Filharmonie Brno / Kružík / Dances, scherzos and the adventures of The Cunning Little Vixen - NOSPR

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Music by the Czech composer Bohuslav Martinů is not appreciated enough today, though in the last century his oeuvre – particularly the 1940s New York period – was artistically celebrated. The dynamic and rapid 1945 scherzo for orchestra Thunderbolt P-47 H. 309 is a good case in point – rooted in the convention of a symphonic poem, it satisfies all the requirements of program music and leaves no doubt as to extramusical contexts. It is difficult not to hear the roar of American fighter aircraft, heralding the Allies’ victory.

The master’s neoclassical style was taken up by one of his Moravian compatriots, whom Martinů met in New York in 1947: Jan Novák. Fascinated by his mentor’s clear message and musical discipline, in mid-1950s Novák wrote the Philharomonic Dances, in which he paid tribute to the composing techniques he learned in America and focused on the colour of the sound and formal clarity of the piece. Nevertheless, the Moravian line of composers subscribing to the program idea of composing and clear musical narration was born earlier. One of its leading representatives was Leoš Janáček, extremely well versed in Moravian folk music. His first mature work – the 1891 Lachian Dances – is a postromantic study of Moravian folklore. The Ancient Dance it begins with is based on the region’s endemic melodies, while the Blacksmith provides a sonic description of a blacksmith’s craft. Full of humour, the suite from the 1921 three-act opera The Cunning Little Vixen is, in turn, an expression of the composer’s adoration for nature, broadly understood.

Maria Wilczek-Krupa