Martinů’s Small Pieces: Dessert Pairings?

F rom the stone parapet which encircled the tower just under their windows the Martinů family looked out, from one year’s end to another, upon a considerable expanse of the surrounding countryside. Martinů’s father was responsible for the belfry as a watchtower along with his bell ringing duties. Polička had been destroyed by fire and the tower had in part been built to overlook the whole community. There were blue woods on the horizon—peaceful woods, friendly rather than romantic; and the pure white vista of winter, when for four long months the ground was covered with snow; and a kaleidoscope of tiny fields, cultivated with neatness and love by the small Czech farmers. From his earliest age, Bohuslav never tired of peering through the star-shaped apertures with which the parapet was decorated and of running from one to another to discover new views of the world below, all framed by these openings… To Bohuslav, it often seemed as though the change of the seasons—the arrival of spring, the summer storms, with their lightning and thunder, the autumn winds, and the winter snows—reached him at first hand, direct from heaven, before the little antlike people on the earth below received them.”
  — Milos Safranek, 1946.

CMT: Notwithstanding our recent discussions about Parker Quartet and Chiara Quartet playing in bars and clubs, it’s normally sacrilege to suggest ‘doing’ anything concurrent with listening to chamber music. The unamplified instruments’ sounds are so delicate and the compositions’ textures are so nuanced that any avoidable rustling or ambient noise detracts significantly from fully apprehending the music’s meaning or registering its full impact. The visual distraction of motion by audience members also tends to mar the experience. But then again, some pieces are punchy enough to stand up to a modest amount of acoustic or visual competition.

DSM: I recently heard Ensemble Villa Musica’s new disc and thought the same thing. In fact, I was enjoying listening to it over dessert and coffee, and I thought that, just as there are recipes that are compatible with fine wines, there must be recipes that could be thoughtfully ‘paired’ with certain kinds of chamber music.


CMT: Martinů’s ballet, La Revue de cuisine (The Kitchen Revue), jazz-ballet in 1 act (1927) might be a ‘literal’ example of that. As you know, it’s a quintet or sextet (clarinet, bassoon, trumpet, cello, piano, and violin), premiered in November 1927 in Prague. The ballet is in ten movements: Prologue (Allegretto), Introduction (Tempo de marche), Danse du moulinet autour du caudron (Poco meno), Danse du chaudron et du couvercle (Allegro), Tango (Danse d’amour, Lento), Duel (Poco a poco allegro.), Entracte (Lamentation du chaudron. Allegro moderato), Marche funèbre (Adagio), Danse radieuse (Tempo di marche), and Fin du drame (Allegretto). The suite is in four movements: Prologue, Tango, Charleston, and Finale. The score for the suite was published in Paris shortly after its premier. The full score for the ballet was discovered in the early 1990s in the archives of the Paul Sacher Foundation in Basel and published in 2004. In 1925-6, Martinů wrote a jocular introduction called Pokušení svatoušká hrnec (Temptation of the Saintly Pot), which he later scored under the revised title La Revue de cuisine. The dancers play a variety of cooking utensils, enacting a pastiche of kitchen life. The marriage of Pot and Lid is in danger of being broken up by flirtatious Twirling Stick. Dishcloth tries to seduce Lid but is challenged to a duel by Broom. Pot gets over her infatuation with Twirling Stick and wants to get back with Lid, but Lid’s gone. Suddenly an enormous foot appears from the wings and kicks Lid back on stage. Pot and Lid kiss and make up and, promiscuous as ever, Twirling Stick goes off with Dishcloth.

DSM: The music of ‘La revue de cuisine’ involves polyrhythm time-signature sequences. For example, the Finale involves an opening piano solo marked ‘Tempo di marcia’. This switches between 2/4, 3/8 and 4/8 in an unpredictable but organic/natural way, generating the desired jazz-like rhythms. Other jazz influences are found in the orchestration: the piano harmonies and dissonances, the muted jazz trumpet, and the pizzicato cello, which resembles double bass jazz technique: clearly, a progressive piece of music that links early- and mid-twentieth-century music.

CMT: It’s spikey, yet lightweight . . . And the mindset of the listener matters quite a lot, with regard to the matching the demands of the music with the cognitive investment of the listener. For example, I would play only one or two of these movements at a time. The dessert-time experience felt very appropriate. I don’t feel compelled to listen to all ten consecutively. The same is true of my reactions to other of Martinů’s small pieces. I could imagine pairing them with a quiet, intimate dessert for two, with coffee and a cognac.

Martinů’s Delicious Trios:

• Piano Trio in d minor (Violin, Cello, and Piano)
  
• 5 kurze Stücke (five short pieces) for Piano Trio (Violin, Cello and Piano)
  
• Bergerettes for Piano Trio
  
• Grand Trio No. 3 (for Violin, Cello and Piano)
  
• Trio for Flute, Violin, and Piano (1937)
  
• Trio for Flute, Cello, and Piano (1944)

DSM: This Ensemble Villa Musica disc is a spacious yet well-focused recording. Nice production values, well-engineered. And I think you are right about Martinů’s small pieces’ admitting a detached, observerly stance as a listener. I don’t think Martinů would be upset at all about that. In fact, such a stance seems highly consistent with Martinů’s own observer-like relation to the world around him (quote from Safranek’s biography, above), at a distance—whether from the bell tower of his youth, or from a sidewalk café in Paris. To analyze his work in terms of literary theory instead of music theory, I suppose you could regard Martinů’s small pieces as manifesting a composerly ‘omniscient narrator’ voice. The author of such stories wouldn’t begrudge the reader a dessert or cognac!

• Martinů website
  
• Ensemble Villa Musica website
  
• Angell Trio. Martinů: Three Piano Trios. (ASV, 2006.)
  
• Czech Philharmonic Orchestra with Christopher Hogwood. Martinů: La Revue de Cuisine. (Supraphon, 2004.)
  
• Emperor String Quartet. Martinů: String Quartets Nos. 3, 4, 5. (Bis, 2005.)
  
• Ensemble Villa Musica. Bohuslav Martinů: Chamber Music. (MDG, 2007.)
  
• Kocian String Quartet. Martinů: String Quartets Nos. 2, 4, 5. (Praga, 2005.)
  
• Koukl G. Martinů: Piano Music. (Naxos, 2007.)
  
• Large, Brian. Martinů. Holmes & Meier, 1976.
  
• Martinů Quartet with Karel Kosárek. Martinů: Piano Quintets Nos. 1 & 2. (Naxos, 2007.)
  
• Safranek M. Bohuslav Martinů: The Man and His Music. Knopf, 1944. (biography published when Martinů was only 54 years old)
  
• Sheen G, et al. Martinů: La Revue de Cuisine. (Hyperion, 1998.)
  
• Smaczny J. 'Martinů, Bohuslav', in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Sadie S, Tyrell J, eds. Vol. 15, p. 939. Macmillan, 2001.
  
• Stamitz String Quartet. Martinů: Complete String Quartets. (Brilliant, 2006.)
  
• Stamitz String Quartet. Bohuslav Martinů: Kammermusik. (Bayer, 2007.)