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The Double Concerto for Two String Orchestras, Piano, and Timpani is so closely associated with Paul Sacher its almost impossible to write only about the work itself. This famous Swiss conductor and patron of music, whose commissions contributed many masterpieces to the repertoire of twentieth-century music, approached Martinů in 1937 with a request for a new work for one of the upcoming concerts of his Basel Chamber Orchestra. This commission was combined with a personal invitation to stay at Sacher's home at Schönenberg near Basel. Martino, whose Parisian friend and fellow composer Conrad Beck had introduced him to Sacher several years earlier, gladly accepted the invitation and came with his wife Charlotte in September 1938.
During this stay in the peaceful atmosphere of the idyllic countryside in neutral Switzerland one of Martinû's most effective and also most famous works was born. The Double Concerto shows many contradictory influences both from the composer's personal life and from the political events of the time. Martino completed the last movement precisely on the day the Munich Agreement was signed, forcing his country to cede its boundary lands to Nazi Germany. Nevertheless the quiet of the rural home allowed the composer to express his musical ideas in a perfectly balanced form. "I succeeded", said the composer in an interview to the New York Times (7 January 1951 ) "in embodying my emotions in a truly classical form." On the title page of the manuscript score Martini wrote his dedication: "To my dear friend Paul Sacher in remembrance of my peaceful stay, filled with fear, at Schönenberg among the spruces and the danger Of war."
The Double Concerto is one of the great works of the twentieth centurv. Like the Toccata e due canzoni, H 311, the Fifth Quartet, H 268, and the Fantasies symphoniques, H 343, it is again a work wich, despite Martinů's principles of restraint and impersonality, is influenced by strong personal emotional inspiration. Besides its dramatic content, its popularity owes something to its symphonic pull: in the framework of a chamber orchestra Martinû uses means typical for work with a large symphonic orchestra. A striking example is the massive choralestyle introduction to the second movement, which returns at the end of the third movement and closes the whole work. It's no wonder that conductors of the world frequently program this work in symphonic concerts. In any case Martinů himself approved his friend Rafael Kubelik's presentation of the Double Concerto with a large symphony orchestra. The more massive sound, however, may suppress the delicate polyphonic strands of the individual voices in places.
The world premiere of the work was given in February 1940 by the Basel Chamber Orchestra under the baton of Paul Sacher. Despite the complicated international situation Martinů, still living in Paris at the time, was able to attend. Thus he could witness the enormous triumph of this work, received with thundering ovation by the audience including an enthusiastic Arthur Honegger.
Aleš Březina, Bohuslav Martinů: Selected Masterpieces, © 2001 Supraphon Music a.s
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