Husa, Martinů: Music for Clarinet

Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959) – Sonatina for Clarinet and Piano, H 356.
Karel Husa (1921–2016) – Évocations de Slovaquie for clarinet, viola and cello (1951). Four Bohemian Sketches for clarinet and piano (2010). Deux Préludes for flute, clarinet and bassoon (1965). Sonata à tre for violin, clarinet and piano (1981). Three Studies for solo clarinet (2007),


Anna Paulová – clarinet, Ivo Kahánek – piano, Oto Reiprich – flute, Jan Hudeček – bassoon, Jan Fišer – violin, Kristina Fialová – viola, Vilém Vlček – cello

The internationally renowned Czech-born composer Karel Husa, Pulitzer Prize and Grawemeyer Award winner, gathered invaluable experience from Arthur Honegger and Nadia Boulanger, with whom he studied in Paris in the 1940s and 1950s. He was also greatly influenced by the folk music of his native Bohemia, as well as Slovakia, which is duly reflected in his Évocations de Slovaquie and Four Bohemian Sketches. Husa’s later pieces for clarinet and a variety of other instruments attest to his propensity for innovation and experimentation, yet all of them are comprehensible and listener-friendly. The present album opens with the gracious and, now and then, melancholy Sonatina by Bohuslav Martinů, who, just like Husa, studied in Paris and experienced exile sorrow. The young Czech clarinettist Anna Paulová, a Prague Spring laureate and the holder of numerous accolades from other international competitions, has enthusiastically devoted to Karel Husa over the long term. Recorded with superb instrumentalists, her Supraphon debut is likely to increase general interest in the remarkable composer’s music.

A variety of clarinet colours and shades in Karel Husa and Bohuslav Martinů works