A true original, an immensely appealing composer

From the Lebrecht Album of the Week:

I am beginning to wonder if posterity will ever place Bohuslav Martinu where he justly belongs, as the last in a quartet of Czech geniuses, after Smetana, Dvorak and Janacek. With each passing year, Martinu (1890-1959) seems to recede further into the mists, his 16 operas unstaged, his six symphonies unperformed. Czechs find him too cosmopolitan – he lived most of his life in France and the US – while others are daunted by his mountainous output. There are more than 400 recorded works by Martinu, all of high proficiency. When the innocent ear catches Martinu for the first time, it recognises a  sound world that is at once distinctive and entirely approachable, ever the mark of a great composer.

Read on here… and here.