CHAN 9640 front.qxd 19/10/07 12:33 pm Page 1 Chan 9640(2) SUK CHANDOS Jiˇrí Bˇelohlávek CHAN 9640 BOOK.qxd 19/10/07 12:34 pm Page 2 Josef Suk (1874–1935) COMPACT DISC ONE Asrael Symphony, Op. 27 Part One 1 I Andante sostenuto – Andante con moto e resoluto – AKG Più pesante e maestoso – 14:52 2 II Andante – 7:11 3 III Vivace – Andante sostenuto – Appassionato – Maestoso 12:01 Part Two 4 IV Adagio 10:21 5 V Adagio e maestoso – Allegro appassionato – Adagio e maestoso – Andante maestoso – Adagio e mesto 13:56 TT 58:38 COMPACT DISC TWO 30:00 Josef Suk Pohádka (Fairy Tale), Op. 16 1 IO veˇrném milování Radúze a Mahuleny a jejich strastech 10:36 (About the constant love of Radúz and Mahulena and their trials) 2 II Intermezzo: Hra na labuteˇ a pávy 3:41 (Intermezzo: Playing at swans and peacocks) 3 III Intermezzo: Smutecˇní hudba 6:55 (Intermezzo: Funeral music) 2 3 CHAN 9640 BOOK.qxd 19/10/07 12:34 pm Page 4 4 IV Runy kletba a jak byla láskou zrusˇena 8:34 (Runa’s curse and how it was broken by true love) Josef Suk: Asrael Symphony etc. Serenade for Strings, Op. 6 29:41 Josef Suk was born at Krˇecˇovice, in Bohemia, music in Czechoslovakia in the early in E flat major • Es-Dur • mi bémol majeur on 4 January 1874, son of the village twentieth century. Both were true to their 5 I Andante con moto 5:57 schoolmaster, organist and choirmaster. Like national background in the character of their 6 II Allegro, ma non troppo e grazioso 6:01 the majority of Bohemian and Moravian music, both writing in a late Romantic style 7 III Adagio – Più andante – Tempo I 9:32 musicians, he studied at the Prague tinged with their individual approach to 8 IV Allegro giocoso, ma non troppo presto – Vivace 7:59 Conservatoire, where his main instrument was Impressionism and native folk culture. TT 59:50 the violin. In 1888 he turned his hand to In 1891 Dvorˇák became a Professor of serious composition, eventually studying with Composition at the Prague Conservatoire Czech Philharmonic Orchestra Dvorˇák, who was later to become his father- and by the following year Suk had become Bohumil Kotmel leader in-law. In addition to an increasingly his teacher’s favourite pupil. From then on Jirˇí Beˇlohlávek significant career as a composer, he became Suk was a welcome guest in the Dvorˇáks’ the second violin of the famous Cˇeské home and at their summer house at Vysoká, (Bohemian) String Quartet and was an near Prˇíbram outside Prague, where Suk met accomplished pianist. With Fibich, Ostrcˇil the fourteen-year-old Otilka. His early and Novák, Suk became part of that attraction soon deepened into love, nurtured important group of Czech composers which by her absence in America with her father built upon the national foundations of from later in 1892. By her return to Prague Smetana and Dvorˇák. He taught at the Prague three years later, she had grown into a Conservatoire, where he numbered Martinu˚ beautiful young lady and Suk’s love was among his pupils for a while but composition, reciprocated. Indeed, it is said that all their mainly in the orchestral and instrumental acquaintances were well aware of this field, occupied him right up until his death at romance, except for Dvorˇák, who was Benesˇov, near Prague, on 29 May 1935. concerned only about Suk’s progress as a Of all the pupils of Antonín Dvorˇák, Suk composer. Josef and Otilka were married on and Novák were to play the most significant 17 November 1898, on the anniversary of and influential roles in the development of the Dvorˇáks’ silver wedding. 4 5 CHAN 9640 BOOK.qxd 19/10/07 12:34 pm Page 6 Suk’s emotional relationship with the a further musical tribute in a set of variations with the Quartet. Of the works that followed this anguish into a mood of pleasant Dvorˇák family became central to his of a celebratory finale. To the work he gave Asrael, the piano cycle O matince (About memories is a short-lived respite and the compositions at this time. The turning point the title Asrael, the name of the Angel of Mother) Op. 28 of 1907 and the symphonic movement returns to the demands of the in his life came with the double tragedies of Death who, according to Muslim folklore, poem Pohádka léta (A Summer’s Tale) Op. 29 sorrow-laden heart bursting with grief and 1904 and 1905, years in which he lost the carries away the souls of the departed. He of 1907–9 clearly shows this. It was not until exhausted by intense emotional suffering. two people most dear to him and who were began the work in the January of 1905, while the next piano cycle, Zˇivotem a snem (Things Suk indicates that the second movement central to his life and being. His father-in- in Hamburg on tour with the Cˇeské Quartet, Lived and Dreamed) Op. 30, written also in should follow without a break. Here he law died on 1 May 1904 at the age of sixty- had completed the first three movements and 1909, that he began to rediscover his love of quotes, possibly unconsciously, from two. Otilka, who suffered from a heart by the July was working on the fourth when nature and beauty around him, and here, as Dvorˇák’s Requiem, Op. 89 (B. 165) of 1890, condition, died on 5 July in the following his so dearly loved Otilka died at the age of in so much of his music, Suk made use of moving in minor seconds about a single year. To the thirty-one-year-old Suk, life twenty-seven. The intensity of his grief found significant quotations from other works as pedal note (D flat) and depicting the seemed black and bleak. From then on his some relief in his ability to return to clear signals of the emotional significance fluctuating moods of despair, as well as again music turned from outpourings of romantic composition as a source of communion and and content. from his own Radúz a Mahulena. The funeral feelings founded on his joys of love, to more solace. By the end of December he had This ‘autobiographical’ element plays an march dominates the second element of this inward-looking, reflective and often tragic started a new fourth movement and changed important role throughout Asrael. The motif movement, with a sense of terror portrayed expressions, in many of which the motif of his conception of the finale entirely. While of Fate, which builds from the opening bars, in the fugal pizzicato passages. death is never far away. In addition to his the first three movements remained his the rising and falling augmented fourths of Again Suk instructs that the next teaching and composing, Suk threw himself tribute to Dvorˇák, the last two became his the Death figure and the more lyrical mood movement also should follow attacca. Here into the international life of the Cˇeské equally deeply-felt memorial to Otilka. The of reminiscence, comes from his early music the fateful Death theme comes at the end. Quartet, never re-marrying but remaining score bore the dedication; ‘Vznesˇené památce for Julius Zeyer’s play, Radúz a Mahulena Before this a sort of fantastic scherzo is truly faithful to the memory of the two Dvorˇákoveˇ a Otilcˇineˇ’ (To the noble Op. 13 of 1897–8. The recall of a shared joy played out, like some attempt to battle people he loved so dearly. memory of Dvorˇák and Otilka). in their native city comes with an echo of the against the inevitable. In contrast, Suk writes Until these traumatic events, Suk’s musical symphonic poem Praga, Op. 26 of 1904. But a central section in which he recalls his Asrael Symphony output had been mostly on a small scale, as the movement progresses, Suk’s reaction to fondest memories of his teacher. Suk’s Asrael Symphony was his greatest imbued with the expression of simple but the death of his father-in-law develops After some thirty-four minutes of music musical memorial: he was shattered by the sincere emotions experienced through his joy intensely in music which is often played without any significant break, Suk asks loss of Dvorˇák, and chose to express this and in nature and his love for his family. Now his underpinned by the unsettling effect of for a long pause before embarking upon the all that his great master had meant to him music became the vehicle for the heavier triplet figures and semiquaver passages, said second part of this work, with the fourth through the composition of a large-scale five- emotions of his life, which found release only to represent the heartbeats of one in the movement specifically dedicated ‘To Otilka’. movement symphony, which was to end with through composition and his itinerant life torment of personal grief. The subsiding of It is a loving portrait, with descriptive 6 7 CHAN 9640 BOOK.qxd 19/10/07 12:34 pm Page 8 elements such as the two violin passages that Suk never embraced, which is regrettable with the Violin’ which, like so much of his in Krˇecˇovice on 2 September 1899 and had representing himself, one full of emotion, the given his great ability to express the deepest music with close personal associations, Suk completed the first two movements by the other deeply passionate. Pulsing triplets and human emotions in music and his gift for was to quote again in later works.