Suk's gangling and loquacious orchestral tetralogy had Ripening as
its penultimate chapter. None of its elements are short. Asrael plays
for over an hour and A Summer's Tale is of similar span. Ripening
was written eight years after the Tale in 1917. It was completed
on 14 August that year and premiered by those who made the recording here
though no doubt the orchestral personnel had changed completely.
Ripening muses in one long paragraph (Asrael and the
Tale are each in five movements) tracking through high summer, tossing
great wave-form fanfares backwards and forwards at climactic moments like
a cresting summer storm. Trumpets and horns echo and re-echo at 7.35, 11.53
and 19.51 to take a few examples. The work has a Straussian opulence and
the layered luxuriance of Bax's Spring Fire if without its transparency.
Strauss's named symphonies are quite apposite parallel works. The flow of
the argument is instinctive - essentially rhapsodic and bound up in the feelings
of the moment. Both Beecham and Barbirolli would have made classic interpreters
had they been aware of the work.
To have this work conducted by its dedicatee and recorded with a lifetime
of championing Suk's works behind him is a privilege. One wonders how different
the present version was from that first patriotic night in Prague when Talich
was cheered to the rafters.
Ripening, by the way, was inspired by a poem by Antonin Sova (1864-1928).
The score carries a section of the poem as a superscription. As with so much
of Suk the work has autobiographical roots.
The recording of A Fairy Tale is tottering and ancient (1949) having
been remastered for Supraphon at the Abbey Road studios in London. It is
not the only version to have but it has some great moments including some
notably passionate playing in the True Love of Raduz and Mahulena.
This disc, of great historical moment, is primarily for the connoisseur rather
than the general listener.
Rob Barnett
Czech PO/Václav
Talich
