Symfonietta op. 20

A seminal figure in Czech music of the first half of the twentieth century, Otakar Ostrcil left an important legacy as a prominent conductor and musical director of the National Theatre of Prague (1920-35) and as the composer of a significant corpus of operas (The Death of Vlasta, Kunala’s Eyes, The Bud, The Legend of Erin, Johnny’s Kingdom), orchestral music (Suite in G, Symphony in A, Impromptu, Suite in C minor, Symfonietta, Leto [Summer], Via Crucis), and vocal and chamber works. The two orchestral Suites as well as Impromptu, Leto, and Via Crucis are included in the Repertoire Explorer Series catalogue (SKU: 909, 758, 4367, 759, 657), and the Symfonietta is the latest addition to it.

Ostrcil’s Op. 20 is an outstanding orchestral piece that speaks the language of its time with intellectual and emotional depth. It was completed in 1921 and premiered in Prague on 26 March 1922 by the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Vaclav Talich. It was also included in the programme of the 1924 festival of the International Society for Contemporary Music and presented in Prague on 31 May by the Czech Philharmonic and Talich, while two years later it received its German premiere by the Dusseldorf Symphony Orchestra conducted by Hans Weisbach. The score of the Symfonietta was first published in 1924 by the Foerster Society in Prague, and a recording of the work that is still available was made in the 1980s for Supraphon by the Prague Symphony Orchestra conducted by Jiri Belohlavek.