Bohuslav Martinu: The Complete Music for Violin and Orchestra 2-4.

Bohuslav Martinu

The Complete Music for Violin and Orchestra 2-4 (Concerto da camera H 285, Concerto for Violin and Piano H 342, Czech Rhapsody H 307A, Suite concertante H 276, H 276A, Rhapsody-Concerto H 337, Violin Concerto No. 1 H 226, Violin Concerto No. 2 H 293)

Bohuslav Matousek--violin and viola, Czech Philharmonic, Christopher Hogwood.

Production: Simon Perry, Zdenek Zahradnik. Text: Eng., Ger., Fr. Recorded: 2001-2005, Rudolfinum, Prague. Released: 2008. TT: 64:35, 68:49, 54:10. DDD. 3 CD Hyperion CDA67672, CDA67673, CDA67674.

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The mere fact that the British Hyperion label has managed in less than a year to publish four CDs and so to enrich its catalogue--in a deliberate and very visible way--with the complete works of Bohuslav Martinu for violin and orchestra, is in itself very interesting. Bohuslav Matousek, who in 2000 already recorded a four-CD complete set of the same composer's works for violin and piano with a Czech label, but to international acclaim, has literally fought his way through to his next, this time symphonic complete set, having to go through the whole process twice--once as initiator and essentially producer of a project that Supraphon then abandoned after the first CD, and a second time with a new company. Martinu will definitely not be lost in the Hyperion catalogue (the firm is clearly stronger and more far-sighted than Supraphon), where this admirable complete set is the major artistic achievement that he deserves, and no mere curiosity. It's a good thing that he has found a home there. CMQ (1/2008) has already reviewed the first part with the three double concertos from the turn of the 1930s/40s (for flute and violin and twice for two violins): as an exceptional recording, full of lucid and good-humoured music, infectiously light-footed and juicy, often radiating a unique palette of colours. From the beginning there could be no doubt about Matousek's beautiful, chaste but at the same time suitably energetic and powerful sound--the same superlatives could be used for all four CDs in the project. Over the last year the remaining three titles have come out in succession. The series, which will evidently be coming out in a boxed edition for the Martintu jubilee, is unified by the style of the covers with reproductions of four different pictures of birches. They also have in common Matousek's enthusiastic, highly individual and unostentatious erudition and the conductor's tried and tested, unifying and integrating understanding. It is to be expected that this model, durable performance will prove a standard for many years to come--and one hopes that the CDs will also lead to the inclusion in more ordinary repertoire of some hitherto less frequently played works.

The second CD offers the Concerto da camera, written during the war for Paul Sacher and his Basel Chamber Orchestra. With its similar neo-Baroque stylistic grounding and its instrumental profile and sound, the piece perceptibly develops the line established in the Double Concerto for Two String Orchestras, Piano and Timpani also written for Sacher--but this work is much more dramatic. Unlike most of the music in the complete set the other work on the second CD--Concerto for Violin, Piano and Orchestra--dates from the 1950s. The difference is evident in the more massive symphonic sound, thematic material, development of the musical flow, typical sequences of chords, and correspondingly longer lyrical episodes. Here Karel Kosarek is an equal partner. The Czech Rhapsody, the third item on the second CD, is an exception in the project because it is not an original opus but an orchestration of what was originally a chamber piece (violin and piano). It should be stressed, however, that Jiri Teml accomplished this in a very faithful spirit, perfectly mirroring the orchestral colours and techniques of Martinu as well as small typical details including for example his judgement in the use of a snare drum. Teml did not attempt any kind of mixing with his own ideas or updating with a contemporary aesthetics, but humbly served without giving the impression of plagiarism Violinists can therefore be grateful to him for providing another rewarding concertante piece--a one-movement, ten-minute impressive piece with a marked element of virtuosity. Here too, then, Bohuslav Matousek has space to deploy all his understanding of the music of Bohuslav Martinu in ideal proportions and constant transformations--cantilena, dazzling technique, playfulness, characteristic use of syncopation, and a complexity in which the listener nonetheless never gets lost.

The third CD is unique in two respects. It offers both versions of the piece entitled Suite concertante for Violin and Orchestra, and also a rare but masterly example of Matousek's play on the viola. To look first at the two works with the same name: these are in fact quite different compositions and we do not know why the violinist Samuel Dushkin did not present the first version and why he asked the composer for a new piece. In this country Matousek has premiered both versions--in 1999 he gave the first European performance of the second version and in 200 the first performance of the newly discovered first version. The CD does not, however, contain the fifth movement of the first version, which has so far been found only in uninstrumentated form. Ales Brezina, established for many years now as our key Martinu expert and the author of the remarkably substantial context illuminating accompanying text for all four CDs, inclines to the view that in this case it would not be a good thing for another composer to orchestrate the movement.

In the first version that has a markedly complicated structure the second movement (Meditation. Largo) seems to come from another world. Matousek ravishingly captures its poetry and perhaps its grief too, it is a beautiful cantilena in a pleasant deeper register. He rises in the same way to all the demands of the innumerable transformations in the movements with fast tempos. The two-movement Rhapsody-Concerto for Viola and Orchestra, a superb late work that is unique in the Czech composer's output for the use of this solo instrument, here emerges unambiguously and without exaggeration as the most beautiful of all Martiu's violin concertos. Matousek's approach to the instrument is entirely unaffected, so that we forget about all the jokes made at the expense of violists, and all the derogatory comments about its limited sound, clumsiness and so on. Here (thanks also to the recording team of course) the viola is a resonant bearer of extraordinarily effectively melodious music, a voice with just a light nostalgic undertone, an instrument as mobile as the violin. The orchestra accompanies it with exceptional intensity of expression, and many places are truly glowing.

The fourth CD, released in the autumn, completes the set with recordings of the 1st and 2nd Violin Concerto. The first concerto from the composer's more down-to-earth period of the 1930s abounds with unsentimental melodiousness, but still more in the frequent alternation of solo and orchestra with syncopated friskiness, staccato energy, light mischievousness and in the slow movement an intensifying singing quality. The second could not be more different! It is more symphonic, more fanciful here we here cantilenas and bucolic repose as for example in the Oboe Concerto. The recording has also managed to capture its quality of polyphonic multiple belts, its impressionist colour and the overflow of that colour. The conductor, who has a strong interest in 20th-century music, especially the Neo-Baroque and Neo-Classical, but whose background is in crucial ways anchored in early music, certainly doesn't have as much symphonic experience as some orchestral and operatic matadors. But he has other experiences and a musicality and breadth of vision that he has managed to exploit at the conductor's desk of the Philharmonic in an extraordinary way. Although it was perhaps a little surprising that he was engaged for the project given the contexts in which he is best known, the choice was not just an excellent move, but a triumph. To put it simply, Matousek and Christopher Hogwood have shown a rare gift for making this music exceptionally accessible. Their conception gives the impression of complete agreement; it is entirely persuasive, pulsating, motoric and subtle, precise and distant from affectation. The intonation of the soloist is a hundred percent sure, the difficulty is not accentuated, everything breathes with good humour, trembles and dances as it should. Here the violin is the crystal line growing through the orchestral tissue with brilliant freedom and sometimes emerging out of it with a kind of pathos. In this complete set Marring himself emerges as a composer who need have no difficulty in winning over listeners. And Bohuslav Matousek has accomplished the task of a life time, for which he deserves admiration and honour.