Martinu: Symphony No. 4

These two performances featuring Klaus Tennstedt (1926–1998) and the Stuttgart RSO were separated by only forty-one months, and yet Tennstedt’s life changed dramatically during this short period. In 1971 he escaped from the German Democratic Republic and by 1973 he had settled at the small opera house in Kiel.

But by spring 1974, he had appeared in North America with the Toronto Symphony and by December of the same year, he conducted the Boston Symphony in an all-Brahms programme. By 1976, he was established in both Europe and in the United States as a master of the core Austro-German repertoire.

The Martinu° Symphony No.4 typifies Tennstedt’s interest in more obscure repertoire during his early period in Germany. It is given a highly charged performance in this 1973 ‘live’ studio recording.

The Martinu° is a new addition to Tennstedt’s discography. It also highlights the work of this lesser known but very important composer (a set of the complete Martinu° Symphonies won a Gramophone Award in the Orchestral category in 2012).

The live 1976 concert performance from Göppingen of Brahms’s Symphony No.1 demonstrates Tennstedt’s great affinity with this symphony in a dramatic and urgent reading. It is far superior to his studio account made in 1983.

This recording marks a new and exciting relationship between ICA Classics and the SWR in Stuttgart. This is the first release of this material outside Japan.

Although the orchestral works of Bohuslav Martinu are extremely seductive and skilfully written, they've remained rather confidential. Much of this neglect is due to the composer's fate: a typical 20th-century exile from wars, political and artistic upheavals.Walter Weller, however, the prestigious conductor of the Belgian National Orchestra, is fondly attached to this Czech music that accompanied him throughout his youth in Vienna. His exploration of the master's work includes a key work of Martinu's American period, the 4th Symphony, premiered in 1945 by Eugene Ormandy. It’s a late masterpiece, the very Debussy-like Estampes and The Departure, written in Paris and of which power and dazzling orchestration reminds us of Honegger's famous Pacific 231.The musicological note is by Harry Halbreich, the absolute authority on Martinu, whose works he catalogued.This record is an absolute must for lovers of great symphonic repertoire!

A Czech conductor who excelled worldwide. Martin Turnovsky recordings for the first time on CD.

Paradoxically, a greater opportunity to witness the artistry of the remarkable Czech conductor Martin Turnovsky, whose teachers included Karel Ančerl and George Szell, has been afforded to audiences abroad.

After winning the international conducting competition in Besancon (1958), he had to wait almost a decade for the real launch of his international career, since the totalitarian regime in Czechoslovakia prevented him from travelling around the world.

He was chief conductor of the Dresdner Staatskapelle and Staatsoper, and, after emigrating to the West at the end of the 1960s, led the Operas in Oslo and Bonn, guest-conducted the New York Philharmonic, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and other major orchestras. Only after the regime change in Czechoslovakia in 1989 could he renew his work with orchestras on home soil. In the 1960s he made numerous recordings for Supraphon. The majority of those presented on these discs are now available on CD for the first time. They bear witness to Turnovsky’s distinct talent, which several years later would dazzle to the full in front of the world’s most renowned orchestras.

Groundbreaking early recordings made by the legendary Czech conductor Rafael Kubelík.

The name of Rafael Kubelík symbolically opens the Supraphon series of archival recordings featuring the most celebrated Czech conductors. Kubelík’s journey to catharsis, which was represented by the legendary performance of My Country at the first liberated Prague Spring festival in 1990, lasted more than half a century.

He first conducted the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra when he was twenty and at the age of twenty-eight (1942) became its chief conductor. The precious recordings on this double CD were made between 1944 and 1948, prior to Kubelík’s emigration. When it comes to Dvořák’s music, one of the cornerstones of the Czech Philharmonic’s repertoire, unique recordings of Kubelík’s singular interpretation of Symphony No. 8 and the Piano Concerto with a spellbinding performance by the young Rudolf Firkušný have been preserved. Yet Kubelík also boldly presented a contemporary repertoire.

The live recording of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 9 dating from December 1945 (a mere three months after the work was completed!) is probably the very first recording of the work. The onerous experience of the war is also reflected in Martinů’s Symphony No. 4. The unique recordings of the Memorial to Lidice and Dobiáš’s Stalingrad cantata depict the atmosphere of a difficult time. Kubelík’s recordings from the 1940s are a testament to a legendary figure who after another 40 years of conducting leading orchestras abroad would in the spring of 1990 make a triumphant return to liberated Prague.

Right up to his death Ernest Ansermet was always on the lookout for new scores. His discovery of Henri Dutilleux was immediately followed by the Swiss premiere of his first symphony. There was a solid friendship between Martinù and Ansermet, who performed several works by his friend in Switzerland and elsewhere.