Fuck Yeah Classical

schubertiads:

Three Madrigals for Violin and Viola, H. 313 (1948); III. Allegro

Bohuslav Martinů, composer

Patrick Ireland, viola; Oliver Butterworth, violin

The second madrigal (poco andante) is here, along with a link to the first (poco allegro).

schubertiads:

Three Madrigals for Violin and Viola, H. 313 (1948); II. Poco andante

Bohuslav Martinů, composer

Patrick Ireland, viola; Oliver Butterworth, violin

The first madrigal (poco allegro) and some information on the work is here.

schubertiads:

Three Madrigals for Violin and Viola, H. 313 (1948); I. Poco allegro

Bohuslav Martinů, composer

Patrick Ireland, viola; Oliver Butterworth, violin

The Three Madrigals received its premiere performance on the first concert of the Musicians’ Guild’s 2nd season on December 22, 1947. The initial response to the new work was of high approval from the audience and critics. The Fuchs’s continued to perform this duo often along with the Mozart Duos with continued approval from the audiences and critics. Virgil Thomson reviewing for the New York Herald Tribune called the Three Madrigals “a delight for musical fantasy, for ingenious figuration [and] for Renaissance-style evocation”. Another reviewer found this work “satisfying in a mysterious manner”. The Fuchs’s continued performing the work throughout their career and was found performed in a program done in Alice Tully Hall on February 10, 1971. Today this work is probably the next most played violin-viola duet after the Mozart Duos and the Handel/Halvorsen Passacaglia.

Martinů throughout his career had a fascination with “Madrigals” (Songs from the Renaissance set to poetry) and wrote several other works with the word “Madrigal” in the title [4 Madrigals (1937) for oboe, clarinet and bassoon, 8 Madrigals (1939) for voice and piano, Madrigal Sonata (1942) for piano, flute and violin, 5 Madrigal Stanzas (1943) for violin and piano, and 5 Czech Madrigals (1948) for voice and piano]. This work seems to be drawing from Elizabethan viol music as well as the classical Mozart duo of which Martinů was so inspired by the Fuchs’s performance. In the last movement, there is a quote from Scarlatti. (via)