Jan Novak

* Dido
* Mimus Magicus

Marilyn Schmiege (mezzo), Hans Herbert Fiedler (narrator)
Bavarian Radio Male Choir and Symphony Orchestra/Rafael Kubelik (Dido);
Makiko Kurokouchi (soprano), Clara Novakova (flute), Dora Novak (piano)
(Mimus Magicus).
Audite 97.457 TT: 50:08

Summary for the Busy Executive: More fun than a toga party.

I acquired this disc under the mistaken impression that the composer was
Jan Witoslav Novak (1870-1949), but apparently there are as many Jan Novaks
in Czechoslovakia as there are John Adamses in the United States.  This Jan
Novak was born in 1921 and died in 1984.  At any rate, it turned out a
fortunate mistake, introducing me to a marvelous composer previously
unknown to me.

Novak distinguishes himself from the pack by, among other things, having
gone completely bonkers over Latin as a living language.  From the liner
notes (written originally in Latin, by the way, and translated, thank
goodness, into English), most, if not all, of his works involve either
Latin text or classical subject matter.  Musically, this results in a cross
between Martinu's Epic of Gilgamesh and Carl Orff's habits of declamation.
Behind both, of course, lie the towering examples of Stravinsky's Oedipus
Rex and Les Noces.  Novak introduces a further wrinkle in that he derives
many of his rhythms according to the rules of classical quantitative
prosody - that is, he uses a long note for a syllable with a long value and
a short note for one with a short value, much like the Parnassian composers
of the French Renaissance.  Thus, the opening of the Aeneid ("Arma virumque
cano"), for example, would be long-short-short-long-short-long-long - or so
I dimly recall.  This generates rhythms that jump and set your toes
tapping.

Dido sets the familiar story of Dido and Aeneas to, for the most part,
Vergil's text, skillfully excerpted by both the composer and Wilfried
Stroh.  The opening and closing choruses as well as some narrative linking
material come most likely from Stroh.  Incidentally, Stroh provides liner
notes in Latin, for reasons that escape me.  Thoughtfully, he also gives
us the German and English translations.  Unfortunately, this applies to
just about everything in the booklet, including the performing and
recording credits ("sonorum temperatores" -- recording supervisors -- were
Friedrich Welz and Martin Woehr) and gives the recording the air of mere
eccentricity.  The music is too good for that.  I'd rate it at least as
high as Martinu's oratorios and cantatas.

One hears Martinu as well in the prominence given to the piano in the
orchestral texture and also startling, practically unadulterated Stravinsky
in his Greco-Roman moods.  But originality is overrated.  The point is that
it's all vigorous, exciting, extremely well-crafted music -- in my opinion,
as powerful as its models.

Composers have set the classical past in many ways.  Purcell sets his
story with Restoration swagger and Christian mercy.  Poulenc invokes
18th-century pastoralism by Poulenc and Debussy's Six Epigraphes antiques
exotic strangeness.  We also find the primitivism of Carl Orff's Antigone
and the monumentality of Stravinsky's Oedipus.  On this scale, Novak lies
closer to Orff than to Poulenc or to Purcell.  The music portrays a
barbaric, violent world, where choices are few and emotions strong and on
the surface.  Dido becomes a queen of nervous temperament, great anger, and
great sorrow, very much as she appears in Vergil.  The music ranges from a
rage worthy to accompany great battles and the fall of cities to a pitiable
loneliness.

A mini-cantata for soprano, flute, and piano, Mimus Magicus also comes
from Vergil -- this time, the eighth eclogue.  A woman waits anxiously for
the return of her lover, Daphnis, and tries to bind him to her with spells.
The mention of Daphnis as well as the subject calls to mind Ravel.  Ravel's
classicism owes more to late 19th-century Decadents like Louys and Huysmans
than to classical sources -- an excuse to unleash the forces of lush
sensuality.  Novak's little cantata races and dances like fever in the
blood -- much closer to Martinu than even Dido.  Rhythmically, nervous
dactyls permeate the work, as the woman becomes more and more obsessed with
the possibility that the magic will not work.  Its psychological astuteness
is mirrored in Novak's music -- a delight.

The performances are all quite good.  Crisp, electrifying rhythm, sharp
attacks, and clear diction make or break the music, and the performers
deliver.  Kurokouchi, the soprano soloist in Mimus, covers her voice a bit
too much for my taste but nevertheless conveys the excitement and despair
of the character.  The recorded sound captures the percussive and the
lyrical parts of Dido and the intimacy of Mimus.

Steve Schwartz