Invention No. 5 (A Game of Chess) for Wind Quintet


  • Recorded: 21st January 1971
  • Record Place: Studio Smečky
  • First Release: 1971
  • (P) 1971 Panton
  • Genre: Orchestral

Artists

  • music by: Jan Klusák
  • musical group: Prague Wind Quintet

Album

Various Artists

Klusák: Inventions

Catalogue Number: SU 4163-2
Published: 11th April 2014
Genre: Orchestral
Format: 2 disks
Jan Klusák - Inventions
Jan Klusák (b.1934) - Inventions Nos. 1 and 2 for Chamber Orchestra; No. 3 for String Instruments; No. 4, "The Burrow", and No. 7 for Orchestra; No. 5, "A Game of Chess", for String Quintet; No. 6 for Nonet; No. 8, "Quadratura circuli", for Small Orchestra; No. 9, "In the Autumn", for Contralto, Male Choir and Orchestra; No. 10, "Tetragrammaton sive Nomina Eius", for Orchestra; Perished Happiness - Symphonic Poem for Orchestra

Chamber Harmonia Orchestra / Libor Pešek, Agon / Petr Kofroň, Czech Nonet, Brno State Philharmonic Orchestra / Petr Vronský, PKF - Prague Philharmonia / Tomáš Hanus, Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra / Ondrej Lenárd, and others

At home, the name of Jan Klusák (as an actor and composer) is most frequently connected with cult Czech films and the Jára Cimrman Theatre. Yet he is also the creator of remarkable and singular music. A pupil of Jaroslav Řídký and Pavel Bořkovec, he was among the first Czechs - the Communist regime's resistance notwithstanding - to embrace the techniques of the Second Viennese School, New Music, dodecaphony and serialism. The presented set of "Inventions" shows the ground Klusák has covered over the more than half a century since the first of them was completed (1961). "I denominated my form using the term known from J. S. Bach - invention, always the term for the form with a single musical idea... Only considerably later did I notice that since my first compositional attempts I have sought a musical form with a single theme, hence my strong interest in the fugue. Invention granted me the experience of feeling happy with the origination of a superpersonal order. Roman Berger said the following unforgettable words about the Seventh Invention '...clouds racking on the sky...' I would consider myself fortunate indeed if clouds racking on the sky were left after me in the world."

Jan Klusák's Inventions - half a century of spirited seeking of formal perfection.


Note: On 18 April, Jan Klusák is celebrating his 80th birthday.

Disk 1

Jan Klusák
1. Invention No. 1 for Chamber Orchestra 08:33
Jan Klusák
2. Invention No. 2 for Chamber Orchestra 07:52
Jan Klusák
3. Invention No. 3 for String Instruments 05:08
Jan Klusák
4. Invention No. 4 (The Burrow) for Orchestra 05:22
Jan Klusák
5. Invention No. 5 (A Game of Chess) for Wind Quintet 03:41
Jan Klusák
6. Invention No. 6 for Nonett 08:16

Disk 2

Jan Klusák
1. Invention No. 7 for Orchestra 15:22
Jan Klusák
2. Invention No. 8 (Quadratura circuli) for Small Orchestra 13:12
Jan Klusák
3. In the Autumn. Invention No. 9 for Contralto, Male Choir and Orchestra 11:47
Jan Klusák
4. Tetragrammaton sive Nomina Eius. Invention No. 10 for Orchestra 15:53
Jan Klusák
5. Perished Happiness. Symphonic Poem for Orchestra, the 3rd part of the triptych Dreams 10:45