Listeners of my age will have grown up on the great 1950s and
1960s Supraphon recordings of Martinů. Who could forget
Karel Sejna’s searing account of the
Concerto for double
string orchestra,
piano and timpani (Supraphon 50109),
František Hanták in the
Oboe Concerto (Supraphon
50486), or the Janáček and Vlach Quartets in the
5th and
7th Quartets (Supraphon
50424)? There was so much, and in the most idiomatic performances
one could wish for. The trouble was that when a western group
recorded a Martinů work the performance never seemed to
have quite the edge of those Czech recordings. Things have changed
slightly in the past twenty or thirty years as Martinů has
become more accepted, if not in the concert hall, then certainly
on disk.
These performances are most welcome bringing together a selection
of works from Martinů’s later years. The
Piano
Quartet is so typically Martinů! Oddly it’s the
only major chamber work of his which Supraphon didn’t record
in those earlier days, although, perhaps even more oddly, the
Richards Quartet recorded it on Oiseau Lyre. It’s full
of the usual, seemingly inconsequential chatter of his best neo-classical
pieces, with a moment of hilarious indecision at the start, and
containing some dark lyricism. The slow movement is particularly
impressive in its ability to move one emotionally, whilst, musically,
doing very little. The finale has an insouciance which is very
typical of some of Martinů’s works, but goes unmentioned.
I am convinced that it is a kind of California dreamin’ style,
years before the hippies discovered it. This is a lovely, laid-back,
performance of one of Martinů’s sunniest chamber works.
The
Oboe Quartet is written for the unusual ensemble of
oboe, piano, violin and cello, instead of the usual oboe and
string trio. It’s rather serious and even though written
in his neo-classical voice, doesn’t chatter away. What
it does do, however, is have a serious discussion about the music
presented. The finale brings things to a delightfully carefree
conclusion. The second of Martinů’s
2 Duos for
violin and cello, doesn’t have the jazzy Paris of the 1920s
acting as its mentor (as did the
1st Duo (1927)).
It’s slightly too long for its material, and too serious
for its instrumentation.
The
3rd Piano Trio is one of
Martinů’s masterpieces. Here the composer packs a
lot into a very short playing time. It’s full of good tunes,
has a certain amount of incident and is beautifully laid out
for the instruments. It has a real purpose, that of working out
musical problems in an intelligent and logical way. This is a
very serious work and makes a most satisfying conclusion to a
disk which contains an amount of lighter fare.
These are very fine performances of music which tickles the ear
most pleasantly yet discovers some depths as well. They are not,
indeed they could not, be as idiomatic as the older Czech recordings.
The newer Czech recordings also seem more cosmopolitan and less
integrated as performances. If you’ve got the Foerster
Trio in the
3rd Trio (Supraphon
50698), or Josef Suk and André Navarra in the
2nd Duo (Supraphon
50877) don’t get rid of them for these performances in
no way supercede them. However, this disk is worth having because
of the coupling, and the
Quartet and
Trio on one
disk make this a very tempting buy.
Bob Briggs
George Caird (oboe), Schubert Ensemble
(Simon Blendis (violin), Douglas Paterson (viola), Jane Salmon (cello), William
Howard (piano)) 
