Josef Suk: Praga, symphonic poem, Op. 26

Josef Suk: Praga (1904)
symphonic poem, Op. 26

Prague Symphony Orchestra
conductor Petr Altrichter

 

Josef Suk
 

約瑟夫·蘇克（捷克語：Josef Suk，1874年1月4日－1935年5月29日)，捷克作曲家，小提琴家。早年在布拉格音樂學院師從德沃夏克，1898年與德沃夏克之女結婚，1905年喪妻。1922年起在布拉格音樂學院任教，學生有馬爾蒂努等。蘇克的音樂風格受德沃夏克影響較大，早期作品有一定的民族樂派色彩，但晚期作品風格有所變化，追求複雜的和聲與對位。蘇克有較高的旋律天賦，但風格比較保守，因此作品相對鮮為人知。他最著名的作品是之一是《亞茲拉爾交響曲》。

作為小提琴家，他是著名的捷克弦樂四重奏團的創始人之一，並長期擔任第二小提琴。他的孫子也是世界聞名的小提琴家。



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Suk's musical style

Suk's musical style started off with a very heavy emphasis on what he experienced during his time with Dvo?ák, though this Czech-style influence eventually slowly became more German and Austrian in style. The biggest change of Suk's style came after a "dead end" in his musical lifestyle (music played less of a role in Suk's life outside of his schooling^[16]) just before he began the shift of style during 1897–1905, perhaps realizing that his known Dvo?ák influence would restrain his work.^[17] Morbidity was always a large factor in Suk's music. For instance, he wrote his own funeral march in 1889. Ripening, a symphony, was also a story of pain and questioning the value of life. Others of his works represent his happiness, such as the music he set to Julius Zeyer's drama Radúz a Mahulena (which he referenced to his marriage with Otilie). Another of Suk's works, Pohádka ('Fairy Tale'), was drawn from his work with Radúz a Mahulena. The closest Suk came to working with opera is music his wrote for the play Pod jabloní or 'Beneath the Apple Tree'.^[18]

The majority of Suk's papers are kept in Prague. There is also a new catalogue of Suk's works that contains more manuscripts than any before it, some of them also containing sketches by Suk.^[19]

Suk said of himself: "I do not bow to anyone, except to my own conscience and to our noble Lady Music… and yet at the same time I know that thereby I serve my country, and praise the great people from the period of our wakening who taught us to love our country."^[
 (wiki)