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The Mighty Martinu
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18349 |
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Section : |
THE ARTS
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| Issue
Date : |
9 / 1990 |
1,514 Words |
| Author
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Andrew Clark
Andrew Clark is a broadcaster and critic living in Switzerland. |
Bohuslav Martinu is one of the great unrecognized theater composers of this century. Those who know and love his music must be glad that this year's celebrations marking the centenary of his birth promise come overdue recognition from orchestras and record companies. But the stage works remain as neglected as ever - except, of course, in his native Czechoslovakia, where the main festivals and opera companies have been celebrating in style.
The Prague Spring Festival hosted the first complete cycle Martinu's operas. The Moravian city of Brno will stage a series of rare Martinu works in October, and most of the smaller Czech towns and cities have organized their own smaller tributes. Musicians from Czechoslovakia have also been championing Martinu abroad. In April, the Prague National Theatre gave the first performances in Paris of The Greek passion; and the Slovak National Theatre from Bratislava is performing Julietta this year's Edinburgh Festival in Scotland. But the most significant contribution to the centenary has been the revival in Czechoslovakia of two operas that had not been heard for many years - Three Wishes and The Miracle of Our Lady.
Martinu is still a relatively unknown quantity in the pantheon of twentieth-century music. Born on December 8, 1890, in the Bohemian town of Policka, he studied at the Prague Academy of Music and in 1916 became violinist in the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra. In 1923 he left Czechoslovakia to study in Paris with Albert Roussel. He never returned to live in Czechoslovakia. Martinu fled occupied France in 1941 and settled in New York, later returning to Europe in 1953. He died in Switzerland in 1959. Despite his long exile, Martinu's music remained essentially Czech. His output was prolific
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