Rafael Kubelík's First Recording

Rafael Kubelík, 1937

The great Czech maestro Rafael Kubelík (1914-1996) made no less than three commercial studio recordings of Smetana's cycle of symphonic poems, Má Vlast in its complete form: the first for Mercury in 1951, with the Chicago Symphony; the second for Decca/London in 1958, with the Vienna Philharmonic, and the third for Deutsche Grammophon in 1971, with the Boston Symphony. There have also been commercial releases of live performances. Obviously Kubelík had a passionate identification with the work, and so it's fitting that his first-ever recording, made at the age of 23 while the Czech Philharmonic was on tour in London in 1937, should have been of two of the cycle's most popular segments:

Smetana: The Moldau (Vltava) and
From Bohemia's Meadows and Forests (Z českých luhův a hájův)
(Nos. 2 and 4 from the symphonic cycle "Má Vlast")
Czech Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Rafael Kubelík
Recorded October 30, 1937
RCA Victor set DM-523, three 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files. 69.33 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 44.79 MB)

The Czech Philharmonic came to London three times during the late 1930s to concertize and make recordings. The 1937 visit also produced a recording of Dvořák's "New World" Symphony conducted by George Szell. For the other tours, in 1935 and 1938, the conductor was the orchestra's music director, Václav Talich, who between the two visits produced priceless recordings of Dvořák's Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Symphonies and complete Slavonic Dances, plus Josef Suk's Serenade for Strings.  Talich stayed home for the 1937 tour, however, so Szell and Kubelík deputized.

Martinů: Sinfonietta Giocosa

The Autumn 2011 issue of Classical Recordings Quarterly features an excellent article (the first of two) on recordings of works by the Czech composer Bohuslav Martinů (1890-1959) made during his own lifetime.  As it happens, one of these première recordings, that of the Sinfonietta Giocosa, which for me is one of Martinů's most delightful scores, is one that I had transferred and uploaded back in 2007.  It features the work's dedicatee, pianist Germaine Leroux (pictured above, with the composer on the right and Leon Barzin, the conductor at the work's first performance in New York in 1942, on the left).  The piece is essentially a piano concerto, one of at least nine that Martinů wrote - there are, besides the Sinfonietta Giocosa, five numbered piano concertos, two concertinos (one for left hand), and a concerto for two pianos.

Martinů: Sinfonietta Giocosa, for piano and small orchestra (1940)
Germaine Leroux, pianist, with the
Czech Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Jaroslav Krombholc
Recorded April 21 and 27, 1947
Supraphon G 14905-07, three 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 62.88 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 30.27 MB)

My transfer is derived from a cassette copy that I made from the 78s in 2003, shortly before having to dispose of all the 78s I then owned for financial reasons.