Dvorak, Haas, Schulhoff – The Bohemian Album

The Bohemian AlbumAmsterdam Sinfonietta has combined aromantic masterpiece of the string orchestrarepertoire with two wild compositions from theinter-war period. Dvo?ák, Haas, and Schulhoffhardly make a conventional mixture, but allthree of these composers had their roots in aregion which was known for many centuriesas “Bohemia.” One can hear this commonground in the rhythmic diversity, the influenceof folk music, and the melodic inventivenessthat characterizes their music. Haas andSchulhoff were part of a very promising groupof composers whose music was proclaimed“entartet” [degraded] at the end of the 1930s.Fortunately, their music has been rediscoveredand performed in recent decades. Themusic of Haas and Schulhoff is refreshinglyrebellious and original, and forms a contrastwith Dvo?ák’s romantic Serenade. Marijn vanProoijen wrote out a beautiful double-basspart for the works of Haas and Schulhoff,which were originally conceived for stringquartet.