Customer Reviews

The Music of Vitezslava Kapralova

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As the recent creator and host of "First Ladies of Music," pianist Virginia Eskin can be counted on to research and introduce works by women composers. For this disc featuring works by the Czech composer Vítezslava Kaprálová (1915 - 1940), Eskin teams up with violinist Stephanie Chase. The results reflect the nostalgia and tristesse of middle Europe just before the savagery of World War II.

Under the tutelage of a mother who was a singer and a composer/music critic father, Kaprálová has a compelling story. She was a prodigy who began writing music at nine and conducted the premier of her own piano concerto at her Brno Conservatory graduation when she was twenty. Two years later in 1937, she graduated from the Prague Conservatory and conducted her own Military Sinfonietta with the 100 member, all male Czech Philharmonic orchestra. For the next tumultuous years, while hell was breaking loose over Europe, this brave, young woman traveled and worked in both Paris and London. Studying with and encouraged by contemporary masters including Václav Talich, Charles Munch, Bohuslav Martin' and Nadia Boulanger, she continued to write songs and sonatas that manage to mirror the times in which she lived and predict the horror of the decade she would never see. Shortly, after her Paris marriage to a Czech exile, the young composer died in Paris on June 16, 1940.

Listening to Eskin play Kaprálová's April Prelude and Sonata Appassionata is a mesmerizing experience. With Eskin's sensitive interpretation, the passion and feelings of this young woman are vividly transmitted. Eskin and Chase combine to perform a hauntingly evocative Elegy reminiscent, in some ways, of Stravinsky and Debussy, but powerful enough to make this woman's music stand alone. Altogether this recording is an important milestone in Kaprálová's discography and testifies to the memory of a brilliant mid-twentieth century composer.

Kaprálová's death at 25 in 1940 brought to a premature close the compositional life of a remarkably gifted artist and one of the finest women composers of the 20th century. At an age that for the majority of artists is still a period of creative development, Kaprálová created a significant body of music that combines the best of Czech modernism with elements of French impressionism and German expressionism in a highly original synthesis. This release features some of the best music composed by Kaprálová, which is performed here by one of the finest pianists of her generation, Virginia Eskin. Kaprálová's music is bold, fresh, and tough in fibre, full of fire as well as lyricism. Of particular interest are the eminently pianistic April Preludes, Sonata Appassionata, and Variations sur le Carillon. In addition to these gems, the disc features Kaprálová's complete output for violin and piano. Seven of the eight works featured on the disc are world premiere recordings.