The Art-Music, Literature and Linguistics Forum

Symphony by Pavel Blatny (1984)
(http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRvdasc78az7Hhj77OW2HlVRkD-HoCNk2EYSykQ6zWo6rc-7-L6YtXSIxaIeQ)

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.

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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.

Music of Miloslav Istvan
(http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/_/20127037/Miloslav+Istvan+istvanm.jpg)

Zaklinani Casu
Rozhlasu Symphony Orchestra
Frantisek Jilek, Conductor

Six Studies
Brno State Philharmonic Orchestra
Jiri Waldhans, Conductor

Dissonance Alert
In case any of you are wondering why most of my new posts have been more modernist, it's because I've been accumulating a backlog of works I was reluctant to post on UC.  

From the collection of Karl Miller

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Wikipedia Bio

Miloslav Ištvan (2 September 1928 in Olomouc – 20 January 1990, aged 61) was a Czech composer whose work was inspired by the works of Béla Bartók and by the orientation of the modal style of folk songs. He studied Romanian and African folklore. He also attempted a synthesis of classical and pop music genres.
In 1947 he graduated at the gymnasium in Brno-Žabovřesky, and later he pursued his studies at the Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Brno.[1] He studied composition as a pupil of Jaroslav Kvapil.[1]

Karel Jirak Symphony #3  (1938)
(http://www.windrep.org/images/9/94/Jirak.jpg)

Ostrava Symphony Orchestra
Josef Hrncir, Conductor
Private Recording(?), Date Unknown.
Unable to find a commercial digital release.

From the collection of Karl Miller

If you like 20th century Late Romantic with a touch of modern to it, you will be right at home with this work.

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Wikipedia Bio:
Karel Boleslav Jirák (Karel Bohuslav Jirák) (*January 28, 1891 in Prague, Bohemia - †January 30, 1972 in Chicago, Illinois, USA) was a Czechoslovak composer and conductor.

Jirák was born in Prague and became a pupil of Josef Bohuslav Foerster and Vítězslav Novák at the Charles University and at music academy in Prague .
From 1915 to 1918 he was the Kapellmeister at the Hamburg Opera and worked from 1918 to 1919 as a conductor at the National Theatre in Brno and Ostrava. From 1920 to 1930, he was a composition teacher at the Prague Conservatory, and principal conductor of the Czechoslovak Radio Orchestra until 1945.
In 1947, he emigrated to the USA, where from 1948 to 1967 a professor at Roosevelt University, Chicago and in 1967 a composition teacher at the Conservatory college in Chicago. He remained in this position until 1971.

Jirák's opera was Apolonius z Tyany (Apollonius of Tyana, 1912–1913), which was initially ignored by Prague's National Theatre and later accepted under the title Žena a Bůh (The woman and the god, 1936). He wrote six symphonies and several symphonic variations. In 1952 he wrote a Symphonic Scherzo for volume. He also wrote many suites and overtures, numerous pieces of chamber music, many preludes and a Suite for organ, a Requiem, choruses, and song cycles. He was a popular and renowned musical theorist.

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Bio from the Wind Repertory Project:
Karel B. Jirak (born in Prague, Czech Republic, 28 January 1891; died in Chicago, IL, 30 January 1972), was a Czech composer. He studied with Vitezslav Novak and Joseph B. Foerster at Charles University and the Academy of Music in Prague. Following his studies, he was appointed conductor of the Hamburg Opera in 1915 and from 1918-19, was the conductor of the National Theater in Brno. From 1920-1930, he became professor of composition at Prague Conservatory after which time, he became music director of the Czechoslovak Radio from 1930-1945.

In 1947, he was invited to Chicago to deliver some lectures at Roosevelt University, but after the communist take-over in 1948, he decided to stay in the USA. From 1948 until 1967, he was Chairman of the Theory Department at Roosevelt University. And following that, from 1967 to 1971, he served as Professor of Composition at Chicago Conservatory College.

Karel Jirak composed over 90 works among which are 1 opera, 6 symphonies, 7 string quartets, Symphonic Variation (1941), Piano Concerto, Concerto for Violin and Chamber Orcehstra (1957), Violin Sonata, Viola Sonata, Flute Sonata, Wind Quintet (1928), Clarinet Sonata (1947), and Requiem for solo quartet, chorus, organ and orchestra (1952). He is the author of a textbook on musical form (1924) and between 1945-46 while still in Prague, wrote monographs on W. A. Mozart, Zdenek Fibich and Jan Herman, the Czech piano virtuoso. Later on, while in the USA, he wrote a small study about Antonin Dvorak for a SVU presentation.

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Interesting tidbit:
In searching for material about Jirak, I found this in a short bio for Elizabeth Maconchy:

Ctriad Kohoutek- Festivals of Light

(http://www.apimusic.org/images/composer/composer251.jpg)

Vaclav Halir, bass; Alena Vesela, Organ
Brno State Philharmonic Orcherstra
Otakar Trhlik, conductor
Source LP: Supraphon 1110 2487

From the collection of Karl Miller

Some dissonant moments, but the end is quite tonal.  Your mileage may vary...

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I've found the same blurb in a few spots on the internet-- not sure who wrote it first.

Ctirad Kohoutek (born 18 March 1929) is a Czech composer, music theorist and pedagogue. He has served as Professor of composition at the Academy of Music Arts in Prague (1980-1990), Artistic Director of the Czech Philharmonic (1980-1987), and Senior Lecturer of composition, theory and conductor at the JAMU (1953 - 1980).

In his first creative period, Kohoutek coped with the classical and romantic heritage as well as the influence of folklore. He gradually arrived at the critical unorthodox application and synthesis of modern composition principles which, in 1957, crystallized in his own project composition method. This method consists in drawing up a composition plan in graphic form with a time axis which is realized in concrete sound form in the process of creation. Every composition is given its individual form and stratification of expression in agreement with its message. Since 1965, Ctirad Kohoutek has written most of his works in this manner. His latest period in the work is characterized by a simplification of compositional means and the effort for communicativeness of the music.

I cannot thank you enough, MVS and Elroel, for re-posting the Czech downloads from UC here :) :) :). This really means a lot to me, as I am no longer a member at UC. Again, many thanks ;D!

Well, thanks for the thanks!  :) I'm thinking there should be a deluge of stuff on its way, (and dozens of categories) as soon as some of our more prolific uploaders get some free time.   :) ;D

I would like to thank Dundonnell and fr8nks for their recent uploads of Jaroslav Ridky's music (I am currently catalgouing him). But I have one question: Does the Overture for Large Orchestra you uploaded by any chance have the subtitle "Predehra", as well as being op. 11, Frank? A composition with such a subtitle and opus number is included in my catalogue. If it does not have this subtitle or opus number, then I have not included it in my Ridky catalgoue and will have to add to it. Additional information would be greatly appreciated :)!

Ridky wrote only one Overture. This is the op.11 "Predehara" of 1929 and must therefore be the piece uploaded.

Actually it is not a subtitle, just a translation. Or to put it another way, the Czech word for "overture" is "předehra"; and the English word for "předehra" is "overture"!

Thanks for that clarification :)

I was beginning to wonder since the word seems to occur a lot in Czech-language catalogues :)

Here are a few more that I personally have found useful, since most of them bear no obvious relation to words in English, French or German:

housle = violin
smyčcový = string (as in string orchestra, string quartet, etc.)
lesní roh = French horn
flétna = flute
komorní orchestr = chamber orchestra
komorní hudba = chamber music
trubka = trumpet
pozoun = trombone (i.e. German Posaune)
dechové nástroje = wind instruments
bicí nástroj = percussion instrument
hrají = performed by
řídí = conducted by
zpívat = sing
a = and

Thank you very much for the clarification, Gerard. Czech definitely isn't my language ;D!

Thanks to all for the clarifications. I previously owned the LP that the Overture was taken from and posted all the information that was available. However, an error was just brought to my attention by a private message concerning a previous post at UC. An astute member observed that Cello Concertos Nos.1 & 2 are identical. Concerto No.1 was sent to me by a member of UC (also a member here) and I assumed the information was correct without comparing it to No.2 and posted it with his permission on UC. Cello Concerto No.2 is labeled correctly and was taken from an LP that I had in my possession. I will try to correct the posting at UC. It was also correctly brought to my attention that I should have uploaded No.2 into a different folder designated for previous posts from UC. I am sorry for the mistakes.

Thanks for this batch of Czech music MVS, the Kucera is actually the link for the symphony of Kubicka.

Ah!  Thanks!  How that happened I cannot imagine! 
Oh!  I see!
Now it's the right one.
(Pretty exciting ending on this one!)

I'm sorry but I couldn't find this post in the download section

Thank you, Atsushi, for the Ostrcil Suite, op.2.....particularly since I had, for some strange reason, omitted it from my Ostrcil catalogue and your upload made it possible for me to correct that mistake :)

So, do we have the Kubicka Symphony AND the Kucera Symphonic Poem ??? ???

I am totally confused. I seem to have downloaded two separate works but am only now trying to catalogue them. I have no details for the Kubicka.

Well, you do, but probably no one else.  ;D
Actually I forgot to post the information on the Kubicka symphony, but I just did. 
Sorry about the confusion! 

Thanks very much :)

I downloaded the Kubicka just to make sure that I got it the first time and....yes, I had ;D ;D

Hello everybody,

I posted by accident three compositions in the Reposts UC.
These works were never posted there.

They are new to both fora.

Sorry  Elroel

I couldn't live with it. So I changed Jirko at all to the right section: downloads and removed them from the UC reposts.

Elroel

Many thanks for those downloads! For the record, sadly, none of those three composers is living any more: Ivan Jirko passed away in 1978, Jiří Válek in 2005, Štěpán Lucký in 2006.

I know they were passed away. I took the dates from the records and didn't look in my database.
I corrected my post.

There are more compositions from that area in the pipeline.
Thay are not yet digitized. Will come soon.

Thanks for your remarks.

Elroel

A few words about the three most recent Czech posts, which may either encourage people or serve as a warning:

"In the late 1950s Piňos, with his colleagues Ištvan and Kohoutek, thoroughly applied principles taken from the 20th-century classics. At first they were influenced by Bartók and, in part, Prokofiev, Honegger and Janáček; in the 1960s they drew increasingly on the Second Viennese School and the postwar avant garde. Piňos’s detailed study of 12-note serialism, and his contact with aleatory writing and other new developments at the Darmstadt summer courses of 1965 and 1966, contributed greatly to the formation of his technique." (Grove)

Thank you, MVS, for your recent Czech uploads, especially the Palenicek :)! While I'm here, I might as well thank Sydney for his recent Czech uploads as well, even though the music he uploaded is rather "advanced" for my taste :).

Thank you very much, Sydney, for your uploads of the music of Sommer and Ostrcil :)! Both are quite wonderful composers :).

Thanks very much indeed for the unexpected delight of the Havelka Symphony :) What a splendid work by another composer completely new to me :)

I would like to echo Colin's thanks for the Havelka symphony (a composer who was new to me as well). The Macha Violin Concerto is also much appreciated :). Thanks once again, Sydney!

Thank you so much for this upload! This performance is with the Prague Radio Symphony [FOK] Orchestra conducted by Jindrich Rohan, and appears to be the same as the old Supraphon LP. I've enjoyed that disc for a number of years, and the timings seem to match up.

However, this broadcast is in far, far better sound, and without all the surface noise of the old LP, so I very much appreciate the opportunity to hear this fine work in a cleaner, clearer recording!

I don't find it especially satisfying or effective as a Symphony.  Far too episodic, though the parts are often engrossing.  Is there a unity and cohesion to the work I might be missing?  It just seems like one thing after another, and then at a certain point the music stops.

Apparently "his compositions have been strongly influenced by his Christian faith, inspired by biblical subjects." Nevertheless this symphony is somehow much too reminiscent of Shostakowich for my liking.

Perhaps the "better sound" comes from a rediscovered master tape at Czech Radio?

Episodic, yes. Shostakovich-influenced, yes. Enjoyable nonetheless.

Enjoyable nonetheless, yes.

Personally, I find the first movement of Havelka's Symphony quite impressive because it spans a large bow of drama. Of course, this is in Shostakovich's footsteps, but on the other hand, Havelka was still a young composer when he wrote this - and as later works show, this is not where he stopped, but he went on developing an own style. For me, it's quite a fine proof of talent in any case.

By the way, this symphony has also been brought out on a 2CD set by Czech radio (which I have), together with quite a number of other pieces by him, including the "Second Symphony" he actually never wrote (but was asked for for years): his "Dance Sinfonietta" from 2001.

I might upload his oratorio "In Praise of Light" for the forum if there is interest (I have it on LP).

Thanks, Sydney, for the Borkovec Piano Concerto no. 1 :)! It is indeed influenced considerably by Prokofiev (none the worse for that ;D), as many of his other compositions are.

Re Holger's post: I would be very grateful if you could upload that Havelka cantata :)!

And I'm very grateful that the cantata was uploaded - delightful, thanks !

Indeed, Clive! Thank you once again, Holger :)!

Thank you, Sydney, for the Oskar Nedbal piece :)! It is indeed very beautiful :). It's great to see some late-romantic gems pop up every now and then amongst the mainly modern uploads here.

Thank you very much, Roelof, for the Palenicek Piano Concerto no. 3 and the Kalabis Piano Concerto :)

I never expected there to be so much of these two wonderful composers available :)

P.S. All my posts today have been thanks for recent uploads ;D-that just goes to show what a magnificent downloads section this is becoming :)

Thank you for the Hanus Essays, Sydney. Any more Hanus you can get your hands on would be greatly appreciated. What a marvelous composer!

Just thought that I should point out that the Kalabis Piano Concerto made available is his First. There was a Piano Concerto No.2 for piano and wind instruments from 1985.

I have been away for a few days and have a LOT of new music downloads to catalogue ;D  My warmest thanks, as ever, for the kindness and generosity of all who are sharing from their collections :)

Colin,

You're very right of course. I used the text from the sleeve, but I didn't realise there was a second PC. In any case it was not existant when they release the lp involved. Apart from that I don't have that 2nd one, so I didn't awake.

Roelof

Sydney,

And thank you for paying back with that second work of Nedbal.


Roelof

Thanks again, Sydney, for the Hanus and Nedbal pieces :)

I've always enjoyed the music of Edwin Schulhoff. I've uploaded 3 works. I think I have a couple more around here somewhere and will try to upload those as well.

Schulhoff's story is a rather sad one. He studied under Reger and Debussy. But because of his radical politics and Jewish hertitage, he was blacklisted as a "degenerate" by the Nazi regime. So he could no longer give recitals in Germany and his music could not be performed. As a communist sympathizer, he was granted Russian citizenship, but before he could get out of Czechoslovakia, he was arrested and sent to a concentration camp, where he died in 1941.

Although his music went through several phases, Schulhoff was one of the first European composers inspired by jazz. His music is often characterized by a notable rhythmic quality that serve as a unique identity. That is certainly true of the works I've uploaded here.

Happy holidays, everyone!

Just in case anybody wonders why the Schulhoff "Hot-Sonate" for Alto Saxophone and Orchestra(1930) is not in my catalogue of Schulhoff's orchestral music.......the orchestration is not by Schulhoff himself but by the American composer Robert Russell Bennett.

So, would you omit the orchestral versions of Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" or "Night on Bare Mountain" from a catalog of Mussorgsky's orchestral works, or Borodin's "Prince Igor", because they were orchestrated by others?

Just curious.

Yes, I agree with you, Amphissa-such omissions as you cite would be rather silly.

Phew ;D

I didn't catalogue either Mussorgsky or Borodin (both 19th century composers) so I don't have to face that question. But I am sure that you would find examples of famous orchestrations amongst the works of 20th century composers and they will (almost certainly) be missing from my catalogues :-[  Silly ??? Probably :-[ Consistent ???  Yes.

Well, sometimes consistency is key, Colin ;D

Even if it's "consistently silly" ??? ??? ;D ;D

Well, I guess "silly" is probably too strong a word, but probably not in Mussorgsky's case where his only two major orchestral works were orchestrated by others ;D

Rather, consistently "curious" has always defined Colin's characteristic style.

Wow, Roelof, what a profusion of Czech riches you have shared with us today! Thanks again :)

Hi Kyjo,

Knew you would like it.

I have a question about the Kohoutek file. One of the other members had problems with dowloading because of the file-size. At least that's the message he got from Mediafire.
I'm pretty certain you downloaded it as well, and if so, were there problems?

O, and there a few more Czechs 'in the pipeline' but I have to find out if they are/were digital available first.

Best regards

Roelof

Fortunately, I didn't have any problems downloading the Kohoutek file. In any case, I can't wait for your next batch of Czech uploads! The Czech downloads section of this forum is growing ever larger by the day, courtesy of you and other members who so kindly share their collections with us :)

I cannot praise the efforts of Elroel enough. He has posted numerous uploads of facinating compositions. I had a problem with the Kohoutek download and no one else had a problem. Without questioning my methods he sent me a private link to new uploads of the music. We are very fortunate to have him as a member here.

Frank

Definite second to the wonderful Elroel, so helpful and knowledgeable. Thanks, Roelof

May I also join in on the praising of Roelof's generosity, kindness and superior knowledge? Good man :)

What a great "family" the members of the A-MF are to me :)

Please gentlemen don't exaggerate.
Thanks to the uploads I make, I listen to them again. I had almost forgotten how many beautiful
and/or interesting pieces of music I have in my collection. (At least for me they are).
One example: Ceremuga Symphony Nº 3.

Thanks for words anyway,

Elroel

A minute ago I gave part I of Parsch's String Quartet a (new) link.
The file wasn't uploaded for some reason (Getting old I suppose).
Sorry for this.
Now you can have it complete


Elroel

Colin,

in terms of completeness: the performers of the Kapr piece you uploaded are
Albert Kravchik, Flute / Chamber Orchestra of Leningrad Philharmonic / Victor Fedotov

Thanks for the upload!

Thanks, Holger :)

The links for the download of the Palenicik Cantata uploaded by MVS do not appear to be working :(

Colin, the link itself isn't working, but if you copy each of the two URLs given there "by hand" instead of clicking on the link itself it will work perfectly. The problem is just that MVS used the hyperlink button for two URLs at the same time as it seems, which leads to confusion. However, the URLs themselves are fully OK.

Anyhow, many thanks to MVS for all the recent uploads! Just tracked them down. I wish I had more time to upload stuff myself at present.

Many thanks Holger - I've now fixed the links. And many thanks to member MVS!

Many thanks for sorting :)

Yes!  Thanks for the repair!  I'd not had two links to upload before, but I should have anticipated the problem!

Don't know where to begin with Mr. Atsushi's host of uploads(from about 7 countries) of Mar. 1st ! First of all, Mr. Atsushi, surely you realise that colleagues have far more important things to do than spend Friday afternoon downloading music ?!
Well, yes, possibly we do, but none half so much fun....it's like birthday & Christmas rolled into one ; wonderful, thank you ! I for one look forward to my next birthday treat !

Mea Culpa!  In trying to locate the Threnos 3 of Karl Franz Muller, I realized that many years ago I had reversed the labels on a cassette!  …which means that the work I had listed as the 5th symphony of Emil Axman is actually the last three movements of the Woytowicz 2nd Symphony plus Threnos 3 as the finale!   Is my face red!  I have replaced the link (http://www.mediafire.com/download/w6c6j3h60wf0kps/Axman_5th_Dithyrambic.zip (http://www.mediafire.com/download/w6c6j3h60wf0kps/Axman_5th_Dithyrambic.zip)) for the Axman (the last work on the first page of Czech downloads) for one that will lead to the genuine work, and stuck the Threnos 3 where it belongs in the Austrian section.  Ouch! 

And while I’m at it, THANKS!!! to all of you who have been uploading so many wonderful works recently!

And many thanks to you for a wonderful series of uploads - my favourite, playing now, the Foerster Mass !

It has been pointed out to me that my recent re-uploads of more music by Jan Hanus may have been missed because I added them to an existing post.

So.....this rectifies that :)

Dundonnell-Thank you for this excellent music. I enjoy every note of it..

One obvious question regarding Hanus..where is his 2nd symphony?
Perhaps it is like the enigmatic Miaskovsky 4th. which remained unplayed and in the shadows for years.

Roger,

no, nothing enigmatic about Hanuš's Symphony No. 2, the reason why Colin didn't upload it is (as I guess) simply that it is commercially available on a Supraphon CD as part of the "Karel Ančerl Gold Edition". Check here, for instance:
http://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/art/Karel-Ancerl-Gold-Edition-Vol-41/hnum/4896830 (http://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/art/Karel-Ancerl-Gold-Edition-Vol-41/hnum/4896830)
A pleasant and enjoyable work (probably the most accessible Hanuš symphony), I can absolutely recommend buying the disc.

Mr. D. - a lovely selection, thanks !

In addition to the Bezdek uploads.
As far as my infromation goes, the second symphonby is from 2008.

By the way, his 'Dusan Zahoransky' can be found on YT:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rojntmxXWHI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eb9M6zbAPw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0t_bpxexptQ

Yes, one would expect the best to be commercial and this one looks like a definite buy!!
Also here:
http://www.cduniverse.com/search/xx/music/pid/6849505/a/jan+hanus%3A+symphony+no.+2%3B+salt+is+better+than+gold.htm

Well, I've listened to the Bezdek Symphony about 14 times so far!  I like it.  A lot!  Thanks Sidney Grew!!!

I like the Bezděk Symphony No.2 a lot too. Many thanks for uploading it.

It reminds me of Janacek.

Does the title mean "Making my soul beautiful?"

Many thanks for posting Martinu's A Czech Rhapsody, Sydney. Most interesting to hear an early work of his.

It's great fun, isn't it?

I have posted some concertos in the Czech section.  I have tried to make sure that they aren't on this site, on UC, on YouTube, or available on CD.  If I have overlooked anything, please let me know and I'll take care of it.   ;)
(Three more concertos on the way: the Tichy VCl concerto, the Matej VCl concerto, and another version of the Matej violin concerto.)

Mr. MVS - phenomenal series of uploads; took up most of my afternoon, but well worth it. Thank you so much !

Seconded with enthusiasm and great gratitude :) :)

could someone restore this post or reupload these items that appeared at UC to this forum?
Arbuckle guest
 Re: Czech folder
« Reply #206 on: Monday 06 August 2012, 19:00 »Isa Krejci Symphonies 1, 3, 4, played by Czech RSO, Ondrej Kukal, Jaromir Podesva Sym no. 4 "Chamber Symphony". No commercial recordings found, appear to be archival. http://www.mediafire.com/?yss4vae0ev1n2

Am preparing to post new links :)

Thanks so much Dundonnel, I'll watch for them..

They are already posted :)

I have been eager to hear these..thanks a bunch! Thanks again for the Hanus posts as well, he has been a hard nut to crack, his music is tonal but capricious, and well worth the time.
One down, 2 to go..
Do you have any thoughts about Krejci?

I only know Krejci's Symphony no. 2 and Serenade (recorded by Supraphon) and can say they are highly enjoyable works. They are cast in a energetic, melodic neoclassical style in approximation to Martinu and Prokofiev.

Thanks Kyjo, that gives me a good general idea of what to expect from Krejci.

Many thanks to MVS for the numerous Czech uploads :)

What stands out among them in anyone's judgement?

It is taking me all my time to keep up with downloading them all and copying them to an external hard drive and cataloguing them.......... ::) ;D

Listening to them ??? ??? Ha!

this may be useful to Czech and Slovak devotees.
http://classical-music-online.net/stat/?person_type=composer&type=country_persons&country=CZE
http://classical-music-online.net/stat/?person_type=composer&type=country_persons&country=SVK

Thanks for that :) Very useful.

I've found many of things I would never have known about by using the inquiry by country...Glad it was useful!

I've put a new Mediafire link for the Blatny "Zlony."  I did more work to clean up the grit and noise on the original LP.

Ah, but we love it ! Listening to them...now, never thought of that !     Many thanks, Mr. MVS.

Music of Jan Novák
(http://stroh.userweb.mwn.de/novak/novkl2.jpg)

From the collection of Karl Miller


Cappricio for Cello and Small Orchestra (1958)
Frantiscek Kopency, cello
Announcer credits this performance to Brno Philharmonic/Otakar Trhlik
According to OCLC:, it is the Symonicky Orchestr Cd. Razhlasu/Alois Klima
Source LP: Supraphon DV 5819

Balletti for Nonet (1955)
Czech Nonet
Source LP: Supraphon SUA 10031

Philharmonic Dances (1956)
Nurnberg Symphony Orchestra/Josef Hrncir


Loci Vernales
Richard Novak, Bass
Brno State Opera Orchestra/Frantisek Jilek
Source LP:  Supraphon ST 58852

Cantata Dido
Marilyn Schmiege, soprano
Paul Kelly, tener
Werner Klemperer, narrator
New York Choral Artists
New York Philharmonic/Martin Turnovsky
[April 1986]


Bio from www.jannovak.eu (http://www.jannovak.eu)
Jan Novák was born on April 8th, 1921 in Nová Říše, a little town in southwest Moravia. The place is dominated by a Premonstratensian monastery, which has been in its time an important center for culture and music. Nová Říše is also the birthplace of the Vranický brothers Pavel and Antonín, themselves well-known Viennese composers at the end of the 18th century.

Novák’s parents were first employed in the monastery, then his father made himself independent as a bookbinder. The boy received a thorough education in the humanities at the Jesuite School in Velehrad, a place of Old Slavonic Christian tradition, and at the classical Gymnasium in Brno. This, together with the music- and art-loving atmosphere at home, influenced the development of his personality, primarily directed towards music.

From early childhood Jan Novák showed great musical talent, especially on the violin, piano and organ. In his grammar school years this talent was already reflected in his first compositions. This took him to the Brno Conservatory, where he studied composition with Vilém Petrželka and piano with František Schaeffer. During the Second World War he was forced to interrupt his musical studies for two and a half years. Like most of the Czech students of his generation, he was deported by the Nazis to engage in forced labor in Germany. Eventually he succeeded in fleeing Germany and spent the end of the war hidden in his uncle’s home.

In 1946 Novák graduated with a string quartet and the DANCE SUITE for orchestra. He then continued his studies at the Prague Academy of Music with Pavel Bořkovec, before returning to Brno for a further period of study with Petrželka. He completed his studies with a scholarship to the USA awarded by the Ježek Foundation. There he spent the summer 1947 at the Berkshire Music Center in Tanglewood, Mass., where he worked with Aaron Copland. After that he went to New York, to meet his famous compatriot Bohuslav Martinů. He studied with Martinů, whom he called his “divine tutor”, until he returned to Czechoslovakia in 1948, on February 25th, the day of the Communist takeover. The epistolary contact with Martinů lasted even after, right through the Iron Curtain, until Martinů’s death in 1959.

Novák settled down in Brno where he lived as a freelance composer. A liberal-minded humanist, with his uncompromising artistic and public attitudes, he had recurrent confrontations with the official Czech authorities and with the leading representatives of the Composers’ Union. At that time he experimented with jazz (CAPRICCIO for cello and orchestra, CONCERTINO for wind quintet) and the dodecaphonism (PASSER CATULLI for bass and 9 instruments). Both musical languages were at that time proscripted as too “western” by the artistic dogmas of the official socialist realism.

In the mid-Fifties, Novák began to devote himself to the Latin language and literature. The soft wording and the rhythmic conciseness of Latin verse fascinated him. He began to set the poetry of Horace, Catullus, Virgil and others to music, carefully preserving the metre and rhythm of the original. Then he went on to create musical versions of the great prose works of Caesar, Cicero and Seneca, eventually using his own texts as well. When asked why the Latin language played such an important role in his work, Novák would say: “Nihil est, bone, immortalitatis causa hoc fit” (No special reason, my dear friend, I only do it for the sake of immortality).

In 1967, Jan Novák reached the high point of his popularity in Czechoslovakia with the premiere of his cantata DIDO. Even at this stage the composer made no secrets of his political beliefs: the year before he had written the music to a  Christian passion play, this being interpreted by the officials as a religious gesture and thus as a provocation. The invasion of Czechoslovakia on August 21st in 1968 took place while Novák was on a concert-tour in Italy. It was a violent shock, and decisive moment in his life. He decided not to return, his family followed him, first for a brief stay in Austria and Germany, then to Aarhus in Denmark. There, in his first year of exile, he wrote the cantata IGNIS PRO IOANNE PALACH, as the homage to Jan Palach, the young Czech student who burned himself publicly in Prague to protest against the invasion.

Then his trio for voice, clarinet and piano MIMUS MAGICUS won a Composers’ Competition in Rovereto, Italy, in 1969. Sunsequently Jan Novák decided to move to the country, which was the birthplace of Latin culture. The family settled down in Riva, on the shore of the beautiful lake Garda. In Rovereto he founded “Voces latinae”, a choir devoted exclusively to music with texts in Latin.

Although being a convinced European, it was not easy for Jan Novák to get a  foothold in the West. He couldn’t, nor did he want to, contribute to any of the preponderant musical avantgarde-streams of the time, thus becoming an outsider in the world of western contemporary music. Nevertheless, it was during these years spent in Italy and then in Germany that he composed his most important and mature works, such as his only opera DULCITIUS. He went back to Germany in 1977, to live in Ulm. Finally he was appointed in 1982 to a chair in music theory at the “Staatliche Hochschule für Musik un Darstellende Kunst” in Stuttgart.

Jan Novák died on November 17th 1984 in Neu-Ulm.

His extensive work is now becoming accessible, also thanks to the support of the Czech Republic after the political changes in 1989. President Václav Havel decreed him the Czech State Award in 1996, and in 2006 he was appointed the Honorable Citizenship of Brno.

His free use of tonality and clear structures, his creative invention, and omnipresent humour and wit, reflect his positive and humanistic view of the world, and in his pure melodic lines one can see perhaps also the Bohemian origin of this great European.

More Notes on Jan Novák's Dido
(http://www.sitcomsonline.com/photopost/data/770/wk4.JPG)

A note on the Narrator (aka, "Col Klink" from Hogan's Heros)
I was a bit suprised to see actor Werner Klemperer's name show up as the narrator for this performance. According to Klemperer's Wikipedia page:





NY Times review of Dido Perfomance:
MUSIC: ALL-CZECHOSLOVAK PROGRAM
By John Rockwell
Published: April 10, 1986


¶ THE New York Philharmonic has an all-Czechoslovak program at Avery Fisher Hall this month, and its schedule seems downright serpentine. First heard on Saturday evening, it was repeated on Tuesday and will be given again on the next two Tuesday nights with Friday afternoon, April 18, in between.

¶ The reason for this eccentricity was to accommodate the conductor Rafael Kubelik. Mr. Kubelik has had a history of heart trouble, and didn't want to subject himself to the strain of the normal four or five concerts plus rehearsals within a single week. But last July, Mr. Kubelik decided to retire altogether from conducting, and Martin Turnovsky was engaged to replace him. By then, the odd scheduling had been locked into place.

¶ Mr. Kubelik's original program remained, however, and Mr. Turnovsky did well by it. A Czechoslovak conductor who emigrated in 1968, he has been active in Europe without making a strong international career; this is his Philharmonic debut. His strengths in more general repertory remain unknown, but he handled this idiomatically congenial program with self-effacing confidence.

¶ The program consists of Bohuslav Martinu's moving elegy, ''Memorial to Lidice''; the United States premiere of ''Dido,'' a cantata for mezzo-soprano, narrator, male chorus and orchestra by Jan Novak, a pupil of Martinu, and the Dvorak Piano Concerto. Curiously, the current soloist, the Czechoslovak-born pianist Rudolf Firkusny, introduced the flashier Vilem Kurz edition of this rarely played concerto at a 1943 Philharmonic concert at which the Martinu ''Memorial'' received its world premiere.

¶ Of the program, the Martinu, with its intense emotionality that never lapses into mere rhetoric, is probably the finest piece, but the Novak seized the attention through its sheer length and insistence. Novak (1921-1984) is a special favorite of Mr. Kubelik, who has recorded this ''Dido'' score. Fascinated with the Latin language, which he spoke, Novak turned in ''Dido'' to Virgil; the scenario is the same as the Virgil-based second part of Berlioz's opera ''Les Troyens.''

¶ At first, Novak's score sounds like a really much too overt emulation of the Stravinsky of ''Oedipus Rex,'' complete with the Latin text, the driving ostinatos, the brass and percussion, even the proclamatory repeated chorus. There are also whiffs of Bartok's ''Cantata Profana'' and such other Stravinsky-influenced composers as Carl Orff and the Michael Tippett of ''King Priam.'' But for all the derivativeness of the idiom, the sweep and intensity of this score make their mark.

¶ Tuesday's performance offered some not ideally steady but otherwise nicely impassioned singing from Marilyn Schmiege, a European-based American mezzo, and some oddly accented Latin narration from Werner Klemperer. The men of Joseph Flummerfelt's New York Choral Artists were the fine chorus.

Yes thanks for all the Czech downloads...... learned something today !!

Jaroslav Kvapil: From Hard Times, Symphonic Poem

From the collection of Karl Miller

Brno State Philharmonic Orchestra/Jaroslav Vogel
Source LP: Supraphon DM 5697


Wikipedio Bio:
Jaroslav Kvapil (composer)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jaroslav Kvapil (21 April 1892 – 18 February 1958) was a Czech composer, teacher, conductor and pianist.

Born in Fryšták, he studied with Josef Nešvera and worked as a chorister in Olomouc from 1902 to 1906. He then studied at the Brno School of Organists under Leoš Janáček, earning a diploma in 1909. He studied with Max Reger at the Leipzig Conservatory from 1911 through 1913.

Kvapil was an excellent accompanist, noted for his skill in sight reading. As the choirmaster and conductor of the Brno Beseda (1919–47) he gave the Czech premières of Johann Sebastian Bach’s St Matthew Passion (1923), Arthur Honegger’s Judith (1933) and Karol Szymanowski’s Stabat mater (1937). He received the Award of Merit in 1955. He taught at the School of Organists and at the Brno Conservatory, and he was appointed professor of composition at the academy in 1947. His students included Hana Janků, Miloslav Ištvan, Ctirad Kohoutek, Čestmír Gregor and Jiří Matys. He died in Brno[1] at the age of 65.

Jaromir Podesva: Symphonietta Festiva(1983)
(http://www.musica.cz/nahled.php?puvodni_obrazek=nahledy/podesva_20110405113321_9.jpg&vyska_nahledu=200&sirka_nahledu=187)

From the collection of Karl Miller

Symponietta Festiva for Chamber Orchestra(1983)
Musici di Praga/Mario Klemens
[18 March 1985]
Source LP: Panton 81120533


Machine Translation from musica.cz:
Jaromír Podesva came from a family of master John Podešvy, where he had the opportunity to participate from his childhood on the family music-making (if already played on the piano, the violin and viola). At an early age he began to compose songs, growing up from the then still supporting initiatives of the dvořákovsko-novákovské school. After the graduation at the gymnasium in Brno-židenice, in 1948, he graduated from a one-year Bachelor course at the Brno Conservatory (1946-47), then in the years 1947-53 he studied composition at the JANÁČEK ACADEMY of Jaroslav Kvapil and this teacher went on a three-year aspirantuře Academy in Brno.

In the years 1956-59 he served as Secretary of the creative Union of Czechoslovak composers in Prague and was later Chairman of the Brno University of technology of the Federal branch. From 1969 he taught at the Ostrava Conservatory of music composition and music theory (in 1990).

The eight-month study-scholarship of UNESCO-in the countries of Europe and in the USA západni (1960-61) significantly influenced Podešvův kompozični style. Recognized here. the song was the most influential Western European composers to h. Stockhausena, p. Boulez, and Arthur Honegger's and studied with h. Dutilleuxe and a. Copland. Their findings published in popularizačně aimed the book "contemporary music in the West" (Panton, 1963). His own compositional practice certified kompozični principles to generalise in a musically theoretical writings of the "options" field in the dvanáctitónovém cadenza (Panton, 1974) and "Introduction to the study of song" (rkp)

Pavel Novak: Chamber Symphony for 10 Instruments
(http://classic-online.ru/uploads/132500/132403.jpg)

From the collection of Karl Miller


Chamber Symphony for 10 Instruments
South Bohemian State Orchestra of Ceske
Budejovice/Jaroslav Vodnansky
Source LP:  Panton 810844
(http://thumbs1.ebaystatic.com/d/l225/m/m9cyW9s6cUDthP4mdddEVBw.jpg)



Pavel Novak Blurb by David Matthews:
In describing the performance of three extraordinary pieces by the Czech composer Pavel Novák, I have to begin by declaring an interest in my capacity as Artistic Director of the Deal Summer Music Festival, at which he was a featured composer. Novák was born in Brno in 1957, and has achieved a high reputation in Moravia, where he is now acknowledged to be the leading composer of his generation. He is not yet well known outside the Czech Republic, although the Schubert Ensemble have commissioned three pieces from him – Lord, We Seek the Song of the Chosen for piano trio (1991); Royal Funeral Procession to Iona for piano quintet (1995); St Mary Variations for piano quartet (2000) – and have played them in Britain and abroad. Novák's teacher, Miloslav IÎtvan, was a pupil of Janácek's pupil Jaroslav Kvapil, and Novák, more than any other composer in Moravia, seems the true inheritor of the Janácek tradition. That tradition remains a vital force in Brno, partly because Janácek is the most local of composers and his music still, and in a vital way, haunts his home town with its Janácek Academy (where Novak studied), and the Janácek Theatre (where Novak played the oboe for a number of years in the opera orchestra) at which Janácek's operas are performed as nowhere else, players and singers alike attuned to the Moravian dialect; partly through the continuing vitality of Moravian folksong, whose spirit and melodic contours inform Novák's music as they did Janácek's.

Arnost Parsch: Symphony
(http://www.musicbase.cz/content/images/MusicBase/photos/723/parsch.jpg)
From the collection of Karl Miller

Symphony
Zdenek Divoky, Horn
Martinu Zlin PO/Milos Konvalinka



Bio from musicbase.cz

The composer Arnost Parsch began his formal training as a composer at a relatively late age. Originally economist by profession, he was 27 years old when he began to study composition at the Janacek Academy of Arts in Brno. However, he had already acquired a good grounding in music theory and the fundamentals of composition, partly by studying 20th century music scores on his own and partly through private lessons with Jaromir Podesva and Miloslav Istvan. His attention was caught early by the post-Webern development of European music. One year after graduation from the Janacek Academy he left his original profession to become secretary of the Brno regional section of the Union of Czechoslovak Composers and Concert Artists. In 1977 he became Secretary and Head of Secretariat of the Brno International Music Festival. Until recently he had been also teaching as a professor of the Janacek Academy. In the course of his studies of composition he was testing serial, dodecaphonic, aleatoric and timbre techniques in chamber compositions, sought inspiration in graphic scores and sculpture (Trasposizioni I, II, III). His liking for cybernetics and electro-acoustic instruments led him to electroacoustic studios of Czechoslovak Radio in Brno and Plzen, where he carried out a series of his electroacoustic and concrete music projects. At the turn of the sixties he participated, within a team of composers from Brno, in the creation of several experimental collective compositions. He has also co-operated with his colleague and friend M. Stedron, a composer and musicologist, in a number of original projects of non-traditional compositions. Distinct leaning towards musical folklore has been a new element in Parsch's creation since the mid-seventies. Moravian folk music intonations appeared already in third movement of Second String Quartet dedicated to the memory of P. Neruda, and in the subsequent composition called "The Bird Flew Up Above the Clouds" Parsch developed his own variation technique, making use of dozens variants of a Moravian-Slovak folk song in a very effective concertante style composition. Gradually he has been abandoning direct quotations of folk resources and, drawing from the oldest sources of Moravian folk song, he used modal techniques in his own way. This orientation continued to permeat Parsch's instrumental, orchestral and vocal creation until recently.


Bio from Musica.cz(Machine Translation)

Arnošt Parsch was the original economist and first studied composition privately with Jaromír Podešvy (1955-56) and Miloslava Ištvana (1956-1963). In the years 1963-69 he studied composition at the Janáček Academy of performing arts in the class of Ernesto Ištvana, and in the following years he also completed postgraduate studies in "experimental music". A year after graduating from the ACADEMY, left their original jobs, and in 1969 he joined the post of Secretary of the regional branch in Brno SČSKU. in 1977, he moved to the Secretary and the head of the secretariat function of the international rodního Music Festival in Brno (in 1993). Since 1990, the působíl at the music faculty of JAMU as internal teacher of composition and theory of music (Professor).

In his compositions he used a number of technical resources. "New music", inspired by the graphic partiturami and artistic objects (Trasposizioni I, II, III). In the early days was influenced by the leaders of the so-called. "Second Viennese School (Schoenberg, Berg, Webern) and their teachers, m. Ištvana, a. Piňos, and others. He also was intrigued by the works of the composers. "Polish school" of Witold Lutoslawski in particular. In his works from the 1960s. and 70. apply the principles of composition of the contemporary years (small, témbrová music, aleatoric music interval series, etc.) In radio studios in Pilsen and Brno created several electro-acoustic compositions, in which he applied his compositional method, "the transformation of specific audio events". This rational method later used in a number of their Chamber, orchestral and vocal works: Sonata for Chamber Orchestra, Symphony No. 2, mixed choir, brass sextet hold tight! aj.

In the mid-1970s. years in the Parschově formation are more to discover the folklore elements. The first notable composition neofolklorní stylish orientation is třívětá concertante composition fták hore Flew above the clouds. In addition to citing the three variants of the folk ballads (Vladimír Úlehla enlisted in the guard) in the hobojovém gang at the beginning of each sentence, and fragments of other variants of this song for the construction of the tonal and rhythmic "terrains". The use of natural modalities is characteristic for its creation to the present. His interest in the study and use of the various elements of ethnic music gradually expanded on folk and traditional music of cultural circuits of all continents. The capitalisation of that found in his song the most welcoming of spring. In the course of the 1990s. years, in his skladbávch also appear increasingly individually conceived elements. "new simplicity". This trend is evident especially in the compositions for Chamber Orchestra-the voice of the River, rose garden, quiet countryside and in Chamber vocal cycles and resurrection, Three Blue Poems, the river flows quietly, in the two-cycle As Mint in his hands even in songs for various Chamber groups-Narrowing for flute and violin, and "... ausufernd" for bass clarinet and piano, orchestral imagination of Una voce, etc.

On the international show of contemporary music Prague premieres 2006 was carried out with success the talented clarinetist Emil Drápelou and Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra Pardubice with Leoš Svárovský bee Parschova fantasy-Concerto for clarinet and Orchestra.

Modr: Symphony 2
(http://www.osobnosti-kultury.cz/picts/photos/thumbs/antonin-modr_6406.png)
From the collection of Karl Miller

Symphony No. 2
Prague SO/Frantisek Belfin?


Bio Machine-translated from Czech Wikipedia

Antonín Modr (May 17, 1898, Strašice-April 22, 1983, Prague) was a Czech musicologist and composer.

Life

Started as a worker and amateur musician in the Strašicích. He played in military bands in Rovereto in Italy and Slovakia Saturday schools. After the 1. After World War II, he studied at the Prague Conservatory in violin with Rudolf Reissiga and composition with Josef Suk. From 1923 to 1927 he was the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra played the Viola, he then played in the Orchestra of the National Theatre, and in the years 1934-1936 in the Symphonic Orchestra of the Prague radio. Radio Orchestra also occasionally drove. Led the folk art files, and was choirmaster of the choir Lukes. At the Conservatoire he taught theoretical subjects and play the guitar and the old tools. In 1949 he went into retirement and only externally, he taught at the higher musical pedagogic school.

His songwriting work on the public not to make too much. However, the great importance of his theoretical work. The book "musical instruments" was published in several editions, not only in the former Czechoslovakia, but also abroad.

Music of Osvald Chlubna
(http://encyklopedie.brna.cz/data/images/0162/thumb8096.jpg)

From the collection of Karl Miller

Symphony "The Beskiels" Op. 40
Brno State Orchestra/Jan Styel?

Brněnské kašny a fontány, Op 86 (1963)
Brno State Philharmonic Orchestra/Otakar Trhlik
LP Source: Supraphon DM 5697



NOTE: The Op # for the Symphony does not agree with Kyjo's Work List for the composer.  Any of you scholars out there have insight?

Brněnské kašny a fontány is one of four symphonic poems from a cycle entitled: "To my country".
Wikipedia Bio:
Osvald Chlubna (July 22, 1893, Brno – October 30, 1971, Brno) was a prominent Czech composer. Intending originally to study engineering, Chlubna switched his major and from 1914 to 1924, he studied composition with Leoš Janáček. Until 1953, he worked as a clerk. Later, he taught at the Organ School in Brno for many years. He worked in many art organisations in Brno. Chlubna's works can be defined by three distinct periods: Romanticism, Impressionism, all the way to the Modern Constructivism. He delved into Symbolism as well. He used the texts of symbolic Czech poets, such as Otakar Březina, Jaroslav Vrchlický, Jaroslav Durych and others. He wrote several cycles of compositions for piano and organ, as well as instrumental concerts, symphonies, ouvertures and cantatas. He wrote many operas, often using his own librettos, such as The Revenge of Catullus based on the work of Vrchlický (1917), Alladina and Palomid (based on the work of Maeterlinck, 1925), Ňura (1932), How the Death came in the World (1936), Jiří from Kunštát and Poděbrady (based on the work of Alois Jirásek, 1941), Cradle (composed on the work of Jirásek, 1951), Eupyros (1960). He also wrote texts and articles primarily about Janáček.

Jan Kapr Symphony 8
(http://www.musicbase.cz/content/images/MusicBase/photos/409/kapr.jpg)

From the collection of Karl Miller

Symphony 8 "Campanee Pragensis"
Marius Rinzler, Rosala Kossuth, soloists

Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Chorus
Zdenek Macal, Conductor


Bio from musicbase.cz

Biography

The composer Jan Kapr had devoted himself to music from his early childhood. After a serious injury at the age of 16, he did so exclusively. He graduated at the Prague Conservatory and then in composition at its senior school under the professors Jaroslav Ridky and Jaroslav Kricka. After the graduation he was engaged as a music producer of Radio Prague for 7 years, in 1950-52 he was the chief editor of the publishing house Orbis. In 1961-72 he was employed as a teacher in composition at Janacek Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts, and he had educated a number of the foremost Czech composers, including Milan Slavicky and Evzen Zamecnik. Jan Kapr is also the author of several outstanding theoretical assays and of the book "Konstanty" (Constants), giving an individual synthesis of contemporary musical trends. The centre of his life-long activity, however, lies in his compositional work. In Jan Kapr's compositional output of the forties and the fifties the theme of patriotic love of the native country (The Hymn on the Native Country, The Home) was prevailing and the author' s attitude to subjects of sport is also showing up there (Marathon, The Olympic Symphony). In post-war years Kapr had also composed a great number of film music scores. His extensively tonal idiom, characteristic of this period, had changed substantially during the sixties, the composer began to be interested in modern compositional techniques, devoted an increased attention to the sonic colour. He investigated the articulatory possibilities of various instruments and of the human voice (Exercises for Gydli, Testimony, Rotation 9, Oscillation a.o.), he experimented with the then new sonic resources and their combinations together with the traditional ones (e.g. The Ciphers, with the share of electronic sounds). During this period many significant chamber works came into existence, and since the seventies also monumental works have been created, synthetizing the author' s life-long tendency towards new complexity. Besides extensive symphonic and vocal-symphonic works (7th symphony "The Scenery of Childhood", 8th symphony "Campanae Pragenses", 9th symphony "Josef Manes" and the 10th symphony "Lanzhotska"), also important vocal compositions came into existence, inspired by stimulations both from world (Guten Morgen, Stern, Vendenges) and Czech literatures (The Astronomical Clock of Manes), along with a number of remarkable chamber works (Chess Sonata for 2 pianos, 4th Piano Sonata, 8th String Quartet, Woodcuts, Colours of Silence etc.). Jan Kapr's structurally and sonically rich idiom in this later period was getting always more expressive emotional urgency. Some of Kapr's compositions from his mature period had become internationally known. Exercises for Gydli, Dialogues for flute and harp and a number of author's following chamber and vocal works have reached numerous repeats in many countries, his compositions were successful at the International Compositional Tribune UNESCO, having become the subject of interest with domestic and foreign publishers and interpreters. Kapr's compositions have also been included into radio broadcasts of many countries: one of the most significant successes of Kapr's production was in this respect in 1980 the Munich concert and simultaneously the radio world premiere of his 8th symphony "Campanae Pragenses" in the series of concerts of the Bavarian radio programme Musica viva.

Music of Ivan Kurz
(http://www.musicbase.cz/content/images/MusicBase/photos/542/kurz_i.jpg)
From the collection of Karl Miller

Symphony 1
Prague SO/Jiri Kout

Symphony 2
Prague SO/Adam Klemens




You may wish to view these rips from "Classical Music from Old Vinyls" on Youtube
Inclined Plane on YouTube
http://youtu.be/MvVEx_c-WJs (http://youtu.be/MvVEx_c-WJs)

Parable for Symphony Orchestra
http://youtu.be/dS2wYDl7VTc (http://youtu.be/dS2wYDl7VTc)


Bio from www.musicbase.cz:
BiographyThe composer Ivan Kurz represents the generation of composers who asserted themselves in the course of the seventies. He had a thorough preparation: in 1964-1966 he studied privately music theory with Karel Risinger, then he was a student of the Faculty of Music of the Prague Academy of Perfoming Arts (with Emil Hlobil, 1966-1971). After one-year military service at the Army School of Music, he completed his education as a postgraduate with Vaclav Dobias at the Academy of Performing Arts (1973-1976). Since 1977 he has been employed as a teacher of composition and orchestration at the Faculty of Music. In 1996 he was appointed professor, and became the head of the compositional department.

Ivan Kurz is a type of a versatile composer. He is also prolific and very succesful in the field of incidental and film music. His music to TV series The Waxworks of the City of Prague, and The Gendarme Humoresques in particular, were highly acclaimed and have become very popular with the wide public.

Kurz considers expression of ideas (whether musical or ‘extra-musical‘) as the substance of his musical message, and the simplest means often as the most effective. He prefers simple motivic basis, trim concordant system and clean-cut formal division. There is an astonishingly wide range of Kurz's artistic inspirations including not only nature and literature, but also philosophy, theology and - especially in his more recent works - Christian mysticism. Symphonic picture "Inclined Plane" (1979) became a certain milestone in his creation: it strives for simplification and the achievement of a minimum of expressional elements used without reducing thereby the spectrum of his spiritual message. His long-term symphonic composition project culminated in the highly metaphorical symphonic picture I Come to Thee (1988). In the nineties he wrote a four-parts oratorio cycle At The End Of Time to the texts of Marian apparitions during the 20th century in Fatima, Lourdes and other places. For his compositions he was awarded several times: 1974 piano suite Five-leaf Clover won first prize at the Competition of Young Composers of Young Composers, organized by the then Czech Ministry of Culture; 1974 Concertino for Piano, Flute, Percussion and Strings won first prize "Generation" competition in Ostrava, 1976 Symphony No 2 - first prize at the Competition, and 1980 his song-cycle Flying Carpet won the prize of the Union of Czech Composers and Concert Artists.

Great 'steer' to the vinyls, thanks !

Sometimes you think you know pretty much of the music from a certain country, as I do with the Czech and Slovak music.
Many composers are known by name and the titles of their works.

Antonín Modr, is such a composer. Never heard anything of his works, beside a short work for winds, when visiting a concert in Olomouc.

So MANY THANKS to Jowcol and Carl Miller who pleasantly surprised me with his Second Symphony. Now I'm eager to hear the first!

The symphony of Osvald Chlubna was the next surprise. 8)

You are uploading music faster than I can download it ;D ;D ;D

Colin, I must confess that I was thinking of you (and laughing fiendishly) when I started yesterday's posting marathon.  I figured I'd keep you very busy.

I've found a BBC Editor that lets me author the posts while I'm ripping the discs and gathering material.  It makes the process of posting  much easier.

 :) :) :)

It is not just the downloading...it is the unzipping, the copying to the correct location, the further copying of a backup version, the cataloguing...and all on top of trying to prepare for a visit to London next week ::)  But-of course-thank you very much for all your efforts :)  Now....whether or not I can ever find the time to listen to all of these ::) ::)

Yes, you're right, Mr. D. Just about caught up with all the marvellous uploads yesterday...but listening to them - quite another matter !

Many thanks for Chlubna especially. I have visited the organ school in Brno and stayed in the almost next-door hotel continental on many occasions! I have scores of quite a few of his piano pieces ...

Zdenek Lukas: Symphony No. 2
(http://www.zdenek-lukas.cz/images/stories/ZLfoto.png)

From the collection of Karl Miller


Symphony 2
Montgomery County Youth Orchestra/Chester Petranek


 

From www.zdenek-lukas.cz

Zdeněk Lukáš (21. 8. 1928 - 13. 7. 2007)

After graduating from the Teachers Institute, he worked for several years as a teacher. It was at Pilsen radio station (1953-1964) where Z. Lukáš, a program staff, started developing his compositions, which he performed together with the Pilsen Radio Orchestra and its leading soloists, and also with a choir Česká píseň (Czech Song), which Z. Lukáš founded in 1954 and was its leader for nearly 20 years. His compositional self-education was completed between 1961 and 1970 by inspiring consultations with Miloslav Kabeláč. Since 1964 Z. Lukáš began to devote himself purely to composing (even though he taught at the Prague Conservatory for short periods of time and conducted the Czechoslovakian Ensemble of Songs and Dances for some years).

Compositional development of Z. Lukáš starts from simple styling of authentic folklore to the works, in which he applies his unique approach to folk art. His fascination with Czech folk constantly accompanies his work and is typical for him. Naturally, he went also through a period in which he tried to test modern compositional techniques. During this time he worked in the very well equipped electro-acoustic studio in Pilsen. His distinctive compositional synthesis, which is mature and its key feature includes the modal base composition and typical metro-rhythmic variability, resulted in tens of great compositions and many awards for number of them.

His extensive work includes 354 opus songs and countless arrangements of folk songs and dances. A significant part of his work is devoted to choral music, which - being very popular with amateur choirs -has earned Z. Lukáš a status of the most selling Czech author. His symphonic work contains more than twenty compositions and includes seven symphonies. The top work of his musical and dramatic stage production is opera Falkenštejn and Shakespeare's musical comedy Veta za vetu (Measure for Measure),  which was realised in Pilsen. Many compositions in his creative development are concert type works, e.g. concerts with an orchestra of almost all instruments, including a concert for string quartet and a symphony orchestra. Compositions for a chamber orchestra are extensively represented, along with tens of compositions for large brass band and nearly a hundred compositions of chamber music in various combinations (five string quartets, two piano quartets, two woodwind quintets, brass quintet, pieces for violin, viola, cello, harpsichord, clarinet, flute, oboe, bassoon, harp, etc.). More than two dozen songs are solo voice with orchestral or other accompaniment.


I must admit that I'm intrigued by the orchestra- my kids both play in Loudoun County Youth Orchestra, which is just across the Potomac river from Montgomery County.

History of the Montgomery County Youth Orchestra from myco.org:


The Maryland Classic Youth Orchestras (MCYO), formerly the Montgomery County Youth Orchestras, has a long and eventful history. Founded in 1946, MCYO has continued a vibrant orchestral program for talented youth.The mission of the Maryland Classic Youth Orchestras is to nurture, develop and advance young talented musicians in a quality orchestral program. The MCYO program creates a seamless connection between the artistic and the educational experience. MCYO now enjoys its first permanent home in the grand Music Center at Strathmore.Over the years, MCYO has added several ensembles to expand its outreach to talented youth. With the help and support of public school music teachers, private school music teachers, and private studio music teachers, the caliber and number of musicians has increased dramatically. The Symphony was formed in 1964, the Young Artists in 1972, the Chamber Strings in 1995, the Harp Ensemble in 2001, and the Sinfonia in 2004. Currently there are over 400 young musicians involved in MCYO selected from over 1200 aspiring musicians.Many honors have been bestowed upon MCYO. In 1964, in Philadelphia, the Philharmonic performed at the Music Educators National Conference (MENC) Bicentennial Conference. In 1969, the Philharmonic was the first American orchestra to perform at the International Festival of Youth in Switzerland. In 1981, the Philharmonic was the first youth orchestra to be showcased at the Kennedy Center. Hundreds of thousands of listeners, live and on the radio, heard the Philharmonic on the WMAL Christmas Eve day concert, “Live from the Kennedy Center.” This was a longstanding tradition through 2003. In 1987, the Symphony was selected to perform at the MENC Eastern Division Conference in Baltimore. In 1995, the Philharmonic and Symphony toured England and Wales. Later that year, the Philharmonic was invited to and performed at the prestigious Mid-West International Band and Orchestra Clinic in Chicago. Two years later, the Philharmonic again performed at the MENC Eastern Division Conference in Baltimore. In 1999, the Philharmonic traveled to Austria, touring four cities as part of the Johann Strauss Centennial Celebration. In 2000, the Philharmonic was one of twenty music ensembles from across the USA selected from over two hundred applicants to perform at the MENC National Conference in Washington, DC. In June 2002, the Philharmonic made its Carnegie Hall debut in New York City. Also, in 2002, MCYO changed its name from Montgomery County Youth Orchestras to Maryland Classic Youth Orchestras keeping the acronym MCYO.

Philharmonic members annually perform with the National Symphony on the NSO Youth Orchestra Day. Select MCYO musicians participate in the NSO Fellowship program, and participate in master classes with renowned soloists and teachers. From 1996, various MCYO musicians have performed with the National Symphony Summer Music Institute. Since 1997, select MCYO musicians have augmented the National Festival Orchestra in New York City, performing with college, conservatory and select high school musicians from across the US and Canada in Carnegie Hall.

Many MCYO alumni have continued their music studies at preeminent institutions. Some have performed with prestigious American and European Orchestras and some have become music teachers. MCYO has made its mark on the music world!
- See more at: http://mcyo.org/?page_id=25#sthash.htVNgs2a.dpuf

Hejnar/Krcek - thank you, Mr. Grew !

Gentlemen - & particularly Mr.(?) Legius: what do we know about this 'Filefactory' download method ? It seems to want money, just for starters. Do we have any reason to trust it ?
Thank you.

It's all right - been going for years.

1) Make sure you click on "Slow Download" - in red near the bottom of the page. (No money required that way.)

2) Just close any advertising page that might pop up

3) Wait for the count-down of 30 seconds or so, which you will see ticking on your screen

4) Then just click where it says "Click here to begin your download"

But one disadvantage is that - unlike Mediafire - you may (or may not) have to wait for a time before you will be permitted to download a further file.

And thanks to Legius for the music!!

FF is quite good, but Mediafire is better - that´s true. So I have changed it.
Thanks to Mr. Grew. Enjoy the music!

Ah, that's much appreciated - thank you ! Even a dinosaur like me has some familiarity with/faith in Mediafire.

Um... I'm noticing that some works I had posted on the UC site are being repeated.  Would anybody object if I moved my uploaded Czech works still at UC over to this site?

If anyone here objects, they should see a doctor..by all means..do that..

Well, much to my amazement, and relief, I had already transferred almost everything.  Whew.  Just a few left to bring over.  For some reason, I feel better knowing they are all where they really belong - on this wonderful site!  :)

I also uploaded the Valek Sym. 13.  I could have sworn either I or someone else had uploaded this to either the UC site or this one, but I can't find it!  If this is a duplication, let me know, and I'll remove it. 

Mr. MVS - thank you ! Valek - had, from somewhere, 4,9,11,12...but not 13 !

Vaclav Kaprál:  Lullabies for middle-range voice with small orchestra on Slovak folk poetry texts  (1932) posted by MVS

Just for the sake of completion, the original title of Václav Kaprál's Lullabies is Uspavanky.

Thank you MVS for at least Petr Eben's 'Hours of the Night'. I recorded it off radio, years ago, but in such a bad condition, I never listened to the recording.

The Válek 13th was uploaded much earlier at UC (not by me), but I can not find it there either.

I will follow MVS by copying the files I uploaded to UC, to this site, although most of them are already here. I'll check.

Thank you so very much, Sydney for the opportunity to download the broadcast Finnish performance of Kabelac's "Mystery of Time"-indeed a favourite work :) :)

I had been alerted to the film over on The Good Music Guide Forum. I watched the performance and wrote quite a lengthy critique......which no one has responded to :(

This is what I wrote:

"I had never thought that I would live to actually see a performance of this work!

It is a difficult piece to bring off. Pacing the piece, building and maintaining the tension is all -important and Hrusa does a much better job of doing this than Vladimir Valek with the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra in a recording I have from 2008. The Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra is an excellent orchestra and they are playing music which, presumably, they were totally unfamiliar with. All in all, it is an excellent performance. No...not quite the equal of the historic Ancerl with the Czech Philharmonic from 1960 but, let's face it, that is probably an impossible ask. Ancerl was a great conductor and he had at his disposal an orchestra unrivalled in its time in Czech music.

The key moments for me are at around the 10-11 minutes into the recording where the horns, followed by the trumpets need to carve through the texture of the music in a way which really must make the listener's hair stand on end (yes, I know...hardly a very scientific way of expressing what I mean ;D). The Czech PO's brass have a "blaring quality" which achieves that end so successfully and in such a truly terrifying fashion. The Finnish brass do well but with not quite so dramatic an effect. Their woodwind are superb but, at times, the strings are not quite so successful in conveying the power of the music. Nicholas Kenyon once described an orchestra of students playing the Berlioz Requiem at the London Proms as playing "as if their very lives depended on it" and it is that sense of total and utter commitment which the piece needs. The Finns get very near....to be fair to them.

The closing pages of the piece also require very careful handling. After the huge climax at around 18 minutes in there is that wonderful, gradual winding-down but that needs to convey a sense of mysticism (in a way akin to the last movement of the Vaughan Williams 6th symphony) in which the inherent tension is not dissipated through too much relaxation, in which there is a sense of exhaustion after the shattering power of what has come before but no sense that the work is simply "petering out".

No doubt this is all hopelessly subjective and my incapacity to convey in words to describe exactly what I mean may well render it meaningless to others.

It is a very good performance and I am most deeply appreciative of the kindness in providing the link."


(The composers whose music has been discussed most recently over there are Ligeti, Terry Riley, Stockhausen, Feldman, Cage, Boulez and Nono. You can probably understand that I feel slightly uncomfortable in such company ;D).

I have just posted on the conductor Jakub Hrusa's Facebook page asking him to, please, record the work for cd :)

The Austrian OE1 will broadcast the same programme again on May, 30th, 19:30 in Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound quality
from a Vienna performance to be given at May, 23rd - now with the ORF Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien
and Johannes Moser as soloist for the Martinu cello concerto (in Finland we have had Sol Gabetta).
 
http://oe1.orf.at/programm/373789 (http://oe1.orf.at/programm/373789)

I'll try to record that performance in original digital quality (don't have surround equipment myself, but a 2 channel track
should be automatically included within the final "transport stream" file). 

Don't worry - in 2050 they will be the unsung and forgotten. In fact they are not much sung even now.

I got a nice response from Jakub Hrusa on his Facebook page to my suggestion that he try to do a commercial recording of the Kabelac :)

Thanks a lot to mjkFendrich for the Kabelac - I'm downloading it just now!

Thanks very much for the Kabalec video. I am a long-time fan of Kabalec, starting with the the old "8 Inventions for Percussion, op 45", which I had on a old recording by Les Percussions de Strasbourg.

I uploaded an unusual recording of music by Fibich, which had been lost over at UC. Thanks to fr8nks for the original upload. Enjoy.

Frantisek Emmert: Symphony 7
(http://www.musica.cz/images/persons/emmert_20100127101839_4.jpg)

From the collection of Karl Miller


Brno State Philharmonic Orchestra
Frantisek Kilek, conductor

From the Czech Music Information Center:

After completing his studies in Prague he entered the Janacek's Academy of Performing Arts in Brno, where he studied composition with Jan Kapr (1961 - 1965). He continued as a postgraduate under guidance of Miloslav Istvan from 1967 to 1970. Since then he has become a lecturer in instrumentation and music theory at the Janacek's Academy, from 1975 he has lectured also in composition (in 2006 he was appointed professor). His compositional output includes such large music forms as symphonies, cantatas and oratorios, and more intimate pieces (vocal and chamber music). His Christian faith is a great source of inspiration for most of his works.

emmert's symphonies 6 and 9 are on utube..a search on first and last name combined should yeild them..

Another excellent and somewhat enigmatic czech composer is Kardos,Dezider(1914-1991)
a couple of his symphonies are on utube. Strange and compelling misc IMHO. not to be missed

Kardoš was actually Slovak (Hungarian speaking I suppose). The 6th symphony and Slovakofonia are more persuasive to my ears than the 7th, even though the latter builds on a powerful basis.

My ancestry is Czech-Slovak and my grandfather used to work in the Slovak coal mines before moving to Pennsylvania to do the same.
Emmert's 6th symphony (again on u-tube) really speaks to me as it is a bone-chilling account of a mine accident.

Emmert,František Gregor - Symphony No. 6 Mine Nelson
Brno State Philharmonic Orch,Jirí Belohlávek
1.16 h 45 min
2.Despiration - Hope
3.The Song of the Mining District
4.The Lamps Light

The file I posted of Korte's "Story of the Flutes" was missing about a minute of music at the end for some reason. Now fixed.

Pavel Bořkovec

String Quartet No 1

Vlach Quartet

Those familiar with Bořkovec's music may find this a surprise. It is an early work from 1925 and written in a rather rhapsodic style, perhaps recalling Roslavets. The work is in one movement.

Mono sound only - source is a very old Supraphon LP.

I just posted Karel Husa's Concerto for Orchestra from Karl's Collection.  He was technically an American citizen by then, so I flipped an coin, and heads put him in the Czech composer section!

Czech music for winds

Jiří Jaroch - Metamorphoses for 12 winds

Chamber Harmony ensemble

Ivan Jirko - Sonata for 14 winds and timpani

1. Andante
2. Allegro con brio
3. Andante - allegro assai

Czech Phil. Wind Instruments Ensemble, cond. Vladimir Černý

Karel Janeček - Grand Symposium, chamber music for 15 solists

1. Introduction
2. Stories
3. Meditation
4. To action

Czech Phil. Wind Instruments Ensemble, cond. Vladimir Černý

Let me know if there is any problem with the links, please.

Music of Vitezslava Kaprálová

(https://scontent.xx.fbcdn.net/hprofile-xfa1/v/t1.0-1/p160x160/418537_340307902672182_1097723878_n.jpg?oh=dde11e563557002f0aa852f6a238553d&oe=56B7DCCB)
from the collection of Karl Miller


Partita for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 29 (1939)
Jindrich Duras, piano
Plzensky roshlasovy orchestr/Josef Blacky
Source LP: Supraphon 119174BG

For Ever; What is my Sorrow? Hands; The Letter
Jill Gomez, soprano
John Constable, piano
[15 APril 1988]

Bohuslav Martinu: Magic Nights
(http://www.schott-music.com/shop/resources/605594.jpg)
from the collection of Karl Miller



Daniela Sounova, soprano
Prague RSO/Bostock
[24 September 1990]

Milos Sokola: Variations on a Theme by Kapralova
(http://g.denik.cz/70/2e/bucovice-rodak-milos-sokola_denik-605.jpg)

from the collection of Karl Miller

Prague National Theater Orchestra
Jaroslav Krombholic, conductor

Klement Slavicky: Rhapsodic Variations for Orchestra
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7c/Slavicky.jpg)
(http://thumbs.worthpoint.com/ODBedOiPGOip0BgrLY47kgBpPaI=/400x0/images/images1/1/0810/16/1_d07879a639bfcc2bd5e6ca16b06b54dc.jpg)

From the collection of Karl Miller
Czech Philharmonic Orchestra
Karel Anceri, conductor
Supraphon SUA 10056

Jiří Jaroch Symphony No 2

Czech RSO cond. Alois Klima, from a mono LP in the Musica Nova Bohemica series by Supraphon

This is one of my favourite pieces of modern Czech music; I've listened to it countless times over the years. I originally got the LP sometime in the mid-70s.

Mr. Gauk,

This is a nice surprise. The symphony of Jiří Jaroch is indeed a very fine work.
The symphony was written in the late 1960s and was recorded in 1969 (?).
Not much of this composer's work is known, let alone available. His most popular works are Starec a More (The Old Man and the Sea), a symph. poem and the Metamorfoses for 12 Winds.
Both works were released on Supraphon lp's in the early 1970s

His 3td Symphony, for Violin and Orch, from 1969, is in our archive

I agree Jaroch is a fine composer. I also have the LP with his Symphony No. 2 and have always liked it a lot. In fact, the precise date of composition is 1958–60. Movement titles are I. Intrada (Allegro), II. Intermezzo (Allegro non troppo), III. Aria appassionata (Larghetto) and IV. Finale – quasi una Toccata (Molto allegro).

Excellent! Many thanks to Gauk :)

Glad you like it, and thanks to Holger for supplying the movement titles, which I forgot.

The Old Man and the Sea is available somewhere on YouTube, but I can't find it at the moment.

Jaroch,Jirí  - The Old-man And Sea
Josef Hrncir,Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra,Alois Klíma(violin)
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwem0jM-M2eNWMC_BqCyzMu5-TpTrVkWP

Thanks. Considering that YouTube is run by Google, its search function is not very good.

This piece is contained in a playlist and apparently playlist contents are not always visible.

At least for me in Germany the videos in this playlist are not available!
If someone could perhaps provide a copy of the Jaroch piece here in our forum?

Thanks,   mjkF

Does anyone know if this symphony exists on CD anywhere in the world?

Not a chance ...

It's not just you in Germany; the link looks to be broken to me too, or the video removed. I have posted my copy of the work as an mp3 in the downloads section. The sound is poor quality mono, but it's sadly the best we can get.

Here in the Netherlands the videos are neither available. But when I clicked on 'subscribe' I got the message that there will instructions in the mail.
So lets wait and see what happens.

Elroel

The links of Josef Matĕj's "Sinfonia Dramatica" (posted by Elroel on September 7, 2012) are now dead.
Could someone possibly re-upload this work?
Thank you in advance,
Corentin Boissier

Corentin,

I have re-uploaded this for you. Please let me know if the link does not work.

Thank you very much for this! The link works perfectly.
I take the opportunity to thank you for all your marvelous contributions on this forum, as well as for your precious Composer Catalogues that I frequently consult. You are one of the greatest members of this forum, and on my side I'm 23 years old, and I hope that, one day, I'll have your musical culture...
I wish you all the best for the upcoming year,
Corentin Boissier, composer

 :-[

That is incredibly kind of you....blushes!

Re-uploading music when the old links are dead is a pleasure and is possible because I downloaded virtually everything that other members so generously contributed in the past.

The catalogues to which you refer are, unfortunately, not updated and have not been for about four years. There have been many cd recordings of music since then (and living composers have added to their list of compositions). I have tried to update the originals on my own hard drive but have simply not had the time to update the lists online- I have so many other unrelated research activities underway! But...if you still find them useful then I am delighted!

There were "certain difficulties" on this forum a few months back. Such generous and flattering comments do so much to encourage me to continue my contributions. I thank you most sincerely!!

I see that you are indeed a young composer:
http://www.corentinboissier.net/Corentin_Boissier,_composer/1._Welcome.html (http://www.corentinboissier.net/Corentin_Boissier,_composer/1._Welcome.html)

Can I wish you every success in your career! You are part of the Future of classical music and I hope that you achieve the success you obviously deserve!

Jiří Jaroch – The Old Man And The Sea (Symphonic Poem After Ernest Hemingway) (1960)

I have uploaded a recording from the broadcast on CRo (Czech Radio) D-dur (https://www.rozhlas.cz/iradio/zive/#d-dur) classical music station in the downloads section.
The sound quality is Ogg Vorbis 224 kbps stereo.

Just would like to share it from my archive...
aphonia

Oops. I'm sorry. I will try hard to remember but I am old and very forgtful. The stories I could tell you about that...

  :-\

Thank you very much, all such downloads are appreciated! However, this work in the same recording is already here in the Czech Music folder, uploaded several years ago by member jowcol and the link is still active. I haven't compared your upload and his but possibly the quality of your file is better.

Isn't this a testament to the depth of this forum, that a seemingly obscure work can get uploaded by more than one member unknowingly!

J. B. Foerster's 4th Symphony -- what a find! This is music in which form and substance are united to provide a powerful utterance. It's unmistakeaby the work of a Bohemian composer. When discussing the music of less-well known composers I tend to find that drawing comparisons with the music of other, more well-known figures a resticting exercise, which runs the risk of categorising the unfamiliar as mere epigones.  Thus, if I suggest that the influences of Smetana and Dvořák are there, it's maybe because Foerster was drinking from the same springs as the older masters, not that he is a slavish imitator.  This symphony is very beautiful as well as satisfying.

By the way, for those interested in such matters, I have unearthed the fact that this recording derives from a live concert from the BBC's Maida Vale Studios in London on Sunday, 13th June 2010 and was actually the London première of the work!

Thanks once again, Maris.

I'll want to hear this;but once your ears adjust to the 'woolly' sound (not one of Supraphon's best,even for that period!) you get that lovely sound of the woodwinds and horns,you get from those old soviet era,Czech recordings. I've read less positive observations about his other symphonies. One chap at another forum (not that one!) did suggest the MDG performances were the chief culprits. I wouldn't know? I haven't listened to them. It's a pity Supraphon wasn't interested in them. The Fourth Symphony is magnificent,though. Come on,Chandos! ;D

Indeed, I believe Foerster was following in the national tradition of Smetana, Dvorak, Suk, Novak, etc. Consider also that when such a distinctive national tradition arises, the style characteristics, and compositional techniques are going to be taught and held up for emulation and inspiration in the country's conservatories and by composers who teach. Think also of Finland, where Sibelius established a national tradition and sound world that influenced composers in that country for generations. Of course, there will always be those who consciously reject the idiom and strike out on their own, but unless they also emerge as major figures on their own their voices often take time to be heard, gain acceptance, and begin to influence.


Thanks for this information!



Yes, the Czech woodwinds had tremendous character back in the 1950s and 1960s especially. One of the joys of listening to Karel Ancerl's Supraphon recordings is the distinctive sound of the winds in the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra.

I have all the other Foerster symphonies, and while they're all lovely, attractive, well-written works, none of them are anywhere near as powerful and memorable as the 4th. I can upload them in non-commercial performances if there's interest.

At the risk of a good wrist-slapping from the moderators for an off-topic tangent, my favourite recording (by some distance) of Shostakovich's fifth symphony is by the Czech Philharmonic under Ancerl on Supraphon (SUA 10423). It's an LP I treasure and (having retained every LP I ever bought and the means to play them) the lovely Samantha spins that disc on my turntable with great frequency.  ;)

If you could find time to upload the other Foerster symphonies, Maris, I should be most grateful. If they are lovely I'd like to hear them. We can never have enough lovliness in our lives!

 ;D 

Mine, too! Another timeless favorite is Ancerl's recording of excerpts from Prokofiev's Romeo and Julliet. Two of the first LPs I ever bought. Long since replaced by CD reissues, in my case, but I'll never forget those LP jackets, either.

Yes! And not forgetting Ancerl's stunning recordings of Janácek's Sinfonietta and Taras Bulba, and Martinů's 5th & 6th Symphonies and Memorial to Lidice. He was a very great conductor of a very fine orchestra.

Karel Ančerl's Dvorak is great,too! Again,the sound of that Czech woodwind & horns.And,not,really the right place here,I suppose? But I listened to his Mahler Ninth,recently. One of the best I've heard. And the sound of that soviet era,Czech orchestra,really marks it out from the herd. Unlike,Smetáček's Foerster recording,the sound quality (I have the Gold edition cd) is very good! Oh,and don't let the recording quality of the Smetáček Foerster,put you off! Once your ears adjust,it is worth it! But wait for a low price!!

I enjoyed his recording of these two rare works,too! I bought the cd's out of curiosity. The Václav Dobias Symphony No 2 is a bit of a blockbuster. The sound is a little reverberant. I enjoyed it. I'm not sure that,anyone,except Ančerl could make it sound quite as good as it does here,though? Jarmil Burghauser’s Seven Reliefs for Large Orchestra is possibly the stand out though (and shorter! ;D). I seem to recall it uses a flexatone (?) which sounded very eerie,indeed,to my ears! I wouldn't want to listen to it,late at night,in the dark!! :o ;D

https://www.classicstoday.com/review/review-11729/ (https://www.classicstoday.com/review/review-11729/)

Oh yes, Ancerl's Dvořák is as good as it gets (along with Rafael Kubelik's).

Thanks for the link to the review of Václav Dobias's Symphony No 2. On the strength of your comments (and those of Victor Carr Jr. at Classics Today) I am going to have to get that. I don't know, with all the recommendations I get from you for wonderful English music (and domestic appliances -- Dyson - geddit?) I am going to be going seriously overdrawn. When the bailiffs turn up, I'll point them in your direction.

 ;D

Before you get too excited! I think it is possible that the Dobias goes on a little too long,for it's material! But then again?!! :-\ However! It is intriguing,it is a blockbuster,and it does make you wonder what else is out there?! The musical saw in the Burghauser,is very spooky. Modernistic,but approachable,imho! I thought it was a woman's voice,at first! I seem to recall,the sound of the Dobias is good,but,a bit,on the reverberant side!! I think it's a cd worth acquiring,if you're looking for something,really off the beaten track,though? I think I'll put it on,again?!!

I love the Pizzetti! It makes me think of Rota & Fellini films! I should warn you! Gramophone,spectacularly,rubbished it,though,to my consternation!! (A different recording,though!) I beg to,disagree!! I love the way he brings the big tune back in the finale. The whole work makes me think of sweeping (Italian) romantic,vistas. A little bombast in the central movement,perhaps? The compensation,another lovely melody. But yes,I play it,quite allot! The Naxos reissue has very boring artwork! I've got the original Marco Polo cd. Better artwork! I feel it aids listening enjoyment,for some wierd,reason!

Oh no,not the baliffs! :( And I'll have to 'pay' them with my cd collection!! ::) :( ;D

(https://www.thegatewaychurch.info/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Bible-Reading-images-41.png)

it is here:

https://youtu.be/b8Ra18CRHH0

I've tracked down the CDRs with these recordings and will upload them soon.

 ;D

(https://i.pinimg.com/originals/5e/18/17/5e1817363f37bacb90f576387201d5e4.gif)