Search - Bohuslav Martinu, Jiri Belohlavek, Czech Philharmonic Orchestra :: Martinu: Symphonies Nos. 3 & 4

Representative of this composer of many styles & moods

Larry VanDeSande | Mason, Michigan United States | 11/11/2005

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Bohuslav Martinu is one of the more original voices in 20th century music in part due to his training and roots. Born on the Bohemian-Moravian border, he studied in Paris with Roussel in the 1920s and moved to the United States where he wrote his first five symphonies including the two on this CD. He often wrote at great speed and with profligate but inconsistent output.



Written about the time of the Normandy invasion in 1944, the Symphony No. 3 is the most consistently tragic of Martinu's six symphonies. Beginning in a brooding minor key, the three movement symphony regularly builds to a fever pitch that explodes in crescendo then dies to nothingness and builds again. This motif is consistent throughout the three movements. The dark drama lightens at the end of the final andante, where a mood of peaceful optimism takes over, as if the music recounts Eureop's World War II horror with its finale looking ahead to the conclusion less than a year away. The scoring includes a piano.



Written a year later, the Symphony No. 4 marked Martinu's return to the four movement platform. Its mood is much brighter that the predecessor and the work begins in a major key flurry of instruments. The first movement development is light and playful and later gravitates to a heightened frenzy of amazement.



The second movement -- marked "Allegro vivo - Trio. Moderato - Allegro vivo" - is the heart of the symphony and the exemplar of the many moods and styles of Martinu. It bursts forth in drama, then goes into a woodwind trio and back to a full symphonic march, with a return to drama and again to playfulness, then back to more drama.



This is followed by a 9 1/2 minute "Largo" of light and shade with piano and timpani underscoring that leads to a dramatic Dvorakian finale ("Poco allegro") where the music ends in a joyous outburst.



The symphonies are more than adequately performed by Jiri Belohlavek and the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, the same band that with Karel Ancerl recorded still treasured performances of the Martinu symphonic canon for Czech radio during the 1960s.



These performances, recorded September 2003 in Dvorak Hall of the Rudolfinum in Prague, sound like a lot of recordings I've heard from Belohlavek -- forceful without much repose or extremes of tempo. I recently heard Belohlavek's Dvorak Symphony No. 6 on the BBC Magazine label and the music (which was recorded in concert) sounded almost exactly like this.



Like a lot of recordings in the Rudolfinum, this one renders orchestral detail cloudy with little brilliance. The overall sound is not homogenous but there is a notable lack of clarity.



While not the final word presenting the Martinu oeuvre, this recording may serve as an introduction for those interested to know where this composer sits on the European totem pole of 20th century composers. His original and multifacted voice is adequately represented here.



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