Czech folder

[Sydney Grew]

. . . Every bit of information I have on Matej lists his first symphony (1953-55) as being for Soloists, Choir, and large Orchestra.  Not what I hear on the upload.  Also see if it says that the last movement was inspired by Spike Jones! . . .

Here is all I have:

Olomouc is a city in Moravia, and it was thence that the broadcast came.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olomouc

The orchestra was the Janáček Philharmonic of Ostrava under Eduard Fischer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostrava_Philharmonic_Orchestra

I see there that it recently presented the première of Rachmaninoff's Fifth Pianoforte Concerto!

According to Grove's Dictionary (which mentions no chorus) "Matej's music draws on Moravian folk melody." But having said that, I do see the resemblance!!! Did Mr. Jones have a Moravian background by any chance?

[Miklos Pogonyi]

Regarding MVS' recent upload of Rudolf Karel's Symphony "Renaissance", I can assure everyone that was never on a Panton LP or any other commercial recording. The source is a Czech radio broadcast which has been around for many years. It's well worth hearing, so thanks for uploading MVS.
Just wanted put in my proverbial 5c worth.

[JimL]

. . . I'm still not sure if the name of the orchestra is just Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra, or if there is a city name attached to it as well.  It could be that the announcer is saying . . .  "The Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra of Such-and-such is conducted by Stanislav Bogunia".  . . .

Top marks! The "of such-and-such" part is "v Praze" (pronounced "fpraze") - meaning "of or in Prague."

  Thanks, Sydney Grew!  I can now put "Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra, Prague" in my performer field and my editing is complete!

[Holger]

Elroel,

thanks for Trojan's Špalíček music. However, the second link appears to be wrong as it leads to Miloš Vacek's Poem for the Fallen Heroes. Could you correct that?

[jowcol]

Symphony by Pavel Blatny (1984)


Prague Symphony Orchestra
Vladimir Valek, Conductor
Private recording of a live performance

From the collection of Karl Miller

I've sorry I've not been able to dig up more about Blatny-- maybe some of you can, but he's one of these more recent composers that studied serialism and then moved to a much simpler (and emotionally satisfying) idiom.  He's dabbled, at one time or another with Neoclassicism, Jazz, Rock, serialism, and neoromanticism.

I'd consider this to be a very melodic and approachable work, barring some occasional unexpected jumps that make more sense the second time around. And  unlike the products of  some "polystylists" , this work seems to hold together well. The Third movement is one of those classic elegaic, yet brooding, third movements that a Shostakovich or Myaskovsky would write, and I've been listening several times. Anyway--  your mileage may vary, but here is some more  about Blatny:
(Who is not to be confused with the Chess Champion of the same name)



Biography

Pavel Blatny hails from a musical family (his father, composer Josef Blatny studied with Leos Janacek). Having graduated from the Brno University (Musicology) and Conservatory, where he studied piano, conducting and composition, he started to study composition with Pavel Borkovec. The studies accented Blatny's inclination to neoclassicism which prefigured his first compositional period. It is characterized by Blatny's admiration for Stravinsky, Prokofiev and Martinu; he absorbed their artistic legacy and remelted it into an individual expression, featuring, among other things, independent application of two differing sound layers, which alternate in the course of the composition as two interlocutors (it is also denoted "the dialogue principle").

At the end of the '50s the neoclassical period was replaced by composer's interest in contemporary compositional techniques. Pavel Blatny was one of the first Czech explorers in twelve-tone system composition, but he was also one of the first who realized its limits and shortcomings. His individual way of composition arose from the effort to relax the rigor of dodecaphonic combustion and it is characterized by the aspiration to achieve a synthesis of the rational composition system and the spontaneity of direct musical expression, a synthesis of classical music and jazz, often described as "the third stream". Of all his compositions of this character, Concerto for Jazz Orchestra and 0:10:30 for symphony orchestra are especially notable. Thanks to that creative concept, Pavel Blatny's name gained quick popularity at home and abroad. He appeared in eighth place in the American jazz critics' charts for Down Beat magazine in 1966, in 1967 in fifth place, although he has never been a jazz musician per se.

In his third stream works Pavel Blatny was above all seeking a way to the listener. As in the course of the '60s it was becoming ever more apparent that compositions respecting the tonal feeling are most comprehensible to listeners, Blatny returned to tonality (for the first time in the composition called D-E-F-G-A-H-C in 1967). His third stream works underwent a specific development; while at the beginning of the '60s we could characterize it as an amalgamation of approaches used then by New Music and jazz, at the end of the '60s and in the '70s we must speak of a synthesis of jazz and neoclassical or neorenaissance elements.

At the beginning of the '80s Blatny's composition style developped from the third stream to classical genres, tonality, trim form, deliberately archaizing and simplified expression. This period began with The Willow, a cantata setting of K. J. Erben's popular poem which was awarded in 1981 the Czech Composers and Concert Artists' Union Prize, then followed the symphonic movement Bells and another two Erbenian cantatas Christmas Eve and The Noonday Witch.

Importation and comprehensibility of contemporary music has been Pavel Blatny's aim in his creative endeavor so far. Spontaneous response to his extensive works (more than 500 compositions) that widespread and encompasses almost all kinds of music is a testimony to the success of his endeavor.

The synthesis of New music, jazz from the sixties, and the rock innovations by his son Marek (Confrontation, Play, Meditation) is characteristic for Pavel Blatny's more recent works which he wrote in the 1990s and in the first decade of the 21th century. Some of his late works are also inspired by his own earlier compositions (Erbeniade), and even by the works of his father Josef Blatny (Luhačovice Melancholy and others). Above all it is the method of polystylism which triumphs in his late works, e.g. Antivariation on the timbre of Antonin Dvořák, lately An Old Chant.

[jowcol]

Symphony 3 by Oldrich Flosman


Kuhn Female Chorus; Pavel Kuhn, Cond.
Prague Symphony Orchestra
Valdimir Valek, Conductor (1987)

Source LP:  Panton 81071

From the collection of Karl Miller


I've not been able to find out much about Flosman, other than the picture and a blurb that said he was popular during the communist era.  I would say that this work reminds me of the sound world of Vaughan Williams's 6th and 7th symphonies, which you can take as a recommendation or a warning.

[jowcol]

Symphony #3 for Mixed Chorus and Orchestra by Vaclav Felix, 1986


Prague Radio Chourus, Pavel Kuhn, Cond.
Prague Radio Symphony Orch.
Jiri Malat, Conductor

Source: PANTON 8110 839 (LP) (1988)

From the collection of Karl Miller

For those of you who may wish to collect more 3rd Symphonies by Czech Composers with chorus, this may be your lucky day.  This one is by Vaclav Felix, was written about the same time, but I would say it was "brighter" than the Flosman (although I've been preferring the Flosman).  I don't have trained ears, but in a lot of ways this sounds like it could have been written much earlier. It  is an expansive and approachable work to me, and definitely uplifting at the end.

I found just a little about Felix on Music Web, to wit:

VÁCLAV FELIX
(b. 1928, CZECH)
Born in Prague. He studied piano, violoncello, musical theory and composition privately as a teenager before passing a graduation course at the Prague Conservatory that enabled him to go on to study composition at the Faculty of Music of the Prague Academy of Performing Arts with of Pavel Bořkovec and Václav Dobiaš. He completed his studies with musical theoretician Karel Janeček. He worked as a music editor, as Secretary of the Union of Czechosfovak Composers and taught at the Faculty of Music of the Prague Academy of Performing Arts. His catalogue includes operas as well as orchestral and other works of various genres. His later Symphonies are: Nos. 4 "Solemn" (1987) and 5 for Chamber Orchestra (1987).

[isokani]

Thank you for Petrzelka -- I am listening to the Sinfonietta.
I have collected quite a bit of his piano music over the last few years. It is rather good too, mostly.

Is the Sinfonietta a one-movement, nearly six-minute-long piece? That's all I got on the download, but the music - for some reason - sounds like the first movement of a bigger piece ...

[oleander55]

Yow!! That's not Petrzelka at all!  It's the Chlubna Comedy Overture!  I'll get this straightened out this evening!  Sorry!

[oleander55]

There!  The real Petrzelka Sinfonietta has been uploaded and the name of the other work has been corrected.  The Chlubna follows the Petrzelka on the record and when I split the file, I got the names reversed!    So - THANKS, Isokani!!

[isokani]

Yow!! That's not Petrzelka at all!  It's the Chlubna Comedy Overture!  I'll get this straightened out this evening!  Sorry!

Ah - Oswald Chlubna! I think a Suk pupil. Have his Nocturne cycle of pf pieces...

Thanks for this. I look forward to the real Petrzelka now. All best

[oleander55]

Re:  Karel's Revolution Overture. I delayed putting this one on here because I figured that most people would already have it.  If you don't, I recommend it, not only for its considerable musical interest, but also because of its relevance to Karel's eventual fate.  I don't suppose that this single work resulted in Karel's arrest and murder, but it certainly must have attracted more unwelcome attention than a say, Smiling Happy Hitler Overture, or Gestapo Dances would have.

By the way, back in the 70's, if you wrote to Supraphon or Panton and expressed an interest in some of their contemporary composers, they'd send you the records, along with little pamplets about the composers - originally free (!) but later with a "pro-forma invoice" - usually for a pittance.  That's where I got so many contemporary Czech works...  Now, it might take as long as a year for them to get them to you, but it added a certain  sense of anticipation to checking the mail - often for months on end.

[eschiss1]

Looking forward to hearing Karel's symphonic works. One of his chamber works is @IMSLP; I finished listening to it today- it's a _big_ string quartet possibly written before the first WW but published after it - and I quite liked it. Thanks for posting them.

[Elroel]

Hi everybody,

This moment I corrected the 2nd link to Trojan's Spalicek.

Sorry for this mistake. 'Thick finger work' i guess: took the next file form the folder


Sorry

Elroel

[jowcol]

A Small Bunch of Flowers to the Monument on the Mamay Tumulus: Symphonic Fantasy by Josef Matej


Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra of Olomouc
Jaromir Nohejl, conductor
Source LP:  Panton 810839

From the collection of Karl Miller

Very brief wikipedia entry about Matej:

Matej, Josef
Matej, Josef, Czech composer; b. Brusperk, Feb. 19, 1922; d. there, March 28, 1992. He learned to play the trombone from his father. He studied composition with Hlobil at the Prague Cons. (1942–47) and fodky and Janecek at the Prague Academy of Musical Arts (1947–51). His early works are characterized by folksong inflections of the Lachian region of his birth. After 1960 he introduced into his works some coloristic oriental elements; also made discreet use of dodecaphonic techniques.