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Kvarteto Pavla Haase vzdalo velkolepou poctu Bohuslavu Martinu
Pavel Haas Quartet otevrel svuj program Smyccovym kvartetem c. 1, op. 8 Vitezslavy Kapralove. Talentovana, jednadvacetileta komponistka, kterou obdivoval nejen Martinu, kvartet dokoncila v roce 1936. Kvarteto naplnilo dilo energii, vasnivosti v rytmu a ve vyrazu a take lyrikou – to vse uz v prvni vete Con brio. Lento tezilo z poeticke triove hudby predchozi vety a pridalo zabarveni roztouzenosti i radosti. Sebevedome tóny Kapralove, vlozene nejen do naladove a tempove pestre finalni vety, vyneslo kvarteto do popredi s takovou raznosti a nastrojovou barvou, ze by z ni nepochybne mela sama skladatelka nelicenou radost. Vse v te hudbe pripominalo jeji osobnost, o ktere psal Martinu. Cituji: „Bylo to prave moravske devce, vytrvala a mila, laskava i energicka a za svym cilem sla primo bez oklik, bez velkych rozbroju, instinktivne a neustupne.“ V hudbe kvartetu byla zminena energie, pak i ta laskavost, cesta bez oklik (tak zacinala prvni veta, vzestupnou primocarou skalou), instinkt a neustupnost. Tak vyrazove srozumitelne hral Pavel Haas Quartet.
From a review by Rafael Brom for Klasika Plus

Apple Train – Music of Sylvie Bodorova and Vitezslava Kapralova. Olga Jelinková (soprano), Timothy Cheek (piano), Jozef Graf (tenor), Barbora Haasova (flute), 2 violins and cello (played by members of the Škampa Quartet). Canticum Ostrava, Alena Hron (conductor), Adam Plachetka (baritone). Arco Diva UP0256
This is an enterprising release which brings together works of two Czech women composers. It also serves as a platform for bringing several of world premieres to our ears. . . . Leden (January) sung by Jozef Graf accompanied by flute, 2 violins, and cello with piano, is an atmospheric setting of words by Vitezslav Nezval composed by Kapralova when 18 years old. Rich in texture, it is a very beautiful and expressive piece. The next two songs (Two People Met Yesterday and One Day You Will Ask) are two little miniatures from 1931 set to anonymous texts. Written in 1936, the two choruses (Little Star and Quail) for women’s voices bear witness to the Moravian folk poetry and also the excellence of the local choral tradition. Sung in Moravian dialect, the choruses are complex, in close chromatic harmonies and performed here with sparkling aplomb. . . . Overall, this is a very welcome CD, excellently performed and recorded, with a variety of music to suit all comers. It fills important gaps in the known Kaprálová catalogue.
From a review by David Roberts for Dvorak Society Newsletter, no. 152, November 2025.

A Few More Surprises, John Turner, Lesley-Jane Rogers, Stephen Bettany, Prima Facie PFCD246
The single non-British composer represented [on this CD] is likely to be the one of most interest to our members: Vitezslava Kapralova. Among the manuscripts found after her early death were two of a proposed set of three short pieces for descant recorder and piano, Tales of a Small Flute (Povidky male fletny), intended, it is believed, for her husband Jiri Mucha, who played the recorder, and here recorded for the first time. These tiny compositions last less than two minutes in total, but their beautiful simplicity makes an immediate impact. How tragic that she did not survive to write more.
From a review by Terry Heard, Dvorak Society Newsletter 152, November 2025.

The Orchestra Now recalls forgotten composers from a turbulent era.
Before she was felled by disease at just age 25 in Montpellier, France in 1940, composer and conductor Vitezslava Kapralova had made quite a splash in the man’s world of Czech music, counting among her fans conductor Rafael Kubelik, composer Bohuslav Martinu and pianist Rudolf Firkusny. The Military Sinfonietta, apparently named after Janacek’s patriotic work of 1926, was her graduation piece from the Prague Conservatory in 1937, as war clouds gathered over her native land. But instead of Janacek’s defiant stance, Kapralova seemed almost playful in her one-movement piece, opening with a flurry of brass and a quick march, but soon disintegrating into fragments of phrases, then skipping to a most unmilitary 6/8 rhythm. Tender violin solos alternated with booming timpani and rattling xylophone. The young composer’s virtuosity in orchestration was evident not just in the incandescent tutti but in the pianissimo episodes of muted brass, piccolo and harp. All players, especially the strings, marked out the shifting rhythms with verve, until the music broadened into a triumphant final tune and a slam-bang finish.
From a review by David Wright, New York Classical Review, October 14, 2025.

Lebrecht Weekly: Martinu quartets / Kapralova songs (Supraphon / Chandos).
Kapralova’s songs, which I’ve never heard before, are delivered in impeccable Czech by the Scottish tenor Nicky Spence who specialises in Janacek anti-heroes at the opera. There is a lot of Janacek in Kapralova, but also a friskiness that befits a young woman on the brink of success. Her 1937 six-minute ode, Waving Farewell, addressed to her native Prague is deeply affecting. A 1933 set, Sparks from Ashes, is more romantic. Spence, with pianist Dylan Perez, is in his element. His dynamic span from whisper to ear-blast is phenomenal.
From a review by Norman Lebrecht for La Scena Musicale, September 26, 2025.

Sparks From Ashes: Songs by Dvorak, Kapralova, Bartok and Kricka
Kapralova, meanwhile, was only 25 at the time of her death in 1940, but her songs reveal an astonishing maturity, stylistically and emotionally. Like Cypresses, Sparks from Ashes deals with love and loss, though it also forms a remarkable exploration of sexual passion, recollected, we eventually discover, in the disconsolate chill of winter. Spence is at his best here, his voice surging with feeling in the erotic third song before desire ebbs away to silence at the end. The piano-writing has some of the luminous complexity of Debussy (Kapralova studied in Paris) and Perez splendidly explores its colouristic range. ‘Waving Farewell’, similarly, depicts lovers separating, though Kapralova also intended the song as a farewell to Prague and the emotional climax comes in a piano interlude near the close, wrenching in its poignancy and quite superbly played. . . . A fine recital, and well worth hearing, for Kapralova’s wonderful songs above all.
From a review by Tim Ashley for Gramophone, August(?) 2025.

Classical Review: Postcard from Bard (Festival) 4. Martinu and Kapralova for a Sunday morning.
The discoveries continued with the next work, the String Quartet, op. 8, by Kapralova, which she composed in 1935-1936. In three movements, this is a very good composition, quite forthright in volume and expression at times. In the first movement, for example, I heard moments reminiscent of Bela Bartok. In all honesty, I occasionally thought that the music ran on. Yet I also found myself asking and wondering “what will she do next?”, in a good way, to the point almost in the manner of “how is the story going to turn out?”. Or in other words, even if the music ran on, I kept wanting to find out what was next. One can regard this quartet as part of her musical journey to find her own voice, although her journey was tragically much too short, as she died only a few years after completing this quartet, age 25. ... Kapralova’s quartet has been commercially recorded, and has started to receive more attention, with the general increasing worldwide interest in female classical composers. Her quartet definitely deserves wider recognition, and received a very fine reading indeed from the Balourdet Quartet.
From a review by George Yeh for St. Louis Arts Scene, August 30, 2025.

Vyber preludii a fug v technicky neomylnem provedeni klaviristy Marka Kozaka
Po prestavce se dramaturgie obratila k hudbe s francouzskymi a stredoevropskymi koreny. Dubnova preludia Vitezslavy Kapralove (1915–1940) predstavuji osobity lyricky hlas mlade skladatelky, v nemž se misi vlivy impresionismu s ceskou melodikou a jemnou rytmickou vynalezavosti. Toto dilo napsala v roce 1937 pro Rudolfa Firkusneho (1912–1994), ktery k tomu posleze dodal: „Kratce potom mi pak rekla, že pro mne neco pise, a ponevadž ji to napadlo v dubnu, že to budou jakasi dubnova preludia.“ Prvni cast Allegro ma non troppo ma introdukcni charakter a stylove muže pripomenout kompozicni praci francouzskych impresionistu. Kozak zvladl presne interpretovat predepsane tripletove skupiny v uvodu a prirozene je kombinoval s polyfonni strukturou. Druha cast Andante mi osobne pripomnela melodikou Janacka a take vlivy Martinu. Jedna se o dynamicky napaditou cast, kterou klavirista dobre vystihl, zejmena v pianissimech.
From a review by Filip Hegr for Opera Plus, August 27, 2025.

CONCERT REVIEW: ‘Music is a mystery that cannot be decoded’ — Bohuslav Martinu at the Bard Music Festival, first weekend, Aug. 8 through 10
Other works heard in the earlier Sunday concert were: Vitezslava Kapralova’s String Quartet, an intense and precocious work by a 20-year-old student of Martinu’s for whom he developed a crush and who died at the age of 25.
From a review by Larry Wallach for BerkshireEdge, August 15, 2025.

Sparks from Ashes. Songs by Dvorak, Kapralova, Bartok and Kricka. Nicky Spence (tenor), Dylan Perez (piano).
Kapralova’s luminous goodbye-note to her home city of Prague, Waving Farewell, was composed in 1937, just before she relocated to Paris to study with Martinu, and Kapralova’s writing looks to both past and future; the effect is akin to Debussy with a slight Czech accent, and the piece is shot through with a bittersweet tenderness which Spence and Perez capture to perfection. They’re fully alert, too, to the many subtle emotional shifts in what is essentially a short tone-poem (the piece also exists in an orchestral version, premiered by Rafael Kubelik after Kapralova’s early death). . . . The mood changes again with Kapralova’s melancholy Sparks From Ashes, written when she was just eighteen and dedicated to her ‘only love’ Ota Vach; there’s a whiff of Debussy’s Pelleas et Melisande and Chansons de Bilitis here, and once again Spence proves that he’s just as adept at painting in shades of grey as he is when working with bold primary colours.
From a review by Katherine Cooper for PrestoMusic, August 8, 2025.

CD Jablonovy vlak se skladbami Sylvie Bodorove a Vitezslavy Kapralove. ArcoDiva (2025).
K nejhezcim cislum tohoto CD patri Dva zenske sbory a cappella, op. 17, ktere Kapralova napsala v letech 1936–1937. Obe kompozice uslysime v podani sboru Canticum Ostrava, vedeného sbormistrem Jurijem Galatenkem a dirigentkou Alenou Hron. Kapralova pri komponovani prekvapive necerpala z moravske lidove hudby, ale vyuzila osobitym zpusobem modernich vyrazovych prostredku. Svezi a bezprostrední provedeni je peclive propracovane do nejjemnejsich detailu a svou okouzlujici zarivou barevnosti pripomíná lidove podmalby na skle.
From a review by Veroslav Nemec for Klasika Plus, August 7, 2025.

Dobre utajeny koncert v Plzni.
V Plzni ve velkem sale Mestanské besedy se konal v sobotu 28. cervna jeden ze symfonickych koncertu mezinarodniho projektu Festival Prague Summer Nights. S mezinarodním studentskym orchestrem slozenym z frekventantu tohoto projektu vystoupila jedna z nejvyznamnejsich svetovych dirigentek, Americanka Marin Alsop, ktera mj. sefuje spickovemu rozhlasovemu Symfonickemu orchestru ORF ve Vidni. . . . Vecer otevrela atraktivni, pritom zridka uvadena triveta skladba Vitezslavy Kapralove Suita rustica, op. 19 s podtitulem Suita z ceskych lidovych pisni a tancu (Allegro, Lento, Allegro ma non troppo). Vznikla behem listopadu 1938 na objednavku londynske pobocky vydavatelstvi Universal Edition, ktere Kapralovou oslovilo na zaklade uspechu jeji Vojenske symfoniety, provedene na londynskem festivalu Mezinarodni spolecnosti pro soudobou hudbu v cervnu 1938. Kapralova suitu venovala hudebni publicistovi Otakaru Sourkovi jako projev vdecnosti za jeho pomoc pri prodlouzeni francouzskeho stipendia, diky nemuz mohla Kapralova pokracovat ve studiu na parizske konzervatori Ecole normale. Ve skladbe zaujmou poutave temperamentni i lyricke pasaze vystavene na melodice a rytmice lidovych pisni a tancu, dominujici je pisen Sedlak, sedlak, sedlak stylizovana ve druhe vete suity jako ´smetanovsky´ furiant, atraktivni kontrast k nim vytvareji moderni pasaze inspirovane Stravinskym, jehoz balet Petruska Kapralova velmi obdivovala. Michelle di Russo vsadila na svou vitalitu, skladbu dirigovala ve sviznych tempech se znatelnym dynamickym rozpetim, ale s malem agogiky i akcentace a jen s naznakem frazovani. Ne zcela zretelne odliseni citovych a zivejsich pasazi zpusobilo nizsi plasticitu dila, suita dostala ve vsech trech vetach tyz charakter jedine nekonecne melodie. Orchestr byl ovsem presny a jednotny v nastupech i v souhre, kvality vlastni skladby byly i v tomto nastudovani zrejme.
From a review by Gabriela Spalkova for OperaPlus, July 3, 2025.

Vitezslava Kapralova: Sämtliche Orchesterwerke Ostrava State Philharmonic Orchestra, Janacek Philharmonic Orchestra, Alena Hron.
Vorab darf konstatiert werden, dass die Aufnahmen wirklich gelungen sind und innerhalb der in den letzten Jahren erfreulicherweise zunehmenden Diskographie Kaprálovás ein vorläufig neues Interpretationsniveau definieren. . . . Aufgrund der beeindruckenden Quantität wie Qualität der Orchesterwerke Kaprálovás, die ähnlich wie Mendelssohn oder Korngold zu einer Ausnahmeerscheinung musikalisch Höchstbegabter zählt, fällt es an dieser Stelle schwer, am Beispiel einzelner Kompositionen eine verbindliche Charakterisierung vorzunehmen. Was die Werke allesamt kennzeichnet, ist ihre schier unersättliche stilistische aber vor allem klangfarblich facettenreiche Tonsprache. Kaprálová tendiert wahrlich nicht zur Untertreibung – sie komponiert stets mit großem Klangpinsel und wirft sich risikofreudig in die großen Formen der klassisch-romantischen Tradition, um diese neu zu beleben. So viel Mut und Einsatzfreude reißen mit und lassen das Hören zu einem rauschhaften Ereignis werden.
From a review by Kai Marius Schabram for magazin.klassik.com, June 2025.

A Few More Surprises Prima Facie PFCD246 2025 [77]
This smorgasbord of (I think) previously unrecorded music is a valuable addition to the recorder repertoire. It is a sound and sophisticated production from the first note to the last. . . . Two tiny pieces by the Moravian composer Vítezslava Kaprálová last less than two minutes. The Tales of a Small Flute for recorder and piano are delightful. John Turner suggests that these winsome numbers may have been a tribute to her husband, whom she married in 1940. Sadly, she died a couple of months later.
From a review by John France, musicwebinternational, June 17, 2025.

Concert review: Itamar Zorman (violin) Ieva Jokubaviciute (piano).
Among the delicacies on this fascinating programme titled ‘Women’s Voices from Eastern Europe’, perhaps no story is as poignant as that of Vitezslava Kapralova. She wrote Legend in 1932, aged just 17, before her premature death at 25. As performed by Itamar Zorman and Ieva Jokubaviciute, this lovely idyll made an arresting opening.
From a review by Bruce Hodges for Strad, May 23, 2025.

Sing to Me Again. Fierbois Duo. Leaf Music LM286 (leaf-music.ca/music/lm286)
Sing to Me Again, the debut album by the oboe and piano duo Fierbois, is a captivating exploration of lesser-known composers [...] The album showcases several striking compositions. In Vitezslava Kapralova’s Two Pieces: Jitro, the pair brings forth the youthful yet poignant beauty of a 17-year-old’s art song, with a perfect balance of expressive character.
From a review by Melissa Scott, Whole Note, April 15, 2025.

New York Repertory Orchestra uncovers hidden treasures by Diamond, Hindemith and Kapralova
St. Mary the Virgin is one of the more resonant concert spaces in New York. It was a little too much so for Kapralova’s Rustic Suite—or perhaps the score was a little too much for the space. This is a superb work from a composer all but lost to history. This is likely due to her death from illness at the young age of 25, in France in 1940, after studying under both Bohuslav Martinu and Charles Munch. Kapralova’s Rustic Suite showed how much talent was destroyed. There were the details of craft, like her rhythmic sensibility, and a simple clarinet melody in the first of the three movements, made stunning and gorgeous by how expertly and subtly she fit it with the harmonic structure. The music had a fantastic expressive artistry, with a mix of neoclassicism and romanticism that was wonderful to hear unfold.The amount of internal detail and activity at times overwhelmed the church’s acoustic, the resonance of one event swamping ones that followed. There was some mis-coordination in the orchestra, and often a sense that the musicians didn’t have the confidence in the notes to fully express the score’s meaning. Still, it was rewarding to hear such a great piece.
From a review by George Grella for New York Classical Review, February 16, 2025.

The Classical
A few years ago I was driving around West Auckland reveling in my latest classical discovery, a cheap CD of Georges Bizet’s L'Arlésienne Suite 1 & 2. This is the classical music that will finally win over Sarah Kahn in Arnold Wesker’s trilogy of plays; populist, melodic, simultaneously naturalistic and uplifting. A good set-up for what I discovered in the next op shop, a CD with Amy Beach’s Piano Concerto (as well as Samuel Barber’s), which tipped me down the rabbithole of music by women composers, the start of the slippery slope that led to this blog. YouTube algorithms quickly led me from Beach to the 50 or so compositions composed by Vítezslava Kaprálová in her short life (1925-1940), works which start from a Slavic nationalism somewhat in the tradition of Bedrich Smetana, like the gorgeous melodicism of ‘Legenda’ and quickly pick up elements from jazz and the more interesting experimental techniques around at the time, without loosing that fine melodic sense and a distinctive sense of humour. I wrote about the most internationally successful work of her lifetime, the Military Sinfonietta, in the context of its time, here. Lately I’ve been returning to her most ambitious work for solo piano, the four April Preludes (1937), and hearing something I always hear in it - humourous, jazzy non-sequiturs that remind me of Robert Wyatt’s piano playing on Rock Bottom. Soon after the composition of this work, dedicated to Czech piano virtuoso Rudolf Firkušný, who would debut it in the USA after her death, Kaprálová moved to Paris to study, where she also went clubbing and, for all I know, heard Larry Adler play with the Quintette du Hot Club de France in 1938.The second Prelude, ‘Andante’, has a Sketches Of Spain quality, as if the left hand is gently strumming a guitar; the third is gently, childishly, unforgettably tuneful; the fourth. ‘Vivo’, brings back those hot jazz fireworks, and that sublime wit; its elements include close top-end harmonies, triplet rhythms cutting in and out (an effect common in trap), and the use of whole tone interval steps to modulate between its keys, a use of whole tones characteristic of Kaprálová and sometimes found in the work of other Czech composers, distinct from the “magical” effect Rimsky-Korsakov derived from whole tones, or the Impressionistic stasis of Debussy.
From a review by George Henderson on georgedhenderson.substack.com, February 2025.

Trinity Laban Symphony Orchestra celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Dvorak Society. Suk, Nemcova, Dvorak, V. Novak, Kapralova. Trinity Laban Symphony Orchestra, Jonathan Tilbrook (conductor)
Vitezslava Kapralova’s Military Symphonieta from 1937 is just as electrifying as it was in 1938, when she conducted the British premiere with the BBC Orchestra. From the opening loud crash, the percussion section of Trinity Laban Orchestra was kept on their toes throughout the piece and kept up with the ideal tempi kept by the conductor. All divisions of the orchestra gave their full power and concentration to bring the Symfonieta to a wonderful conclusion.
From a review by David Banister for the Dvorak Society of Great Britain Newsletter No. 149 (February 2025): 11.

SILENCED: Unsung Voices of the 20th Century (Ian Koziara, Bradley Moore). Cedille Records CDR 90000 231 (2024).
This is a good place to point out that Koziara, a veteran Wagnerian, approaches these songs with a strong dramatic tenor, secure tone, and a pleasing timbre. This is Lieder singing on the operatic side, conveyed with passion yet never beyond the limits of art song. Pianist Bradley Moore is in full sympathy with the singer’s approach; he plays with personality and confident musicianship. One is struck reading the excellent program notes by how strangely fate dealt with four talented composers deprived of a settled existence in turbulent times. Schreker and Zemlinsky fell into obscurity and unpopularity after years of major achievement, but the saddest outcome befell the precocious Czech composer-conductor Vitezslava Kapralova, who was born in Brno in 1915, the daughter of a composer and singer. She counted Martinu among her composition teachers and among conducting mentors Charles Munch and Vaclav Talich. In 1937 she became the first woman to conduct the Czech Philharmonic, and her considerable body of music was much admired before she died in Nazi-occupied France in 1940 at the age of 25—the case is clouded by the possibility that typhoid fever was misdiagnosed as tuberculosis. Kapralova was only 17 when she wrote the two songs of op. 4, titled “Jitro” (Morning) and “Osirelý” (Orphaned). With unexpected authority they plunge us into a mature late-Romantic idiom that is seamlessly woven into the styles of Strauss, Korngold, and Zemlinsky. I don’t necessarily hear more advanced harmony in her op. 10 songs, which set texts by the Czech Nobel laureate in literature, Jaroslav Seifert, but this is because Kapralova was so well established in her Romanticism and still young. Passing dissonances are ensconced in the chromaticism of Wagner’s Wesendonck-Lieder, not the Second Viennese School. In the last song, “Jarni pout” (Spring Fair), the sprightly folk rhythms echo Bartok and her teacher Martinu. Tenderness and yearning are also well within Kapralova’s reach. The mood of exultancy suits Koziara’s dramatic tenor perfectly—we are in the terrain of young Siegfried—so it was wise to place these early Schreker songs at the top of the program. Koziara’s range includes tenderness and quiet reflection as well. It’s a pleasure to find an American Lieder singer of such dedication and musical gifts.
From a review by Huntley Dent for Fanfare, Jan/Feb. 2025.

A Gripping CD with Music by Gifted Composers Silenced by the Nazis. Cedille Records CDR 90000 231 (2024).
Tenor and Chicago native Ian Koziara, along with pianist Bradley Moore, has released an exciting CD on Cedille devoted to artists whose careers were at odds with the Nazi regime. “Silenced: Unsung Voices of the 20th Century” celebrates art songs by four such composers: Franz Schreker, Vitezslava Kapralova, Alexander von Zemlinsky and Viktor Ullmann. ... This is a remarkable disc, with memorable music you will enjoy listening to again and again. It is a splendid introduction to four remarkable composers.
From a review by M.L. Rantala for Hyde Park Herald, January 6, 2025.

Ian Koziara, Bradley Moore, Silenced: Unsung Voices of the 20th Century. Cedille Records CDR 90000 231 (2024).
Tenor Ian Koziara, backed up by pianist Bradley Moore, presents songs by central European composers whose lives were shortened or otherwise impacted by the genocide perpetrated by Nazi Germany. This is another example of Cedille Records’ practice of resurrecting excellent music that is little remembered.
From a review by Louis Harris for Third Coast Review. Chicago Arts and Culture, January 1, 2025.