Martinu: The Symphonist

Martinu;, son of a bell ringer in the small town of Policka in Bohemia, was doubtless inspired by the view from his church tower! In 1923 he went to Paris for a few weeks which turned into seventeen years, then fled to the United States at the outbreak of war. Roussel had turned him into a master of counterpoint, inventor of the neo-baroque concerto grosso, where innocent chamber music is transformed into a devastatingly powerful hue and cry, which only a handful of musicians have managed to render - namely Munch, Ancerl, Kubelík and Bélohlávek, who introduced the dense, highly inventive repertoire to a wider audience. After the throbbing polytonal violence of 1937, Martinu; shifted towards a more luminous lyricism along the lines of the Fantaisies symphoniques he dedicated to Charles Munch. This is a tribute to his early conductors.