Czech folder

[jowcol]

Jiri Valek Symphony-Duoconcerto for 2 Pianos and Orchestra
Hana Dvorakova, Stanislave Borgunia, pianos
Prague Symphony Orchestra
Libor Pesek, Conductor

This is actually Valek's Symphony No. 14, subtitled Symphony - Duo Concerto (out of a total of 19 symphonies).

Thanks!  I'll update the description in the downloads.

[Dundonnell]

Your flow of uploads is keeping me well busy downloading, copying, cataloguing, trying to listen..........

Not all of the music by any means is particularly to my taste but you deserve a lot of thanks for going to the trouble you are in making so much unfamiliar music available and, specifically, can I thank you for the chance to-at last-hear a symphony by Jiri Valek, a work much more to my taste than....oh, never mind The Valek symphony is splendidly grand and imposing and leaves me definitely wanting to hear more............

[jowcol]

Your flow of uploads is keeping me well busy downloading, copying, cataloguing, trying to listen..........

Not all of the music by any means is particularly to my taste but you deserve a lot of thanks for going to the trouble you are in making so much unfamiliar music available and, specifically, can I thank you for the chance to-at last-hear a symphony by Jiri Valek, a work much more to my taste than....oh, never mind The Valek symphony is splendidly grand and imposing and leaves me definitely wanting to hear more............

To be honest, I haven't had much of a chance to listen to this material either, not that I'm complaining.

I still can't get past Doubrava's 3rd-- sort of like a marriage of Shostakovitch and Pettersson, rough in spots, but very powerful.  His hair style in the picture was downright creepy-- but I'm getting off topic.

Also, if you haven't guessed, I've had a little help from one Karl Miller, without whom I wouldn't be able to offer anything back to this group.  I still have about 10-15 discs to churn through-- more concerti coming up.

[Dundonnell]

Yes, the Doubrava symphonies are indeed powerful pieces

[oleander55]

No he's not.  That's Vaclav Valek, and he doesn't care for Jiri Valek's symphonies at all... and Vaclav's brother, Jiri, the flautist, isn't the same as Jiri Valek the composer!  At some point, the Czechs passed a law that no one could have more than two names.  REALLY helpful.
And downloads for the the Kvech Symphony and the 3-movement Valek work (also called Symphony #14 "Triomphale") are reversed.

[oleander: you must post replies like this in the appropriate thread in the Discussion board here, NOT in the Downloads board, which is only for posts and replies which have download links. Mark]

[oleander55]

Sorry!  Thanks for the admonishment.   I actually thought about moving it later, but I was too late. The Valek is a nice piece, I think -  one of his best.  Note that the "Jiri Valek" who is the featured flautist in the Supraphon recording of Jiri Valek's 6th Symphony is not the composer of the work!  Gahh.

[jowcol]

No he's not.  That's Vaclav Valek, and he doesn't care for Jiri Valek's symphonies at all... and Vaclav's brother, Jiri, the flautist, isn't the same as Jiri Valek the composer!  At some point, the Czechs passed a law that no one could have more than two names.  REALLY helpful.
And downloads for the the Kvech Symphony and the 3-movement Valek work (also called Symphony #14 "Triomphale") are reversed.

[oleander: you must post replies like this in the appropriate thread in the Discussion board here, NOT in the Downloads board, which is only for posts and replies which have download links. Mark]

I'd like to remedy this, if you don't mind slowing down a bit.  Is the first paragraph talking about the photo?

And I'll check the downloads. Thanks.

[Dundonnell]

That explains why I couldn't hear the two pianos in the Valek Symphony I was beginning to smell a rat

So....the Valek file was actually the Kvech and vice versa

In that case...I am extremely impressed by the Kvech, a bit less so by the Valek

[jowcol]

That explains why I couldn't hear the two pianos in the Valek Symphony I was beginning to smell a rat

So....the Valek file was actually the Kvech and vice versa

In that case...I am extremely impressed by the Kvech, a bit less so by the Valek

Ill check the source discs, and  see where the switch may have occurred.  Since I had tagged all of the MP3 files (compulsively, if you all haven't noticed) I will probably need to te-tag and upload--  I just don't want to swap the links and have the  files tagged wrong.

Sorry for the confusion.  Oleander- thanks for the correction! 

[jowcol]

Confusion between Valek Symphony-Duoconcerto and Kvech Symphony:

I've looked into this-- the error was apparently on the source disc.  I agree with your suspicions about the two being switched, but I've asked Karl about the additonal info-- Tracks 1-2 have applause at the end, and 3-5 much more likely to have been ripped from an LP.  So I'm trying to get the conductors and orchestras straight before I re-release this.  I'll mark the downloads to reflect the current state of affairs

Sorry for the confusion. 

[Sydney Grew]

A word about Hurník's Leporelo for piano and chamber orchestra: what a fascinating but polished conglomeration of styles! There is even a snatch of a waltz in there somewhere. On the composer's web-site there are a few words which presumably would tell us something about what is going on:

"Pro malý orchestr. Starý pán najde odhozenou dětskou obrázkovou knížku. Dotkne se ho dojetí i stesk po dávné nevinnosti. Epizodicky se zde vyskytnou netradiční prvky, jako preferovaný klavír, metronom povýšený na hudební nástroj." - but I have not yet been able to get a translation.

[jowcol]

I have update teh download entries for Jiri Valek Symphony 14 (two pianos) and Kvetch's Symphony. Both have re-uploaded files with the most accurate data I can provide.   Anything you downloading before Feb 12, 2012 is suspect.

Sorry for the confusion-- my source disk was labeled incorrectly, and Karl has confirmed the error..  Karl thanks all of you for bringing this to his attention-- he can now update HIS collection.

[Sydney Grew]

. . . a few words which presumably would tell us something about what is going on:

"Pro malý orchestr. Starý pán najde odhozenou dětskou obrázkovou knížku. Dotkne se ho dojetí i stesk po dávné nevinnosti. Epizodicky se zde vyskytnou netradiční prvky, jako preferovaný klavír, metronom povýšený na hudební nástroj." - but I have not yet been able to get a translation.

A member has to-day very kindly drawn my attention to an automatic translator which is able to provide quite a good idea of the meaning:

"For small orchestra. Old man finds a discarded children's picture book. Touches him emotion and nostalgia for the old innocence. Episodically, there are non-traditional elements, such as the favourite [?] piano, and the metronome promoted to musical instrument."

[jowcol]

I've posted Erwin Schulhoff's epic choral work, The Communist Manifesto, in the downloads section.

There are some very powerful passages in it.

Schulhoff is definitely one of the more tragic unsung composers.  I am VERY fond of his concerto for piano and small orchestra-- I have the commercial versions of his symphonies 2&5, and I need to listen to them again.

Wikipedia Entry and Photos

Erwin Schulhoff
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Erwin Schulhoff (8 June 1894 – 18 August 1942) was a Czech composer and pianist.

Life
Born in Prague of Jewish-German origin, Schulhoff was one of the brightest figures in a generation of European musicians whose successful careers were prematurely terminated by the rise of the Nazi regime in Germany. Despite making important contributions to the development of European classical music during the early 20th century, their works have largely languished in obscurity, including Schulhoff's.

In his youth, Schulhoff studied composition and piano in Prague, Vienna, Leipzig and Cologne, where his teachers included Claude Debussy, Max Reger and Willi Thern, among others. He was one of the first classical composers in Europe to find inspiration in the rhythms of jazz music.[citation needed] Schulhoff also embraced the avant-garde influence of Dadaism in his performance and writing after World War I.


Schulhoff occasionally performed as a pianist in the Osvobozené divadlo in Prague.[1] He also toured Germany, France and England as a celebrated keyboard virtuoso.

In the 1930s, Schulhoff ran into mounting personal and professional difficulties. Because of his Jewish descent and his radical politics, he and his works were blacklisted as "degenerate" by the Nazi regime. He could no longer give recitals in Germany, nor could his works be performed publicly.

His Communist sympathies, which became increasingly visible in his works, also brought him trouble in Czechoslovakia. In 1932 he composed a musical version of The Communist Manifesto (Op. 82). Taking refuge in Prague, Schulhoff found employment as a radio pianist, but earned barely enough to cover the cost of everyday essentials. When the Nazis invaded Czechoslovakia in 1939, he had to perform under a pseudonym. In 1941, the Soviet Union approved his petition for citizenship, but he was arrested and imprisoned before he could leave Czechoslovakia.

In June 1941, Schulhoff was deported to the Wülzburg concentration camp, near Weißenburg, Bavaria. He died on 18 August 1942 from tuberculosis.[2]

Musical style
Schulhoff went through a number of distinct stylistic periods. His early works exhibit the influence of composers from the preceding generation, including Debussy, Scriabin, and Richard Strauss. Later, during his Dadaist phase, Schulhoff composed a number of pieces with absurdist elements; notable among these is "In futurum" (from the Fünf Pittoresken for piano) -- a completely silent piece made up entirely of rests that anticipates John Cage's 4′33″ by over thirty years.[3] (Schulhoff's work is itself predated by Alphonse Allais's Funeral March for the Obsequies of a Deaf Man, written in 1897; unlike Allais's and Cage's pieces, however, Schulhoff's composition is notated in great rhythmic detail, and employs bizarre time signatures and intricate, though silent, rhythmic patterns.)

Schulhoff's third style period dates from approximately 1923 to 1932. These were his most prolific years as a composer,[4] and the pieces composed during these years are generally the most frequently performed of Schulhoff's works. Examples include the String Quartet No. 1 and Five Pieces for String Quartet, which integrate modernist vocabulary, neoclassical elements, jazz, and dance rhythms from a variety of sources and cultures.



The final period of his career was dedicated to pieces classifiable as socialist realism, with Communist ideology frequently in the foreground.

In general Schulhoff's music remains connected to Western tonality, though—like Prokofiev, among others—the fundamentally triadic conception of his music is often embellished by passages of intense dissonance. Other features characteristic of Schulhoff's compositional style are use of modal and quartal harmonies, dance rhythms, and a comparatively free approach to form. Also important to Schulhoff was the work of the Second Viennese School, though Schulhoff never adopted twelve-tone serialism as a compositional tool.[5]

[JimL]

I have also changed the picture to  what should be  Jiri Valek the composer,  not Jiri Valek the conductor or Jiri Valek the exotic dancer.  It this one is in error, please send me a link.

Looks like a composer to me.  Most decidedly does not look like an exotic dancer!