Martinu: Symphonies [Box set]

This has been my record find of the past few years. I've been raised on the Ancerl, Neumann and Belohlavek versions, all fine performances dead centre in the Czech tradition with Czech orchestras. Czech recordings too, at Supraphon studios or Prague Castle, venues with long reverberation times that give a thrilling sheen to the strings, but tend to mush the inner voices. Bryden Thomson and the Scottish National playing Martinu? Bax for sure, but not Martinu. Nevertheless, when these cds reappeared on the Chandos mid-price label I took the plunge, and a great move that turned out to be. Thomson and his orchestra bring out the singing beauty of these works, the rhythmic vitality, but far more than that. Inner voices are clear for the first time in my experience, and Thomson has a far clearer grasp of the architecture of these works than any of his predecessors. I have the 4th Symphony in five different versions going back to Turnovsky, and although each performance offers one or two details that outshine the others, overall Thomson's is by fair margin the best. The recording is good, if a little over-bright, in the Chandos tradition. Too bad the British music press, who tend to go overboard in their support of domestic performers, were a touch lukewarm in their original assessment of these recordings. Perhaps even more than his Bax cycle, they are the jewels of Thomson's musical legacy.

It has been a hugely enjoyable experience becoming acquainted with the contents of this box. By which I mean that I have been bought repeatedly to a state of enjoyment by a composer whose earnest intent, it would seem, was to be a positive force for happiness and goodness in the world. I know nothing else of Martinu's oeuvre, or how representative these sumptuous canvasses are, but I can say that here we have six very fine symphonies, none of them inferior, full of passion, light and force. The works are fundamentally tonal, eminently approachable, but spiced with just enough dissonance and fresh, surprising chord progressions here and there to qualify them for the modernist label. Diaghilev era Stravinsky, and even jazz age Gershwin are often bought to mind. Not really a composer of big tunes but one who can extract endless interest from small motivic cells. He has a penchant for the juxtaposing and overlaying of rhythmic textures that sort of anticipates the more interesting experiments of the minimalists, but only as brief stops along the way to wider ends. Above all, a master of orchestration, with a rich palette at his command, and an eye for teeming, tiny details. What else? Nature, sunlight, haunting mysterious moonlight, the innocent laughter of children, the knowing laughter of adults. Much more sunshine than shadow. Much more triumph than tragedy. Indeed only just enough darkness in all to bring sufficient seriousness to the works as to prevent their collapse into a particularly luxurious kind of entertainment. Spiritually speaking, in terms of its sheer positivity and joi de vivre, the closest comparison that comes to mind is with Michael Torke, but there is a playful wildness and knockabout rambunctiousness to Martinu that you would never find in Torke.

Arguably the best of the set, perhaps only by a hair, is No.4 (1945), in which the glories of nature are spelled out with an elemental vigour, that is possibly at the limits of what the massed orchestra can deliver and the human ear can safely entertain. Of all, Symphony No.3 (44-45) is the only one in which darkness has the upper hand for most of its unfolding, and is perhaps a reflection of the desperate events that were unfolding across the world in those terrible days. Still, as I put the box back up on the shelf to let them rest for a while, and to give their contents time to permeate inward, it is fragments of the mysterious, almost magical No.1 that seem to have become lodged into immediate memory. In particular its tremendous sequence of opening chords and swirling scales.

That Brydon Thomson, at the helm of the Royal Scottish, manages to pull these off with such panache speaks as much, if not more, for Martinu's cosmopolitanism and universal appeal as it does for the performer's scope. The front row Chandos sound is eminently suited to Martnu's opulent textures, and together they do full justice to the colour, meat and depth of these very satisfying scores.

At Amazon's discounted mid price these discs are not to be missed by anyone who knows the Martinu symphonies from other recordings as they are, overall, the best recorded and most cogently performed currently available. For those who don't know the works Thomson, the Scottish National Orchestra and Chandos provide a chance to experiment at a very reasonable cost. The icing on the cake is that they are so very fine as to be the recordings of choice - at whatever price.