Bohuslav Martinů - Double Concerto for Two String Orchestras, Piano and Timpani

- Composer: Bohuslav Martinů (8 December 1890 -- 28 August 1959)
- Orchestra: Orchestra Sinfonica Radio Praga
- Conductor: Sir Charles Mackerras
- Soloists: Josef Ruzicka (piano), Jan Bouse (timpani)
- Year of recording: 1982

Double Concerto for Two String Orchestras, Piano and Timpani, H.271, written in 1938.

00:00 - I. Poco Allegro
06:33 - II. Largo
15:05 - III. Allegro

Although he had lived in Paris for several years, Martinu kept in close contact with many in his homeland of Czechoslovakia. In July 1938 he had returned to Prague for the annual Festival of the Sokols; two months later he and his wife were invited to spend some time at conductor Paul Sacher's mountain retreat in Schönenberg, Switzerland. Sacher, who had supported Martinu and his music for years, had requested a work for the Basle Chamber Orchestra; Martinu began work on the Double Concerto for Sacher, and continued work on it in Switzerland.

It was there that Martinu learned of the Munich Pact, which allowed the Nazis to enter the Sudetenland. By October the Nazis had entered Czechoslovakia. As Martinu described the time, "With anguish we listened every day to the news bulletins on the radio, trying to find encouragement and hope that did not come. The clouds were quickly gathering and becoming steadily more threatening. During this time I was at work on the Double Concerto, but all my thoughts and longings were constantly with my endangered country." In 1939, Martinu was moved to volunteer for the Czech army, but health problems precluded his service. He completed the Double Concerto, whose emotional tenor he later linked to the circumstances of its creation: "Its notes sang out the feelings and sufferings of all those of our people who, far away from their home, were gazing into the distance and seeing the approaching catastrophe. It is a composition written under terrible circumstances, but the emotions it voices are not those of despair but rather of revolt, courage, and unshakable faith in the future." The concerto was given its premiere in Basle by Sacher and the Basle Chamber Orchestra on 9 February 1940.

The concerto is one of Martinu's most unyielding and dissonant works. Even in its quieter moments there is a stern, implacable quality. The polyphonic exchanges between the two string orchestras are reminiscent of the concertos of the Baroque era, which had been such an influence on Martinu's style through the 1930s.

- The Double Concerto is in three movements, the first an agitated Poco allegro with an aggressive motoric rhythm.
- The anguished second-movement Largo opens with a declamatory motif; the drama of the movement turns briefly introspective with a piano solo, but the tense polyphony of the string orchestras gradually builds to a return of the declamatory opening and a meandering coda, as though the music had spent itself.
- The third movement Allegro returns to the motoric rhythms of the first; once again, after a brief moment of quiet, a relentless crescendo builds to a final return of the second movement's declamatory motif.

The cover of the manuscript score bears the dedication: "to my dear friend Paul Sacher to commemorate the quiet and fearful days spent at Schönenberg amongst the deer and the threat of the war."

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