Martinu: String Quartets Nos. 1 And 2 / Three Horsemen

Description

Bohuslav Martinu (1890-1959)String Quartets Nos 1 and 2Tri jezdci (Three Horsemen) The Czech composer Bohuslav Martinu was born in 1890 atthe country town of Policka in the mountains of Bohemia and Moravia. Hisfather, a shoe-maker by trade, was employed also as town watchman, living in thebell-tower of the church of St Jakob, the highest vantage-point in the town,with the task of keeping Policka from any recurrence of the fire that had devastatedit earlier in the century. It was here that Martinu was born in 1890. In hischildhood he learned the violin from a local tailor and made a local reputationfor himself, giving his first public concert in his home-town in 1905. At thesame time he concentrated some attention on composition, although without propertuition and lacking even the manuscript-paper necessary for the purpose. It wasthrough the generosity of some of the citizens of Policka that in 1906 he wasable to travel to Prague and find a place for himself at the Conservatory,where his early composition for string quartet, The Three Horsemen, madea favourable impression. Jibbing at the routine of the Violin School of theConservatory, however, and preferring to indulge in more varied music-making,Martinu was transferred in 1909 to the Organ School, where he again failed to distinguishhimself. Expelled in 1910, he remained in Prague, now concentrating oncomposition and narrowly qualifying as a teacher. During the war Martinu taught the violin in his home-town,avoiding military service for which he was medically unfit, and in 1918 he wasable to join the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, where he broadened his musicalexperience, while continuing to compose work after work. At the Conservatory hehad enjoyed a brief period of instruction from Josef Suk but in 1923, assistedby a scholarship, he moved to Paris to study with Albert Roussel. In the following years Martinu's music began to gain ahearing, particularly through Talich in the newly formed Czechoslovakia, Paul Sacherand Ernest Ansermet in Switzerland, Henry Wood in England, Munch in France andKoussevitzky in the United States, By 1931, still in Paris, he had establishedhimself well enough to marry a young dressmaker, Charlotte Quennehen, althoughhe never earned enough to allow even reasonable comfort. The German invasion of Czechoslovakia and the annexation of the country in 1939, coupled with thethreat of wider conflict, was both horrifying and alarming. Eventually, in June1940, four days before the German capture of Paris, Martinu and his wife madetheir escape, finding their way with considerable difficulty to Portugal andthence to Bermuda and reaching New York at the end of March 1941. In Americaduring the war there were commissions from various quarters. For the KoussevitzkyFoundation he wrote his First Symphony and there was a ViolinConcerto commissioned by Mischa Elman, with a number of other compositions,including four further symphonies. After the war Martinu had hoped