Martinu, B.: Complete Piano Music, Vol. 3

Featuring

Giorgio Koukl
Bohuslav Martinů

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Composer's Artistic Vision

The solo piano works of Martinů are often overshadowed by his orchestral and chamber music, despite constituting a large portion of his output.

Compositional Technique

The genre of dance music called 'polka' originated in 19th-century Bohemia and comes from the Czech word 'půlka', meaning 'a half', referring to the rhythm.

Composer Biography

Martinů was a prolific composer, writing over four hundred pieces of music, with about eighty of them for the piano.

Composer Biography

Bohuslav Martinů, the composer, was born in a church tower in Polička, a small Bohemian town in what is now the Czech Republic.

Historical Context

Martinů moved to the United States in the early 1940s to escape the spreading Nazi occupation of Europe.

Composition History

The Fantaisie et toccata was composed in Aix-en-Provence in 1940 while Martinů was awaiting a visa to emigrate to the United States, having fled Paris due to Nazi blacklists.

Performer Biography

Giorgio Koukl, the pianist on this album, first encountered Martinů's music during a masterclass with Rudolf Firkušný, a Czech pianist who premiered several of Martinů's works.