected intensity. Renowned for their rich, colourful sound, fascinating interplay, and feel for details, the Pavel Haas Quartet is able not only to understand Martinu's language, but also to communicate it convincingly and draw listeners into the inner world of one of the greatest Czech composers of the 20th century

Bach - Berio - Boulez: Marek svejkar's bold and brilliant debut The clarinet is one of the instruments with the broadest spectrum of sonic possibilities in terms of it's range of dynamics and pitches. It received the greatest attention during the era of Classicism both in solo parts in concertos and in the roles of a chamber music partner and an orchestral instrument. It had to wait until the 20th century for works featuring it's unaccompanied solo voice in it's full range of colours. Outstanding among the composers who created such works are two figures who fundamentally shaped musical thinking in the latter half of the 20th century: Luciano Berio and Pierre Boulez. Commemorating the 100th anniversaries of both men's birth, this recording covers their complete music for solo clarinet. Berio and Boulez sought new ways to organise music in time and space, and both took inspiration from poetry. Boulez gave symbolic expression to their quest: "It must be our concern... to jettison the concept of a work as a simple journey starting with a departure and ending with an arrival." One of the things that inspired Berio's idea of "polyphonic music for a monophonic instrument" were works by J. S. Bach. One of them, Partita in A minor for solo flute, is heard on this recording in juxtaposition with the modernism of the 20th century. The clarinettist Marek svejkar is a laureate of the Premier Prix from Paris's prestigious Conservatoire National Superieur, and he has been a winner of international competitions including events in Markneukirchen, Germany, and in Carlino, Italy. He has appeared as a soloist with the Czech Philharmonic and with Jiri Belohlavek, and having participated at the Karajan Academy of the Berlin Philharmonic, he is now enrolled at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome under the tutelage of Alessandro Carbonare. The elite circle of European clarinettists is now within Marek svejkar's reach.

The virtuosic Supraphon debut of Jan Schulmeister So far, the career of the Czech pianist Jan Schulmeister has been distinguished by victories at dozens of international competitions (including the 2019 Cesar Franck Piano Competition in Belgium, the 2021 North International Music Competition in Sweden, and the 2022 Manhattan International Competition in the USA), to which he added Third Prize at the prestigious Cliburn Junior Competition (Dallas, USA) in 2023 at 17 years of age. For his Supraphon debut, he has chosen works of the late 19th century by Russian composers, music that is firmly grounded in the national tradition but that often seeks out and remains open to stimuli from the surrounding world. The oldest of them, Mussorgsky, was a loner without any depth of academic training, but he greatly advanced the boundaries of musical expression. In Pictures at an Exhibition, he accompanies listeners at an imaginary exhibition of paintings by his late friend, the painter and architect Viktor Hartmann. Rachmaninoff wrote his lovely cycle of piano pieces Moments musicaux under time pressure while facing a profound existential and creative crisis. His classmate Scriabin, no less brilliant a pianist, chose the path of a visionary and an experimenter as a composer, as we can hear from an early opus he wrote for piano (at age 16), the Etude in C sharp minor, Op. 2, No. 1. His later Five Preludes, Op. 16 (1895) reflect the omnipresent Impressionism of Paris at the end of the century. In this repertoire, Jan Schulmeister can demonstrate all of his qualities - virtuosic technique and depth of musical feeling.

Novak's complete quartets for the first time in the anointed hands of the Stamic Quartet For an impressive forty years, the Stamic Quartet (established in 1985) have been enjoying countless international successes both in concert performances and studio recordings. Just during the last fifteen years, the Supraphon label has released albums of the ensemble featuring the first recordings of the complete works for string quartet by J. B. Foerster (2010), Sofia Gubaidulina (2012), and Karel Kovarovic (2019). For the Stamic Quartet's fortieth anniversary, they have recorded this complete set of Vitezslav Novak's quartets, which also definitely completes the ensemble's remarkable list of recordings. Nearly forty years separate the First Quartet by Dvorak's 29-year-old pupil, inspired by the countryside of Moravia and Slovakia and by folk music, from the Third Quartet, with it's anxious premonitions of war. The works demonstrate a considerable stylistic shift in the composer's musical language. From the foundations of the musical traditions of Romanticism, through inspiration from Moravian and Slovak folklore, Novak arrived at a personal style with integral components including the church modes, the sonic world of Impressionism, a polyphonic sensibility for musical structure (as is clear from the extensive fugue of the Second Quartet), and rhythmic richness. The experienced Stamic Quartet is the first ensemble to record Novak's complete quartets, and it has done so with commitment that would be the envy of many young ensembles.

Bohuslav Martinu - a matter of the heart for Vilem Vlcek In 1910, when the director of the Prague Conservatoire expelled Martinu from the school because of his "incorrigible negligence", he assuredly had no idea the 20-year-old youth would become one of the most famous composers of the 20th century. Three years later, the young student sold his violin in Paris to be able to concentrate fully on composition. About his beginnings, the composer later declared that he was "simply unable to learn those things", and instead had to "come up with my own feeling somehow". Martinu devoted himself more to the cello than any other composer of his generation, writing both chamber works and concertos. The present recording of his complete works for cello and piano was made at the Musik Akademie Basel, just a few kilometres from Schonenberg, where Martinu spent the last years of his life. The works were mostly written for famous cellists who were often the composer's friends (Frank, Cassado, Fournier, Honegger, Piatigorsky, S�dlo etc.). He wrote five compositions in a lighter character in Paris between 1929 and 1931. The more serious works (three sonatas and two compositions in variation form) were written between 1939 and the end of the composer's life; the Variations on a Slovak Folk Song became his last chamber work, and in it one hears unmistakeably his yearning for the homeland to which he could not return. The young Vilem Vlcek has enjoyed success at competitions (victory at the Penderecki Cello Competition in Krakow, the 2023 Markneukirchen International Instrumental Competition, the 2022 Rahn Musikpreis etc.) and has worked with top orchestras (the Czech Philharmonic, the Prague Symphony Orchestra, the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra, the Basel Chamber Orchestra etc.), but above all, what wins over listeners is the expressive depth of his playing, inspired on this recording by the musicianship of the wonderful pianist Denis Linnik.

Suk, Martinu, and Fiser in the creative hands of young virtuosos The Supraphon debut of 18-year-old Daniel Matejca (Ysaye - Violin Sonatas, 2023) has attracted great attention with critics around the world writing about his remarkable talent, comparing his recording with the very best. That same year, the 17-year-old pianist Jan Schulmeister came away from Texas with third prize at the prestigious Cliburn Junior Competition. And also that year, the Matejca - Schulmeister duo celebrated victory in the chamber music category at the competition Concertino Praga; that opened them the door to the studio for the making of this recording. Instead of brilliant, virtuosic show pieces, the young artists chose challenging Czech repertoire of the 20th century with pivotal works by Suk, Martinu, and Lubos Fiser. Martinu composed his Czech Rhapsody in the USA just after the end of the Second World War for Fritz Kreisler, who was 70 years old by then. Even today, this beautiful composition is a great technical challenge for the soloist. Martinu's First Violin Sonata (1929) still belongs to the composer's Paris period, as can be seen from jazz elements and the sometimes impressionistic mood of the piano part. The third composer, Lubos Fiser, is known mainly in his homeland, but his music also earned international awards (UNESCO prize, Prix d'Italia). His violin sonata The Hands was originally supposed to have been titled Crux, but that was completely unacceptable during the period of harsh communist rule. In the words of Ivan straus, who premiered the sonata, "the composition could be interpreted as a loose depiction of the Stations of the Cross at Easter with dramatic moments of whipping, hatred, and anxiety followed by a funeral procession (pizzicato) and then the glorious Resurrection in the concluding apotheosis to the sound of bells."

The three Bartok concertos - Tomas Vrana's exciting debut Bartok as an uncompromising individualist, Bartok as an architect, Bartok as a poet - that could be a simplified characterisation of his three piano concertos; three works that capture in a surprisingly fitting way the stages of the composer's life, from the discovery of his own musical language to refinement and finally his acceptance of the difficult end to his life's journey. The calm and peaceful mood of the most frequently played Third Piano Concerto contrasts strikingly with the relentlessly tempestuous struggle of the First and the lively vitality of the Second. To this day, however, extreme technical difficulty hinders the more frequent performing of these works. The playing of the young piano virtuoso Tomas Vrana, joined on the recording by the Janacek Philharmonic Ostrava and the Hungarian conductor Gabor Kali, definitely goes well beyond mere technical mastery in the works. His debut received high praise from Jean-Efflam Bavouzet: "Apart from it being quite rare to see a pianist so dedicated to such difficult pieces, it is even less common to see a young musician mastering them with such musical intelligence and deep knowledge of the orchestra score coupled with a great sense of rhythm and a masterful technique!" Tomas Vrana also exhibited similar sensitivity and mastery in his use of language - he accompanied his recording with an interesting text for the CD booklet.

Alois Haba has gone down in the history of 20th-century music as an experimenter. He studied in Vienna and Berlin under Franz Schreker, studied the tonal principles of non-European music, and developed his own theory of micro-intervallic music. However, his enthusiasm for microtonal music narrowed the perception of his creative legacy solely to it's experimental component, although more than half of his works are compositions in the usual system of semitones. As he himself said, he was trying "to find the path from non-traditional training to artistically independent creative work with strongly altered harmony and melody in order to arrive at a personal means of expression following the line leading from Bach to Schumann and on to Reger." He achieved this goal in the Sonata, Op. 3, for which he received much praise from Schreker, while Vitezslav Novak "with condescending humour called it a 'sonata for three hands'". Erwin Schulhoff premiered the Two Grotesque Pieces in 1922 in Berlin alongside compositions by Satie, Casella, and Stravinsky, and according to a critic, "Haba's compositions made a far more authentic impression than much that surrounded them." After the Toccata quasi una fantasia (1931), Haba returned to writing piano music one last time 40 years later at the end of his life with his Six Moods. As a student in Vienna and Ghent, the pianist Miroslav Beinhauer focused on music of the 20th and 21st centuries. He was introduced to Haba through his compositions for sixth-tone harmonium (Beinhauer is the only player of this instrument, created by Haba), and he went on to study Haba's complete works for "ordinary" piano as well. These works are little known and worthy of attention. The first complete recording of Haba's works for "ordinary" piano. Haba surprisingly without micro-intervals

The name of the young Czech virtuoso Michaela Koudelkova should be committed well to memory. She has far more going for her than just the names of her teachers (Peter Holtslag, Erik Bosgraaf). She is a winner of the Tel Aviv Recorder Competition and a finalist of the York Early Music International Young Artists Competition in England, and her solo recitals have included an appearance at the prestigious Oude Muziek Festival in Utrecht. Her Supraphon debut, for which she has chosen masterworks by Handel and Corelli, showcases her uncompromising technique, but above all it shows her supreme musical sensitivity and her interpretive stylishness, including the ability to improvise, participating in the recreation of notated works. Of all the sonatas listed on the album, only one is intended for her instrument; the rest were originally for violin or transverse flute. Of course, a characteristic of the baroque era was great freedom in the choice of solo instruments, as is clear from period printed editions, and the recorder was very popular at the time. Besides the most common alto and soprano recorders, the recording also features an instrument with a darker timbre, the voice flute in D, which was popular in England, and the sixth flute, pitched an octave higher and often used for music played between acts of Handel's London operas. Besides sonatas by Handel, the soloist has also chosen three sonatas from Corelli's Opus 5. Over the centuries, the art of improvisation has been taught using the passaggi in the slow movements of the twelve violin sonatas in this iconic collection. The last and most famous sonata, "Follia", is the brilliant and rather experimental climax of the album, combining the creativity of the composer with that of the performers. Lightness, liveliness, spontaneity, bravura, intoxicating richness of sound - Michaela Koudelkova's exciting Handel and Corelli

The unmistakable bass of Tomas Selc at the service of Jan Dismas Zelenka Tomas Selc devotes himself to the cantata and oratorio literature of the 18th through the 20th centuries, romantic lieder, and opera, collaborating with outstanding orchestras, ensembles, and conductors (Bamberger Symphoniker, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire, Collegium 1704, Collegium Vocale Gent, Taverner Consort etc.). It is, however, in the works of Jan Dismas Zelenka and of J. S. Bach that he seems to be most at home. Therefore, the choice of Zelenka for his Supraphon debut was clear, as was his collaboration with the renowned ensemble Collegium Marianum. The album presents three of Zelenka's great liturgical works for bass, composed in the milieu of the Dresden court ensemble within a span of seven years. The masterfully invoked atmosphere of gloom of the first Lamentation of Jeremiah (1722) for the Tenebrae liturgy, dignified praise of the Lord in the psalm Confitebor tibi Domine (1729), and pleading cries from this world's vale of tears in the Marian antiphon Salve Regina (1724) are brought to us with all their urgency by the silky colour of selc's voice. The Flute Concerto by Giuseppe Tartini reminds us that it is not only from the depths of darkness that we cry out; heights of gentle consolation are truly within reach as well. Those heights resound here in the tender and colourful tones of the flute played by Jana Semeradova, driving the clouds away and brings smiles to our faces. Depths of darkness and radiant lightness of being are two inseparable dimensions of life on this earth.

Mainstays of Spanish and South American guitar music in a rediscovered rare recording In Prague at the turn of September and October 1969, for four days Supraphon's legendary Domovina studio was the home of the 37-year-old Konrad Ragossnig. The guitarist was in top form; he had studied in Spain under Andres Segovia, the "king of the classical guitar", had won the ORTF competition in Paris, and was teaching guitar in Basel at the Musik-Akademie and in Vienna at the Universitat fur Musik und darstellende Kunst. He was giving solo concerts and appearing with orchestras around Europe, the USA, and the Far East. Besides the classical guitar, he had also mastered the Renaissance lute when interest in early music and it's authentic interpretation was just reawakening in western Europe. His chamber music partners included tenor Peter Schreier and flautist Hans Martin Linde. Now in the Prague studio, Ragossnig returned to mainstays of Spanish and South American guitar music. Some of the pieces are written specifically for his instrument, while others (Albeniz, Granados) are piano works that first became truly famous in guitar transcriptions. In the beautiful acoustics of the Domovina Studio, the recording team captured all the superb qualities (beauty of tone, flawless technical brilliance, subtle inflections of rhythm, dynamics, and articulation) that make his playing and this recording special. Over half a century later, this recording remains a rare gem documenting the guitar literature.

Karel Ancerl in the special company of world-famous soloists. The great success of the 15-CD set Ancerl Live Recordings (2022 - Choc de Classica, Diapason d'Or etc.) and of the series Ancerl Gold Edition (2002-2008) is indicative of Karel Ancerl's firm standing among the most important conductors of the post-war world. The present album tiesin with the boxed set mentioned above; this time, our selection from the Czech Radio archive contains live recordings with the conductor Ancerl in the role of an accompanist. The list of soloists he invited for collaboration is imposing. Predominant among these names are world-famous artists from the Soviet Union, to which Czechoslovakia was allied in those days, with Prague serving as the Eastern Bloc's gateway to the West. The greatest treasures are the two oldest recordings: unique documentation of Dvorak's Violin Concerto with David Oistrakh (1950), which played a major part in the choice of Ancerlas the chief conductor of the Czech Philharmonic after Kubelik's emigration, and the oldest recording of Dvorak's Cello Concerto with Rostropovich, issued here for the first time, made two weeks before Rostropovich's legendary studio recording with Vaclav Talich. Often, however, the artists standing to Ancerl's left were stars coming to Prague from the West as well as great Czech artists. The album authentically captures the unrepeatable performances of soloists and orchestra. All of these recordings have been carefully remastered from the original analogue tapes. Lovers of historical recordings will not hesitate.