Bohuslav Martinů - Songs on One Page H 294
1. Dew 01:09
2. Unlocked by a World 00:35
3. Riding to See My Love 01:27
4. The Footpath 00:36
5. At My Mother’s 00:58
6. The Dream of the Virgin Mary 02:09
7. Rosemary 01:14
Bohuslav Martinů - Songs on Two Pages H 302
8. The Moravian Girl 01:14
9. The Neighbour's Stable 01:00
10. Hope 02:15
11. The Night Watchman 00:56
12. Secret Love 00:54
13. The Wayside Cross 00:52
14. The Lads of Zvolen 01:01
Bohuslav Martinů - The Slovak Songs H 126
15. My Mother, My Mother 02:41
16. Tell me, Tell 02:44
17. What Are You Doing, Hanka? 01:23
18. Hey, Ye Hill 03:31
19. There’s Rain Coming from the Orava Region 02:25
20. Tell Me, My Most Beloved 02:02
21. I’ve Got Yet Another Sister 01:44
22. I Had a Blouse 01:13
23. The Evening Star 01:43
24. Hey, You Can Tell 01:13
25. I’ve Got Married 01:00
26. Eat Me, Wolves 00:51
27. A Lass Is Standing by the Tap 01:10
28. Up the Váh River 01:15
29. Up the Hron River 02:27
30. At the Trenčín Barracks 01:00
31. God, Oh God, What Am I to Do 03:27
32. Little Hana 03:15
33. Whose Sheep Are These 01:26
34. A Man Is All Right 00:57
35. Don’t You Trust Him 00:58
36. She Was Digging a Well 01:17
37. She Got Seventy Skirts 01:05
38. Lo, Meadow, Meadow 05:09
39. Lo, I Had a Lass 00:50
40. The White Dove 01:20
41. From Behind the Black Hill 02:12
42. The Folk Say 02:19
43. I Kept Waking Up 00:55
44. The Lass from White Mountain 01:26
Bohuslav Martinů - New Chap-Book H 288
45. The Rich Sweetheart 01:21
46. Forsaken Love 01:20
47. Longing 01:06
48. The Inquisitive Girl 01:09
49. The Gay Girl 00:29
50. The Unhappy Lover 02:48
51. The Request 01:25
52. The High Steeple 01:08
Martina Janková - soprano, Tomáš Král - baritone, Ivo Kahánek - piano
Folk songs are evidently one of the seminal sources of inspiration that Bohuslav Martinů drew upon in his music. The composer would take Sušil's extensive collection of traditional Moravian songs along with him wherever he travelled. The texts from the volume were used for the majority of the Songs on One Page, Songs on Two Pages and The New Chapbook. Just as Dvořák had done in his Moravian Duets, so Martinů conceived his own tunes and accompaniment, yet his having been profoundly impacted by folk music, its rhythm, melody and harmonic techniques is palpable. Created in the early 1940s, in the middle of World War II, during the composer's exile in the USA, the three song cycles represented for Martinů and his compatriots a connection with their beleaguered homeland. Jan Masaryk, a Czech diplomat and a skilled amateur pianist, often performed the songs together with the soprano Jarmila Novotná, a MET soloist. Owing to their elliptical expression and modesty, the three cycles may serve as the clue to Martinů's late works. The New Slovak Songs constitute a unique piece in the composer's oeuvre; he himself had collected them during his visit to Slovakia in 1920 and subsequently wrote for them piano accompaniments. Three renowned artists, bearing an authentic relation to folk music and Martinů's work alike, have made a benchmark recording, in which they have succeeded in highlighting the songs' tender beauty.
Bohuslav Martinů's songs - magnificent tiny pieces by a great master.
(Supraphon 2019)
Property | Value |
format | CD audio |