As a window on Martinu's world, few discs in my experience have offered a better vantage point. From La rhapsodie of 1928—a premature vision of free Czechoslovakia, determined, confident, full of patriotic trumpeting and solemn military drums—to the recently published, virtually unknown, Overture of 1953, revelling contentedly as it does in Martinu's beloved baroque: all bracing counterpoint, arpeggiating solo violin, and the beginnings of a chorale (oboe) at its heart. And thence to the real substance of the disc: The parables and Estampes—consecutive fruits of Martinu's last two years.
There is no richer or more accessible Martinu than the Martinu of The parables. After the Frescoes of Piero della Francesca of 1953, here are three more of his own, begun in 1957 in Italy and infused with that land's luxuriance and the echoes of ancient airs. The opening horns, richly harmonized with underlying bassoons (''The parable of a sculpture''), don't immediately spell Martinu (theirs is a biblical mystique—biblical in the most romantic sense—ancient stones with tales to tell), but excitable percussion and aspiring strings soon swing us into a main subject which leaves one in no doubt as to the hand at work. The energy, the exultancy of Martinu in full syncopated advance is as compelling as ever, the percussion and harp writing unusually felicitous, not least in ''The parable of a garden'' where those ancient airs emerge from much fragrant woodwind warbling. I smell the scent of Respighi's Italy in these pages, and again in the mythical journey of the final parable, ''The parable of a Navire'', where the ethnic melodies are well to the fore—one, introduced by serenading bassoon with lute-like harp in attendance, is especially captivating.
Estampes followed hard on the heels of The parables in composition. It too is richly, intricately woven, but of a sparer and more fragmentary design—much less 'formed', of a more dream-like complexion, as if a lifetime's images were drifting in and out of clouded memory. Disemboided marimba, harp and piano lend that characteristic Martinu strangeness to the orchestral colourations; the familiar lamentations and affirmations come and go, like innocence and hope continually lost and regained. All these pieces are most gratefully attended by Belohlavek and his wonderful Czech players. They read Martinu's mind and heart with their very own characteristic honesty, and Supraphon have captured it all in sound which combines a generous sense of perspective with an immediacy vital to the rhythmic and textural intricacies. For Martinu acolytes and agnostics alike.'