Karel Reiner (1910–79) – a major missing voice in Czech music – suffered under both of twentieth-century Europe’s major tyrannies. As a Jew he was imprisoned by the Nazis, miraculously surviving a series of atrocities: Terezín, Auschwitz, a camp near Dachau and a death march. Then, back in Prague after the War, he was accused of ‘formalism’ by the Communists. This first album of a series reviving Reiner’s music presents the large-scale Concerto he completed just before his internment in Terezín – and first heard, in this live performance, only in 2010 – and three chamber pieces which evolve though echoes of Janácek and Martinu to the brittle humour of the Stravinskyan Verses, one of his last works.
"...Foron’s authoritative way with this enormously challening material, together with Mácal’s immaculate conducting of the great Czech Philharmonic,indicate that they have spent much time and effort getting to know and appreciate this astonishing music. You should too."
Paul A Snook - Fanfare - March/April 2013
"... Performances throughout have heaps of spirit and do ample justice to the sparkily inventive music of this forgotten figure. Collectors with a taste for adventure should definately lend an ear."
Andrew Achenbach - Gramophone magazine - August 2012
"...The performancesof the Sonata Brevis and of the Elegy and Capriccio are stunningly good ... The recording quality throughout is good - and of the studio recordings, very good."
Robert Matthew-Walker - International Record Review - June 2012
