Martinu: Cantatas – Prague Philharmonic Choir

   in Choir & Organ (Mar, 2017)
This CD is a delight. Martinu’s four chamber cantatas form a loose cycle of stories pertaining from the Bohemian-Moravian Highlands to poems by Miloslav Bureš. Blending folk poetry, ethnic customs and the natural cycle of the seasons, this sequence drew from Martinu a straightforward, folk-inspired musical language. While at first hearing the cantatas seem innocent enough, at least one of them – The Legend of the Smoke from Potato Tops, which depicts the Virgin Mary descending from an altar to move among the villagers – forms the composer’s protest at the quashing of the Hungarian Revolution in 1956. All four cantatas are charming and deserve to be better known. The …