Suk's Ripening is a large-scale symphonic poem lasting the best part of an hour, completed in 1917 and first performed under Vaclav Talich in the following year. It was a crucial time for Czechoslovakia, on the brink of being established as an independent state, and a tumultuous time in European history for a composer of Suk's aspirations. His dedication to ideals of beauty had suffered in all the horrors he also witnessed, but this massive work bears determined witness to them. It is cast in one movement, and not surprisingly the most significant influence is that of Richard Strauss. There is little of Strauss's characteristic harmonic manner, but the expresive apparatus is Straussian, and the orchestra is used for t he most with a virtuosity hardly inferior.
One of the work's most original features is the big final fugue. After a piece largely rhapsodic in manner—which is to say that it does not adhere to any readily recognizable form, but proceeds from one impassioned section to another—Suk settles on an enormous orchestral fugue. His own comment was that the fugue was meant to stress that amid all the confusions of life, ''work is the liberator''. Undeniably, the fugue, to which is added a chorus of women's voices, makes a powerful climax to a work that should certainly appeal to lovers of Czech music (Suk is unduly underrated in this country) and to those who relish the sound of the Straussian orchestra in the hands of a master. Vaclav Neumann directs a fervent and lucid performance, and the recording does justice to Suk's relish of his tonal palette.'