Vítězslava Kaprálová: Povidky male fletny (Tales of a Small Flute) arr. oboe and piano

Vítězslava Kaprálová (Brno 1915-Montpellier 1940)
Tales of a Small Flute (Povidky male fletny.)
I. Volne (Andante) (0:00)
II. Rychle (Allegro) (1:20)

William Wielgus, oboe
Mary-Victoria Voutsas, piano
informal recording, May 23, 2024

Artwork: Flowers and Butterfly painted by Margit Koretzova (April 8, 1933-Auschwitz April 1944) at the Terezín concentration camp

Publisher: Amos Editio | Prague 2014

The Tales of a Small Flute were written as a gift to Kaprálová's husband, an amateur recorder player. There were intended to be three pieces, but only the first was thoroughly composed, the second completed but without any dynamic indications. As the second piece is so short, only about 30 seconds, the performers took the liberty of immediately repeating it.,
The third piece exists only in conceptual remarks.

When she died in exile in France at the age of twenty–five, Vítĕzslava Kaprálová (1915–40) was on the threshold of a successful international career as a composer and conductor. During her short life, she composed no fewer than fifty works (many of which were published), conducted orchestras in Prague, London, and Paris, was praised by music critics across Europe, and was awarded the Smetana Award by the Bendřich Smetana Foundation.

On the eve of the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia, Kaprálová left her homeland to study with the Czechoslovak composer Bohuslav Martinů in Paris. During the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, she remained in France, continuing her studies with Martinů. During this time, she experimented with a variety of compositional styles ranging from a conservative folk–like idiom to a neo–classicism inspired by Stravinsky, and cultivated a kind of modernism modeled after her teacher, Martinů.

Due to the deteriorating political conditions across Europe and particularly in Paris, Kaprálová also began looking for ways to continue her studies in the United States. She wrote letters making inquiries and asking for financial assistance. She also applied to the Juilliard School in New York. However, none of these attempts proved to be fruitful.

On a personal level, the beginning of 1939 saw the relationship between Kaprálová and her teacher deepen. The two worked closely together on their respective compositions. Martinů gave Kaprálová a piano sketch of his opera Julietta; the opera had previously been meaningful to both of them and the sketch confirmed its importance, and perhaps Martinů's romantic feelings, for Kaprálová. By June, Kaprálová wrote to her parents that she and Martinů were making plans to live together. However, those plans never came to pass.

Around the same time, Kaprálová met Jiří Mucha, the son of the Czech art–nouveau painter Alphonse Mucha, in Paris. Being of similar age and with similar interest in the events happening in their common homeland, the two began to spend time together. Kaprálová soon began to realize that a future with Martinů was not in her best interest. As World War II spread across the European continent at the end of 1939, the political unrest grew in Paris and across France. Martinů and his de facto wife, Charlotte, started to make plans to leave France, and Martinů and Kaprálová began to spend less time together as she became involved with Mucha. Although Mucha enlisted in the French army, the two continued their relationship.

On April 23, 1940, Kaprálová and Mucha were married in Paris. A week later, the first signs of the illness that would take Kaprálová's life were documented. Although she managed to maintain her musical activities in Paris, continuing to compose, publishing articles, and directing the newly formed Czech women's choir in Paris, the illness rapidly took its toll. She was in and out of the hospital for several weeks and on May 20 was evacuated by her husband from the increasingly stressful conditions in Paris to a hospital in Montpellier. The day before her evacuation, Kaprálová saw her mentor and teacher, Martinů, for the last time. On June 14, the German's occupied Paris. Two days later, on June 16, 1940, with her husband by her side, Vítĕzslava Kaprálová died.

(information by Clare Thornley excerpted from http://orelfoundation.org/composers/a...)