Martinů: The Symphonies. Bamberger Symphoniker, Jakub Hrůša (conductor). Deutsche Grammophon 486 7810 (three CDs). Total Time: 176:06.
DIGITAL REVIEW — The Czech conductor Jakub Hrůša has had a long association with his countryman Bohuslav Martinů well before he set out to record the composer’s six symphonies. His first job after graduating from the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague was with the Bohuslav Martinů Philharmonic of Zlin, Czech Republic. More recently, he published an anthology of his writings on the composer, Hrůša On Martinů, and served as president of the International Martinů Circle. So it can be said that Hrůša has some cred as a Martinů devotee, and the energetic performances on this triple album attest to his enthusiasm for this music.
Despite his prolific output in a variety of formats, Martinů started late as a symphonist, not attempting to write and publish one until he was in his early 50s. Up until then he had led a peripatetic life both stylistically and geographically, forever on the fringe of solvency. Having emigrated to America in 1941 to escape the Nazis, Martinů embarked upon a systematic project to write one symphony per year from 1942 through 1946.
The Martinů symphonies sound like no others from this or any period, more or less out of time with the trends and fashions of mid-century yet not really looking back. This untethered sensation can be felt in the opening bars of Symphony No. 1 where the symphony and cycle begin with a series of dreamy upward glissandos that conjure a kind of out-of-body experience, one that recurs in several passages throughout the first four symphonies. The Largo movement speaks to me of a sense of wartime mourning coupled with a desire for escaping reality.
Symphony No. 2 (1943) is gentler and more playful, much less troubled, while Symphony No. 3 (1944) brings the listener back into the worldwide conflict, ending quietly but with ominous chords disturbing the peace. The pessimism is muted in Symphony No. 4 (1945), which has a swirling beauty, more rising glissandos, and, with World War II coming to a close, some doubt as to which side is winning, but the brief ending is clearly on the winning side.
There is a definite change in sound in the postwar Symphony No. 5 (1946) that is difficult to put a finger on; the glissandos are gone, as are other stylistic trademarks of the first four symphonies. The long finale takes a while to find its direction, but when it does, Martinů comes up with the most memorable tune of all of his symphonies and cruises to triumph upon the energy of dotted rhythms and pauses that Beethoven employed in the finale of his Seventh Symphony.
At this point, hampered by injuries suffered from a fall, Martinů took time off from his symphonic journey, eventually resuming it with the Fantaisies Symphoniques — retitled as his Symphony No. 6. This time, it took Martinů the better part of three years (1951-1953) to write it. Perhaps due to his experiences in bustling American cities, he had become a modernist in his 60s, employing more dissonance than before, swinging back and forth between consonance and conflict until he finally finds real peace at the close.
These works fit neatly onto three CDs — two symphonies per disc — and are worth getting to know, but like many 20th-century symphony cycles that reach us only via recordings, they are not programmed often in U.S. concert halls. Indeed, this is the first time that one of the “major” labels has released a complete cycle.
The Bambergers had been through the Martinů symphonies on recordings before with Neeme Järvi (BIS), and they play with confidence, cohesion, and often exuberance under Hrůša. There are passages in which Hrůša tends to power his way through matter-of-factly where the Czech Philharmonic under Vaclav Neumann has a less aggressive, more nationalistically affectionate feeling for their curves and rhythms. In the big tune of the Symphony No. 5 finale, Hrůša rushes through it, whereas Karel Ançerl, in the stirring world-premiere recording with the Czechs from 1955, makes it sound authentically heroic.
On the whole, though, Hrůša’s cycle comes off as a dynamic, well-recorded entryway into the unique sound world of a perpetual outsider in 20th-century music.
