Piano Trio No. 4, “Dumky”, ranking among Antonín Dvorák’s most celebrated works, is one of the most frequently recorded chamber pieces there is. After attending a performance, with the composer on the piano, Leoš Janácek summed up his impressions succinctly: “A new source of light has flashed.” When it comes to Piano Trio No. 3, the renowned Vienna-based critic Eduard Hanslick called it a gem, demonstrating that Dvorák was “one of the best modern masters”. Piano Trios No. 1 and 2, however, have been scarcely performed. In this light, the complete recording of Dvorák’s piano trios is a project richly deserving attention. All the more so due to the artists who have made it: Boris Giltburg, winner of the Queen Elisabeth Competition and one of the world’s most distinguished contemporary pianists, alongside Veronika Jarušková and Peter Jarušek, members of the globally celebrated Pavel Haas Quartet, who have earned great recognition for performing Dvorák’s music – Gramophone Recording of the Year (quartets) and Gramophone Chamber Award (quintets, together with Giltburg). The three musicians featured on the album manifest an incredible chime. Possessing the uttermost technical brilliance, they breathe as one. The album was made at the studios in the picturesque Wye Valley, straddling the border between England and Wales, under the supervision of the legendary producer Andrew Keener while London was celebrating the coronation of Charles III. Exceptional moments for Dvorák’s exceptional music …

Bella Adamova ist eine Altistin mit einer außergewöhnlichen Sensibilität im Liedrepertoire und einer tiefen, wunderschön gefärbten Stimme. Sie ist u.a. Preisträgerin beim Internationalen Robert-Schumann-Wettbewerb 2021 in Zwickau. Das Thema ihres Albums bei SUPRAPHON mit dem exzellenten Begleiter Michael Gees ist die Suche nach Heimat und das Wissen um einen Ort, an den man gehört. Adamova erzählt die Lieder als ihre eigene Geschichte und hebt gleichzeitig die Lebensgeschichten der Komponisten hervor: ihre Beziehung zu der Heimat oder das Gefühl, verstoßen zu sein.

Conductor Vaclav Smetácek may not be as well known as his contemporaries Rafael Kubelik or Vaclav Neumann, but he was one of the most conspicuous influential Czech musicians of the twentieth century. Born in Brno, Smetácek was an oboe player and founded the Prague Wind Quintet in 1928 and maintained his membership in that renowned chamber group until his retirement in 1955. His conducting career began in radio in 1933, leading what would become the Prague Symphony Orchestra in a number of radio concerts and in the making of soundtracks for motion pictures. In 1942, the Prague Radio Symphony moved into the position of being a full-fledged civic orchestra, and Smetácek was named its first conductor; he held onto this position until 1972. Afterward, he frequently appeared as a guest conductor until shortly before his death at age 79 in 1986. Smetácek was a very prolific recording artist and an expert in Czech music of all kinds, but he also recorded Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, and many others, as well, most of it very skillfully and all of it for the Czech state labels Supraphon and Panton.

The Bennewitz Quartet is one of the top ensembles on the international chamber music scene. After winning two prestigious competitions – Osaka Chamber Music and Festa 2005 and Prémio Paolo Borciani, Italy 2008, they quickly gained the acclaim of the critics. The ensemble has received various awards and in 2019 the four musicians won the Classic Prague Award for the Best Chamber Music Performance of the year.In the 2022/23 season the Bennewitz Quartet will return to Laeiszhalle Hamburg, Mozartfest Würzburg, Wigmore Hall London, Stadtcasino Basel and it will tour again in the United States. The ensemble will represent the Czech Republic in Madrid at the closing ceremony marking the end of its presidency of the Council of the European Union. The quartet will take part in the complete performance of the six quartets by Béla Bartok in Leuven and will continue its engagement in Dvořák’s integral string quartet performance within the Dvořák’s Prague Festival. The ensemble is currently preparing the release of its new CD featuring the string quartets by Joseph Haydn.

Christmas and its singular atmosphere have inspired numerous musicians and composers over the centuries. Following several “conventional” albums and the crossover project "Next Horizon", the oboist Vilém Veverka too has succumbed to the irresistible Yuletide charm and decided to present “his Christmas”.

With his life and work, Miloslav Kabeláč, one of the greatest 20th-century Czech symphonists, foregrounded a highly topical theme: the necessity of not yielding to evil and commitment to humanistic ideals. He displayed both during the Nazi occupation and the time of Communist dictatorship in Czechoslovakia. Within the toughest totalitarianism Kabeláč escaped the ideological grip of the authoritarian regime by looking up to the star-studded sky.

If we were to travel four centuries back in time, when strolling through Prague streets we would most likely hear from many a house, palace or church some engrossing and catchy songs by Adam Václav Michna, one of the greatest Czech Baroque poets. His Christmas songs have become widely known and highly popular. Lesser known is Michna's Czech Marian Music, drawing the listener into the world of poetic hymns praising the Virgin Mary, which formed a significant part of 17th-century Czech music.

Vlastimil Lejsek was a Czech composer and pianist.

Shortly after Josef Mysliveček left Prague for Italy in 1763, he earned important standing there and soon was enjoying the first great successes of his operas. However, opera was far from his only area of interest. In Padua in the late 1760s, Mysliveček was still able to become familiar with the music of the violin virtuoso Giuseppe Tartini, and it was probably under its influence that Mysliveček successively produced six violin concertos of his own. There are certain unmistakable archaic elements in Mysliveček's concertos that show Tartini's influence. The period when they were composed overlaps with the period of Mysliveček's intensive contacts with the young Mozart, and many aspects of Mozart's violin concertos were clearly influenced by the music of his elder friend. The recording by Shizuka Ishikawa, a laureate of the prestigious Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels (1976) and of the Fritz Kreisler Competition in Vienna (1979), apparently represents the only complete set of Josef Mysliveček's violin concertos. The young Japanese virtuoso recorded them for Supraphon in 1983 and 1986 in the Dvořák Hall of Prague's Rudolfinum, and her artistic partner was none other than the conductor Libor Pešek.

One of the oldest musical instruments we know of, the pan flute was played in many antique civilizations. The sophisticated type used in Romanian folk music is the most familiar to a contemporary audience. The virtuosos who brought fame to the pan flute in the second half of the 20th century include the Romanian musicians Damian Luca, Radu Simion, Nicolae Pîrvu, Gheorghe Zamfir and Simion Stanciu. Liselotte Rokyta studied with four of the “Big Five” and also gained authentic pan flute skills from folk players during a number of visits to Romania. The present album documents that the pan flute also occupies an indispensable position in classical music. The pieces by Bartók and Porumbescu are arrangements of Romanian folk dances, in which the pan flute is commonly employed. Debussy composed his Syrinx for the transverse flute, to which the pan flute (or syrinx) would seem to be an equal variant. The other arrangements are based on 19th- and 20th-century French composers’ works for the flute, as well as the piano and organ. You may have been hard pressed to imagine pieces by Varèse, Honegger or Messiaen played on the pan flute, yet you will certainly be engrossed by Liselotte Rokyta’s performance. The respective composers would undoubtedly have written music for the pan flute too had they had available a musician of her quality. The enchanting voice of the nymph Syrinx in the realm of classical music.

Their recording of the "American" Quartet and String Quartet No. 13, Op. 106, elevated the Pavel Haas Quartet among the finest performers of Antonín Dvořák's music. This position was subsequently confirmed by a recording of the composer's Quintets, made with the violist Pavel Nikl, a founding member of the ensemble, and the pianist Boris Giltburg, winner of the Queen Elisabeth Competition. The album received the most coveted classical music accolades (Gramophone Chamber Award, BBC Radio 3 Record Review Discs of the Year, Diapason d'Or, etc.).

Robert Schumann, a versatile, well-educated young artist destined for great things, a man whose music has always amazed with its extent and profundity … and also a person of delicate psyche, which many a time led him to the very border between life and death. He composed the Piano Quartet in C minor, his first piece of this ilk, at the age of 18, and although, notwithstanding his original intention, he would never remake it into a symphony, he still had it on his mind some 20 years later: "I vividly recollect a passage in one of my works (1828), which I thought was romantic, with a spirit different to that of old music that appeared to me as though opening up a new poetic life." The Piano Quartet in E flat major, Op. 47, already attests to Schumann's compositional mastery, with its idiom inspired by Bach and Beethoven yet speaking in a clearly singular language. The 1853 Märchenerzählungen (Fairy Tale Narrations), was one of the composer's last happy creative upswings, written shortly before he attempted suicide by jumping from a bridge into the river Rhine with the aim to put an end to his unbearable mental torment. The Dvořák Piano Quartet's album spans the entire arch of Schumann's work: the beginning, the peak and the end. Just like all his music, it shows how immense beauty is often close to pain and suffering.

Fondé en 2005 à Prague, le Belfiato Quintet est constitué de cinq musiciens évoluant dans les principaux orchestres de la capitale tchèque. La singulière qualité de ce quintette à vent a très vite été remarquée par de nombreux concours internationaux, par la presse et par le public. Le Belfiato Quintet se produit régulièrement dans des émissions de radio et de télévision ainsi qu’au Festival du printemps de Prague dès 2014. Après deux albums publiés par le label Supraphon consacrés à des compositeurs tchèques (notamment Reicha et Janáček), le Belfiato Quintet revient dans un album qui raconte un peu son histoire : on y trouve cinq œuvres incontournables écrites au XXe siècle qui occupent toutes une place particulière dans le parcours de l’ensemble.

Music, Dance and Our Lady on the Far Side of the World. We have the concept of globalization associated with the 20th century, but without much exaggeration we can apply it to the Jesuit missions in South America in the 17th and 18th centuries. The Jesuits were aware of the power of music, which profoundly touches the human heart. The European music they brought across the ocean was in no time embraced by the indigenous peoples in Bolivia and Peru. And thus works by the Czech composer Josef Brentner, the Italian Jesuit Domenico Zipoli or the Swiss missionary Martin Schmid were soon performed in the settlements in the middle of the jungle and in the mountains. European music blended with the traditional local music, just as the Quechua language blended with Spanish.

Let us not be misled by the humble conduct, and the absence of laudatory articles and glossy photographs. Wollenweber is one of the world's finest cor anglais players.