Martinu: Works For Cello And Piano, Vol. 2

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Cat No: 8554503

Release Date: 08 January 2000

Label: Naxos / Naxos Classics

Packaging Type: Jewel Case

No of Units: 1

Barcode: 636943450321

Genres: Classical

Composer/Series: MARTINU

Description
Bohuslav Martinů(1890-1959) Works for Cello andPiano, Volume 2The Czech composer Bohuslav Martinů was born in 1890 atthe country town of Polička in the mountains of Bohemia and Moravia. Hisfather, a shoe-maker by trade, was employed also as town watchman, living inthe bell-tower of the church of St Jakob, the highest vantage-point in thetown, with the task of keeping Polička from any recurrence of the firethat had devastated it earlier in the century. It was here that Martinů was born in 1890. In his childhood he learnedthe violin from a local tailor and made a local reputation for himself, givinghis first public concert in his home?¡town in 1905. At the same time he made hisfirst untutored attempts at composition. It was through the generosity of someof the citizens of Polička that in 1906 he was able to enter the PragueConservatory. There, however, he found the routine of the Violin School irksomeand was consequently transferred in 1909 to the Organ School, where he againfailed to distinguish himself. Expelled in 1910, he remained in Prague, nowconcentrating on composition and narrowly qualifying as a teacher.During the war Martinů taught the violin inhis home-town, avoiding military service, for which he was medically unfit, andin 1918 he was able to join the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, where hebroadened his musical experience while continuing to compose work after work.At the Conservatory he had enjoyed a brief period of instruction from Josef Sukbut in 1923, assisted by a scholarship, he moved to Paris to study with AlbertRoussel.In the following years Martinů's music began to gaina hearing internationally and at home. By 1931, still in Paris, he hadestablished himself well enough to marry a young dressmaker, although he neverearned enough to allow even reasonable comfort. The German invasion of Czechoslovakiaand the annexation of the country in 1939, coupled with the threat of widerconflict, was both horrifying and alarming. Eventually, in June 1940, four daysbefore the German capture of Paris, Martinů and his wife madetheir escape, finding their way with considerable difficulty to Portugal andthence to Bermuda, to reach New York at the end of March 1941. In Americaduring the war there were commissions from various quarters, notably from theKoussevitzky Foundation, for which he wrote his First Symphony.After the war Martinů had hoped to returnto Prague, where he had been offered the position of professor of compositionat the Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. His return to Europe was delayed byillness, after a fall at Tanglewood, where he had been invited to lecture, andany possibility of working again in hi, home-country was obviated by theaccession to power of the Communists in 1948. For some five years he remainedin the United States as professor of composition at Princeton, returning toEurope in 1953. Until 1955 he lived in Nice, then moving to Philadelphia toteach at the Curtis Instit
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