Czech music for cello and piano - world premiere recording

[pedrito]

Maybe just outside the scope of this Romantic music-oriented website, but nonetheless a very valuable recording is a new recording on the Dutch label "Cobra records" featuring Lucie Stepanova on cello and Ksenia Kouzmenko on piano, "whispering leafs". On this highly enjoyable disc they perform Janacek's "pohadka", Martinu's second cello sonata, a transcription of the second (" a blown-away leaf") of Janacek's 10 pieces "on an overgrown path" in a transcription by Sadlo, and the very impressive variations on the 17th-century chorale "O Haupt vol Blut und Wunden" for cello and piano by the Czech composer and pianist Josef Palenicek. This last work is written in 1942 in response to war crimes committed in Czechoslovakia, comparable in intensity and beauty to Messiaen's "Quatuor pour la fin du temps". Both musicians display an fastidious command of their instrument and easily rise to the challenges placed on them both, making this disc a real gem. The cellist, Lucie Stepanova, tells in the excellent booklet about her childhood memories of the composer Palenicek, sharing a bowl of soup with him as a 4-year old toddler, and meeting him again as a teenager, being a cello pupil of his eldest son Jan. Palenicek is nowadays mostly remembered as an excellent pianist (beuatiful recordings of Janacek's music are to be found on youtube), but this world premiere recording sheds a new light on his artistry. Lucie clearly has this music "in her blood" so to speak, and in the more famous (and more recorded) music by Martinu and Janacek can be placed among the best available recordings.
More details on the dutch website https://www.voordekunst.nl/projecten/6112-cd-whispering-leaves-1?#het-verhaal where both artists have a fundraising to sponsor the costs for making this disc...
Highly recommended !

[eschiss1]

I -think- I've heard a piano concerto by Palenicek; i'm intrigued to hear more. Thanks!

[Alan Howe]

I'm not at all convinced this is suitable for discussion here. Please may I remind contributors that we should be contacted first - i.e. before posting - concerning any music which may fall outside our remit.