Label Praga

A generous and unusual pairing of two romantic concertos in the best recordings by "King David", playing his Stradivarius Comte de Fontana, fully animated by Gennady Rozhdestvensky, a modern conductor knowing perfectly the deep Baltic souls.

Alexander Borodin - Chamber Music Vol. III
Kinsky Trio Prague / Prazak Quartet
SACD ISO (2.0/MCH): 3,19 GB | 24B/88,2kHz Stereo FLAC: 933 MB | Full Artwork
Label/Cat#: Praga Digitals # PRD/DSD 250 288 | Country/Year: Czech Rep. 2011 | 5% Recovery Info
Genre: Classical | Style: Romantic

…This disc offers music that is appealing if not top-drawer, and I recommend it, especially to those wishing to complete their collection of Borodin’s chamber music or explore his early efforts as a composer.

Alexander Borodin - Chamber Music Vol. III
Kinsky Trio Prague / Prazak Quartet
EAC+LOG+CUE | FLAC: 250 MB | Full Artwork | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: Praga Digitals # PRD/DSD 250 288 | Country/Year: Czech Rep. 2011
Genre: Classical | Style: Romantic

…This disc offers music that is appealing if not top-drawer, and I recommend it, especially to those wishing to complete their collection of Borodin’s chamber music or explore his early efforts as a composer.

František Ignác Antonín Tůma - Sinfonias, Partitas & Sonata
Classical, Baroque | 1 CD | EAC | FLAC, CUE, LOG | Scans | 440 MB | Rapidshare
Recorded: Nov. 1998, Český rozhlas, Plzeń | Released: 2006 [1999] | Label: arta F10093 | TT: 69:13
Antiquarius Consort Praga (Václav Návrat, Simona Pešková - violin | Petr Hejný - cello |
Přemysl Vacek - archlute, baroque guitar | Václav Luks - harpsichord)

It is surprising that Czech composer Frantisek Ignaz Antonin Tuma (1704-74) should be remembered today for his instrumental music, given that it forms such a small part of his catalog of 224 works. […] Tuma's music is in late baroque style, and like his countryman and older contemporary, Jan Dismas Zelenka, he employs bold chromaticism in both homophonic and polyphonic passages. Tuma was a composition student of Johann Joseph Fux, the supreme law giver of contrapuntal writing in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, and, naturally, his influence can be discerned in Tuma's fugal writing. (Michael Carter, American Record Guide, March 01, 2000.)

Like so many Bohemian composers, the eastern Bohemian Johann Baptist Vanhal had moved to Vienna early in his career and can thus be viewed as a member of the select core of composers consisting of Haydn, Salieri, Mozart and Beethoven, to whom we owe Viennese classicism. The Missa Solemnis is noteworthy not just for it's quality and opulence, but surprises the listener above all with three prolonged concert solo arias. The works are beautifully performed on this release by soloists Natalia Melnik and Marta Benackova, as well as the Prager Kammerchor and Prager Kammerorchester.

Joseph Suk's Ripening is one of the most amazing of all post-Romantic orchestral works. It is immensely complex in its structure: a celestial introduction is followed by a cogent progress of scherzos and slow movements, of funeral marches and fugues, all concluded by a serene coda. Yet the work is immediately comprehensible as a musical drama, made clear through the coherence of the thematic and harmonic material. Pesek and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic perform like modern-day deities. They fall short of the heights of Talich and the Czech Philharmonic, but Talich gave the work its premiere. Nonetheless, Pesek gives Ripening his very considerable all: his concentration holds the gigantic structure together as a single arch. Plus, his players articulate every instrumental detail, right down to the beatific wordless women's choir at the work's close. Highly recommended.

A scant two years after they passed out of international copyright, the Czech Praga label re-coupled and re-released three of EMI's 1956 recordings of the music of Hungarian-American composer Ernö Dohnányi on this 2008 disc: his Variations on a Nursery Song and Second Piano Concerto with Adrian Boult leading the Royal Philharmonic and his Konzertstücke for cello and orchestra with Walter Süsskind leading the Philharmonia Orchestra. Janos Starker is the soloist in the latter work while the composer, a tremendously talented pianist, serves as the soloist in the former works. In all three cases, the performances are about as fine as one could possibly hope.