In 1735 – 1736 J. D. Zelenka had the chance to write and present two passion oratorios. Gesu al Calvario was followed by the oratorio I penitenti al sepolcro del redentore, performed on Good Friday, the 30th of March in 1736. The work is a profound exploration of characters – Mary Magdalen (Maddalena), King David (Davide) and the Apostle Peter (Pietro) - who meet at the sepulchre of the Saviour and meditate on the message of Christ´s sacrifice.
The passing away of Vítězslava Kaprálová´s beloved writer, the death of Karel Čapek. An author whom Kaprálová read and loved, and whose struggle for truth deeply affected her own artistic existence, emotionally as well as intellectually. There was Vítězslav Nezval’s beautiful poetic obituary. And Kaprálová had been considering to write a melodrama. Enchanted by the text, she transformed Nezval’s poetry directly after the premiere of the Elegy into a profound, agonizing, deeply personal exclamation: into her own brave account of her relationship with Čapek, the Czech language, the Czech land, the Czech destiny. The composition was performed in French translation at the Czech embassy in Paris; again, the piano part was played by the author. After the Paris premiere, Vítězslava Kaprálová left a brief note in the score: “The ending was very nice…”
Inspired by the poem The Sleeper in the Valley by Jean Arthur Rimbaud in Vítězslav Nezval’s translation, the homonymic composition came to life in 1997. Having read the poem, I was impressed by the author’s ability to depict the contrast between the peaceful life (the idyllic setting, the cosy womb of nature, the soldier’s restful slumber), and the violent death (the red holes in his side). I tried to transform this contrast into the instrumentation of my piece – the violas represent life, the guitars symbolize death.
The four-movement composition entitled Curatio hypochondrii (a hypochondriac’s treatment) for solo bassoon is the result of my cooperation with the bassoonist Václav Vonášek in 2010. Our original concept was that of a kind of a sound lab that would search for all kinds of sounds that the instrument is capable of making when in the hands of a creative artist. The ultimate aim of our cooperation was a purposeful integration of such effects into a natural flow of music. The piece contains richly articulated tones, multiphonics, bisbigliandos, glissandos and other techniques that are becoming ever more frequent in present-day scores.
The symphonic piece the American Overture was written towards the end of the year 1996. Commissioned by the conductor Paul Freeman, it was premiered by this very conductor first with the Czech National Symphonic Orchestra in Prague, and later with Chicago Sinfonietta in an orchestral concert Chicago.
What you are holding in your hands is an album of twelve compositions in the form of both sheet music and a CD featuring the author's performances of the music.The main criterion was that the form of the piece should be simple, just like the form of any jazz standard or evergreen. Before you get started and first tones come out of your piano, try reading the few lines by Martin Kratochvíl that should work as a "user's manual" or a "cookbook" to help you prepare music for consummation.
Lékořice (Liquorice); Stín katedrál (The Shade of Cathedrals); Tu kytáru jsem koupil kvůli tobě (I Bought the Guitar Just For You); Dr. Dam di Dam; Kdo vchází do tvých snů, má lásko (Who Enters Your Dreams, My Love); Je ráno, Anno (Morning Has Come, Dear Anne) – all these and more songs feature in this album. Václav Neckář is a versatile singer whose career has spanned several decades, as is seen on the example of each of these songs.
The composition of Concerto per tuba contrabasso ed archi, op. 53 that was written together with Duetto for two contrabass tubas in 1983 was incited by Václav Hoza, a tuba player, a member of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra at the time in question, and a pedagogue at the Prague conservatory. The type of invention of the piece as well as its development and the solo part structure betray an influence of Hindemith’s tuba sonata from 1955. Domažlický’s musical speech is characteristic for its distinctive use of chromatics within tonal music flow that is applied both in melody and harmony.
František Domažlický’s contribution to 20th-century tuba literature consists of four compositions. After his Concerto for tuba and strings, op. 53 (1983), Duet for two contrabass tubas, op. 53a (1983) and Sonatina for tuba and piano (1991), he composed his last piece for tuba, Scherzo per Tuba ed pianoforte, op. 77 in 1992.
"Gendarmerie Humoresques (Četnické humoresky) became a part of my life for nearly ten years. Three series of 13 episodes each, the individual episodes of almost full-length-movie duration, the Gendarmerie Humoresques were shot from 1998 till 2007. The 39-part series of detective films are based on true stories from the pre-WWII Czechoslovakia – only the names are changed. It is not a series in the usual sense of the word, however; the individual stories stand on their own, the only linking thread being the life of the gendarmerie office and the destinies of its members. Accordingly, the music for the series contains quite a lot of separate musical ideas and themes. The musical speech is respectful of the atmosphere of the 1920s and 1930s. It does not, however, simply quote the tunes and songs of the period – all the music is original.
Following are the author’s contemplations over the score of his 5th Symphony: “Unlike all my other six symphonies, which make use of all the instruments of the grand orchestra, this work is set only for strings. I have always found the sound of a large strings section very attractive – even fascinating – for the breath-taking acoustic potential of the divided and sub-divided plenum that is multiplied by the explosive, hard-bitten, almost mechanically rhythmicized sonority on the one hand, and the innermost, fragile, and subtly generated meaningfulness on the other. These are the preconceptions underlying my attempt in this demanding piece to materialize my aesthetic notions that are rather more apt to being expressed as a matter-of-fact statement of an opinion.
The album contains twelve Czech Christmas carols, arranged for piano by Václav Kozel, including such songs as Veselé vánoční hody (Merry Christmas Feast); Co to znamená (What Does It All Mean); Nesem vám noviny (We Bring You Good Tidings); Já bych rád k Betlému (I Wish to Go to Bethlehem); Bratři a sestřičky (Brothers and Sisters); Na nebi andělé (Angels In Heaven). All this appears in a charming graphical design created by the academic painter Vladimír Hanuš.
The compositional output of the violist and composer František Domažlický (1913 to 1997), a native of Prague, consists – apart from several song cycles – mainly of instrumental music genres. Domažlický belongs to the few Czech authors who wrote more than one piece for solo tuba, an instrument that became regularly used as a solo instrument only in the second half of the twentieth century. In 1983 Domažlický wrote two pieces – both under the same opus number 53 – namely, Concerto for tuba and strings that was followed by Duetto for two contrabass tubas. In 1990s Domažlický added two more: Sonatina for tuba and piano, op. 75 (1991), and Scherzo for tuba and piano, op. 77 (1992).
“Coined and assigned to the piece only after the score had been completed, the title of Scattering – Reintegration was meant to reflect both the original intention and the composition as it was eventually conceived. The original idea was to write a piece of music where disintegrated fragments of melodies and rhythmical patterns gradually turn into a coherent stream of music. This, however, does not really happen in the resulting composition. The separate fragments merely glide towards and eventually overlap one another, which – although a full integration is not achieved – does render the music more or less continuous. Just as any progress in time is non-continuous, so are all sounds audible at a certain moment always a result of the intersection of virtually independent layers that seem hardly to communicate amongst themselves; rather than that, they seem merely to overlap or immerse into one another only to regain their independence later on. From time to time they seem to intermingle at random. “
Josef Seger (1716 - 1782) was considered one of the best organ virtuosos and improvisers in the mid-18th century. He focused mainly on church music, and took special interest in organ compositions. He was also a recognized and sought-after pedagogue; among his numerous students can be found the names of many significant Czech composers and organists, such as František Xaver Brixi, Josef Mysliveček, Karel Blažej Kopřiva, Jan Evangelista Koželuh and Jan Křtitel Kuchař.
“I was impressed by a tiny little book for children of about five years and above containing excerpts from psalms and epistles translated, so to speak, into a clear language easily comprehensible for children. A child, however small, does sometimes have to face huge problems. I think it is therefore a good idea for him or her to be able to realize as early on as possible that there is something else than the people surrounding them to turn to; something superior, more stable, something sublime. Sometimes we can do but very little on our own, no matter how hard we try. But there is a different Eye that sees all. I have always cherished the image of the full sound of the symphonic orchestra besides a child’s voice as quite irresistible. And, what is more, for me it is a way of expressing any human being’s appeal to God.”
“In the nonet entitled Modré valéry (The Shades of Blue) it was my intention to express five colour tones by means of the sound of string instruments. The piece abides by the rules of the classical sonata form with the second slow movement and the third in the form of a dance. The ambition to stand up to the challenge of such a formal appeal served as an additional stimulus to write the piece. The composition can be performed in two versions: either by a nonet or by a string orchestra. Either of these options represents a unique timbre quality. The sound of the string orchestra gives rise to a specific new ‘timbre shade’ whose appeal and efficacy grows with the growing number of the performing artists.”
Jindra Nečasová Nardelli (b. 1960) is the author of numerous chamber, symphonic, vocal, and solo compositions, as well as ballets. TCHASLAW l. The ballad for violin and piano was composed in 2006 as the author’s subjective reflection on long-lost secret stories of a human soul; this phrase appears as a cryptogram in the title of the piece, which is dedicated to the Czech violinist Eduard Bayer, and the pianist Marek Šedivý.
„Although Concertino per salterio ed archi is my first piece written for dulcimer, I have been intrigued by the instrument – so ingeniously used by Igor Stravinskij and other, mainly Hungarian, contemporary composers – for quite some time. What I find particularly inspiring is the rhythmical and timbre potential of the instrument. Hearing of the composition competition announced in 2004 by the Dulcimer Players’ Civil Association in the Czech Republic in Valašské Meziříčí, I took part in the contest, and received an award.“
“The initiative leading to the composition of the SOLO for double-bass came from Mr Jiří Pichlík, a member of the organization committee of Simandl’s double-bass competition and a double-bass player with the Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra of South Bohemia. The piece opens with a cryptogram referring to Simandl’s name that makes use of the chromatic scale tones and the solmization syllables. In the case of the letter “n” I used the “damenization” system proposed by Karl Heinrich Graun in the 1st half of the 18th century (da, me, ni, po, tu, la, be). I tried to use also the lower register of the instrument. The rich experience of Mr Radomír Žalud, a professor at the HAMU and the leader of the double-bass section of the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, proved more than useful during the revision of the instrumental part.”