Vaclav Jan Tomásek was the center of musical life in Prague in the early nineteenth century, but is barely known at all today. He had little formal musical education, but studied the music and writings of the great German and Austrian composers on his own and as composer and music tutor for the family of Count Buquoy. He had been taken on by the family after the success of his song "Lenore," and his reputation is now based mostly on his songs and small piano works. Most of his few large, orchestral works were never published, and they have low opus numbers, indicating that he recognized that his talents were better spent on the vocal and keyboard arenas.
The two piano concertos on this disc are his only concertos. It is believed that both date from around 1803 to 1805. One was published, but the other was not. Both demonstrate how thoroughly Tomásek had absorbed the conventions of composition of his day, showing very little innovation over the Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven to that date, or Hummel. The structure of both concertos' first movements follows the normal pattern of orchestral exposition, piano entrance, tutti completion of the exposition, then trade-off of development between the piano and orchestra. The middle movements are flowing, peaceful cantabiles, and the finales and rondo in Piano Concerto No. 1 and another allegro in Piano Concerto No. 2. The Concerto No. 1 in C major, opens with elegant, rich orchestral writing similar to Haydn. It is showy and flowery, but not very virtuosic sounding or more than anything Mozart hadn't already done. Pianist
Jan Simon and conductor
Vladimír Válek do make it very pleasant and energetic. The second movement, where Tomásek's skill for songs can be heard, gives most of the thematic material to the orchestra. The piano is laced with embellishment, played with graceful delicacy by
Simon. The dance-like finale is introduced by the piano, and
Simon gets very few chances to rest in it. Tomásek used a 6/8 meter for the rondo, which made it possible for him to add more interest with the occasional hemiola. Piano Concerto No. 2 in E flat major has an extremely long orchestral exposition (nearly four of the movement's 14 minutes) that almost tips over into the development before the piano enters. It sounds more like Beethoven than the other concerto, with declamatory opening chords that become the thematic kernal of the movement. The piano and orchestra share the melodic material of the second movement, although the piano frequently syncopates it, which tends to disrupt an otherwise serene movement. The finale actually has a fun theme that fairly tumbles over an Alberti bass and pizzicato strings. The development in this movement is the most interesting of anything here, but, again, hardly innovative.
Simon and
Válek do their best to make these concertos very agreeable, animated, and even catchy at times. As well as they do perform Tomásek's concertos, however, it seems something of a waste of talent in terms of the actual music. It's nice to have the opportunity to hear the concertos, but there isn't much to keep them going after the disc is done playing.