Vítezslava Kaprálová's studies in Brno at the academy originally founded by Leoš Janácek expand her musical horizons.

Born in 1915 into a musical family, Vítezslava Kaprálová was one of the brightest young composers to emerge in Czech music inbetween the two world wars. A link with her mentor, the composer Bohuslav Martinu, with whom she later became romantically involved, arguably has unfairly impinged on her posthumous reputation; Kaprálová achieved considerable success under her own steam, notching up a series of professional achievements that set her apart from her contemporaries. She was the first woman to graduate as a composer from the Brno Conservatory, the first woman to be given the prestigious Smetana award for composition and the first woman to conduct the Czech Philharmonic. Here in the UK, Kaprálová joined the ranks of British composer Dame Ethel Smyth and Nadia Boulanger in conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra before the Second World War.

There's litte doubt that the turbulence of the times in which Kaprálová lived created obstacles in her creative path. She became an exile after the Munich Pact of 1938 and the subsequent onset of the Second World War. Furthermore, like the talented French composer Lili Boulanger some twenty years earlier, Kaprálová's life was cut short; she died in France in 1940, at the age of just twenty-five. Nonetheless she was able to compose quickly and naturally, so a sizeable legacy exists of some fifty works, spread across vocal, chamber, solo piano and orchestral forms. Donald Macleod explores Vítezslava Kaprálová's extraordinary story with Karla Hartl, the founder of The Kaprálová Society.

Profiting from the expansion of Czech-speaking culture, the five years Vítezslava Kaprálová spent studying at the Brno Conservatory proved to be formative to the development of her musical language. Having entered at the age of fifteen in 1930, she spent those years experimenting with impressionistic and expressionistic idioms, leading to some of her most striking compositions, including some of her most memorable songs and her most substantial work for solo piano to date. Presented by Donald Macleod with Karla Hartl, founder of The Kaprálová Society.

Tempo di menuetto - from Five Compositions for Piano
Virginia Eskin, piano

Leden
Dana Burešová, soprano
Timothy Cheek, piano
Magda Cáslavová, flute
Herold Quartet

Sonata appassionata, Op.6
Virginia Eskin, piano

Sparks from the Ashes, Op.5
Dana Burešová, soprano
Timothy Cheek, piano

Suite en miniature, Op.1
Brno Philharmonic
Jirí Pinkas, conductor. Show less