This
super-budget Martinů release is
very welcome, as much for the inventive
programming as for the playing and recording,
which luckily are both excellent.
The Sixth Symphony
has plenty of first-class rivals in
the catalogue, my own benchmark being
from the superb BIS cycle by Neeme Järvi
and the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra.
There are also fine versions from Václav
Neumann and Jiři Bĕlohlávek,
who both have at their disposal the
supple and ‘authentic’ Czech Philharmonic.
I also like Bĕlohlávek’s interesting
couplings of other Czech music, namely
the Janáček Sinfonietta
and Suk Fantastic Scherzo, all
beautifully recorded on Chandos.
But this new Arte Nova
disc trumps them all in a way. Neither
of the fillers here are exactly thick
on the ground, yet at least one is an
outright masterpiece. The Three
Frescoes
are vintage, mature Martinů and
well loved among his admirers, yet this
new disc virtually has the field to
itself as a modern digital recording.
Yes, there is the vintage Ančerl
version, wonderfully coupled with the
Fifth Symphony and Memorial
to Lidice,
in many ways the ideal Martinů
disc for a new collector. However the
sound of that Supraphon is showing
its age, and music of such colour and
variety really benefits from an open,
modern recording. There is also a BIS
disc from James de Preist which I have
not heard, and is certainly full price.
With this background one really has
to welcome the present release.
To return to the Sixth
Symphony,
we find the Prague-born conductor Jiři
Kout and his Swiss orchestra on excellent
form, characterful and responsive to
the mood-shifts and originality of this
music. In that wonderfully evocative
opening, with its swirling textures
sounding like a Bartókian swarm
of insects, Kout allows the single trumpet
note to emerge with more clarity than
Järvi, and he adopts a distinctly
more relaxed tempo. Overall in the movement
I feel Järvi’s brisker, tighter
hold pays more dividends, but Kout’s
handling does reveal more detail. The
lovely folksy tune at 3’20, so Tippett-like,
emerges with unruffled happiness, and
the quirky little passage for percussion
and solo violin (5’56) has just the
right mixture of charm and mystery.
The ‘swarm of bees’
gets even more agitated at the start
of the second movement, and the orchestra
copes well with the demandingly high
string writing, first and second violins
divided left and right to produce effective
antiphonal interplay. Järvi judges
the chorale-like close to the Symphony
slightly better than Kout, and his wind
section are slightly more disciplined,
but this Arte Nova performance must
certainly be judged a success overall.
One can hear immediately
that the Frescoes come
from the same pen and period. The opening
is not dissimilar with block dissonances
replacing the whirlwind of sound in
the Symphony.
The feeling of contrasting colours and
a bold fantasy element obviously comes
from the same fertile imagination. Martinů
began sketches after seeing the famous
eight frescoes in the Franciscan
church in Arezzo, ending up with a three-movement
structure that mirrors the tripartite
form of the Symphony. He never
intended them to be programmatic, rather
a ‘lyrical meditation that breathes
calm and colour’, as he put it. The
first movement subject is the depiction
of Solomon and Sheba, vividly realised
in music of great atmosphere and Ravelian
colour. The second is based on a representation
of Emperor Constantine, who dreamt of
a victorious cross. Again, atmosphere
is all, with echoes
of Nielsen’s wind writing occasionally
drifting through the texture. The third
movement, which Martinů intended
to summarize his whole impression of
the frescoes, starts straight out of
middle-period Stravinsky but ends with
long-breathed chords that bring
to mind once again the Sixth Symphony.
If you don’t know this piece, grab this
disc and get to know it!
The little 15-minute
orchestral suite from the opera ‘Julietta’
is not new to the catalogue, but is
not common and makes an entirely apt
extra. It is thought to be the composer’s
favourite opera (he quotes part of it
in the Sixth Symphony), so a
concert version was always a good idea.
In the end, it was not Martinů
who undertook this but a conductor colleague,
Zbynĕk Vostřák. I can’t claim
to know the opera, but this nicely balanced
three-movement suite is very enjoyable,
with recognisable watermarks of the
composer cropping up regularly, even
though this is from his earlier
Parisian period. Yes, there are shades
of other composers (how could there
not be in a piece from 1930s Paris?)
but this is very likeable and sits perfectly
with its weightier partners.
All in all, this is
excellent stuff, even if it may not
displace your existing favourites. The
recording is rich and full, and it’s
very difficult to find any real fault
with the conducting or playing, short
of ridiculous nitpicking. The notes
are brief but adequate. A super-budget
winner.
Tony Haywood
Symphony Orchestra St.Gallen/Jiři Kout 