The Chameleon. The New Yorker, Sept. 15, 2025.
I’ve long loved Bohuslav Martinů’s music, but until this summer’s Bard Music Festival I had never found an occasion to write about him at length. I emerged with my admiration redoubled. Martinů is at once unmistakable and elusive, a kind of Monsieur Hulot among composers. The companion volume to this year’s festival, Martinů and His World (University of Chicago Press), was edited by Aleš Brezina and Michael Beckerman. One especially valuable chapter is devoted to the composer’s “Notebook of Dreams,” which recently fell into Beckerman’s hands and which he has edited for publication. A typical entry, translated from the French: “The key to everything premeditated, desired, created by trick [ruse] will finally be found [out]. Whatever is made naturally remains mysterious.” I also read Martin Crump’s Martinů and the Symphony (Toccata Classics), which notes that nowhere in his six numbered symphonies does Martinů use the fff marking — a sign of his aversion to the “climax cliché.” If you are looking to explore Martinů’s world, there is no better place to begin than with Jiří Bělohlávek’s near-definitive BBC Symphony survey of the symphonies, on Onyx. Charles Munch’s Boston Symphony recording of the Sixth is an essential, explosive supplement.