Martin∞’s natural world
David Nice is refreshed by the Czech’s folk wisdom in his late cantatas
MARTIN≠
The Legend of the Smoke from Potato Tops; The Opening of the Springs; Romance of the Dandelions; Mike≥ of the Mountains
Pavla Vykopalová (soprano), Ludmila Kromková (contralto), Martin Slavík (tenor), Jiπí Brückler, Petr Svoboda (baritone); Daniel Havel (recorder), Jan Paπík (clarinet), Jan Voboπil (horn), Josef Hπebík (accordion), Ivo Kahánek (piano); Prague Philharmonic Choir/ Luká≥ Vasilek
Supraphon SU 4198-2 68:13 mins
Three consecutive years have brought with them CD revelations about the greatest 20th-century composer who is yet to be widely celebrated as such. In 2015, Maxim Rysanov shone a light upon Martin∞’s works featuring solo viola and now, following Supraphon’s essential 2016 recordings of the last (mini) opera Ariane and the complete piano trios, comes a cumulatively stunning presentation of four late cantatas. All based on the mixture of folk wisdom and sophisticated poetic conceits in the writing of Miloslav Bure≥, they celebrate the natural world and its regenerative powers in the face of human loss, disaster and failure.
Each begins arrestingly – the first sounds we hear are of recorder and clarinet – and acquires emotional weight as it goes. The unpromisingly-titled Legend of the Smoke from Potato Tops builds on the fresh-air brilliance of Janáωek’s Glagolitic Mass as the Virgin and her Son leave a dark church for the Bohemian outdoors. The Opening of the Springs, superficially the simplest of the four, celebrates the ritualistic late-may clearance of struggling fresh-water sources and ends with Martin∞’s answer to the old-age wisdom of The Cunning Little Vixen. Baritone Jiπí Brückler is superb here, and the top-quality professional Prague Philharmonic Choir master the most harmonically rich cantata of the four, a tale of a girl who doesn’t recognise her long-lost love returning from the wars. Mike≥ of the Mountains is the perfect summingup: the embellished tale of a wise shepherd guiding his flock through the worst that nature can throw at them. Valuable messages for our or indeed any time, and superlatively performed. Unmissable.
Martin∞’s cantatas provide valuable messages for our time