Download BOHUSLAV MARTINŮ Symphony No. 4, H. 305

BOHUSLAV MARTINŮ Symphony No. 4, H. 305 Born: December 8, 1890, in Polička, Bohemia (now the Czech Republic) Died: August 28, 1959, in Liestal, Switzerland Work composed: 1945 World premiere: November 30, 1945, in Philadelphia. Eugene Ormandy conducted the Philadelphia Orchestra. Seventy years ago, Germany formally surrendered to Soviet, British and American forces, completing the Allied triumph over Hitler in World War II. The victory in Europe brought relief and gladness to musicians, as to millions of others — none more so than Bohuslav Martinů. The Czech-­‐born composer was, at the time, living in the United States, where he had fled from France in 1940, making a narrow escape just ahead of Hitler’s armies. Martinů had been deeply affected by the situation in Europe, and this strongly marked his music. Already, in 1938, he had composed a powerful work, his Double Concerto for Timpani, Piano and Strings, expressing his anguish over Germany’s annexation of the Sudetenland, the border province essential to the defence of Czechoslavakia, an event that foretold the Nazi occupation of his homeland the following year. And in 1943 he wrote an orchestral poem as a requiem for the residents of Lidice, a village savagely obliterated by the Gestapo in retaliation for the assassination of the Nazi governor of Czechoslovakia. Now, with Germany vanquished, Martinů could create a very different work, his Fourth Symphony. Written between April and June, 1945, this is one of his most joyous compositions. One can hardly hear this work apart from its historical context. In its progress from an opening in which buoyant and ominous sounds vie with each other, through a second movement marked by martial rhythms, to a dream-­‐like Largo and on to its triumphal finale, this symphony seems a kind of musical record of the events of preceding seven years, with an emphasis on the happy outcome that surely prompted its creation. What to Listen For The symphony opens with bright, bustling music. Is this an evocation of peaceful life before the war? It would seem so, for a threatening crescendo throughout the orchestra, with a snare drum prominent, casts a shadow over the proceedings. Martinu quickly returns to carefree expression, but the ominous crescendo returns just before the movement’s close. The second movement is less ambiguous. It opens with a march that includes cymbals, drum strokes, trumpet interjections and other suggestions of military matters. A central episode brings a pastoral interlude, with music in the vein of a gentle Czech folk dance, but the stronger material of the opening returns before the end. In the ensuing Largo, Martinů’s scoring ranges between chamber-­‐music textures and the robust playing of a hymn-­‐like theme. The finale evolves from its dark opening passage through suggestions of strife to noisy exultation at the end. Scored for piccolo, 3 flutes, 3 oboes, English horn, 3 clarinets and 2 bassoons; 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones and tuba; timpani and percussion; piano and strings.