A Newly Discovered Romance
It was not until 2022 that Bohuslav Martinů's Romance for Violin and Piano was discovered among his papers.
Boris Lipnitzki, the French photographer of Ukrainian-Jewish descent (1887–1971), photographed many famous musicians, befriended them, and asked them to compose pieces for his favorite instruments: the violin and the piano. This is how, in 1930, the Romance by Bohuslav Martinů. After Lipnitzki’s death, his estate was bequeathed to the Jewish National Library in Jerusalem, where the romance was not rediscovered until 2022.
This harmonically fascinating three-minute piece, in the style of the mature Martinů, with allusions ranging from B-flat major to E-minor and B major, builds calmly and steadily toward a climax marked by rapid ascending passages in the violin. There, the piano contributes to the expressive density with powerful quarter-note chords. The piece concludes syncopatedly in B-flat major.
Bohuslav Martinů: Romance for Violin and Piano, H 186bis, ed. by Natálie Krátká, BA 11581, €10.50, Bärenreiter, Kassel
