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Jan Novák (1921-1984)
Orchestral Music – Volume One
Concerto for Piano and String Orchestra (1949)
Concerto for Oboe and Chamber Orchestra (1952)
Concentus biiugis for piano four hands and string orchestra (1977)
Alice Rajnohová (piano)
Vilém Veverka (oboe)
Lucie Schinzelová, Kristýna Znamenáčková (piano duet)
Ensemble Opera Diversa/Gabriela Tardonová
rec. 2015/2019, Besední dům & Brothers of Charity Monastery, Brno, Czech Republic
TOCCATA CLASSICS TOCC0551 [75]

Prior to listening to this new Toccata release I had not heard any orchestral music by the Czech composer Jan Novák. If you look through the Supraphon catalogue, you can find various works in various genres but with this new disc titled Volume 1 the hope has to be that this will be the first disc in a comprehensive survey of his music in good modern sound. As ever with Toccata, the quality of the music making and its presentation is greatly aided by the excellent English-only liner which gives the listener a detailed and valuable over view of the composer, his life and works. Here the liner has been written by Martin Flašar – a professor of musicology at Masaryk University in Brno and a leading expert on Novák. Novák became one of the leading composers who sought to re-establish a Czech musical identity in the years after World War II and the absorption of Czechoslovakia into the Soviet influence Eastern bloc. On the evidence of the music presented here, composers such as Stravinsky and Martinů at their most neo-classical are obvious and abiding influences.

The opening work on the disc is the Concerto for Piano and String Orchestra written in 1949. This is a substantial concerto lasting 30:48 cast in the standard three movement fast/slow/fast format. This was actually Novák’s second attempt at a concerto – the first he showed to Martinů who dismissed it at “fitful and scholastic”. The playing here with pianist Alice Rajnohová accompanied by the Ensemble Opera Diversa under Gabriela Tardonová is genuinely excellent; clean and alert, sinewy and precise. The Ensemble are Brno-based and have made something of a speciality of playing this composer’s music. Certainly they sound very at home in the idiom. The recording is quite close and the ensemble – strings alone in the two keyboard concerti – is very small; 5.5.3.2.2. This does allow for the detail of the contrapuntal writing to register well and the playing is neat and accurate but when Novák asks for more lyrical, quieter and reflective passages the result does sound thin rather than ethereal. Of the three works I found the Piano Concerto the least individual – what it seeks to do it does well but in a rather generic neo-classical manner – the influences seem to outweigh the original voice. The construction and craft of the work is never in doubt but there was a distinct sense that this was a well-trodden stylistic path. The central Andante pastorale seems to be a fairly direct tribute – and a good one – to Martinů. This is a good example of Rajnohová’s poised playing but also the slight thinness to the string sound as recorded. The closing Allegro bustles along with good humoured energy with a central section that revisits the lilting rhythm of the central pastorale. This is the longest work on the disc and I did wonder if it would have been improved by a degree of concision.

This seems especially true when immediate comparison is made with the Concerto for Oboe and Chamber Orchestra that follows it. This work runs to just 18:30 and is a little gem from first to last. Novák adds trios of flutes, bassoons and horns to the strings. The recording sets the entire orchestral group slightly further back into the recording space to good effect. The soloist here is Vilém Veverka who is the solo oboe with the Brno Philharmonic Orchestra. He plays quite beautifully whether playfully boisterous in the opening Allegro or with meltingly beautiful long lines in the central Andante sostenuto. The deployment of the extra wind is extremely well handled too – they add warmth and variety to the string group but at the same time leave a neat “gap” in the ensemble to avoid overwhelming the solo line. In every regard this concerto feels like a considerable advance on the piano concerto. The form and structure has a neat and satisfying precision, the musical material is more individual and memorable – the main theme of the slow music is genuinely memorable and beautifully played here. The closing Allegro has a bubbling good humour that put me in mind of French composers such as Françaix and it is played here with alert precision by soloist and orchestra alike. Only the very ending of the work feels oddly abrupt. This is the work’s first recording and as such should be of real interest and value to players and orchestras looking for unusual but effective oboe repertoire.

The disc is completed by the relatively late (1977) Concentus biiugis for piano four hands and string orchestra. Novák was a latin scholar and “Concentus biiugis” literally means a “concerto of two yoked together”. In the liner Flašar states that this is “a supremely inventive and richly scored concerto, and is one of Novák’s best works.” Certainly the influence of Martinů is still very clear and strong and in the closing Allegro a fairly explicit homage to Stravinsky and The Rite of Spring. Formally this is again a standard fast/slow/fast structure and in duration terms it sits between the two previous works at 25:46. The two pianists who share a single keyboard are Lucie Schinzelová and Kristýna Znamenáčová who play with exactly the required combination of muscular precision and brilliance. The central Lento is the longest movement in the work and – as the tempo indication indicates – occupies a more atmospheric and less lyrical landscape than the slow movements of the other two concerti on the disc. It will be interesting to hear further volumes and discover which is the more characteristic voice of the composer. This concerto was recorded some years after the other two and the recording team have reverted to the closer more analytical placement for the string group which in some ways suits the neo-classical spirit of the work without being that helpful for the players themselves.

Overall, another enterprising and valuable Toccata release – very well played and presented with care and dedication by all concerned. Future volumes will be fascinating to hear.

Nick Barnard

Previous review: Jonathan Woolf