BOHUSLAV MARTINU (1890-1959): Nipponari for Soprano and Small Orchestra, H 68, Magic Nights for Soprano and Orchestra, H 119, Czech Rhapsody for Baritone, Mixed Chorus, Orchestra and Organ, H 118.

Catalogue Number: 11K005
Label: Supraphon
Reference: SU 3956-2
Format: CD
Price: $10.98
Description: First CD appearance for the two song-cycles, both early works (1912 for the Japanese one and 1918 for the Chinese - using the same source of German translated Chinese poems which Mahler set only translated again into Czech) and both strikingly Impressionist in style. Nipponari uses strings, flutes, English horn, harp, celesta, triangle and tom-toms to produce a dreamy, water-colorful sound to augment the whole-tone scales and other "exotic" compositional methods. The Czech Rhapsody (once available by itself on a Denon Supraphon CD released here in 1986) is also form 1918 but here Martinu abandons Impressionism under the heady intoxication of newly-declared Czech independence and produces a Smetana-esque work of 36 minutes using Psalm 23, the St. Wenceslas hymn and Jaroslav Vrchlicky's poem "Bohemia" to produce a nationalistic and stirring work of Mahlerian ambition. Czech-English texts. Dagmar Pecková, Lubica Rybárska (sopranos), Ivan Kusnjer (baritone), Kühn Mixed Choir, Prague Symphony Orchestra; Jirí Belohlávek.