Supraphon

An exclusive 8-CD box set containing albums and rare recordings made by the Czech jazzrock legend Martin Kratochvíl! The box set includes albums not previously released on CD or unavailable for many years, as well as studio recordings with a hallmark of surprise from the repertoire of Martin Kratochvíl’s Jazz Q. The compilation has been put together by the band’s front man and supplemented by an interesting memoir of his colleague Tony Ackermann.
From the introductory “Pozorovatelna” (Observatory) to the concluding bonus “Co se na desky nevešlo” (Outtakes), the listener is presented with first-class pieces performed by superlative instrumentalists and vocalists. Besides the keyboard wizard Kratochvíl, you will hear Francl, Padrůněk, Vrbovec and Dugganová, and, as time went by, other of his permanent or occasional musical partners…

Few other composers’ music enjoys such enormous popularity and is as frequently performed on stages worldwide and recorded as that of Antonín Dvořák. And it is the symphonic works that are connected with his name most often.

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.

Despite its arcane Latin title, Supraphon's four-CD set Musica Antiqua Citolibensis delivers on a part of the literature that coheres: the music created by local kapellmeisters in the Czech city of Citoliby. Although located outside of the loop of Bohemia's main cultural centers such as Prague and Brno, Citoliby enjoyed a period of primacy in music in the late eighteenth century owing to the refined tastes of its rulers, the Pachtas; the city's coat of arms bears the image of an organ. There is a Citoliby School of composers whose work is comparable to those of the contemporary Mannheim School, though quite different in style.