Josef Suk (1929 – 2011)

No. 312 of the ongoing ITYWLTMT series of audio montages, which can be found in our archives at https://archive.org/details/pcast312

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Our Friday Blog and Podcast this week reintroduce one of my favourite violinists, Josef Suk. We first featured him in a Vinyl’s Revenge post and share of the Bruch and Mendelssohn violin concertos, and we feature him today in music of Mozart and of his own great-grandfather, Antonín Dvořák.

In my personal music collection I have no less than three “complete” sets of the Mozart violin concertos; the term complete is in quotes mainly because the actual number of concertos and concertante works Mozart wrote for the violin is up for debate. There are five generally accepted “numbered” violin concertos (nos. 1 – 5) and a trio of stand-alone movements (two rondos and an adagio) likely movements intended as replacements dedicated to specific contemporary violinists of Mozart’s time. A sixth concerto, in E flat major, was at one time attributed to Mozart but is now attributed instead to Johann Friedrich Eck and a seventh Concerto in D Major, also called the Kolb Concerto.

Both my David Oistrakh/Berlin Philharmonic (EMI) and Henryk Szeryng/New Philharmonia (Philips) sets limit themselves to the five + three movements, however the set I own by Suk and the Prague Chamber orchestra adds the missing two – from that set, I chose numbers 5 and 6 for today’s podcast.

The Mozart concertos aren’t “flashy” – the many German Romantic concerti (with the Sibelius and Tchaikovsky) usually are part of the standard “competition” repertoire mainly because they are. What distinguishes these concerti from the hundreds of the Baroque masters and the seminal Romantic ones is the need for very precise, economical yet steady lines that are required from the soloist. This is oil painting, not house painting, if you get my drift… Though I love my Szeryng and my Oistrakh sets, the Suk set is the most satisfying group in that regard, and the orchestra is solid and well-matched. The recordings didn’t get much distribution in the West – par for the course during those years – but were issued on boutique European labels, which is probably where most of us got to enjoy them.

The complete set is available on YouTube

Dvořák was inspired to write the concerto after meeting Joseph Joachim in 1878, and composed the work with the intention of dedicating it to him. However, when he finished the concerto in 1879, Joachim became skeptical about it; he never performed the piece in public. Instead, it was premiered in Prague in 1883 by František Ondříček, who also gave the Vienna and London premieres.

For Supraphon Records, Suk recorded many of the great Romantic-era concertos, many with the Czech Philharmonic (with whom he toured in the West in the 1960’s). The Dvořák concerto, closing out the podcast, is part of that collaboration, with the late great Karel Ančerl conducting. Suk’s rendition stands out in the large number of recordings of this popular Dvořák concerto.

I think you will love this music too.