Julius Fučík (1872-1916)
Dances and Marches
Walter Hofbauer (flugelhorn)
Czech Chamber Orchestra Pardubice/Marek Štilec
rec. 2022, The House of Music, Pardubice, Czech Republic
Marco Polo 8.225381 [79]
Were I to tell you that Julius Fučík’s best-known composition is his Grande marche chromatique, I suspect that you might look at me rather blankly. Fortunately for his own marketing purposes, however, the composer was something of a Roman history buff and, as a result, decided to rename the piece Einzug der Gladiatoren.
To English-speakers, German language pronunciation – in particular, of the letter z – makes Einzug der Gladiatoren sound appropriately fierce and therefore all too applicable to an image of brutal combatants hacking each other to death in front of frenzied crowds baying for blood. The softer syllables of the familiar English translation, Entry of the gladiators, can’t compete at all – which perhaps explains why U.S. promoters eschewed the sadistic connotations altogether. Instead they gave Fučík’s march the more anodyne title Thunder and blazes, as which it was to become indelibly associated not with fights to the death in the Roman arena but with jolly japes from cavorting clowns in the American circus ring.
You won’t actually find Einzug der Gladiatoren in this newly released collection. If that comes as something of a disappointment, let me refer you instead to the Chandos disc A festival of Fučík (CHSA 5158 SACD) which, a few years ago, was enthusiastically welcomed by my colleagues Brian Wilson (“there’s plenty for lovers of light music to enjoy here”), Rob Barnett (“generously and idiomatically surveyed and done in crashing style”) and Simon Thompson (“this disc is a delight… where else would you get this much enjoyment for £15?”). Alternatively, there’s an older – but very idiomatic and recommendable – CD, K.u.K Festkonzert – die schönster Märsche und Walzer vor Julius Fučík (Orfeo C 147861 A). There you will find Einzug der Gladiatoren performed by no less than the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra under Václav Neumann.
Einzug’s exclusion is, however, no reason to ignore this new Marco Polo CD, for it actually turns out to be something of a ground-breaking release. Instead of simply selecting some crowd-pleasing “greatest hits”, the producers have done something much more interesting and, indeed, worthwhile. As the accompanying booklet note explains, Fučík’s personal scores, many of them handwritten and sometimes the only copies of particular compositions, were dispersed and in some cases lost after his death. In recent years, however, the dedicated staff of the National Museum – Czech Museum of Music have been busily locating and reassembling the surviving material and, thanks to their efforts, every track on this disc is a world premiere recording – either of the piece in its orchestral version or, even more significantly, of the piece in any form at all. As the usefully informative booklet essay stresses, notwithstanding the musical reconstruction this is “all genuine, original Fučík… [in] a category of its own”.
Most of Fučík’s career was spent as a bandmaster in the Austro-Hungarian army and that fact, along with the ubiquity of thatmarch, might incline one to assume that he was a specialist in military music. In reality, however, he was somewhat more than that. As far back as 1986, the aforementioned Orfeo CD demonstrated his versatility by including not just four marches but three concert waltzes and a concert overture. Now, this Marco Polo CD encompasses an even wider range of musical forms – four marches, six waltzes, two polkas françaises, a mazurka, a serenade and a concluding galop.
The marches – each done and dusted in under four minutes – are, from a musical point of view, the most straightforward pieces here. Nevertheless, it’s worth pointing out one of their more interesting features. The fact that Fučík was writing them right up to the year of the outbreak of the First World War might make one assume that they would be aggressively militaristic in tone, but in fact they turn out to be not so much warlike in atmosphere as jauntily ceremonial. With the partial exception of Furchtlos und treu, they exhibit a light-hearted, almost operetta-like spirit that seems to suggest that military life is less concerned with battles than with frivolous, flirtatious liaisons between charming young countesses and the preening young bucks of the Habsburg officer corps. Europe may have been standing on the very brink of catastrophe at the time, but, listening to these supposedly military-themed pieces, you’d hardly suspect it.
While the marches are brisk and to the point, the disc’s six waltzes are, though to varying degrees, longer and more substantial. Two of them – Karnivalskönig and Traumland – come in at around 10 minutes, which would have made them quite suitable for performance at the grandest imperial balls alongside equally ambitious compositions by the likes of Lanner and Strauss. Both Lebensmärchen and Frühlingsbotschaft lop off a couple of minutes, while In der Sternennacht and Unvergeßliche Stunden are each a minute or two shorter still. All are very agreeable and, even if none of Fučík’s tunes has the immediate memorability of The Schönbrunn waltz or The blue Danube, some of them might well, one suspects, have established themselves as ballroom favourites had not the First World War curtailed such frivolous activities and the scores been dispersed after the composer’s death.
The remaining pieces are equally attractive and effectively display Fučík’s musical expertise, albeit within the somewhat limited range in which he chose to work. Thus, while his only surviving mazurka, Die Herzenkönigin, is suitably earthbound, his two polkas françaises – Im süssen Traum and Terpsichore – are deliciously light bonbons with a distinctive air of sophistication. The equally neatly constructed Im Adlerfluge, parenthetically described as a polka schnell and just a couple of minutes long, would no doubt have rounded off an evening quite effectively if any of the dancers still had sufficient puff to tackle it. That leaves an account of the “Venetian serenade” Auf der Lagune that is, I think, the disc’s only misjudgement. Taken a little too quickly, this particular performance fails to establish an appropriately romantic atmosphere. As a consequence, while the serenade is supposedly a gondolier’s passionate declaration of undying devotion to his inamorata, it ends up sounding more like a businesslike recitation of his off-peak tariff.
A booklet photograph shows the members of the punctuation-averse Czech Chamber Orchestra Pardubice. By my count it is made up of 36 players and that turns out to be a perfectly reasonable number to perform these attractive works. Working with army bands for most of his career, I imagine that Fučík himself would have felt quite comfortable with forces on that scale and, while Neumann’s rather larger Czech Philharmonic Orchestra undeniably produces a fuller, beefier sound that suits Einzug der Gladiatoren to a tee, the Pardubice players bring a welcome and often appropriate degree of extra transparency and – as in the polkas françaises – delicacy to their own scores. I have previously had good things to say of conductor Marek Štilec, even when he has been tackling a few less-than-fully-inspired pieces (review ~ review ~ review). This new and well-engineered release gives me no reason to change my opinion about his artistry and technical skills. At the same time, it certainly does Julius Fučík proud.
Rob Maynard
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Contents
Elbtalgruss, Marsch, op. 246 (1911-1914) **
Lebensmärchen, Walzer, op. 253 (1912) *
Laban-Marsch, op. 44 (1899) *
In der Sternennacht, Walzer, op. 242 (1911) **
Die Herzenkönigin, Mazur, op. 70 (1899/1900) *
Frühlingsbotschaft, Walzer, op. 114 (c. 1900) **
Furchtlos und treu, Marsch, op. 240 (1910) **
Karnivalskönig, Walzer, op. 244 (1911) *
Im süssen Traum, Polka française, op. 31 (1899) *
Unvergeßliche Stunden, Valse lente, op. 212 (1907) **
Auf der Lagune, Venetianisches Ständchen, op. 221 (1908) – version for flugelhorn and orchestra **
Terpsichore, Polka française, op. 37 (1898) *
Traumland, Walzer, op. 270 (1914) **
Aus der Liederstadt, Marsch, op. 126 (1903) **
Im Adlerfluge, Galopp (Polka schnell), op. 237 (1909) *
*world premiere recording
**world premiere recording of orchestral version
