This release presents music played at Charles University in Prague according to mid-15th-century sources, following the Hussite wars and the institution’s renovation. The album provides a wide array of liturgical music, sacred pieces by young clerics, as well as music the university students played for entertainment. It features Gregorian chant, anonymous creations and compositions by Bernard de Cluny, Petrus Wilhelmi de Grudencz and Antonio da Cividale. Contemporary university students would be hard pressed to imagine life without social networking on their smartphones. In the 15th century, the role of social networking was pursued by communal singing, bringing the students together and being part of their everyday life on a variety of occasions. The foundation charter of the Recek College of Charles University in Prague (1438) stipulated for the students the duty to perform music every day within the liturgical services. On the other hand, secular music, including instrumental and dance, was prohibited (especially playing resonant instruments, singing in the vernacular languages and ribald songs), but the students constantly bent the rules. The liturgy prescribed for each day of the week served as the basis for the repertoire of the present recording, which, however, also affords scope to the secular music that in all likelihood the students used to play during their leisure time beyond the walls of the college. The unique album of Schola Gregoriana Pragensis and their very special guest, the clavisimbalist Corina Marti (La Morra), is being released along with an extensive study providing a comprehensive depiction of the 15th-century university music life. The fruit of the collaboration between musicians and musicologists from across Europe is a book with an album, an artefact that will become a natural part of the library of every connoisseur and lover of medieval music.

Karel Husa – a Czech-born composer whose name resonates more on an international scale than in his native country. The winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the Grawemeyer Award, he was commissioned to write music for the New York Philharmonic, and other distinguished orchestras and artists. The centenary of Karel Husa’s birth is a unique opportunity to recall his remarkable fate and oeuvre. During World War II, he lived in Nazi-occupied Prague. Following his graduation from the Prague Conservatory, with a concert performed with the Prague Symphony Orchestra (1944), Husa left for Paris to study composition with Arthur Honegger and Nadia Boulanger. The performance in Prague of his Three Frescoes with the Prague Symphony Orchestra in 1949 made it evident that Husa’s music no longer fitted the Communist ideologues’ pigeonholes. Yet Husa did not return to his homeland, opting instead to continue his studies abroad. Later on, he settled in the USA. When it comes to the Warsaw Pact armies’ invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968, he got to hear about it on Detroit Radio. Husa expressed his dismay in Music for Prague 1968. The piece contains a quotation of the 15th-century Hussite war song Ktož jsú Boží bojovníci, by which the composer also referenced Václav Talich’s emotional performance of Bedrich Smetana’s My Country in Nazi-occupied Prague. Husa could only begin freely visiting his beloved Prague in the wake of the November 1989 Revolution, yet he pointed out that he kept strolling the city streets in his dreams and works. The present album maps Husa’s creative periods between 1947 and 1983, and it features the very first studio recording of his Three Frescoes.

Isn't it possible to turn some local material into duets, for example Moravian songs? This question was posed by Jan Neff, himself from Moravia, who grew tired of repeating German songs over and over again at the piano with his wife and Anton�n Dvor�k. His question in fact stood at the birth of Moravian Duets and also marked the beginning of Dvor�k's journey abroad. "Why not, find good lyrics and I will take care of the rest." When the composer got the first selection of folk songs from Su�il's collection, he decided to take only the lyrics and provide them with his own tunes. As soon as the duets got into the hands of Johannes Brahms (who was a member of a committee that assessed Dvor�k's application for a state scholarship), the well-established composer did not hesitate to recommend them to his Berlin publisher Fritz Simrock. "When you play them, you will enjoy them just as I did, and as a publisher you will especially be pleased by their unique beauty." It was Simrock who initiated the composition of a four-hand version of the Slavonic Dances that led to Dvor�k's first major international success. The present recording is unique in another aspect as well: the complete set of 23 Moravian Duets have been played and recorded on Dvor�k's original grand piano, a 1879 B�sendorfer that is a pride of the Anton�n Dvor�k Museum in Prague. The challenge was taken hold of by young musicians who are not only crowned by international laurels but also possess a sensitivity both for the charm of Dvor�k's songs and the unique timbres of the instrument touched by the composer's own hands.

“The English horn needs a soft, round vibrato ... We are among those who can move people to tears,” says Dominik Wollenweber about his instrument. Let us not be misled by the humble conduct, and the absence of laudatory articles and glossy photographs. Wollenweber is one of the world’s finest cor anglais players. Claudio Abbado has even labelled him the “best player of all time”. Since 1993, Dominik Wollenweber has been with the Berliner Philharmoniker, members of which keep him company throughout the present recording. Conducted by Sir Simon Rattle, the orchestra accompany Wollenweber in Sibelius’s wonderful tone poem The Swan of Tuonela. It is difficult to imagine an album dedicated to the English horn without the Largo from Dvorák’s New World Symphony or without the solo from Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde. On the other hand, Bach’s Concerto in G major and Schubert’s Impromptu No. 3 may come as a surprise, while Jean Françaix’s Quartet is simply bound to lift the listener’s spirit. If you love the English horn’s singularly dark velvety color, which otherwise can only be heard rather as a gleam of a gem stone on the large canvases of symphonic pieces, then this album is definitely for you. And those who have yet to discover the beauty of the cor anglais will undoubtedly savor the musical menu drawn up by a true master of the instrument. An irresistibly lovely tone. The English horn in the hands of a true master.

Franti�ek Ign�c Anton�n Tuma was one of the Czech composers to have considerably influenced 18th-century European music. Along with J. D. Zelenka and G T. Muffat, he has been named among the finest pupils of Johann Joseph Fux, and, just like Zelenka, he rubbed shoulders with the political and social elite of his time. He was highly esteemed in Vienna, with his sacred music even serving as a model for younger composers, including Joseph Haydn and W. A. Mozart. A dexterous theorbist and gambist, at the age of 19 Tuma most likely participated in the celebrations marking the coronation in Prague of Emperor Charles VI in 1723. Nineteen years later, in 1742, Tuma's Requiem in c accompanied the soul mass for the self-same monarch on the occasion of the transfer of his remains to the sarcophagus in the Capuchin Crypt in Vienna. At the time, Tuma worked as Kapellmeister of the music ensemble set up by Charles's widow, Empress Elisabeth Christine. The Requiem in D minor, whose instrumentation was commensurate to the significance of the event (the orchestra was enhanced by a cornett, two trombones, a bassoon and two natural trumpets), was again heard at the funeral of Elisabeth Christine herself, in 1750. Tuma enjoyed great respect on the part of Empress Maria Theresa, who probably personally commissioned from him the Miserere in c. It comes as no surprise that following four acclaimed recordings of F. X. Richter's works Czech Ensemble Baroque have focused on Tuma. His music definitely deserves our attention. A requiem for an Emperor - a breath of new life to an Imperial Kapellmeister.

The road between Vienna and Prague, taken in 1787 by the 31-year-old Mozart so as to attend the premiere of his opera Don Giovanni, was familiar to a number of other musicians. It was a journey they made in both directions, often with the vision of attaining a better life at the other end. The Czech songs dating from the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, which form the axis of the present album, may be a revelation for many a listener – as may be the fact that Czech composers mainly set to music German and Italian texts. This could in part have been down to the boom of the German song for home music-making (and the associated publishing business), as well as the mass distribution of keyboard instruments in the 1780s. According to J. W. Goethe, the ability to play the piano was one of the qualities of well-bred young women that increased their chances of finding a good match ... Leopold Koželuch was one of Vienna’s most successful song composers, and, owing to, among other things, his diplomatic skills, he even eclipsed the bright star of Mozart. The Prague-based composer F. A. Rösler, whose songs are often indistinguishable from those of Mozart’s, did his utmost to preserve Mozart’s legacy following his death. And similarly to Rösler, V. J. Tomášek, who too remained faithful to Prague, possessed a refined literary taste, as duly reflected in his selection of the texts for his songs. The recording captures Martina Janková’s engrossing voice, replete with vitality, innocence, vigour and lightness, which so becomes the Mozart repertoire. Under the hands of Barbara Maria Willi, the bright and colourful sound of the one and only preserved fortepiano built by F. J. Baumeister (1797) will be for many yet another surprise and discovery on this musical odyssey. The previously untraced journeys of Czech songs between Mozart’s Prague and Vienna.

Leo� Jan�cek is one of the composers who brought fame to Czech music worldwide, and his Glagolitic Mass, Sinfonietta and mature operas are regularly performed on prominent stages around the globe. Yet the composer's folk-based works have remained relatively little known, even though traditional songs pulsate in the very heart of his music, significantly forming his singular idiom, and serving as a source of inspiration without which Jan�cek's oeuvre simply cannot be imagined. Owing to the artist's collecting passion, today we can enjoy numerous lovely songs which have been preserved in both music scores and period audio recordings. The collections Moravian and Hukvaldy Folk Poetry in Songs contain the most beautiful of them all. Jan�cek left the songs in their pure form, afforded to them by the landscape and the people living in it, merely - and with the sensitivity of a precious painting restorer - furnishing them with congenial piano accompaniments. The landscape and the language of Jan�cek's Hukvaldy and Moravia have also been imprinted in the very souls of the artists who have recorded this album, focusing on the purity of folk songs, reflecting simple directness and enchanting poetics. The present recording is the fruit of their joint seeking and endeavor to get in touch with the candid and deeply symbolic world of the songs. Into the very heart of Jan�cek's singular musical universe

The lute, undoubtedly the most popular instrument of European townsfolk and aristocrats in the 16th and 17th centuries, was widely played in Prague during the reign of Emperor Rudolf II. A manuscript of lute tablatures known as the Codex Jacobides was in all likelihood written by a musically gifted student of the Prague University in the early 17th century. It features notations of period dances, intabulations of songs, and vocal polyphonic secular and sacred pieces; miniatures of German, English, French, Italian, Polish and Spanish provenience. Extremely intriguing are the intabulations of vocal villanelle by Jacob Regnart, who served as Kapellmeister at Rudolf II’s court in Prague. Originally set to German texts, these pieces had found their way from Prague Castle to the city beneath, where – furnished with Czech lyrics – they lived a life of their own. The Codex Jacobides also contains works by Michael Praetorius, John Dowland and Jean Planson. Jan Cižmár studied the lute in London and The Hague with true masters (J. Lindberg, N. North, J. Held, M. Fentross, C. Pluhar), and today he is a sought-after soloist and chamber musician, performing worldwide. On the album, eight string instruments of various sizes and tunings are heard in a number of combinations, occasionally accompanied by a flute or lute ensemble and voice. Affording a taste of the music performed in Prague under Rudolf II, the album is a true delicacy for connoisseurs and all music lovers alike. Lute music that during the reign of Rudolf II was played in Prague streets and taverns, as well as at the local university.

When, in December 2008, six decades into his illustrious career, Alfred Brendel bade farewell to an emotional Viennese audience, it was not a “full stop”, as it may have appeared at that moment. Rather a “semicolon”. With more time on his hands, the celebrated pianist went on to focus on other activities – writing (essays on music, poetry), giving lectures, leading masterclasses. In January 2021, Brendel will celebrate his 90th birthday, possessing profound knowledge and experience, as well as a great zest for learning new things. And also a sense of humour, which he has often turned against himself. Precious few artists have influenced the perception and performance of music as much as Brendel has. He was the first to have recorded the complete Beethoven piano works, he succeeded in bringing Franz Schubert’s music back to the concert stage, among other achievements. Of late, Brendel has often visited Prague to give lectures and masterclasses at the Rudolfinum, highlights of which are captured on the present release. Beethoven, Mozart and Schubert are the figures he, as a pianist, treasures most. The autobiographical lecture My Musical Life provides the viewer with a glimpse of the universe full of paradox that gave rise to the legend called Brendel – unveiling the sources of his inspiration, education and artistry, that formed his vision of the world.

Bach could hardly have imagined how popular his cycle of Six Suites for Cello Solo would become nearly 300 years after he finished writing them in C�then. There are more than 200 existing historical and contemporary recordings of "informed" and "modern" interpretations - that tells it all. The music makes extraordinary demands on players' technical and interpretive ability and their overall comprehension. In the suites, Bach managed to create music that is highly innovative (it is worth noting that the cello was still developing at the time), and yet he retained his stylistic purity and comprehensibility. While these are formally dance suites, the architecture of some of them is more like that of a cathedral, in part thanks to the wealth of contrapuntal writing. They are a great challenge for everyone who has mastered the cello, Sa�a Vectomov included. His first teacher was his father (he studied in Paris with Piatigorsky and Fournier and with Casals's assistant Alexanian). The playing of the young Vectomov was then strongly influenced by Rostropovich's teacher Semyon Kozolupov at the Moscow Conservatoire and by Andr� Navarra in Italy. Besides his solo career, he also excelled at playing chamber music (Czech Trio, City of Prague Quartet) and was an equally wonderful teacher. For the recording of the Bach suites that he made in Prague at the Rudolfinum in the summer of 1984, he prepared himself for several years. In 1980, for example, he played the whole cycle from memory at a single concert. His recording can be characterized as having unmistakable beauty of tone, perfect intonation, and brilliant technique, but above all it is the deep comprehension of the "text" and the immediacy of the musicianship that make this recording something timeless and exceptional. Bach - Cello Suites: timeless music on a timeless recording.

The viola’s dark, velvety sound and its depth of expression enchanted many composers of the twentieth century (Bartók, Martinu, Hindemith, Clarke etc.) who made major contributions to the instrument’s repertoire. Jitka Hosprova, however, likes to stay off the beaten path. For her recording with the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, she has chosen three modern works composed in her homeland over a span of 30 years at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries. Oldrich Flosman completed Visions of Michelangelo, a work that is now nearly forgotten, in 1975 on commission for celebrations of the 500th anniversary of Michelangelo’s birth. Jindrich Feld’s Viola Concerto, one of his last works, bears comparison with Bartók’s and even exceeds it in terms of technical difficulty; the demands made on the soloist are quite extreme. Sylvie Bodorova‘s Planctus (the title refers to a Medieval form, the “laments of the Virgin Mary”) reflects the gloom, stress, and hopelessness of life in communist Czechoslovakia of the 1980s. In all three movements, the deep intimacy of the viola stands in contrast to the massive symphonic sound of the orchestra. More than any other instrument, the viola has a tone that reaches the innermost world of the composer and of the subject matter. On this revelatory, technically virtuosic recording of rarely played works, Jitka Hosprova brings back to life three works that definitely deserve the attention of performers and listeners. Modernity and traditional form, totality and freedom – three Czech viola concertos from the turn of the millennium

Benjamin Britten’s music formed one of the pillars of the Czech Philharmonic’s concert programmes under its chief conductor Karel Ančerl. The famous Variations on a Theme of Purcell was in all likelihood the most frequently performed work (in 1962 also in England), and this CD contains the previously unreleased 1958 recording in the original version without narration.

The enchanting and joyous Spring Symphony, commissioned by Serge Koussevitzky, was presented in Czech in Prague by Ančerl, the Czech Philharmonic and the finest soloists of the time. Forming a stark contrast to these two works is the War Requiem, a grand piece commemorating the victims of the most gruesome armed conflict in human history. Britten dedicated it to the memory of four friends of his who died in WWII while serving in the British navy or army. The work’s Czech premiere, with the participation of superlative foreign soloists (Gerald English, John Cameron), took place less than four years after its world premiere. So enthused was he by the work that in November 1969, following his emigration to Canada, Ančerl included the War Requiem in one of his first concerts in Toronto. The conductor’s personal profound experience of the senseless barbarity of the war imbued his conception of the work with a chilling authenticity. Both of the two previously unreleased concert recordings were made by the former Czechoslovak Radio.

Imagine a young lad in love - that is what the piece is about! This is how Dvořák himself characterized "The Cypresses", a work he composed at the age of twenty-three when he fell for the young actress Josefina Čermáková (who was later to become his sister-in-law). Regardless of the fact that it is a juvenile and in many ways imperfect composition, Dvořák kept returning to it, exploiting its motives as material for his later opuses. For his "Evening Songs" written at a more mature stage of his professional career, he chose equally yearning verses by Czech poet Vítězslav Hálek. Even the poetry of Adolf Heyduk that served as a model for the "Gypsy Songs" features motives of love, although in a broader sense involving the love of music, nature and freedom. The wife of the famous virtuoso Joseph Joachim took "Songs My Mother Taught Me" to her heart and the song later became one of Dvořáks true "hits" worldwide. Pavol Breslik is an outstanding tenor invited by most prominent opera houses and concert halls and besides operatic works, he focuses on song repertoire. After Schubert's "Die Schöne Müllerin" he took a fancy to Dvořák's songs and, accompanied flawlessly by Robert Pechanec, imprinted all of his passion into the present recording.

The mezzo-soprano Dagmar Pecková decided to give herself and her friends and fans a very personal gift in the form of this Christmas album. The listener is treated to Bohemian and Moravian carols and to the tender poetry of Christmas songs from seventeenth-century Bohemian Baroque hymnals (Michna’s Chtíc aby spal is included in the collection, naturally). Dagmar Pecková has, of course, also turned her gaze beyond the hills on her homeland’s borders. Ultimately, whether it is carp or turkey on the festive dinner table, it is the birth of the Savior that is celebrated all over Europe. Good King Wenceslas is sung in England and Lulajze Jezuniu in Poland, while Stille Nacht and Adeste fideles are sung in many places in a variety of translations. But what about in Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium, or Italy? The musical treasures of those countries are found here as well. Dagmar Pecková’s taste is unerring in her choice of musicians. Jaroslav Krcek enhances the charm of these songs both as the conductor of Musica Bohemica and as the arranger: within just a few bars, his unmistakable touch, inspired by Baroque and folk music, will enchant you with an incredible range of colors, from the intimacy of chamber music to an almost symphonic sound. Adding more color are the male voices of the Gentlemen Singers and other soloists. Please accept this invitation to tour Europe at Christmastide.

Kristina Fialová’s Supraphon debut will undoubtedly be a welcome treat for lovers of the velvety dark timbre of the viola. A gauntlet thrown down to previous recordings can be deemed her singular account of Bohuslav Martinu’s wistful Sonata for Viola and Piano (1955), one of the pieces in which, towards the end of his life, the composer, aware that he would never return to his homeland, ever more frequently reflected his nostalgia for his native Czech-Moravian Highlands region. The other three works featured on the album are virtually unknown (two of them have been recorded for the very first time) yet nevertheless worthy of attention. Karel Husa wrote his Suite for Viola and Piano (1945) prior to leaving his country for good. A winner of the Pulitzer Prize (1969), today Husa’s is perhaps the most frequently performed music by a contemporary Czech composer worldwide. The featured works by two of his contemporaries too are newly discovered viola gems. The Sonata by Jindrich Feld is connected with that of Martinu’s in terms of the year of its origin (1955), as well as its nostalgia, while Viktor Kalabis created his piece almost half a century later (1997). A rising viola star, Kristina Fialová has won several international competitions, debuted at the Tonhalle Zürich and performed at prestigious festivals. Her vigorous approach has found an ideal partner in the seasoned pianist Igor Ardašev, a laureate of the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels and other contests.

If you ask oboists about the golden age of their instrument, they will in all likelihood refer to the first half of the 18th century. It was the time when a plethora of music for the oboe was written - solo and trio sonatas, concertos, cantatas... No court orchestra could make do without the instrument. Many of these pieces were created by the three most feted late-Baroque composers: Antonio Vivaldi (he conceived about two dozen concertos for solo oboe!), J. S. Bach, and his friend G. P. Telemann, who is deemed one of the most prolific composers of all time. Although dating from the same period, the works by the three creators represent three very different worlds. Yet that which they have in common is their virtuosity and the associated high technical demands placed upon the soloist. Besides Ensemble 18+ and his musical soul-mate, the harpsichordist Barbara Maria Willi, Vil�m Veverka invited along as a guest to participate in this dream project his teacher and colleague Dominik Wollenweber, oboist of the Berliner Philharmoniker. With this new album, Veverka has confirmed his firm position among the most acclaimed oboists on the international scale. "Vil�m Veverka breathes new life into concertos by three Baroque masters."

During the Baroque era, taking music and art lessons was an integral part of education of children in royal families. Anne, Princess of Orange (1709-1759), the eldest daughter of King George II of Great Britain, was fortunate in having excellent teachers. At the age of five, she moved from her native city of Hanover to London, where for eleven years her musical talent was cultivated by G. F. Handel, a celebrated composer and keyboard virtuoso. Handel dedicated a number of his works to the Princess (among them the wedding serenade Parnasso in festa), while other, highly popular, pieces of his were arranged, including by the virtuoso flautist Michel Blavet. Following her wedding and departure from London, Anne no longer took harpsichord lessons, yet at the court in The Hague, her new home, she remained faithful to the Muses and surrounded herself with excellent artists. For a few years, the court employed the superb violinist and Kapellmeister Jean-Marie Leclair, who dedicated to Anne his fourth book of solo sonatas. In the case of some of them, he mentioned – to the delight of all flautists – the possibility of their being performed by “flûte allemande” as an alternative instrument. As a soloist, the flautist Jana Semeradova has worked with distinguished early music specialists (S. Azzolini, A. Bernardini, E. Onofri, etc.) and has performed at major festivals (Utrecht, Leipzig, Halle, Versailles, Sable, Regensburg, etc.). Erich Traxler is an outstanding soloist and chamber player, who has appeared at the most renowned concert venues worldwide. Princess Anne’s remarkable musical story is the intersection of the stories of the two exceptional musicians.

This new release features music that paints an interesting picture of the musical life of Prague during the reign of Charles IV (1316-1378). During the reign of Charles IV, Prague blossomed into its beauty. The art, music, and architecture that it acquired during this time is evident, and the King was exceptionally supportive of the city’s cultural and spiritual life. The track list is divided into seven sections, each painting a picture of the music of Charles’ time through different lenses of the king’s day to day life: Charles and France, Charles and Relics, Charles and the University, Charles and Courtly Love, Charles and Slavic Liturgy, and Charles and the Worship of Saints. Performers on this album include the Schola Gregoriana Pragensis, soprano Hana Blazikova, and Jakub Kydlicek and Monika Reslerova on recorders.

The recording captures the quartet as if they were in your living room... This is the kind of album that makes record reviewing the best job in the world. (Gramophone Awards) "These performances set a new standard and reveal so much of what makes these quartets unique." (BBC Music Magazine) "This is extraordinarily bold playing - and they truly capture the sense that Smetana is writing symphonic quartet music." (Gramophone) "In their native repertoire they are�well-nigh�incomparable." (The Sunday Times) When the most prominent critics across the board concur in the opinion that an album is extraordinary, it certainly deserves to be released on vinyl. Although Smetana's chamber pieces are�few in number, each of them - personal, many a time harboring a bold autobiographical statement - constitutes one of the cornerstones of Czech chamber music. Smetana wrote his two quartets in the twilight of his life, when he was afflicted by deafness. String Quartet No. 1, "From My Life", is a�programme�work: "My aim was to depict in tones the course of my life... The piece is of an intimate nature; therefore I deliberately wrote it for 4 instruments, which should converse as though within a close circle of friends..." Owing to it's being composed in an unconventional manner, String Quartet No. 2 comes across as a 20th-century work. The Pavel Haas Quartet's award-winning album has been released by�Supraphon�for vinyl fans and lovers of perfect sound on a top-quality LP, supplemented by a Hi-Res digital version. Smetana's intimate and timeless music, as performed by the Pavel Haas Quartet - for the first time on vinyl

When a double volume featuring Ivan Moravec was included in the 1999 “Great pianists of the 20th Century” box set (Philips Records), many a music lover was taken aback. Although Americans knew the Czech artist, owing mainly to the Connoisseur Society, a lot of European listeners and critics had overlooked him – yet the recordings contained in the edition certainly attested to Moravec being a pianist of global calibre. Repertoire magazine referred to him as the “most closely guarded secret of the classical music world”. The 90th anniversary of Ivan Moravec’s birth is a very good reason to for come up with a special project. The most complete collection of his recordings to date, the present Supraphon release encompasses 11 albums and a documentary and unique, previously unseen footage from the Czech Television archives. Moravec recorded his core repertoire for the Connoisseur Society, Supraphon, Dorian, Nonesuch and Vox labels. Some of his recordings are now being released on album for the first time. A number of older recordings have been remastered from the original analogue tapes. The set includes the complete Moravec repertoire of Beethoven, Schumann, Debussy, solo Franck, Janácek and Chopin’s Mazurkas. The booklet provides an exhaustive account of one of the greatest 20th-century pianist‘s artistic development, from the early 1960s to the end of the millennium. Most significantly, the release affords the listener the opportunity to revel in the music that – due to its sheer profundity, myriad colour shades and irresistibly personal delivery – touches one’s very heart. A portrait of a great artist.

The Stamic Quartet's repertoire ranges from Baroque to 21st-century music, yet the ensemble mainly focuses on works dating from the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries. Following the revelatory premiere recording of Josef Bohuslav Foerster's quartets (Supraphon, 2010), they have now come up with another striking project. Karel Kovarovic (1862-1920) is primarily known for his work as the director of the opera company of the National Theatre in Prague, as well as a conductor, while his own music has been generally overlooked. Nevertheless, Kovarovic wrote several operas, ballet and incidental music, songs, choral and chamber pieces. The Stamic Quartet has made the very first recording of his string quartets, which are yet to be published. The most remarkable of them is String Quartet No. 2 in A minor, dedicated to Anton�n Dvor�k, which six years after it's premiere in Prague (1888) was performed at the Musikverein in Vienna. Kovarovic did not finish his String Quartet No. 3, most likely owing to his being extremely busy as a conductor and his new responsibilities at the National Theatre. The new album made by the Stamic Quartet serves to prove that Kovarovic's quartets deserve to be paid much greater attention to than has been the case over the past century.

In the 19th century, composers sought inspiration in poetry, and the simplicity and modesty of folk songs. Romances reflecting on loneliness, betrayed love and the misery of the abandoned occupied a special position in Russian lyric poetry in the first half of the 19th century, represented by A. S. Pushkin and other writers. Based on the Romantic poets' works, composers expressed their own intimate feelings, as well as muted defiance. One of the first to have written romances was Mikhail Glinka, the founder of the Russian nationalist music school. A whole generation of his successors, including P. I. Tchaikovsky, embraced the genre, creating numerous romances, mainly set to contemporary Russian poetry. Especially noteworthy among such works is M. P. Mussorgsky's cycle Songs and Dances of Death, made up of four pieces depicting the horror and bizarreness of death, referred to by the composer as "danse macabre". Jozef Benci is a highly esteemed opera and oratorio singer, a soloist of the Slovak National Theatre in Bratislava, who has worked with the Czech Philharmonic and the BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Jir� Belohl�vek, performed with Edita Gruberov� and other renowned artists. Owing to his robust, yet highly sensitively led voice, a remarkable sense for songs' intimate nature, as well as an immaculate diction, he is a brilliant performer of Russian romances.

Sir Charles Mackerras’s accounts of Symphonies Nos. 8 and 9 are torrentially vivid, as performed by the superb Prague Symphony Orchestra under his baton.

In the first third of the 18th-century, Prague was a major music centre, with Italian operas and concertos, French suites, Italian and German oratorios being performed in the city, and the local churches striving to acquire the latest and most virtuosic compositions. Šimon Brixi was one of the most distinguished composers who drew inspiration from this thriving culture, while creating highly inventive music of his own. He mainly wrote liturgical pieces, yet few of them have survived. Brixi gained great acclaim for his musicae navales for the popular Saint John of Nepomuk Festivities in May on the river Vltava. Although he did not publish his scores, Brixi was a renowned composer and his music was frequently performed. Copies of his works were possessed by, among others, Jan Dismas Zelenka. Brixi mastered all the styles and techniques of his time, ranging from rigorous counterpoint to elements of the nascent Galant style. The works are arranged on the album in a one-day liturgical arch, with the morning mass followed by litanies and the canticle Magnificat from vespers, which owing to it's style and high technical requirements may bring to mind Zelenka's music. Made up of superlative soloists, Hipocondria Ensemble bring back to life Šimon Brixi's overlooked works. Their recording of the Magnificat is the first made on historical instruments. / Šimon Brixi - a composer whose music deserves a second life after three centuries.

How can an artist move forward and keep finding new ways of creativity and not stagnate? This question is as old as art itself but those who search can make a discovery. Such musicians whose every album develops the never-ending story of searching and discovering are undoubtedly the Prague-based Clarinet Factory. This internationally renowned ensemble, which has redefined the approach to and use of clarinets, has written another chapter of it's fascinating exploration on it's new record, Towers. In comparison with their previous album, Pipers (2020), they now put more emphasis on instrumentals, so the first single, Obloha seda (The Grey Sky), is one of only two songs with lyrics on this record. The main role is played by clarinets, drums and loopers while the human voice is often used as an instrument or as ambient sound. The resulting sound of the album is largely contributed to by their guest, Beata Hlavenkova, who conjures up many distinct and colourful layers on the piano and Fender Rhodes. Besides Beata Hlavenkova and the quartet of Ludek Boura, Vojtech N�dl, Jindrich Pavlis and Petr Valasek, another important figure is Milan Cimfe of the SONO Records Studio, who collaborated with the Clarinet Factory on Pipers and who is in charge of the drums, samples and other electronics on the new record. Other guests include drummer Daniel soltis, who has collaborated with the ensemble for many years. Towers is another important item (not only) in the Clarinet Factory discography. It's multiple layers are a joy to discover with every listening. The album is released only in digital formats and as a three-side double LP, whose graphical design was created by the renowned artist, Pavel Fuksa. / The Clarinet Factory have written another chapter of their remarkable exploration of the world of sounds