Catalogue # SU40432

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Suk: Asrael Symphony, Op. 27 Recorded live at the Rudolfinum,\nPrague, on April 5-6, 2007

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Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Charles Mackerras

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Suk’s Asrael – Sir Charles Mackerras’s unreleased recording with\nthe Czech Philharmonic Orchestra.

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Josef Suk began writing the funeral symphony Asrael to\ncommemorate his teacher and father-in-law Antonín Dvořák. During\nthe course of work, however, Fate dealt him another crushing blow:\nAsrael, the Angel of Death, took away Suk’s wife and Dvořák’s\ndaughter, Otilie. The symphony is a story of a suffering whose\nstrength seems simply unendurable, yet also a story of its\novercoming, seeking solace and hope.

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Sir Charles Mackerras’s live recording of Asrael originated on a\nGood Friday, 6 April 2007, one hundred years after the symphony’s\npremiere. The Australian conductor had first heard about the Asrael\nsome sixty years previously from Suk’s close friend, Václav Talich.\nIn later years Mackerras confessed that he perceived the work in a\ncompletely different light after his daughter had died. Sir Charles\nconducted Suk’s Asrael during one of his last performances with the\nCzech Philharmonic Orchestra. It is also his last previously\nunreleased recording with this orchestra.

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