Classical Music

Seven years after their triumph with quartets by Dvorák, the Pavel Haas Quartet are making a triumphant return to Dvorák’s music. For the recording of the quintets, they have invited two guests: the pianist Boris Giltburg (winner of the 2013 Queen Elisabeth Competition) and Pavel Nikl, a founding member of the Pavel Haas Quartet. Dvorák composed his Second Piano Quintet at his beloved summer residence Vysoká late in the summer of 1887. The famed critic Eduard Hanslick received the work’s performance in Vienna enthusiastically: “It is one of his most beautiful works. It is real Dvorák.” The String Quintet, Op. 97, although younger by just six years, represents an entirely “different Dvorák”. After the New World Symphony and the American Quartet, it is Dvorák’s third work composed while in North America. And what did Hanslick have to say this time? “It is perhaps the simplest, most natural, and happiest music composed since the days of Haydn.” The degree to which the Pavel Haas Quartet feels at home with Dvorák’s music is shown by the many awards their recordings have received (Diapason d’Or, BBC Music Magazine Recording of the Month, Gramophone Award nomination). "Another Pavel Haas Quartet [album], another triumph.” (Gramophone)

MUSIC FROM 18TH-CENTURY PRAGUE • Jana Semerádová (fl, cond); Sergio Azzolini (bsn); Lenka Torgersen (vn); Helena Zemanova (vn); Collegium Marianum (period instruments) • SUPRAPHON 4112 (2 CDs: 112:31)


REICHENAUER Quartet in g for Violin, Cello, Bassoon, and Continuo, Rk 18. Trio Sonata in B? for Violin, Cello, and Continuo, Rk 20. FASCH Quartet in D for Flute, Violin, Bassoon, and Continuo, WV N:D1. Concerto in C for Flute, Violin, Bassoon, and Continuo, WV L:C3. Concerto in D for 2 Flutes, Strings, and Continuo, WV L:D9. JIRÁNEK Trio Sonata in B? for 2 Violins and Continuo, Jk 27. POSTEL Trio Sonata in A for 2 Violins and Continuo. ORSCHLER Trio in f for Two Violins and Continuo. VIVALDI Trio in g for Violin, Lute, and Continuo, RV 85. T?MA Partita in C for Flute and Continuo. CALDARA Sonata in A for Violin and Continuo


Let me begin with what usually comes at the end of a review, the recommendation. Without reservation, this is enthusiastically recommended to all lovers of music from the very late Baroque and very early Classical periods. Now you can skip the rest and run right to your computer to order this set.


I wanted to get that out of the way first before dealing with some of the inconsistencies in the titling of these works. But first let me credit the album booklet’s credits page for naming every member of the Collegium Marianum ensemble and cross-referencing each player with each work in which he or she is a participant.Next, let it be noted that of the 11 works on these two CDs, six are world premiere recordings, the two by Reinchenauer and those by Jiránek, Postel, Orschler, and T?ma.


Now for the inconsistencies. To begin with, the inclusion of works by Vivaldi and Caldara on a disc titled “18th-Century Music from Prague” is a bit of a stretch. Their music may have been known in the Bohemian capital, but it’s speculation on the part of note author Václav Kapsa as to whether either composer ever set foot in Prague; and even if they did, the works by which they’re represented on these discs were certainly not written there, nor, to my knowledge, does either of them have Czech ancestry in his blood. But who cares? Vivaldi and Caldara are always welcome guests.


The other inconsistencies have to do with the formal nomenclature used to classify some of these works. There’s no problem with the pieces designated “trio sonata” by Reichenauer, Jiránek, Postel, Orschler, and Vivaldi, all of which feature two melody instruments plus continuo. This was the common configuration for trio sonatas in the 18th century, and in what was fairly standard, if not de riguer baroque practice, a fourth low bass bowed string or plucked instrument was used to reinforce the keyboard’s bass line.


The current performances present us with an interesting and satisfying approach to this practice. In the Jiránek and Reichenauer trios, the keyboard instrument used is a harpsichord and, appropriately, it’s reinforced by a theorbo in one case and a baroque guitar in another. In the Postel trio, the keyboard instrument is an organ, for which reinforcement is probably not necessary, and so none is added. But in the Orschler trio, in which the organ is also used, a baroque guitar is added. Finally, in the Vivaldi trio for violin and lute, no keyboard instrument is used at all; instead, the theorbo alone fulfills the continuo function. So, in each of these pieces, the sound of the continuo is varied by the use of a different keyboard instrument (or no keyboard instrument in the case of the Vivaldi) in combination with a different reinforcing bass instrument (or none in the case of the Postel). Not only does this add an extra element of color, but it also suggests a connection with baroque performance practice, for I suspect that musicians came together to play these pieces with whatever instruments were available at the moment.


Figuring out the formal classifications of some of these other pieces is trickier. For example, we have two works designated “quartet” in which there are now three main melody instruments plus continuo. We don’t usually think of a quartet as being a piece like a trio sonata where a keyboard or low bass plucked instrument plays a continuo role, yet that’s what we have in Reicnenauer’s Quartet in G Minor for Violin, Cello, Bassoon, and Continuo and in Fasch’s Quartet in D Major for Flute, Violin, Bassoon, and Continuo. In both cases, the continuo instrument used is theorbo or baroque guitar.


Even more unusual to us in its terminology is Fasch’s Concerto in C for Flute, Violin, Bassoon, and Continuo. We know, of course, that baroque concertos almost invariably relied on a keyboard instrument to underpin the ensemble, but at the heart of the concerto concept was a single soloist or a small group of soloists contrasted against a larger instrumental body. Here we have a work called a concerto, but essentially it’s no different from the quartets discussed above. The answer to this head-scratcher is provided by the same composer whose above-cited concerto on disc 1 raised the question, for Fasch provides us on disc 2 with his Concerto in D Major for Two Flutes, Strings, and Continuo, which, with its body of multiple strings, comports more closely with what we think of as a true concerto.


The simple fact is that all of these pieces date from around the midway point in the 18th century at a time when the Baroque was transitioning to the Classical, when composers were experimenting with various instrumental combinations, and when terms used for musical forms were in a state of flux. It’s entirely reasonable to assume that works designated “quartet” by Reichenauer and Fasch sowed the seeds for what would shortly become a formalized quartet—i.e., four instruments unsupported by continuo.


Vivaldi, of course, but even Fasch, Caldara, and Reichenauer are names familiar to most listeners with more than a superficial exposure to music of the Baroque period, and they all flourished around the same time as Bach and Handel. But Franti?ek Jiránek (1698–1778), Christian Gottlieb Postel (1697–1730), Johann Georg Orschler (1697–1767/70), and Franti?ek Ignác Antonin T?ma (1704–1774) are apt to be less known or not known at all, and in two cases, Jiránek and T?ma, they lived well into the full flowering of the Classical period. There’s nothing in the music of these two later composers, however—at least in what there is of it on these CDs—to suggest that either of them had encountered Haydn. In terms of style, Jiránek’s trio sonata sounds the most modern, suggesting that he had some knowledge of C. P. E. Bach. But you would rightly identify the rest of the pieces in this collection as examples of late-Baroque style, influenced, it sounds to me, mainly by the Dresden school of Johann Georg Pisendel.


The above is not a criticism, it’s merely an observation based on my hearing of these pieces. The performances by this Prague-based ensemble are riveting. Composed of what appears to be 16 players, the Collegium Marianum is one of the best period-instrument groups I’ve recently encountered. Jana Semerádová has honed the ensemble to a high degree of technical perfection, and she both plays in and leads spirited, communicative, and moving performances in a program of music that will keep you listening and captivated for the almost two hours of this very strongly recommended two-disc set.


FANFARE: Jerry Dubins

Classical Music

This collection from the legacy of Jirí Belohlávek was put together during the year after the demise of this outstanding conductor. It is intended mainly as a recollection of this extraordinary musician and person. His life can be briefly described by enumerating the greatest of his achievements (Chief Conductor of the Czech Philharmonic, BBC Symphony Orchestra, guest conductor with the Berliner Philharmoniker, New York Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw, appearances at the MET, Glyndebourne, etc.; holder of the Commander of the Order of the British Empire /CBE/ title). The Maestro himself may have preferred a sharing of memories to recordings; yet the set of twenty-three pieces taken from the almost three hundred pieces from Supraphon archives and recorded in the years 1971 – 2016 is a wonderful illustration of Belohlávek’s professional maturing. They capture him as a conductor of several leading Czech orchestras, beginning with the Brno Philharmonic Orchestra and concluding by the Czech Philharmonic and Prague Philharmonia. In the very centre of Belohlávek’s repertoire we find compositions by Dvorák (From the New World), Smetana (My Country), Suk, Janácek and, notably, Martinu, whom he introduced to the world. The collection is enriched by several side-steps into other areas of repertoire including Mozart, Ravel, Mahler and Bartók, which documents the amazing scope of the conductor’s focus.

"The quality of the 10 orchestral pieces assembled on the three-CD Supraphon set of Kalabis reissues has to be heard to be believed, the more so since the music itself is rarely encountered in the concert hall, outside the Czech Republic, at least. But these three discs have more than their fair share of masterworks. If I were coming to Kalabis’s music with innocent ears, it would take only the opening of the Second Symphony of 1959–61 to convince me that I was listening to a major symphonist. The opening Andante moderato generates a sense of powerful foreboding which is released with terrific force in the Allegro molto e drammatico that follows in what one is beginning to recognize as one of Kalabis’s typical manically striding marches. The brooding slow movement, an Andante marked molto quieto (the work was composed at the height of the Cold War) again builds up the tension, dispersed this time in a gloriously long-legged fugue which gradually expands into a gloriously dignified Finale. The First Violin Concerto (1958–59) lies somewhere between Martin? and Shostakovich, perhaps closer to the latter, and is hardly inferior to either, with a bristlingly energetic opening movement, a dark and troubled slow movement (marked angoscioso ) with spiky and assertive central section, and a buoyant but sober Finale. The first disc closes with the 13-minute Symphonic Variations for Large Orchestra (1964). If the Dvorak Symphonic Variations were more often performed, I would recommend resting that score for an occasional hearing of Kalabis’s tightly argued and absolutely unsentimental score—but even the Dvorak rarely gets a look-in these days, so I fear there’s little hope of hearing the Kalabis live, more’s the pity.



The second disc opens with the Concerto for Large Orchestra, commissioned by Karel An?erl for the Czech Philharmonic and composed in 1965–66, which begins with one of Kalabis’s fiercest dissonances, but it’s one of those dense agglomerates which suggests resolution and, sure enough, an arching violin line emerges and purifies the air and, almost before we know it, we’re off on another of Kalabis’s white-knuckle allegro s; Kalabis described the middle movement as a “tragic meditation”; and the freewheeling Finale has something of the ferocious energy of the last movement of Karl Amadeus Hartmann’s Sixth Symphony, though Kalabis pauses for air rather more often. In contrast to the four-movement Second, the Third Symphony is in three movements, another of Kabalis’s galloping allegro s bookended by two uneasy essays, predominantly but not always slow and, as ever, with Kalabis, powered even at moderate tempos by the sense that there’s energy in plenty waiting to be given its head. Volume 2 ends with Kalabis’s Trumpet Concerto of 1973. R?ži?ková, who provides the booklet notes for the set, explains that, exceptionally, Kalabis was allowed to accompany her on a tour of France that year and, in a little town in Provence, he was given a statuette of the town crier, whose adventures the music depicts (hence the title, “Le Tambour de Villevieille”). Cast in two movements and 18 minutes long, it moves as easily as the other works here from knockabout vigor to anxious inaction. The drums that are occasionally heard in the first movement are, briefly, more prominent in the second and sound as if they are about to set up a tattoo but the music then sets off in a different direction. I find this work slightly less personal than the other pieces on offer here, but Kalabis’s craftsmanship is as evident here as elsewhere, and there aren’t so many good trumpet concertos in the world that trumpeters can afford to ignore this one.


Kalabis’s Harpsichord Concerto, composed in 1974–75 (no prizes for guessing who the dedicatee and first performer was), has something of the buoyancy of the Poulenc Concert champêtre and the angularity of neo-Classical Stravinsky—but far more of a sense of onward drive than either composer; indeed, it’s in the driving rhythms of the Finale that Kalabis comes closest to Martin? though, unsettlingly, it then subsides into anguished silence. R?ži?ková complained to her husband, only half-joking, that “You have let me die”; but the times in which it was written, he responded, did not permit another ending. Martin? was tangentially involved in the birth of the work, as R?ži?ková relates in her notes. She was performing the Martin? Concerto in Switzerland and the conductor asked if by chance she had heard of a Czech composer called Viktor Kalabis; much laughter ensued, and a commission soon after that. But don’t expect some maudlin love-letter: Kalabis obviously wanted to show the world what she could do, and the solo part is a demanding one; the piece is almost half-an-hour in length, too, which must make it one of the world’s longer harpsichord concertos. The second work on the third, all-concerto, disc is the Second Violin Concerto of 1977–78, performed by the much-missed Josef Suk, with whom R?ži?ková formed a duo in 1963, so it is good to see him represented here and find him in stellar form. Just over a quarter-hour in length, it’s in a single movement, as are the 22-minute Concerto for Piano and Winds (1985) and the 12-and-a-half-minute Concertino for Bassoon and Winds (1983)—the most explicitly Stravinskian works in this collection. All three are tightly argued, the first two earnest and generally grave in manner, with the Concertino exploiting the capacity of the bassoon to suggest boisterous and slightly preposterous good humor, though there are also a number of passages of almost hieratic starkness.


The performances throughout make the case for the music as convincingly as you could ask. The recordings were made between 1968 and 1991 and have come up well. A few slips from the soloist in the Trumpet Concerto suggested it might be a live recording, a suspicion confirmed by the subsequent applause; a cough and the occasional noise serve the same function in the Bassoon Concertino.


Altogether, this is an excellent survey of some of the major works of one of the major voices of recent times. Taken together with the MSR box (if you do not know the Fourth Symphony, you should not let yourself live in ignorance of it much longer), it should help Kalabis’s name before a Western public, even if it’s largely the small part of it that buys recordings. Bit by bit, one hopes, some of Kalabis’s oeuvre might begin to appear in concert, where audiences will cheer it to the rafters. In the meantime, I urge you to acquire this box and do some hollering at home."


FANFARE: Martin Anderson

Warning: this recording is not intended for musicological purists. But if you love spontaneous music making in the most select of company, this is definitely the right recording for you. Radek Babor�k, for example, does not hesitate to arrange a discarded movement from a symphony to add as the missing movements of an unfinished horn concerto. Of course, to tell the truth, didn't Mozart himself do the exact same thing countless times? In this way, the preserved fragments are turned into two "new horn concertos." The Sinfonia concertante for four wind instruments and orchestra, K 297b is a work surrounded by many mysteries, and it fits beautifully in this context of discovery. Here, it is recorded in Babor�k's arrangement for Mozart's original instrumentation. Playing the solo parts are virtuosos from Europe's best orchestras. For the 12 horn duets - the only completely extant composition on this album played in it's original instrumentation - Babor�k's partner is another of today's legendary horn players, Radovan Vlatkovic. Radek Babor�k and his friends are inviting you on an excursion to the world of their elder colleague Wolfgang Amadeus - with his inexhaustible supply of jokes, ideas, and colors.

The legendary Goldberg Variations are among the most frequently recorded Johann Sebastian Bach works; besides numerous versions for piano and harpsichord, there are recordings of transcriptions for other instruments, including the banjo. Even though at first glance the arrangement for wind quartet appears overly distant from the composer's original notion, when listening to it you may have the feeling that Bach himself might have had such an ensemble on his mind when writing the work. The reed instrument timbres wonderfully merge into joint harmony, while their shadings allow for tracing the leading of the individual parts within the polyphonic texture, which is most definitely an advantage as against the original keyboard version. The Aria and the 30 Variations afford sufficient scope for cantilena and foregrounding of the instruments' gracious colours, as well as for showcasing their uttermost virtuosity. The intimate universe of the Goldberg Variations is followed by the festive Suite in C major, BWV 1066, the earliest and the "most French" of Bach's four orchestral suites. The remarkable album has been made by four extraordinary musicians, superb soloists and chamber players, who have adorned some of the most renowned orchestras, including the Berliner Philharmoniker and the Czech Philharmonic.

Collectors and admirers of Dvorak’s music bearing the hallmark of the Czech performance tradition can now add another comprehensive album to put alongside the previous complete Supraphon CDs mapping his chamber, piano, and symphonic works. The acclaimed recording of the symphonies, conducted by Vaclav Neumann, is now followed by Supraphon’s 8-CD box set featuring Dvorak’s orchestral pieces and concertos. In addition to the celebrated Slavonic Dances, it contains a number of rarely recorded symphonic works (the Hussite Overture, My Home, A Hero’s Song), as well as splendid compositions for chamber and string orchestras. Besides recordings made under the baton of Neumann, it provides scope to other great Dvorak conductors – Mackerras, Belohlavek and the rising star Jakub Hruša. The set of orchestral works is rounded off by recordings of concertos, ranging from the virtually unknown Cello Concerto in A major, written by the young Dvorak, to the most frequently performed, the Cello Concerto in B minor. Supraphon has again carefully put together top-quality and time-honoured recordings of works performed by world-renowned soloists.

Folk songs are evidently one of the seminal sources of inspiration that Bohuslav Martinu drew upon in his music. The composer would take Su�il's extensive collection of traditional Moravian songs along with him wherever he travelled. The texts from the volume were used for the majority of the Songs on One Page, Songs on Two Pages and The New Chapbook. Just as Dvor�k had done in his Moravian Duets, so Martinu conceived his own tunes and accompaniment, yet his having been profoundly impacted by folk music, it's rhythm, melody and harmonic techniques is palpable. Created in the early 1940s, in the middle of World War II, during the composer's exile in the USA, the three song cycles represented for Martinu and his compatriots a connection with their beleaguered homeland. Jan Masaryk, a Czech diplomat and a skilled amateur pianist, often performed the songs together with the soprano Jarmila Novotn�, a MET soloist. Owing to their elliptical expression and modesty, the three cycles may serve as the clue to Martinu's late works. The New Slovak Songs constitute a unique piece in the composer's oeuvre; he himself had collected them during his visit to Slovakia in 1920 and subsequently wrote for them piano accompaniments. Three renowned artists, bearing an authentic relation to folk music and Martinu's work alike, have made a benchmark recording, in which they have succeeded in highlighting the songs' tender beauty. Bohuslav Martinu's songs - magnificent tiny pieces by a great master

Classical Music

After two centuries, Reicha's trios are brought to life with irresistible energy Anton Reicha was probably right when - unlike his colleagues - he avoided promoting his own works, being aware that his genius would not be fully appreciated until long after his death. His spirit of experimentation anticipated some of the phenomena of 20th-century music (minimalism, microintervals etc.). It is only now, in the 21st century, that his name is becoming more widely known, without constantly having to bring up his inspirational friendship with Beethoven or make reference to his more famous Parisian pupils like Berlioz, Gounod, or Franck. Following the premiere recording of his complete Piano Concerto (Bartos, Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, Popelka 2025), Reicha's Six Piano Trios, Op. 101, finally make their debut in a reference recording. It took all of 202 years since the first printed edition (1824) for one of his last opuses to find it's way onto a recording of the interpretive and technical quality that the music deserves. Here, the composer's constant surprises keep his listeners alert, and the technical demands on the musicians clearly show that the trios were written for elite performers. In this music, the composer's visionary imagination anticipates the full-blooded Romanticism of Robert Schumann and his contemporaries. The marvellous Trio Bohemo has received deserved acclaim for it's Supraphon debut (Smetana, Schubert, 2024). For this recording in Vienna, they invited the proven recording team of producer Andrew Keener and sound engineer Oscar Torres. Up in the musical heavens, Reicha is surely smiling at the invigorating result, made even more vivid in Dolby Atmos sound.

An exceptional, highly acclaimed performance of Ma vlast, now on vinyl In the span of only a few years, Petr Popelka has ascended swiftly to the forefront of the international conducting elite. Popelka serves as the chief conductor of the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra and of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, and he appears as a guest with top European and American orchestras and at opera theatres around the world. He definitely sees Smetana not merely as a "compulsory Czech classic", but instead as a great love and an opportunity for artistic discovery. "His masterpiece Ma vlast should be done a bit like an opera, like a grand narrative... It is absolutely unique in the history of music, as a cycle of tone poems with the composer's native land as it's theme, and above all, there is no work that has ever been written with greater love." The album was released in 2024 on CD (and in the format Dolby Atmos as well, incidentally) to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Bedrich Smetana's birth. Through a combination of musicality and uncompromising attention to details, the conductor and orchestra were able to give an extraordinarily finely crafted performance. This is not just one more of the countless recordings of Ma vlast, as is shown by enthusiastic reviews from around the world: in February 2025, the magazine Gramophone honoured the album as the Editor's Choice, and the December issue of the French magazine Diapason announced it as the winner of the Diapason d'Or de l'Annee in the symphonic music category. The April 2026 release of this vinyl edition of Ma vlast commemorates the 100th anniversary of the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra's founding.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Bach saved my life... You always feel in his music that God is present somehow. This is not empty declamation. It is a deep confession of harpsichord player Zuzana Růžičková, a survivor of the inconceivable horrors of the Nazi concentration camps of Terezín, Auschwitz and her Bergen-Belsen. She always felt that Bach's music was one of the things that helped her survive. In a certain way this is also true the other way around: Zuzana Růžičková gave new life to Bach's music by persistently promoting the use of harpsichord (as opposed to commonly used piano) in performing Bach repertoire in concert. She was the very first person to initiate the gigantic project of recording the complete harpsichord concertos composed by Bach. This project included the Supraphon recording she made with conductor Václav Neumann and their ensemble at teh unsettled time of the Prague spring of 1968 and the subsequent invasion of the Soviet Army into Czechoslovakia. "The sessions had to be interrupted due to the occasional crack of gunfire or the rumble of tanks passing by the Rudolphinum." One thus might be tempted to label the recording "a historical document" and put in the archive drawers.

A superb collection of very early Kubelik recordings, including numerous world premieres.

This is an excellent collection honoring Rafael Kubelík. The two jam-packed CDs of live 1940s broadcasts include his central repertoire, works he championed very early on, and indeed multiple world-premiere recordings. Not least is the first-ever recording of Shostakovich’s Ninth Symphony, a live concert dating from December 1946; we also get a live reading of Dvorak’s Piano Concerto with Rudolf Firkusny, from the first-ever Prague Spring festival, and, although the booklet doesn’t identify the premiere recordings, I’d be surprised if any earlier performances of the Martin? Fourth Symphony or Memorial to Lidice, or Dobiás’ Stalingrad Cantata, exist.
 
The collection begins with Dvorak’s Eighth, in quite constricted sound - turn up the volume more than normal - but glittering with the kind of brilliance Kubelík brought to the piece for his entire career. Aside from a prominent trumpet flub in the finale, it’s a highly accomplished live reading by the Czech Philharmonic, revealing they and the conductor were masters of the symphony even in the besieged year of 1944. The piano concerto, in sound which suggests that the orchestra is playing somewhere very far away, nevertheless powers forward with energy and vigor. Firkusny plays the old “revised” piano part, with the absolute command which explains why he has long been associated with this piece. Luckily for us, the recording of his piano is much better than we’d expect from the murky-sounding orchestra. Firkusny’s cadenza is especially fine, although more recent interpreters - Aimard with Harnoncourt, say - are more to my liking in the poetic slow movement with its beautiful opening horn solo.
 
Shostakovich’s Ninth - the first recording of the work - is given a performance unlike any since. The outer movements are remarkably speedy affairs, with some live sloppiness but a lot of spirit and neoclassical sharpness; by contrast the second movement sprawls over ten minutes, the slowest I’ve ever heard it. Compare 10:33 to Vasily Petrenko’s 8:46, Leonard Bernstein’s 8:10, or indeed Rudolf Barshai’s 5:43. The scherzo is rather languid, too. All in all a fascinating account of how different it is from the way the symphony is performed today, and it’s worth overlooking the constant audience noise. What may cause distress is the fact that distortion in the tape results in the entire symphony sounding like it is being performed in E rather than E flat!
 
Bohuslav Martin?’s Fourth, a celebratory masterpiece inflected with joy, energy, and inner peace, receives a great performance here (1948). It’s hard to imagine a more thrilling scherzo than Kubelík’s, whirling forward in a great rush of excitement, but by contrast he really milks the gorgeous romanticism of the slow movement, unafraid to play up the different moods - doubt at the beginning, something very like love after 6:00. Belohlávek’s recent recording on Onyx with the BBC Symphony may be preferable in the finale, where the new account’s freer tempos underscore the triumph of the ending, which Kubelík - maybe intentionally - leaves more ambivalent. The recorded sound is sufficient to give the orchestral piano its place, although you will miss some bass lines and timpani and the incredible colors of the opening pages. Supraphon engineers have, as elsewhere, used technology which removes the hisses and pops but at the expense of a slightly constricted acoustic.
 
The disc is rounded out with Martin?’s Memorial to Lidice - a moving rendition which goes more slowly and tragically than many, although Eschenbach’s reading on Ondine is the most anguished I’ve heard - and a novelty, the Stalingrad Cantata of Václav Dobiás. Written in 1945, the cantata for baritone, male chorus, and orchestra is an eleven-minute paean to the Soviet forces, or at least I’m assuming so, because the sung texts are not provided. The music sounds a bit like a ramshackle Nevsky Cantata, with the same wildness and raw masculine energy but without the tunes or distinction. It counts as a welcome rarity, though, because recordings of Dobiás are otherwise basically non-existent.
 
These are valuable historical broadcasts all around, then, from the world premiere recordings of Shostakovich’s Ninth and probably a few other works too, to the Dvorak concerto from the first Prague Spring festival. Rafael Kubelík’s conducting is consistently superb and insightful; his Martin? is energetic but powerful, his Shostakovich like nobody else. This can all be had in more modern recordings - the Dvo?ák symphony from Mackerras or Kubelík himself, the Martin? from Belohlávek or Thomson - but as a two-disc monument to Kubelík’s superb work with the Czech Philharmonic, this can’t be beaten. For a one-CD tribute to that pairing of great artists, though, we must remember the unforgettable Smetana concert they gave after the end of the Cold War.
 
-- Brian Reinhart , MusicWeb International

DVO?ÁK String Quartets Nos. 10-14. Cypresses • Panocha Qrt • SUPRAPHON SU4048-2 (3 CDs: 202:46)


Supraphon is finding new and exciting ways to encourage you to sample the Panocha’s much-admired 1983–95 recordings of Dvo?ák’s string quartets. Should you have collected some individual volumes and run out of steam, you now have the chance to acquire this slimline three-CD set containing the last five quartets, and Cypresses in the bargain. But if you bought the box set of all the quartets and have seldom played the early ones—I shouldn’t think it likely, but it is, I suppose, possible —then it’s also the case that you might cast a jaundiced eye over this selection of the best-known works and wonder why you didn’t hold out.


Whatever you may or may not have done, one can hardly argue with a label that seeks to maximize profits this way, or, to put it another way, to reinvestigate means by which to propagate its recorded legacy and that of its artists. The Panocha is a highly distinguished group, certainly, but it has its rivals, current and past. It also rivals itself, given that it’s made other recordings of this repertoire for other labels. For example, almost a decade after recording Nos. 10 and 14, it rerecorded them for Camerata (28093). The “new” Panocha proved here to be a touch fleeter than the old. James H. North certainly admired both accounts in Fanfare 32:1, as do I, though I like the Prague Quartet’s DG accounts equally, in their very different ways. There is more pathos in the Prague recordings, made between 1973 and 1977, but their heavier bowing and boomier acoustic accords them a somewhat inflated sound. This may or may not please, but it is certainly to be distinguished from the Panocha’s lighter collective qualities.


Another leading Czech group, the Stamitz, has also recorded the full set and most impressively. It’s now to be had complete on Brilliant 99949. They tend to relax just that bit more than their rivals, but evince a genuinely memorable approach. They are very convincing in the op. 106 quartet but in its rather cavernous, distant way, so too is the Prague. Many contemporary ensembles take this quartet in a quasi-symphonic way, piling it with almost neurotic intensity. Fortunately none of these three Czech groups do that. Indeed the Panocha plays with discretion and appropriate tonal weight, arguably a touch more vibrant than either the Stamitz or the Prague in the slow movement.


One can argue the swings and roundabouts of this all day. I find the Prague a touch more patrician in phrasing than either the Stamitz or Panocha, but oddly, rather more openly expressive in a number of the slow movements. Perhaps Cypresses offers a clue: The Panocha plays the fourth, a poco adagio , as a recollected-in-tranquility elegy. The Prague, meanwhile, prefers a more measured melancholy. The difference is between the heightened mobility of the Panocha and the stately reflection of the Prague, a pretty accurate reflection of the expressive differences generally. This also applies to the Panocha’s recent remake, again on Camerata (CMCD-28206), where it’s coupled with Quartet No. 13


Where does this leave us? This three-CD set offers the bulk of Dvo?ák’s greatest quartets, or “The Essential String Quartets” as the cover puts it, in idiomatic, beautifully nuanced readings. The complete set is on Supraphon 3815-2, but this selection of the last quartets contains recordings that are, even in a crowded field, among the best around.


FANFARE: Jonathan Woolf

Classical Music

Classical Music

This Jitka Hosprová homage honors Paul Hindemith (1895-1963); a composer and virtuoso violist who wrote all his viola works within twenty years or so and then abandoned composing for the instrument for good. The pieces featured here also bear witness to Hindemith’s journey from reverberations of Romanticism and Impressionism to attaining his own singular musical language, already evident in Sonata Op. 25. This music remains profound and colorful, as is the viola itself.

Classical Music

POKORN´y Concerto in D for Horn, Timpani, and Strings. ROSETTI Horn Concertos: in E?; in d. PUNTO Horn Concerto No. 5 in F • Radek Baborák (hn); Prague CO • SUPRAPHON 4017 (72:51)


František Xaver Jan Pokorný (1729–94) served Count Philipp Karl of Öettingen-Wallerstein as court violinist from 1750 to 1754, whereupon he was sent to further his studies at Mannehim with Johann Stamitz, Richter, and Holzbauer. Upon returning to his court position, Pokorný was promised the position of choral director, but the Count reneged on his pledge. Patiently biding his time, Pokorný waited until 1766 when the Count finally obliged him by dying. It was then that Pokorný petitioned Prince Alexander Ferdinand Thurn-Taxis in Regensburg for a position at the Prince’s royal chapel. Admittance was granted, and there he remained for the rest of his life.


Some 100 symphonies have been attributed to Pokorný, but more than half of them cannot be authoritatively verified, as autographed scores in the Thurn-Taxis archive support his authorship in only about three dozen of them. Though Pokorný was not a horn player himself, his daughter, Beata, was. She became an acclaimed virtuoso on the instrument, and it’s a certainty that Pokorný wrote the concerto heard on this disc for her.


Antonio Rosetti (c. 1750–92) has fared somewhat better in the recognized name department. He was born Anton Rösler in what is believed to have been the Bohemian town of Litom?e?ice, though details of his exact date of birth and birthplace are not known for sure. What is known is that he returned from a trip to Italy sometime around 1773 no longer Rösler but Rosetti, and under his new Italianized name, he published a great deal of music, including numerous symphonies, concertos, and vocal works. Though Rosetti’s instrument was the double bass, not the horn, he is perhaps best known today for his several horn concertos, which, according to H. C. Robbins Landon, may have been the model for Mozart’s horn concertos.


Giovanni Punto (1746–1803) is another composer who underwent a name change. He was born Jan Václav Stich in Žehušice, Bohemia. Of the three composers on this CD, Punto is the only one who actually played the horn and who distinguished himself as one of its leading lights of the day. At a young age, he was sent by Count Johann Joseph Thun to study the instrument under Joseph Matiegka in Prague, then with Jan Schindelarz in Munich, and finally with A. J. Hampel in Dresden. The last named had long-ranging significance, as Hampel taught the precocious Punto—still Stich at the time—the new hand-stopping technique, which he would later improve upon.


The story might have ended badly for Stich, but Fate intervened on his behalf. After returning to the service of the Count, who had now invested a royal’s ransom in his young horn player’s education, the 20-year-old ingrate ran away with friends. As Shakespeare wrote, “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child!” The infuriated Count, in a fit of cut-off-your-own-nose-to-spite-your-face pique and Biblically inspired retribution, sent his soldiers to apprehend Stich and knock out his teeth to prevent him from ever playing the horn again. But Stich escaped into Italy and became Giovanni Punto. After a brief stint in a couple of court orchestras, he began to freelance, finding himself much in demand in Paris, where he played nearly 50 concerts between 1776 and 1788 and met the Mozarts, père and fils.


Punto wrote a great deal of music, mostly for horn, mainly to display his own technical prowess on the instrument. Among his works are some 16 horn concertos, 47 horn trios, and 21 horn quartets. Few are performed or recorded, but Punto’s name remains a highlighted footnote to history, immortalized by Beethoven who composed his F-Major Horn Sonata, op. 17, for the brilliant player in 1800. The sonata was also published in a version for cello, but only rarely is it included in recordings of Beethoven’s complete works for cello and piano.


Only those who might have preferred a recording of these works on period instruments will be disappointed; all others rejoice. Nothing more really need be said about Radek Baborák beyond noting that since 2003 he has played principal horn in the Berlin Philharmonic. With that prestigious post on his résumé he can lay claim to one of the loftiest perches in horndom. But should you wish to know more about his illustrious career, check it out at his Web site: baborak.com.


From an artist of this caliber one expects nothing less than perfection and that’s what one gets on this recording. A tone of burnished gold issues forth from an instrument under absolute command. Pitch and breath control are perfect, and register shifts are so smooth and seamless that one is not even aware of them. This is truly some of the most awesome horn playing I think I’ve ever heard. The Prague Chamber Orchestra is conductorless; the ensemble, which has been around since 1951, plays with unanimity and precision, and sounds like it’s thoroughly into the high spirits of this music.


And as an afterword on the music, let me just say that I would give all of Mozart’s horn concertos, and Haydn’s too, for any one of the concertos on this disc. These are gloriously beautiful works that deserve far more exposure than they’ve had. I have a now 30-year-old recording of the Punto concerto with Barry Tuckwell, Neville Marriner, and the ASMF on EMI, and a 22-year-old recording of the Pokorný with Hermann Baumann, Iona Brown, and the ASMF on Philips. Neither touches this new one with Baborák, and both are showing their age.


This is definitely a disc for the horn lover. It’s also a disc for all those interested in lesser luminaries from the time of Haydn and Mozart who in their own day shone more brightly than they do now. Thumbs way up on this one.


FANFARE: Jerry Dubins

Selection includes Vaclav Talich speaking about Mozart to a young audience.
All tracks have been digitally mastered using 24-bit technology.

Includes work(s) for piano by Leos Janácek. Soloist: Josef Palinicek.