The period between the 1920s and ‘40s was an era of many concurrent trends in music; of these, one would hardly be able to name any to which Bohuslav Martinů did not make a significant contribution. Indeed, his compositional legacy includes single-movement symphonic works on themes of modern civilization, elements of jazz music, the incorporation of early instruments(harpsichord)into modern music, experimentation with electrophonic instruments (Theremin Vox), echoes of preclassical forms, and thematic approaches, abstracted folklore melodic traits, anti-illusive operas, strong hints of Surrealism, the application of traditional symphonic methods during the 1940s, and so on. In the majority of cases, Martinů was not the first one to turn the music world’s focus in a new direction; rather, he would act as the perceptive and inquisitive observer of the music scene, one ever ready and willing to expand his compositional vocabulary and his catalogue of genres. His capacity to combine experimentation with a musical idiom very much his own places Martinů amongst the 20th century’s most exciting, as well as most innovative, composers.
The one-act jazz ballet, La Revue de cuisine (Kitchen Revue) was written at Easter in 1927. It was premiered in Prague in November of the same year, by the author of its scenario, Jarmila Kröschlová, with her dance ensemble. The concert performance of a suite from the ballet consisting of Prologue, Tango (a brilliant parody of Ravel’s Bolero, in fact more precisely a habañera), Charleston, and Finale--in one of the concerts in the series mounted by Alfred Cortot in Paris in January 1930, making a considerable impact. The Paris publisher Leduc then promptly brought out not only the suite from La Revue de cuisine, but also Martinů’s symphonic allegro, La Bagarre, H 155, plus further chamber, piano, and other instrumental works.
Martinů himself regarded La Revue de cuisine as one of his finest compositions. More than three decades later, in a letter to his biographer Miloš Šafránek, he referred to "the unerring technical side of the score of Kitchen Revue, though in fact I had by then not achieved anything much as regards technique at large [...] That’s what is so interesting really, the way a work, once it has assumed clear-cut contours in the composer’s mind or once it has come to express his character, will simply generate the technique on its own."
Even though La Revue de cuisine has become one of Martinů’s most popular works, the complete ballet score lay for many years unnoticed in the Basel archives of the Paul Sacher Foundation. Only in the early 1990s was its existence first made known in my Catalogue of Bohuslav Martinů’s Autographs Deposited in the Paul Sacher Foundation Archives. The original autograph was edited for Editions Leduc (Paris) by Christopher Hogwood, in collaboration with Aleš Březina and the Bohuslav Martinů Institute.
Aleš Březina, Martinů: Le Raid merveilleux, La Revue de cuisine, On tourne!, © 2004 Supraphon Music a.s