Supraphon

One of the oldest musical instruments we know of, the pan flute was played in many antique civilizations. The sophisticated type used in Romanian folk music is the most familiar to a contemporary audience. The virtuosos who brought fame to the pan flute in the second half of the 20th century include the Romanian musicians Damian Luca, Radu Simion, Nicolae Pîrvu, Gheorghe Zamfir and Simion Stanciu.

The Bennewitz Quartet is one of the top ensembles on the international chamber music scene. After winning two prestigious competitions – Osaka Chamber Music and Festa 2005 and Prémio Paolo Borciani, Italy 2008, they quickly gained the acclaim of the critics. The ensemble has received various awards and in 2019 the four musicians won the Classic Prague Award for the Best Chamber Music Performance of the year.In the 2022/23 season the Bennewitz Quartet will return to Laeiszhalle Hamburg, Mozartfest Würzburg, Wigmore Hall London, Stadtcasino Basel and it will tour again in the United States. The ensemble will represent the Czech Republic in Madrid at the closing ceremony marking the end of its presidency of the Council of the European Union. The quartet will take part in the complete performance of the six quartets by Béla Bartok in Leuven and will continue its engagement in Dvořák’s integral string quartet performance within the Dvořák’s Prague Festival. The ensemble is currently preparing the release of its new CD featuring the string quartets by Joseph Haydn.

My Romantic Feeling is a 1978 album by Czech vocalist and actor Karel Gott. This was released in his home country in 1979 on Supraphon and this is a vinyl rip.

If we were to travel four centuries back in time, when strolling through Prague streets we would most likely hear from many a house, palace or church some engrossing and catchy songs by Adam Václav Michna, one of the greatest Czech Baroque poets. His Christmas songs have become widely known and highly popular. Lesser known is Michna's Czech Marian Music, drawing the listener into the world of poetic hymns praising the Virgin Mary, which formed a significant part of 17th-century Czech music.

With his life and work, Miloslav Kabeláč, one of the greatest 20th-century Czech symphonists, foregrounded a highly topical theme: the necessity of not yielding to evil and commitment to humanistic ideals. He displayed both during the Nazi occupation and the time of Communist dictatorship in Czechoslovakia. Within the toughest totalitarianism Kabeláč escaped the ideological grip of the authoritarian regime by looking up to the star-studded sky.

The album, which is being released by Supraphon in its Music of the 18th-century Prague series, is focused on works by the important lutenist and composer, Count Jan Antonín Losy (1651–1721), looking at them from an unusual point of view. The album, aptly called Losy, Weiss: Lute Music in Prague and Vienna, circa 1700, also presents compositions originally written for lute, in alternative but original period versions. Historical instruments player, teacher, researcher and producer Jan Čižmář recorded the music with the Polish {oh!} Ensemble, headed by violinist Martyna Pastuszka. The result is a revealing album premiering some of Losy’s lute compositions in unusual and varied sound versions and is being released by Supraphon on 24 May 2024 on CD and in digital formats.

When a double volume featuring Ivan Moravec was included in the 1999 Great pianists of the 20th Century box set (Philips Records), many a music lover was taken aback. Although Americans knew the Czech artist, owing mainly to the Connoisseur Society, a lot of European listeners and critics had overlooked him yet the recordings contained in the edition certainly attested to Moravec being a pianist of global calibre. Repertoire magazine referred to him as the most closely guarded secret of the classical music world. The 90th anniversary of Ivan Moravecs birth is a very good reason to for come up with a special project. The most complete collection of his recordings to date, the present Supraphon release encompasses 11 albums and a documentary and unique, previously unseen footage from the Czech Television archives. Moravec recorded his core repertoire for the Connoisseur Society, Supraphon, Dorian, Nonesuch and Vox labels. Some of his recordings are now being released on album for the first time. A number of older recordings have been remastered from the original analogue tapes. The set includes the complete Moravec repertoire of Beethoven, Schumann, Debussy, solo Franck, Janácek and Chopins Mazurkas. The booklet provides an exhaustive account of one of the greatest 20th-century pianists artistic development, from the early 1960s to the end of the millennium. Most significantly, the release affords the listener the opportunity to revel in the music that due to its sheer profundity, myriad colour shades and irresistibly personal delivery touches ones very heart. A portrait of a great artist.

Conductor Vaclav Smetácek may not be as well known as his contemporaries Rafael Kubelik or Vaclav Neumann, but he was one of the most conspicuous influential Czech musicians of the twentieth century. Born in Brno, Smetácek was an oboe player and founded the Prague Wind Quintet in 1928 and maintained his membership in that renowned chamber group until his retirement in 1955. His conducting career began in radio in 1933, leading what would become the Prague Symphony Orchestra in a number of radio concerts and in the making of soundtracks for motion pictures. In 1942, the Prague Radio Symphony moved into the position of being a full-fledged civic orchestra, and Smetácek was named its first conductor; he held onto this position until 1972. Afterward, he frequently appeared as a guest conductor until shortly before his death at age 79 in 1986. Smetácek was a very prolific recording artist and an expert in Czech music of all kinds, but he also recorded Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, and many others, as well, most of it very skillfully and all of it for the Czech state labels Supraphon and Panton.