Symphonies Nos 5 & 6 'Fantaisies symphoniques'

"The Czech Philharmonic Orchestra is brilliantly precise yet thoughtful." Sunday Times, 10th January 2010 ****

"the complex textures of the first movement [of the Fifth] are superbly delineated and the finale has thrilling immediacy... Belohlávek responds to [the Sixth's] disparate moods magnificently in a performance of, at times, breathtaking intensity." BBC Music Magazine, April 2010 ****

"Both works are splendidly rendered with No. 5 best of all, a vivid interpretation benefiting from the buzz of a live performance. Belohlávek gets the balace in the tricky finale just right, letting the mood-progression of sadness-joy-determination flow organically and logically...A richly rewarding disc." Gramophone Magazine, June 2010

Gramophone Awards 2010 Finalist - Orchestral

Jirí Belohlávek and the Czech Philharmonic follow up their critically acclaimed 2005 album of Martinu's Symphonies Nos 3 and 4 (SU36312), which was nominated for a Grammy award and hailed by critics as a recording par excellence of these works.

This eagerly awaited CD, the second in a planned complete set, presents the composer's last two symphonies, both written during his post-war sojourn in America.

Symphony No. 5 was finished in 1946 and reflects Martinu's doubt and disenchantment over developments in Czechoslovakia, the homeland to which he would never return.

His last symphony, dedicated to his friend Charles Munch, then conductor of the Boston Symphony, was written during the years 1951-53. The wide-ranging and colourful orchestration of the "Symphonic Fantasies,"as Martinu himself titled it, marked a return to the symphonism and traditions of the late-Romantic music of the late 19th/early 20th centuries.

On this album, Jirí Belohlávek leads the Czech Philharmonic in a tribute to a composer on whose works he has been focusing for decades.