Suk: Asrael Symphony 2 in C Minor

“In the Czech composer generation after Antonín Dvořák, Josef Suk was probably the one who stylistically has come the furthest, and certainly, along with Leoš Janáček, the one who is most likely to claim world fame,” says musicologist Ludwig Finscher in his encyclopaedia article in “Music in Past and Present”, the standard work of music history par excellence. The fact that the music of Suk, one of the most important symphonic composers in Bohemia, is only marginally present in Western European concert halls should change immediately. With the present recording of his Second Symphony with the epithet “Asrael” BR-KLASSIK makes a strong plea for the violinist and composer’s impressively convincing music.

Josef Suk, initially a violinist, became a master student of the already world-famous Dvořák in 1891, was regularly invited to its country house and fell in love with the daughter of his teacher, with whom he married. – The “Asrael” Symphony was composed after Dvořáks End of life; the death of his own wife gave it a new twist (the work is dedicated to both of them). The subtitle refers to the angel of death in Islamic-Persian mythology: Asrael is a mysterious companion of the soul from this world to the hereafter. – Suk developed a musical language of his own, in which the solo violin is often integrated (here in the calmed middle section of the Andante): the violin was his instrument; until 1933 he played on it in the “Bohemian String Quartet”. He consciously took up the tradition of a “destiny symphony”, since Beethoven’s fifth was associated with the key of C minor, which at the end thins out to major. Since its premiere on February 3, 1907 at the National Theater in Prague, “Asrael” has been considered Suk’s most important symphony and a visionary look into the future.

The ardent plea is provided by the interpretation of the young Czech conductor Jakub Hrůša, chief conductor of the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra since 2016, and also principal guest conductor of the London Philharmonia Orchestra and the Czech Philharmonic. With him at the desk of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Suk’s “Asrael” Symphony was performed in October 2018 at concerts in the Munich Philharmonie in the Gasteig, which were recorded for this CD.