The harpsichord is difficult to balance against a modern orchestra, and it’s fun hearing how three 20th century Czech composers approach the challenge. Martinů’s 1935 Concerto for harpsichord and small orchestra is an effervescent jewel, the soloist pitted against a small ensemble including piano. Hearing the two keyboard instruments conversing in the pithy first movement is a delight. The six-minute finale is echt-Martinů, opening like a concertino for piano and chamber orchestra before soloist Mahan Esfahani enters, immediately racing off at a tangent. If you love this composer (if you don’t, you really should), this disc is mandatory listening. Then there’s the Kammermusik for harpsichord and 7 instruments, written in 1936 by Hans Krása. Krása’s flourishing career was cut short upon his arrest by the Nazis in 1942; he was sent to the Theresienstadt Ghetto and was murdered at Auschwitz two years later. The Kammermusik is immediately appealing: just two movements lasting less than 15 minutes, Stravinsky and Weill among the influences (check out the second movement’s haunting bluesy opening). Three clarinets and an alto saxophone give the work its character, the harpsichord more of an ensemble player than a soloist.
Viktor Kalabis was the composer husband of the great Czech harpsichordist Zuzana Růžičková. She died in 2017, and Esfahani was her last pupil. Kalabis’s Concerto for Harpsichord and String Orchestra dates from 1975 and was dedicated to his wife. The pair collaborated on the work’s first recording (still available on Supraphon); Esfahani’s reading is fractionally slower but no less incisive. This large scale, three-movement work is a masterpiece. Serious, playful and gravely beautiful by turns, Esfahani sees it as a reflection of the couple’s relationship. The finale’s close is magical, Kalabis eschewing fireworks for something more mysterious and introspective. This is a wonderful anthology, brilliantly performed and recorded, with Alexander Liebreich’s Prague Radio Forces providing taut, colourful support.