Supraphon

The compositions featured on their new album, titled Elements, are staples of the Belfiato Quintet’s modern repertoire and are, above all, music close to their hearts. The Belfiato Quintet are indisputably a world-class ensemble, with regard to the present album’s repertoire and beyond. Supraphon will release Elements on CD and in digital formats on Friday 25 March 2022.

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 Stamic Quartet's repertoire ranges from Baroque to 21st-century music (the highly acclaimed album of Sofia Gubaidulina's complete quartets, Supraphon 2012), yet the ensemble mainly focus on works dating from the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries. Following the revelatory premiere recording of Josef Bohuslav Foerster's quartets (Supraphon, 2010), they have now come up with another striking project. Karel Kovařovic (1862-1920) is primarily known for his work as the director of the opera company of the National Theatre in Prague, as well as a conductor, while his own music has been generally overlooked.

At the age of thirty-one, contralto Bella Adamova, a native of Chechnya, is a rising star that attracts attention due to her exceptional feeling for the song repertoire. She has a beautifully coloured, deep voice and her approach to songs, which she chooses herself, is purely artistic. The colours that her music world abounds in are shown on her new album, aptly titled There Is Home, which she recorded in rare communion with pianist Michael Gees. It will be released on CD and in digital formats by Supraphon on Friday, 25 August 2023. Adamova and Gees will be giving a CD release concert at the Music is festival at the Divadlo X10 (X10 Theatre) in Prague on Thursday, 5 October 2023.

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.

The Smetana Quartet are a true legend. For over four decades (1945-1989), the ensemble gained critical acclaim and enthused audiences all over world, particularly in the UK, USA and Japan. They attained perfect chime and extraordinary flexibility in voice leading, resulting in part from their playing the entire repertoire by heart. The quartet performed Beethoven's works throughout their existence - following Smetana, he was the composer on whose music they focused the most and whose complete quartets were in their repertoire from 1974 onwards.

For Czech audiences, arias from The Bartered Bride, this jewel of Czech classical opera production from the pen of Bedřich Smetana, represent truly popular, indeed timeless tunes. Supraphon is now launching this famous comic opera back onto the market, in a version featuring star performances of international stars Gabriela Beňačková as Mařenka, Peter Dvorský as Jeník, and Richard Novák as Kecal. Playing on an equally brilliant form here was the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Zdeněk Košler, backed by the vocal forces of the Prague Philharmonic Choir.

With support from the State Fund of Culture and the National Museum, Supraphon is releasing an extraordinary album of Antonín Dvořák’s Moravian Duets. The entire cycle of folk poetry settings has been recorded on the composer’s very own 1879 Bösendorfer piano, a precious item maintained at the Antonín Dvořák Museum in Prague. The album features internationally renowned young artists, all of them possessing a great sense for the grace of Dvořák’ songs, as well as the singular tone qualities of the instrument, once touched by the maestro himself. The soprano Simona Šaturová, the mezzo-soprano Markéta Cukrová and the tenor Petr Nekoranec were accompanied on Dvořák’s piano by Vojtěch Spurný. A Czech Television programme, produced by Jiří Hubač from BVA International, originated during the recording process. Supraphon is scheduled to release the new album of Moravian Duets on 20 April 2018, on CD and in digital formats.

Robert Schumann, a versatile, well-educated young artist destined for great things, a man whose music has always amazed with its extent and profundity … and also a person of delicate psyche, which many a time led him to the very border between life and death.

“The artist's first task is to forget himself.” This statement, bold in its time, has been ascribed to Eugène Ysaÿe, referred to as the “King of the Violin”, who as a composer and performer considerably contributed to the modernisation of violin playing. In 1923, he was so deeply impressed by J. S. Bach’s Violin Sonata No. 1 in G minor, BWV 1001, as performed by Joseph Szigeti, that within a few hours (!) he sketched a set of six sonatas as a counterpart to Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas, BWV 1001-1006.