Koukl was born in Prague
in 1953 and studied at the Conservatoire
there and later in Zurich and Milan;
he now lives in Switzerland. A crucial
turning point in his compositional life
came early. In 1974 he heard a choral
work by Penderecki - we’re not told
what it was - that profoundly altered
his creative imperatives and resulted
in a fundamental turning away from the
prevailing avant-garde. As we can hear
throughout this disc his music, whilst
never unduly complex, has developed
a thoughtful and attractive character
and sounds thoroughly idiomatically
written as well. None is dated in the
notes so it’s difficult, if not impossible,
to trace the trajectory of the works’
composition.
Musica per pianoforte
e quartetto d'archi is one that
can summon up the axis of Shostakovich
and Martinů.
To be fair the notes do deal with a
list of (assumed) influences on Koukl
and they refer specifically to the former
in relation to this taut twelve-minute
study. But there is also the Parisian
neo-classicism of the Czech composer
that so well infuses this Quintet.
The lean melancholic cello intones over
a brittle piano and urgent violin pizzicati
before a long and quizzically meditative
piano solo ends the first of the three
movements. The heart of this attractive
work is the Espressivo slow movement
– yearning solos wind through it and
the harmony, basically traditional,
is attractive, the thread well sustained.
It is meant to evoke a chilly night.
We get a fast, furious and quick finale
to close.
Piccola rapsodia
per flauto e arpa by contrast
evokes pure Gallic air. Something
of the influence of Les Six is
here and in its crisp, bright immediacy
it has the bracing coldness of spring
water – though later on we do find a
more reflective and crepuscular side
of the French muse. Il messaggero
was inspired by an idea of a messenger
running around the world and cleverly
Koukl evokes this (he’s the pianist
on this recording) through means of
motoric speed and then more elegantly
reflective moments presumably reflecting
the moments when the messenger "touches
as many people as possible." This
becomes palpable in the compact final
section – big, big, spaced chords. The
Contest Trio was originally written
for clarinet and piano. It’s a tightly
argued conversation piece of brisk incident.
Finally Liturgia di San Giovanni
Chrisostomo. This was inspired by
his interest in and enthusiasm for selections
from the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostomos.
It’s set in Slavonic and at around
twenty minutes is the longest work here.
It’s an immediately appealing one as
well – moving from grave monumentality
to intimacy, with strong roles for the
choir and the two male soloists, whose
sometimes strenuous pronouncements are
followed by the "balm" of
the choir’s responses.
So this is a slice
of Koukl in the round; a versatile,
warm composer with strong affiliations
with the clarity and precision of the
French schools and the more rugged piety
of the Eastern Church.
Jonathan Woolf
The
GASPARO Catalogue is available through
MusicWeb
John Duxbury (tenor) 
