Lady Godiva/ Toman and Wood Ny

Born before Josef Suk, with whom he is often coupled in the music-histories, Vítęzslav Novák (1870-1949) also outlived him. Like Suk, Novák obtained his compositional training from Antonin Dvorák; like Suk, he practiced the large orchestral forms of symphony and extended symphonic poem. His "Pan" (1910), in five movements, lasts some seventy-five minutes in performance; with "The Storm" (1910), it constitutes, in the opinion of the critics, his masterpiece. But a consistency marks the career of Novák, so that even the "lesser works" presented on the new Chandos CD merit our attention. Novák wrote the most substantial of them, "De Profundis," in 1940, during the Nazi occupation of his Czech homeland. For organ and orchestra, it arises indeed "out of the depths" and records both the despair and hope of the blighted Czech Republic during its dark hours as an involuntary component of "Greater Germany." (Unfortunately, many more dark hours lay ahead, even after the short-lived liberation of 1945.) In form, the tone-poem corresponds to a vast prelude and double fugue, concluding in a grim and defiant chorale. Because the Bohemian religious reformers, beginning with Jan Hus, have always occupied the forefront of the political independence movement in the Czechoslovak lands - opposing Hapsburg domination and siding with the peasantry against the Catholic nobility - Novák's Bachian plan, with its Protestant associations, accords well with the call to resistance implicit in "De Profundis." Libor Pešek and the BBC Philharmonic tender an appropriately Stygian account of the opening section (Largo Lugubre), with string basses and contrabassoon growling from below. Years ago, a Supraphon LP devoted one whole side to this work under Jaroslav [?] Vogel (leading an orchestra whose identity I forget): But little of the music managed to show through the murky early-stereo recording and the inadequate export pressing, full of pops and ticks and other distortions. Pešek, aided by the Chandos recordists, makes the music at once dark and yet transparent, so that we can hear the considerable inner complexity of the construction. The fugal episode (Appassionato Doloroso) picks up the pace and generates the apposite sense of crisis. The entry of the organ signals the renewal of hope. Pešek has wrought marvels with Novák's unusual scoring (organ, celesta, brass, and woodwind) and succeeds in showing how modern this composition by a seventy-year-old neo-Romantic really is. The coda fully qualifies for its description as "Grandiose." The two remaining works come from earlier in Novák's career. He wrote "Lady Godiva" (1907) for a festival-drama produced to inaugurate the Vinohrády Theater in Prague. Exciting fanfares give way to music of heroism and passion. A solo violin suggests the feminine character of the eponymous Lady. "Tomán and the Wood Nymph" (1906), based on an old Bohemian legend, wanders a bit, but brings off its climaxes with considerable panache. On the strength of this program, one hopes that the Pešek-Chandos team will tackle "In the Tatras," "Eternal Longing," "The Storm," and other rarely heard or recorded Novák scores.

With Dvorák my love affair with Czech/Bohemian (and Middle European) music has started but with Novák (and Janacek, Suk, and Ostrcil etc.) it has gained depth. I really don't know why so many great composers did emerge from this little country but Novák is definitely one of them.

In De Profundis this music explores the depth of war-experiences with very dark and somber tones which made the greatest impression on me. I own a recording of this poem with Jaroslav Vogel (Supraphon) from the sixties but that recording per se is very recessed; the performance is even more intense than in Pesek's reading.

The other two symphonic poems are available in other readings too, but Pesek wins on sound, intensity of ensemble playing, and he never lets down on the poetry of this music which has a typical Czech flavor.

Some years ago Pesek did more works by these composers (Suk, Novak) for Virgin and I'm very happy to see that he continues on Chandos. Readers and critics hope he'll record the great tone poem The Sea (Boure), also by Novák, but that has already been done very well on Supraphon too.

No, let him do works which have not had a decent recording yet and are equally compelling and deserve a modern performance: orchestral music by Ostrcil and Kovarovich, Foerster and last but not least the Mai-Symphony by Novák.

Though my friends, (after a series of short-lived, unfulfilling late-Romantic relationships involving Tcherepnin, Schmidt and Korngold among others), tell me over and over again that there's more to a composer than just his big orchestra, I continue to ignore them--this time grabbing Chandos' new release of music by Vitezslav Novak.

Novak can be described, for the most part, as a heady, late-Romantic Dvorak. (Perhaps you have already heard Novak's music on a Virgin CD which contains the "Slovak Suite," "In the Tatra Mountains," and "Eternal Longing"-it's a wonderful recording.) He is a capable and imaginative melodist and orchestrator who, in the tradition of Wagner, Debussy, Strauss, and Janacek, avoids formal repetition and prefers to spin a musical narrative that constantly evolves and transforms itself. In other words, his music is through-composed rather than strophic.

Novak's spikes his simple and direct folk-like melodies with the most delightfully quirky harmonies and evocative orchestrations. Gestures of empty bombast and glutinous sentimentality, the twin progeny of late-Romantic immoderation, are fortunately kept to a minimum. The "Lady Godiva Overture" opens the CD, and it is a lovely piece. The Lady's theme, first introduced on clarinet, is at once playful, fresh and innocent; and yet, (as only the East Europeans seem to be able to do it), sensual, sad and alluring at the same time. If you like the freshness and naivete of Janacek's "Vixen," Novak's Overture is just a little more to the right-it's haunting and beautiful music.

The next piece, "Toman and the Wood Nymph" (1907) is IMHO the near hit. It's interesting and imaginative but sprawling and stylistically uneven-- oscillating between the meat-and-potatoes sound of Dvorak and a darting, modernish impressionism that reminds me of the rhythms, colors and harmonies of Stravinsky's "Scherzo Fantastique"--ironically composed one year *later*

than Toman. Novak, in the heat of inspiration simply outdoes himself with the nymph music, and unfortunately other parts of the tone-poem seem earth-bound in comparison.

"Die Profundis" reminds me of a famous meeting that never took place between Novak and Shostakovich, where Shostakovich made that famous comment to Novak: "...the symphony must embrace the entire percussion section...."

Composed in 1941, Profundis was written during the Nazi occupation of the Czech nation and riskily premiered in Brno, whose population was half German and half Czech. The liner notes state that Novak "never disguised his hatred of the occupying German forces...." and as you can imagine Profundis, ("Out of the depths I have cried," Psalm 30), is hardly subtle. A sinister march grows out the depths and slowly, (magisterially), evolves into a double fugue, which builds in intensity and agitation over the span of 16 minutes. One can hear faint echoes of Shostakovich and Mahler throughout, but Novak never looses his own voice. (Delightfully snarling brass playing from the BBC.)

The radiance of the apotheosis that concludes the piece, however, is hardly suggestive of redemption gained through peace and brotherhood--no gleaming, upheld chalices here!-- it is more the distorted kind of light that one would see reflected off a vengefully wrought and blood-spattered sword. And what a big sword Novak symbolically waves at the German forces--with full orchestra, brass fanfares, organ, piano, bells, harps, and a triple forte bass drum roll every 4th beat, it's enough to make noise-sensitive neighbors definitely reach for theirs.

Enjoy.