Petr FIALA (b.1943)
De amicitia - Selected Compositions
I’ll Have Roses Grow (1976) [12:03] ą
Rondo for viola and piano (2005) [10:46]
A Song for One Yet Unborn (1975) [12:38] ˛ ł
Flower and Wind (2011) [4:37]
Of Friendship (2011) [5:54]
When arms speak, Muses are silent (1986) [15:04]
Capriccio (1982) [6:03] ˛
Thank you, Muse (1994) [4:37] ˛
Simona Šaturová (soprano) ą
Hana Škarková (soprano) ˛
Ivana Valešová (speaker) ł
Terezie Fialová (piano)
Kristina Fialová (viola)
Helena Fialová (piano) ł
Czech Chamber Soloists/Ivan Matyáš ł
Martinu Voices/Lukáš Vasilek
Q VOX
Czech Philharmonic Chorus, Brno/Petr Fiala
rec. undated, Czech Radio Recordings
Texts and some translations
ARCO DIVA UP 0157 2 231 [72:26]
Petr Fiala is best known for his founding of the Czech Philharmonic
Chorus from Brno, from which city’s Janácek Academy he graduated in
1971. Renowned as a chorus-master and conductor, he has made time to
compose a rich body of works, many, naturally, for choral forces. This
disc celebrates and draws attention to a number of them in recordings
that derive from Czech Radio. The engineers for each work are noted
in the booklet but unfortunately neither the specific locations, nor
the year of broadcast, though a number are likely to have been heard
during 2011.
There are song-cycles to attract interest. I’ll Have Roses Grow
was composed in 1976 to poems by Zuzana Nováková. The four poems are
set in such a way that the calmly static alternates with the playful
and dreamlike. At one point Fiala clearly stipulates the pianist should
strum inside the piano but this gesture is not used as an end in itself,
rather as a colouristic device. The most chordally intriguing is the
last of the four settings, where the music is extrovert and exciting.
The Rondo for Viola and Piano (2005) is a melancholy, largely ruminative
affair where the piano is rather more the agent of change, of mood and
rhythm, than the viola. The cadential passage for the viola ushers in
playful exchanges for the two instruments.
One might have assumed, given his background, that Fiala would be a
practised setter of poems for choirs. A Song for One Yet Unborn
demonstrates just how adeptly he writes for women’s chorus, reciter
and solo singer. Attractive and compact, this is another valuable addition
to the tradition of such Czech music. Flower and Wind was written
in 2011 and charts a darting course for the four male voices (the ever
excellent Q VOX). It’s a piece that also demarcates Fiala’s sense of
humour, as the voices come to a snore-like full stop. Of Friendship
hints slightly at Orff but When arms speak, Muses are silent
is a much more significant work, a series of seven intriguing miniatures
for mixed voice chamber choir written in 1986. Much here is beautifully
shaped, warmly expressive and one can’t help but detect a possible political
subtext. Fiala used some of the same proverbs in his earlier cycle Capriccio,
for soprano, and mixed voice chorus but the results are very different
and very much more compact in scale. Finally there is Thank you,
Muse with its downward choral collapse and canny use of the gong.
The notes are very brief and say little, if anything, about the music.
The performances are outstanding and the radio recordings excellent.
If your tastes incline largely to contemporary Czech choral music, Fiala’s
Moravian slant offers much to stimulate.
Jonathan Woolf