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Zdeněk
LUKÁŠ (b.1928)
Concerto for viola and orchestra Op.185 (1983) [23:50]
Divertimento for violin and viola Op.96 (1973) [13:40]
Meditation for viola and piano Op.116 (1975) [9:15] Jiří JAROCH (1920-1986)
Fantasy for viola and orchestra (1966) [13:52]
Karel Špelina
(viola),
Antonín Novák (violin),
Josef Hála (piano)
Plzeň Radio Symphony Orchestra/Vít Micka (Concerto), Bohumír Liška (Fantasy)
rec. Czech Radio Plzeň February 1985 (Concerto), Czech Radio Prague April
1978 (Divertimento, Meditation); Czech Radio Plzeň October 1974 (Fantasy) ARCO DIVA
UP0090-2 131 [62:56]
These
are not new performances. They were recorded for Czech Radio
in Prague and Plzeň between 1974 and 1985 and are now
being made available through Arco Diva. As violist Karel Špelina
relates in a brief booklet introduction the disc celebrates
a collaboration of over forty years’s standing between himself
and Zdeněk Lukáš. Both Lukáš and the other composer
here, Jiři Jaroch, were erstwhile violists and friends
and Špelina has done much to further their music for his
instrument.
The
biggest work here is Lukáš’s Concerto written in 1983 and
taped two years later. Appropriately it’s performed by the
Plzeň Radio Symphony Orchestra, of which Špelina – born
in the city – had been a member between 1962 and 1970. By
the time he came to broadcast the concert he was violist
in the Czech Philharmonic – latterly he was their august
principal. It’s a beautiful work and one of which I’ve grown
inordinately fond. Essentially modal it sports a second subject
of folkloric intensity and flecks of Janáček – in essence
a reminiscence, it seems to me, of the viola statements from
his Second Quartet From My Life. The brass fanfares
are also subtly reflective of the less pressing moments of
the Sinfonietta. But above all Lukáš has the courage to be
himself – an inheritance derived from his adviser Kabeláč and
also the result of his absorption of folk models. Such models
are thoroughly assimilated so that if, for example, you respond
to Martinů you may also find that the more charged and
energised moments here wear his inheritance lightly.
The
very characteristic wind writing that opens the lovely central
movement has an almost Dvořákian warmth; cyclic elements
are generated by those brass themes and those Martinů-like
cadences. Here Lukáš seems to embrace the beauty and lyrical
introspection – also the more vibrant passages and contours – of
the corresponding slow movement of the Dvořák Cello
Concerto. A percussive tattoo starts the finale but that
brass figure returns to divert one to more clement and lyric
waters. The writing becomes interior, introspective, wistful
and irresistibly warm before a brisk and sprightly end. This
is a tremendously generous, well-crafted and lyrical work,
splendidly realised by Špelina and the Plzeň forces
under Vít Micka.
The
Divertimento teams the violist with Antonín Novák, and that’s
a sure marker of elevated violin playing. These deft and
contrastive miniatures are constantly alive and finely textured.
Whether entwining or providing repetitious tags for the companion
instrument to vault over, these colourful and subtle pieces
provide ceaseless pleasure. Note in particular the dynamic
variations and the ever-shifting patterns. The Meditation
for viola and piano was written in 1975. It’s cast in two
parts – the first is reflective, slow, with the piano’s repetitious
lines providing a base for the viola’s more active lyricism.
The fast section is finely judged and excitingly realised
by these two practised exponents - Josef Hála is the pianist
- before a return to the more meditative opening material.
Jiři
Jaroch’s Fantasy is the earliest of all the works here. Rather
like Hindemith he dispensed with the orchestral violins and
violas. The sound world is therefore correspondingly more
austere and brass-orientated but the viola’s role as contemplative
mediator is not absolute. There are plenty of moments of
tensile energy and gritty power as well. The precision of
the scoring is remarkable and Jaroch doesn’t neglect lyricism – only
his is more troubled and complex.
Arco
Diva has done well to acquire these tapes. The triple salute
to two composers and violist has been realised with character
and imagination. And if you respond to Lukáš’s Music for
Harp and Strings (see review),
I know you will love his Viola Concerto.
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