Forgotten Czech Piano Concertos
David et Jonathas
Kovařovic: Piano Concerto in F minor, Op. 6; Bořkovec: Piano Concerto No. 2; Kaprálová: Piano Concerto in D minor, Op. 7
Marek Kozák (piano), Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra/robert Jindra Supraphon SU43372 75 mins
Being Czech and ‘forgotten’ might not seem the best recommendation for entertaining listening, but these concertos provide rich musical rewards as well as casting light on a period dominated by ‘big beasts’ such as Dvořák and Martinů.
Karel Kovařovic was a gifted composer and a noted musical director of the Czech National Theatre. His Piano Concerto, composed in 1887, leans unashamedly on Schumann and Chopin, but its first movement is certainly striking and the Larghetto genuinely charming.
Pavel Bořkovec’s Piano Concerto No. 2 is a different matter. A pupil of Josef Suk, he moved away from the rich late Romanticism of his teacher toward an attractive, modernist treatment of tonality. In this concerto dating from 1949, Bořkovec incorporates folk-inspired lyricism in the first movement and he also introduces a hint of jazz in the meditative opening of the middle movement.
On occasion there are sideways glances at Stravinsky and the sprung rhythms in the finale are reminiscent of Martinů’s symphonic style, but as a whole this is a work of real individuality.
With a vigorously supportive Composer Society and numerous available recordings, Vítězslava Kaprálová is perhaps the best known of these composers. Her story is poignant: a brilliant figure in 1930s Czechoslovakia, she studied with Martinů in Paris, before a tragically early death cut short her undoubted promise.
Her Piano Concerto in D minor,
Op. 7 – a graduation exercise – is at times derivative, but also displays enormous confidence and a huge expressive range.
The soloist, Marek Kozák, is a superb advocate for these widely differing works, providing thoughtful and persuasively idiomatic interpretations. Robert Jindra and the Prague Radio Symphony, somewhat more distantly recorded than the soloist, supply dependable if occasionally slightly untidy accompaniment.
Jan Smaczny
PERFORMANCE
RECORDING
Les Pages et les Chantres du Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles, Orchestre Les Temps Présents/ Olivier Schneebeli
Aparté AP342 122:00 mins (2 discs) David et Jonathas is one of those difficult-to-place works. Not quite an opera and not really an oratorio, it was composed for the Jesuit Collège Louis-le-grand in Paris in 1688, at a time when Charpentier had few other outlets for dramatic stage works. Its in-between status is reflected in this recording, which was made live at the Royal Opera of the Château de Versailles in 2021, a year before another recording of the same work (released last year) was made at the palace’s royal chapel.
The recording uses children’s and men’s voices only, replicating the sounds and the circumstances of the work’s first performance at the allmale college. This approach works best in the dramatic choruses and in the ensemble numbers, where the Pages and Chantres (singing pupils and older students) of the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles take on the roles of shepherds, warriors, captives and Israelites. A serious flaw is the casting of Natacha Boucher as Jonathas. Her youthful soprano has the unsteady timbre of a younger, male chorister, which makes her duets with
David (tenor Clément Debieuvre) sound uncomfortable and even a little unsettling.
For his part, Debieuvre sings adequately enough, but without much emotional depth or variation. David Witczak is more impressive as the tormented but vulnerable Saul. Edwin Crossley-mercer is an authoritative Achis and ghost of Samuel, while Jean-françois Novelli and Jean-françois Lombard are both convincingly nasty as Joabel and the Pythoness. Olivier Schneebeli directs the instrumental ensemble Les Temps Présents with breadth and vigour. The normally rich acoustics of the Versailles opera house are hindered by an imbalance between the forward-placed continuo and woodwind players at the back. John-pierre Joyce PERFORMANCE
RECORDING