Jan Bartos and Jakub Hrusa: Ullmann, Stravinsky, and Prokofiev in extraordinary contexts

The new album by pianist Jan Bartos, the Bamberger Symphoniker, and conductor Jakub Hrusa brings together three major figures of music in the first half of the 20th century: Viktor Ullmann, Igor Stravinsky, and Sergei Prokofiev. It's programme reveals not only the stylistic affinities between their works, but also the remarkable connections all three composers had with interwar Czechoslovakia and it's vibrant musical life.

At the heart of the recording is Viktor Ullmann's Piano Concerto, Op. 25 (1939), dedicated to the pianist Juliette Arányi. It's musical language combines impulses from the Second Viennese School with a rhythmic energy reminiscent of Stravinsky and Prokofiev. In 1942, Ullmann and Arányi were deported to Theresienstadt, where they became involved in the musical life of the ghetto. A planned performance of the concerto there never took place. In 1944, both were transported to Auschwitz and murdered; the work did not receive it's world premiere until 1992, in Stuttgart.

The album is complemented by Stravinsky's Symphonies of Wind Instruments and Sergei Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 1 in D-flat major. Stravinsky visited interwar Czechoslovakia repeatedly, where his music found a strong response, notably from Václav Talich and Bohuslav Martinu. Talich was also an important advocate of Prokofiev's music; in 1934, the composer himself performed his First Piano Concerto in Prague.

Also noteworthy are the historical ties between the Bamberger Symphoniker and Prague. The orchestra was founded in 1946 by musicians from the former Deutsche Philharmonie Prag, linking it's origins to Prague's German musical milieu, in which Viktor Ullmann was also active. The collaboration between Jan Bartos, Jakub Hrusa, and the Bamberger Symphoniker thus evokes the extraordinarily rich cultural world of Central Europe in the first half of the 20th century.