Music For Prague

Description

Karel Husa had been living in the United States since 1954 when Soviet tanks put an end to the Prague Spring. In his American exile, where he was a celebrated composer, honored with the Pulitzer Prize, and became a major figure in the contemporary music scene across the Atlantic, the wound was all the more acute. He had begun responding to a commission from the Ithaca College Wind Orchestra by composing a concerto for wind instruments, where he sought new sound alloys. The work transformed into a vast protest dictated by the tragic events that were bloodily unfolding in the capital of Czechoslovakia. The following year, Husa expanded Music for Prague for the full symphony orchestra, with more diffracted colors, an enlargement of the expressive palette, and a deepening of the sound space; the virulence of the original for wind ensemble had turned into a wordless requiem. This work, which became the emblem of his art, also marked a point of no return: Husa committed himself to a path of lyrical abstraction, illustrated by the 2nd Symphony with which Tomas Brauner opens his album. An enigmatic score that does not fear dryness: the mastery of forms and canons inherited from the Baroque—Husa edited some masters of the Grand Siècle français—leads to lunar soundscapes that the Interlude of Music for Prague had already hinted at. The Three Frescoes (1947) date back to his time in Paris, when Karel Husa took composition lessons with Arthur Honegger and Nadia Boulanger, studying conducting with André Cluytens. Their orchestrations, often refined yet dark, their motorism, and a certain feverish unease show the germ of this singular art that it is time to rediscover: perfect interpretations—the Frescoes are recorded in their world premiere—raise hopes that Tomas Brauner and his orchestra will continue to explore the symphonic catalog of a composer on the verge of being forgotten.