Françaix Prague

Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra Despite many name changes, the Czech (or Prague) Radio Symphony Orchestra is one of the country's most significant cultural institutions.

Attracted by a delightful fusion of early music sonorities with modern expressiveness, the three composers in this amazingly rich and varied programme build on the magnificent harpsichord concerto legacy of JS Bach. John Rutter’s beautiful Suite Antique is full of rich and haunting themes, with a significant solo flute part and a jazzy Waltz which is as much Brubeck as Bach. Philip Glass delivers an exciting experience of virtuoso instrumental blending and solo expressiveness, and with typical wit and elegance. Jean Françaix’s Concerto is terrific fun throughout.

Jean Françaix: a quintessentially French composer following in the tradition of Saint-Saëns, Poulenc and Satie; composer of some one-hundred-and-fifty works; and virtuoso pianist in his own right. The four works on this recording were composed between 1942 (the Divertissement—very much a 'distraction' during the Nazi Occupation of France) and 1977 (the Clarinet Quintet). All four share a high degree of compositional mastery, but this is always embedded within an air of grace, of profound charm, and of wit. It is perhaps this sense of humour which has so endeared Françaix's music to generations of musicians and music-lovers. But despite the facts that L'heure du berger was composed in honour of a Parisian restaurant who were to use it as 'background' music, that Françaix self-deprecatingly passed off A huit as a 'stop-gap to fill a programme' for the Vienna Octet, and that the Divertissement contains unashamedly blatant musical jokes, these compositions are unmistakably the work of an expert, a distinctively 'Gallic' artist.

In collaboration with Yvonne Lang, Ada Meinich, Bernd Glemser and the Cincinnati Philharmonia Orchestra, Ashkenazy presents some of the most exciting works for clarinet by French composer Jean Françaix. "I have been a fan of Françaix‘s music since the first time I heard one of his pieces, which was sometime in my youth at the old Kunsthaus in Lucerne," says Dimitri Ashkenazy. "Hans-Rudolf Stalder played his 'Tema con variazioni' [the second piece on this disc] in the version with string orchestra accompaniment. I loved the spirit, the subtle use of harmony, and the humour, but also its introspectiveness".

Antonín Dvořák composed his oratorio Saint Ludmila for soloists, choir and orchestra, between September 1885 and May 1886. The oratorio (Op. 71, B. 144) was written to a text by the leading Czech poet and writer Jaroslav Vrchlický. Saint Ludmila is Dvořák's third oratorio, and is considered one of his foremost works.

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