hamarplazt
100% No Soul Guaranteed
Right now there's a record-and-book-fair-kinda-thing in the city where I live, lasting for a month with prices decreasing, and they have a lot of classical records. Among them is quite a bit of chamber music by czeck composer Bohuslav Martinu, mostly string and piano quartets, and I'm a bit tempted to buy them, as I have a fondness for modern east european chamber stuff. However, I've often been rather disappointed by Martinu (and many other modern czeck composers, actually), so I'm not really sure. He's often rather ordinary and mediocre, but then also sometimes truly great. Now, I don't know much of his chamber works, I've mostly heard the orchestral ones, so my question is: Do anyone know if there's any difference between his chamber and orchestral music - in terms of quality as well as style - and if there's any of his quartet works that are absolutely worth getting. What I'm basically after is something with that particular czeck sound found in Janaceks chamber music as well as the soundtracks for Svankmajer movies.