The Antonín Kubálek Collection, 7 CDs, 2010.
In 2010, at the age of 74, pianist Antonín Kubálek began to reissue some of his discontinued recordings on his own label. Most of these recordings had never appeared on CD, but they represented some of his finest work. Shortly afterwards, after months of incapacitating pain and discomfort, Kubálek had surgery for a brain tumour. He did not survive. So ended the life of one of the greatest pianists ever to make his home in Canada.
I was privileged to know Anton and to work with him; as music director of CJRT-FM, I arranged to record some of his concerts for broadcast shortly after his arrival from Czechoslovakia in 1968. Later, he appeared with the CJRT Orchestra in concertos by Dvořák and Martinu, and we also collaborated on a performance of Rawsthorne’s Piano Concerto No. 1 for the CBC. I thoroughly enjoyed every minute we spent together in discussion and performance. He was a somewhat cynical but jovial individual, with a keyboard facility second to none; he could learn any piece in a matter of hours and perform it as though he had known it all his life. Only later in our friendship did I realize that he was nearly blind, the result of picking up an unexploded grenade in his native Czechoslovakia when he was only ten years old.
After Anton’s death, his wife Patricia arranged to release a seventh volume, adding to the six CDs released in 2010. This recording was of a concert he gave in the Glenn Gould Theatre at the CBC (2002) under the title “Prague Spring Festival Recital,” and was part of his preparation for a concert that same year at the Prague Spring Festival, which turned out to be a triumphant return to his homeland.
The program for this concert, which included Prokofiev’s Visions Fugitives, Stravinsky’s Sonata, Suk’s Things Lived and Dreamed Op. 30 and a group of Czech Dances by Smetana, was very unusual and demanding. I didn’t hear the Prague performance, but the Toronto “rehearsal” is truly remarkable; Anton plays magnificently, the engineers do splendid work, and the piano sound is also rich and full from top to bottom.
Anton had not only superb technique (much needed in many parts of this program), but also an extraordinary ability to get to the very soul of the music. He finds the very essence of each of Prokofiev’s Visions Fugitives – 20 very short, remarkably expressive character pieces, some with humorous titles, such as No. 10 “Ridicolosamente”. Similarly, in Suk’s rarely-played “Things Live and Dreamed,” he gives ideal expression to the composer’s vast range of poetic feeling.
The CD titled “Early Recordings” brings together some CBC recordings from 1970 (Mozart and Beethoven) and some Golden Crest recordings from 1972. In his early years in Canada, Anton taught piano at the Brodie School of Music, and saxophonist Paul Brodie, who was already recording with Golden Crest also helped Anton make some appearances on the label.
From 1974, there is a CBC recording with the Orford String Quartet of Chausson’s Concerto for Piano, Violin and String Quartet. This is powerful music-making, perhaps too much so as engineers were still trying to harness Anton’s colossal sound.
Throughout his Canadian career, Anton played an enormous amount of music by Canadian composers. It is appropriate that one of the CDs – actually a two-CD set – is devoted to Piano Sonatas by Walter Buczynski. Kubálek recorded four of the Buczynski sonatas over a period of many years for the CBC, and they are collected here with notes by both Anton and the composer. These are strikingly original and effective pieces and in his notes Anton rightly wonders why so few pianists have taken the trouble to learn them and promote them to a wider audience.
Each of the recordings is technically first-class in spite of being based on LP originals in some cases. The CD cover art is entirely worthy of the performances. All seven CDs are available for download on iTunes and www.cdbaby.com. Kubalek also made dozens of other recordings, mostly for Dorian, and serious collectors will be able to track them down on websites such as www.amazon.com.
The CDs resuscitated and reissued in 2010, and in 2012 (“Prague Spring in Toronto” recital), are reminders not only of Anton’s great gifts, but also of the fact that during his lifetime this man who contributed so much to Toronto’s musical life received so little recognition. No management stepped forward to give him the international career he deserved. Nor did the powers that be in his adopted country give him the awards that he had surely earned over a Canadian career of more than 40 years; if ever any musician deserved the Order of Canada, it was Anton.
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