Ladislav Vycpálek (1882-1969), perhaps you know the poignant Requiem ...

... That provides some seed for this Czech composer.
However, one can only admire his "Cantata on the last things of man", which he completed in 1922 as opus 16.
Drawn from two Moravian folk songs, the text shows with some bitterness the final moments of a sick before his pallet, friends are thinking more about the legacy that his recovery. Soon death lurks in the yard, the soul reprimand body knew the easy life he led here, and aspires to salvation.
Musically, the language draws to modalism, is built in imitative counterpoint, fugal in rhythmic cells or flexible constructions, which ensures an archaic folklore flavor, freshness reconciling a bit naive and height of the subject. Very accessible, the tone grabs you from the start and for three quarters of an hour of constant inspiration. The instrumental resource invents unheard as touching as colors, such as upper strings and flute in the dialogue between the soprano and baritone (track 3).
This religious tale exposes us to a sincere and fervent cantata, whose universal message is for everyone, and culminates in a hymn and overwhelming finding "Behold what man? "
While its reputation remains quite circumscribed, I will not hesitate to classify this cantata among the most beautiful and moving has produced the twentieth century.
Iron fist directed by Jan Kühn, the Prague chorus vibrate with an intensity that is breathtaking.
The two vocal soloists (Drahomíra Tikalova, Ladislav Mráz) take on their roles with all due conviction.
Karel Anerl eradicates its Philharmonie poetic spells and emotional peaks that erect this recording in June 1957 as a discography testimony remained without competition, alas, because we would like to discover other interpretations of this masterpiece.

The multiple and prestigious engagements Ostril Otakar (1879-1935) as a teacher and conductor assured him an enviable place in the artistic life of the capital (National Theatre Conservatory). As a composer, especially one owes him several operas and several symphonic scores, the Suite Op. 14, which is here proposed program complement.
Stylistically, it can relate to an objective aesthetic, constructivist, functional embodied in mobile and linear patterns (Marche, Fugue ...) whose structures and some caustic touches reminiscent Hindemith, while the shiny ornaments closer to the a Richard Strauss. Less closed than was told to the romantic influence, that student Zdenek Fibich place at the center of his work a series of variations that constitute the emotional heart.
Without betraying the formal approach of the composer, Anerl anime with a sharp virtuosity and refinement pigmentosa exacerbating the acuity of a deliciously borrowed speech, which delight the mind and chatoyances.