MW EXCLUSIVE 4CD sets £18 each or £28 for both postage paid
Search
What's New
Classical CD Reviews
Live Reviews
Jazz CD Reviews
Composers
Resources
Contact Us

Classical CD and DVD reviews. MusicWeb is not a subscription site and it is our advertisers that pay for it. Please visit their sites regularly to see if anything might interest you. Purchasing from them keeps MusicWeb free.
  Classical Editor: Rob Barnett  
Founder Len Mullenger   
 



CD REVIEW

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

About MWI

Site Map

More Reviews
How to find a review

Books

Film Music

Nostalgia

Records Of The Year

Recommendations

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands

Classical blogs

Reviewers Logs

Announcements

Don't Go Here!

Community
Bulletin Board

Web Ring

Reviewers

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Indexes
   Label
   Masterwork

Discographies
   Composer
   National

Themed Review pages

Complete Books

Programme Notes

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Performers
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

Editorial Board
Classical Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Seen & Heard
Editor and Webmaster
   Bill Kenny
MusicWeb Webmaster
   Len Mullenger
Assistant Webmaster
   David Barker

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office
Helping MusicWeb
Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools

Would you like a hyperlinked weekly summary of the CDs we have reviewed?
Click for further details

Sample: See what you will get


Buy through MusicWeb for £12.00 postage paid World-wide.
You may prefer to pay by Sterling cheque or Euro notes to avoid PayPal. Contact for details

Musicweb Purchase button

 

Sylvie BODOROVÁ (b.1954)
Concerto dei fiori for violin and strings (1996) [15:06]
Bern Concerto 'Silberwolke' for violin, viola and strings (2005) [17:58]
Otmar MÁCHA (1922-2006)

The Pure Virgin - Variations on a Czech Mediaeval Song for violin and string orchestra (1997) [10:27]
Zdeňek LUKÁŠ (1928-2007)

Concerto Grosso op. 36 (1964) [9:31]
Dies Natalis for violin and strings op. 348 (2005) [8:36]
Luboš FISER (1935-1999)

Amoroso [1:55]
Jakub Sedláček (violin); Jakub Junek (violin); Pavla Franců (violin); Vitĕzslav Ochman (violin); Jitka Hosprová (viola); Veronika Vostrá (violin); Tomáš Hanousek (viola); Helena Matyášová (cello); Josef Suk (violin) (Fiser); Josef Halá (piano) (Fiser);

Quattro Orchestra/Marek Štilek
rec. November 2007, March 2008, Domovina Studio, Prague. DDD
ARCO DIVA 0100-2 131 [64:02]

Experience Classicsonline



The group of Czech composers known as ‘Quattro’ got together as a group in 1996. They comprise the four listed in the heading of this review. That they collaborated as a group is remarkable given their widely differing ages and circumstances.

Bodorová's seems, in one way or another, to be bound up with the composer's feelings about the death of Ton de Leeuw with whom she studied briefly in the 1980s. It is a melodic work as you would expect if you have heard any Bodorová before. The music moves ecstatically between the peaceful polarities of Bach's violin concertos, of the Finzi Introit and the Barber violin concerto. It is a most beautiful work and radiates an aura of contentment - of blessing. From a decade later comes Bern Concerto which has a less vulnerable human heart although Bodorová drops the defences once in the first movement before the steely springy writing returns. A tender Amorevolmente with echoes of the middle movement of Tippett's Triple Concerto separates the first movement from the third which once again has strong Tippett DNA. Fiser's Amoroso is played by a famous duo and this recording must surely date from many years before the other recordings here. Amoroso is a romantic violin song lasting almost two minutes.

Mácha's Variations are built around a 14th century Marian song and are tensely lyrical. Once again the singing aspect of the Barber concerto is a seeming influence but with slightly more asperity than the Bodorová and with breezes borne in from chillier realms such as those of Schnittke and even Shostakovich. Lukas's Concerto Grosso is in three movements lasting a minute short of the duration of the Mácha piece. This is a compact work which is not merely brief but succinct. The emotional core of this work is nowhere near as yielding as the Bodorová and Mácha pieces. It is taut, straining for effect, tense, athletic and even a little fearful. Stylistic parallels can be drawn with Bartók and with early Tippett. Lukas's Dies Natalis was written much more recently than the Concerto Grosso and is more pliable and heart-eloquent than the partner work. In the first movement the contours of optimism traced by Martinů are to be heard and in this case link back to Dvořák and the Dumky.

The annotation is full and is in English and Czech.

This disc opens the door on a largely unfamiliar lyric movement within modern Czech music. Try it - you will not be disappointed.

Rob Barnett


 

Advertising Rates
Visitor stats
MusicWeb International
has over 25,000 Classical CD reviews on offer


Gerard Hoffnung Concerts &
The Bricklayer Story

Naxos Classical



Australian Eloquence CDs on Buywell.com


New Releases

Hyperion
New Releases


Guild Music





MusicWeb sells the Polish
catalogue CDAccord
£10.50 post free W-W


MusicWeb sells the
Arcodiva catalogue
£12.00 post free W-W


£11.50
post-free
world-wide
Try it and see - Sale or Return

MusicWeb can now offer you discs from the following catalogues:
Prices include postage

[Acte Préalable £13.50]
[Arcodiva £12.00]
[Avie from £6.25]
Brilliant Classics
[British Music Society £13.49]
[CDACCORD from £10.50 ]
[ClassicO £12.50]
[Hallé from £11]
[Hortus £14.99 ]

[Lyrita ONLY £11.50 ]
LYRITA Sale or Return
[Onyx £12.00
]
ONYX Sale or Return
[REDCLIFFE £11 ]
[Sheva £11]
[Tactus £11.50 ]
[Talent from £12.00 ]
[Toccata Classics £12.50 ]

Musicweb
Special Offers

Google Ads - for information about privacy matters, click here

 



Return to Review Index



Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.


You can purchase CDs and Save around 22% with these retailers: