Martinů: Kompletní dílo pro violoncello a klavír - 2 CD

This two-CD recording presents Bohuslav Martinů’s complete works for cello and piano, performed by cellist Vilém Vlček and pianist Denis Linnik. Martinů was expelled from the Prague Conservatory in 1910 at the age of twenty for “incurable negligence,” an event that could hardly have seemed less connected with the career of one of the twentieth century’s most famous composers. Three years later, he sold his violin in Paris so that he could concentrate fully on composition. He later described his early studies by saying that he simply “could not learn those things” and had to “arrive at it through his own feeling.” Martinů devoted himself to the cello more extensively than any composer of his generation, both in chamber and concert works. This complete recording was made at the Basel Academy of Music, just a few kilometres from Schönenberg, where Martinů spent the final years of his life. Most of the pieces were written for important cellists, often the composer’s friends, including Frank, Cassadó, Fournier, Honegger, Piatigorsky and Sádlo. Five lighter works were composed in Paris between 1929 and 1931, while the more substantial works, including three sonatas and two sets of variations, date from 1939 to the end of the composer’s life. The Variations on a Slovak Folk Song were his final chamber work and express unmistakable homesickness for the country to which Martinů could no longer return. Vilém Vlček’s expressive, profound playing is inspired on this recording by the musicianship of pianist Denis Linnik. The programme includes the three cello sonatas, Variations on a Theme by Rossini, Variations on a Slovak Folk Song, Arietta, Nocturnes, Pastorales, Miniature Suite, Seven Arabesques and Romance.