An introduction to Martinů’s MusicBy Patrick Lambert
With the current renewal of interest in composers who never claimed to be avant-gardists, Martinu is becoming recognised not only as one of the 20th century’s most prolific and versatile musicians, but also as one of its most independently-minded creative talents. This is not to say that during his protracted path to maturity he did not absorb a profusion of influences – French Impressionism, Stravinsky, jazz, neo-classicism and the English madrigal, in addition to his abiding love of Czech and especially Moravian folks songs. Yet, despite such multifarious influences, each and every piece is infused with his distinctive personality. Martinu himself attributed the unusual character of his music tohis extraordinary birthplace in a room at the top of the church tower in the Bohemian town of Policka, where he was to spend the following 12 years of his childhood. Throughout his life he sought to recapture in sounds the ‘sense of space’ and ‘pure forms’ of Nature that had surrounded him. It was therefore perhaps inevitable that as a student in Prague he should succumb to Debussy’s music, ‘the greatest revelation’ of his life. Martinu’s decision to seek guidance from Roussel in Paris was prompted by his desire to escape the Czech cult of Smetana’ and acquire some of the qualities that he detected in French art: order, clarity, balance and refinement of taste. |
List of works performedDouble Concerto - June 20
for two string orchestras, piano and timpani Sinfonietta Giocosa - June 23 for piano and orchestra Nonetto - June 25 for wind quintet, string trio and string bass Sinfonietta la Jolla - June 27 for orchestra Sinfonia Concertante - June 27 for oboe, bassoon, violin, violoncello and orchestra Divertimento/Serenata No. 4 -June 30 for violin, viola and orchestra Piano Concerto No. 3 - July 1 for piano and orchestra |
Featured ArtistsAlexander Velinzon, violin
Mary Lynch, oboe Efe Baltacigil, violoncello Seth Krimsky, bassoon Ada Meinich, viola Carla Trynchu, violin Chi Yong Yun, piano David Jacobs, conductor Travis Hatton, conductor Joel Bluestone, timpani Charlene Farrugia, piano Susan Chan, piano Janet Coleman, piano Zvonimir Hacko, conductor Jason Fromme, violin Sonja Myklebust, violoncello Kevin Deitz, string bass Daria Binkovski, flute Alan Juza, oboe Jen Harrison, French Horn Evan Kuhlmann, bassoon |
About Martinu "I think I am better at writing music than in writing about it. I do not like placing the creative process under a microscope, to explain a work, to look at the molecules (so to speak) instead of examining the body as a whole. So far as I am concerned, a work should live by itself, and not as a result of analyses. I do not think that it is necessary for the public to enter the laboratory, where it understands nothing, and where the artist himself sometimes needs to reflect a long time in order to grasp the meaning of things."
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