Part of a broadly conceived creative profile of the Prague-based Jewish composer Erwin Schulhoff (1894 - 1942) encompassing 13 CDs, here is a title containing his first two symphonies, offering an insight into Schulhoff's often painful yet always thoroughly honest and well-founded development of a style ranging from early fascination by Beethoven, through Neo-classical reminiscences, to an original, exciting idiom identifying with the avant-garde movement in music between the two world wars.
Himself a prominent Czechoslovak piano virtuoso, Schulhoff felt a constant affinity for the instrument: he even took an active part, together with fellow pianist Václav Štěpán, in a curious experiment in the 1920s, during which the two appeared in a synchronized double performance broadcast simultaneously from studios in Prague and Ostrava. He was at his best in his output of small-scale pieces inspired by jazz which he compiled in the form of cycles. Schulhoff's ambition on the plane of form was embodied in his piano sonatas and suites, interpreted here brilliantly by Tomáš Víšek, a Schulhoff specialist.