“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.

“I would like to prove that Bedrich Smetana was a composer comparable with Franz Liszt and that his music deserves to be performed at major concert venues worldwide.” Armed with this belief, the pianist Miroslav Sekera plunged into making the present album. He is an extraordinary soloist, as well as an experienced and sought-after chamber musician (regularly performing with the violinist Josef Spacek, the hornist Radek Baborak, and others). Putting together Smetana and Liszt is in a sense logical – both of them were superb pianists, with the piano having played a significant role in their lives and artistic developments, particularly in the first decades of their careers. Liszt was a great model for Smetana, as documented by a note in the Czech composer’s diary: “With God’s grace and help, one day I will be like Liszt in technique and like Mozart in composition.” The correspondence and several personal encounters between Liszt and Smetana ultimately led to a friendship. Yet whereas Liszt’s piano works have enjoyed great attention, Smetana’s piano music is yet to become widely known and acknowledged. The very first cycle of characteristic pieces, Bagatelles et Impromptus (1844), written by Smetana at the age of 20, featured traits that would be palpable throughout his piano oeuvre. His five-year stay in Gothenburg and conversations with Liszt enhanced Smetana’s penchant for programme music. This inclination of his reflected in several virtuoso piano works dating from that time, including the piano poem Macbeth and the etude On the Seashore. Sekera’s performance reveals to the full Smetana’s genius and singularity, which we know from his symphonic poems, but are only now discovering in his piano music.

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In their native repertoire they are well nigh incomparable. I have not heard an account of “From My Life” that prepares us so starkly, in its turbulent opening Allegro vivo appassionato, for its tragic outcome. And it’s hard to imagine a more compelling or harrowing take on the less frequently programmed D minor quartet.

– Sunday Times

The quartet understand absolutely the plasticity of Smetana’s vision and convey it unerringly, unshrinkingly – and in some ways even more convincingly than the Talich, which is saying something. This is extraordinarily bold playing – and they truly capture the sense that Smetana is writing symphonic quartet music.

– Gramophone

Jana Boušková is one of the most globally distinguished harpists of the present day. Her acclaim comes as no surprise – she has garnered numerous prestigious accolades (first prize at the USA International Harp Competition, etc.), performed at major venues all over the world along with renowned artists (Rostropovich, Vengerov, Bashmet, Tetzlaff, and others), and she has gained recognition as a musician (solo harpist of the Czech Philharmonic) and teacher (professor at the Royal College of Music in London and the Royal Conservatory of Brussels) – to name but a few of her accomplishments. Yet Jana Boušková has never forgotten where her roots are and the tradition from which her own artistry and sentiment have grown. The new album, symbolically titled My Country, occupies a special position in her discography. By arranging for the harp their “iconic” pieces, Jana Boušková has paid tribute to the most celebrated Czech composers. My Country is her most personal profession of love for her homeland and the towering figures who shaped her musical landscape. Smetana, Dvorák and Suk made Czech music global – and Jana Boušková makes it resound all over the world again.

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.

Nearly 1,000 kilometres separate Hole�ov, Moravia, from Strasbourg. Franz Xaver Richter's professional journey started in Count Rottal's court orchestra in Hole�ov and ended in the prestigious post of Kapellmeister at the Cath�drale Notre-Dame in Strasbourg. He is primarily known as one of the major representatives of the renowned Mannheim School, with his "trumpet" Sinfonia No. 52 in D being a typical example of the late Mannheim form. The grandiose Te Deum, featured on the present album, is Richter's second setting of the hymn and was first performed in 1781 in Strasbourg, during the celebrations marking the centenary of the city's coming under French administration. Along with the motet Exsultate Deo, the piece falls within the composer's vocal-instrumental oeuvre, which has yet to be explored (and, just as in the case of Jan Dismas Zelenka's music, contains many unexpected twists and turns). The virtuoso, engrossing and masterfully balanced Oboe Concerto with the original cadenzas represents Richter's concertante style. Following their premiere recordings of Richter's Requiem and the Passion oratorio La Deposizione dalla croce di Ges� Cristo, the present Czech Ensemble Baroque album maps another part of the remarkable 18th-century composer's work. Newly discovered gems from Franz Xaver Richter's undeservedly overlooked oeuvre.

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The greatest Czech composers – Dvorák, Smetana, Janácek, Suk, Martinu ... And anyone else? Yes, Vítezslav Novák! Who was he? A pupil of Dvorák’s, later on one of the most distinguished music creators and teachers on the domestic scene. A Post-Romantic and the first of the generation of Modernists profoundly inspired by Moravian folk music. This year’s 150th anniversary of Novák’s birth affords the opportunity to take a closer look at his oeuvre – and to rediscover that which has been overlooked. The idea of making the first studio recording of the Piano Concerto, a remarkable early work by the 25-year-old Novák, was enthusiastically endorsed by the superb Czech pianist Jan Bartoš. Due to its intimate nature, At Dusk, Op. 13, a cycle of miniatures for solo piano, inspired by J. S. Machar’s poetry, stands in contrast to the concerto’s virtuosic stylization. The tone poem Toman and the Wood Nymph may be deemed the most ambitious of Novák’s symphonic works. As the composer himself put it, he strove to express an “uncontrollable torrent of wild passion”, referring to the piece as an “orgy of sound” and the ballad as a “depiction of woman’s demonic power over man”. Jakub Hruša, a globally renowned contemporary conductor, invites us to rediscover Novák’s music: “We are obliged to perform it. His music is so profound and far-reaching that we simply cannot ignore it and let it gather dust in archives and remain buried in music history textbooks.”

When Beethoven assigned the opus number one to his three piano trios, it was evident that the then 22-year-old composer would explore, advance and co-create the composition rules, and that he would very nearly transcend that which was comprehensible to his contemporaries. Upon hearing the first private performance of Op. 1, Joseph Haydn purportedly voiced his doubts as to whether the ordinary listener would be able to understand No. 3. Beethoven experimented with this combination of instruments too – with the form, harmonies and other facets. The Piano Trio in D major, Op. 70 No. 1 may have had its roots in sketches for an opera based on Shakespeare’s drama Macbeth that Beethoven was contemplating at the time. The spectral music of the slow movement, featuring strange modulations and said to be a reworking of the Witches Chorus intended for the opera, earned the piece the nickname “Ghost Trio”. In the “Archduke Trio”, Op. 97, Beethoven emancipated all the instruments, providing each equal scope to apply their technical qualities and possibilities of expression. Its first performance, in April 1814, was the penultimate public concert Beethoven, at the time almost deaf, gave as a pianist. The 250th anniversary of one of the greatest composers of all time was an irresistible impulse for the Smetana Trio. Their new addition to the Beethoven discography possesses all the parameters of the ensemble’s previous, highly acclaimed recordings and will undoubtedly cause quite a stir- Beethoven’s chamber music through the lens of the Smetana Trio.

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“And the sculptor fixes the likeness of a face in clay. And you walked by and passed before his work, and you glanced at the face and then walked on your way. And then it happened that you were not quite the same. Slightly changed, but changed.” The motto Bohuslav Martinů chose from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s Citadelle for one of his Parables also poetically defines the transformational power of his final orchestral opuses. Following the six symphonies composed in the USA, he wrote them in Europe, much closer to his homeland. The orchestral triptych Les Fresques de Piero della Francesca was inspired by the work of the Italian Renaissance master. As Martinů himself put it: “The frescoes harbor a peculiar kind of solemn and rigid tranquility, abounding in strange, serene and moving poetry; it is the darkened colored atmosphere I strove to express in music.” The Parables is another piece in which Martinů reflected his philosophical ideas, with each of its three movements treating an allegory of life and human quest in the world. The symphonic prelude The Rock refers to the landing place of the English settlers who came to North America in 1619, as well as Martinů’s own fate as a homeless pilgrim. Martinů’s very last symphonic work, Estampes, comes across more as a fine drawing interwoven with silence than an impasto, as is the case of his previous orchestral pieces. These brilliant, extraordinary Martinů works are yet to gain the recognition they so richly deserve. The new Supraphon recording, made by the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra under the renowned conductor Tomáš Netopil, affords hope that this will be set right. It would be a pity to miss out on such beauty. Bohuslav Martinů’s late pinnacles – beauty and profundity yet to be discovered.

REVIEW:

Supraphon has very good recordings of all of this music, and their lack of availability hitherto was concerning; but if the idea is to replace those older versions with excellent new ones such as this, we should be fine. This release features the lion’s share of Martinů’s last major orchestral works, all composed between 1953 and his death in 1959. The brief, neo-baroque Overture was written in 1953, after which the composer forgot about it completely. He literally had no recollection of it at all, and it’s delightful, but it’s the four bigger works that really seal the deal.

The Frescoes of Piero della Francesca, The Rock (as in Plymouth and the Pilgrims), The Parables and the Estampes (“Prints”) are all cut from the same cloth. It doesn’t matter what the alleged “program” is. They are by turns dreamy, rhythmically energetic, lyrical and somehow disturbing. Just listen to them as pure music. Martinů had a gift at writing in a style that features a mesmerizing, hallucinatory quality that nevertheless moves with a kind of hypnotic, irresistible energy. All four of these pieces share this special atmosphere.

Happily, they are all splendidly played and recorded here. The Frescoes, in particular, has been recorded numerous times, but this version stands with the best. Netopil takes his time over the first movement, only to permit us to revel in its lush proliferation of tiny coloristic details, but the finale has plenty of excitement. In other words, Netopil charts a knowing and confident path through these haunting and evocative pieces; and as a perfect introduction to music of the composer’s last decade, this release is tough to beat.

– ClassicsToday.com (David Hurwitz)

This is a recoupling made even more desirable than on its original issue by the inclusion of The Specter's Bride, Martinu's retelling of the same story set by Dvorák about a young girl who runs away with her dead lover's ghost, only to be rescued at the last minute from the cemetery by the arrival of dawn. It's a wonderful piece, as fine in its own way as Dvorák's setting, and, at half an hour, much shorter. Including it in this two-disc set makes a perfect program organized around settings of Czech folk poetry, the Dandelion Romance and The Primrose being two much shorter but very charming further examples.

The main attraction, however, is Špalícek, a ballet with songs in which each of the three acts incorporates the telling of a fairy tale, enhanced by plenty of additional dancing and commentary framing the main stories. The music is invariably appealing and rhythmically vivacious, Martinu in his most bubbly folk/neo-classical mode--and if you enjoy the suite (recorded by Mackerras on Conifer) then you will surely find the complete work equally enchanting.

All of the performances here are excellent in every respect. None of the soloists, save bass Richard Novák, are at all well known, but it doesn't matter a bit, while the conductors are veterans who can be counted on to deliver consistently idiomatic and persuasive results. Given the wide variety of forces--from full orchestra with chorus and soloists in The Specter's Bride and Špalícek to solo violin, piano, and a small group of sopranos and altos in The Primrose--the engineering is quite good. A major Martinu release, for sure.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com