Adolf Mišek (1875-1955) was a Bohemian double bass virtuoso
whose career was in Vienna, where he was a student of the eminent
Franz Simandl. In time Mišek became a member both of the Vienna
Opera orchestra and the city’s Philharmonic, the two most prestigious
positions in the Dual Monarchy. With the dismemberment of the
Empire, Mišek travelled back to the land of his birth and spent
the remaining near four decades of his life in Prague, firstly
as principal bassist in the Orchestra of the National theatre,
and then as a freelance musician and composer. I’m indebted
to Szymon Marciniak’s booklet notes for these details.
Simandl was one of the most distinguished and influential bassists
of his time, but Mišek – though he took over the older man’s
teaching position at the Conservatory on his death – never established
the same kind of influence. Nevertheless he did compose for
his own instrument and the fruits of that career, carried out
concurrently with his orchestral and operatic duties, can be
enjoyed in the first of a two volume retrospective.
The Sonata No.1 was written in 1905. Banish thoughts of Zemlinsky
and Strauss. It opens with a zippy Schubertian march theme and
lashings of Viennese charm. The piano trips daintily, the lyrical
themes – nicely apportioned to the big beast of the double bass
– are full of witty contrast. For the slow movement we visit
rather religiose territory, reflective and warm. Szymon Marciniak
manages to spin a succulent legato with fine tonal resources
and he clearly enjoys the frolicsome Polka that launches the
finale. Here Mišek modulates adeptly, feinting into a fugato,
but one remembers most the truly lovely B section.
Six years later he completed his Second Sonata, and this is
a different work entirely. The aura is clearly Brahmsian, and
the urgent late-Romanticism that courses through its veins is
very much removed from the genial effervescence of the earlier
sonata. Vocalised charm animates the slow movement; Mišek is
extremely good at delightful and contrastive B sections, as
again here. There’s a vaguely Dvorákian Furiant-as-Scherzo and
then the finale reverts to Brahms, slightly clotted textually,
but full of incident and rhythmic verve.
The programme bisects the two sonatas with a brief 1903 Concert-Polonaise,
music to the ears and fingers of the Polish team of Marciniak
and Joanna Lawrynowicz. Slightly generic it might be, but it
has a real sense of dignity that I like very much. And, whilst
it makes demands, it doesn’t revel in obvious virtuoso flourishes,
which is all to the musical good.
This is a most pleasant revival, engagingly played, and well
recorded.
Jonathan Woolf
Szymon Marciniak (double bass)