A welcome new Martinu Symphonies set

Bohuslav Martinu: Symphonies 1-6

Back in 2011 Rob Barnett ended a review of the complete Martinu symphonies from Jiri Belohlávek and the BBC Symphony Orchestra with the following plea:

The comparative avalanche of Martinů recordings unleashed two years ago around the fiftieth anniversary of the composer’s death has injected fresh life into this part of the catalogue. Too often however these birth/death splurges simply go to underscore longer term neglect – a huge exposure followed by a vertiginous fall back even deeper into obscurity. We must hope that Martinů’s star has a sustainable higher profile. This set shows that his music has all the necessary stamina and allure. 

It took a while, but the appearance of this complete set of six symphonies on three CDs, recorded live in Vienna from 2011 to 2017, serves to reinforce the essential importance of Martinu as a 20th century orchestral composer. It's a very fine recording as well, though it doesn't supplant the splended Onyx set of Belohlávek. It has a fine, clear, lifelike sound, with most of the advantages of live recording, a sense of occasion and excitement and a more organic and natural arc to the performance, without too many of the disadvantages. The audience is mainly well-behaved and the applause is edited out. The young German conductor Cornelius Meister impresses most in the more meditative music - I love his brooding ways in the Largo of the 3rd Symphony, and even more in the almost mystical 4th Symphony Largo. But the more rambunctious music - the 1st Symphony Scherzo is a good example - has nowhere near the rocket-ship propulsion of Belohlávek, nor the exuberance of the London musicians. Meister's Scherzo sounds more French than Czech, and it's hard to tell if that's because it's deliberately played in a more ironic, International Style way, or if the more rigorous and authentic Belohlávek brings out the raucous Bohemians in his BBC musicians. Perhaps it's a bit of both. What's clear is that this is serious, substantial music that replays multiple hearings with maximum concentration. I got a lot of pleasure from this set, and plan on keeping it in my regular rotation.