I have once again been listening to a symphony by Bohuslav Martinu, this time his Symphony Number 6, known as "Symphonic Fantasies" or some such thing, in a wonderful old mono Supraphon recording by the Czech Philharmonic and Karel Ancerl.

(Sorry, but I don't know how to do things like put the little circle above the "u" at the end of Martinu, or the spike on top of the "c" in the middle of Ancerl. If anyone can direct me to a page on the Internet where such things are explained, I'd be most grateful.)

Martinu's symphonies are totally wonderful. One of the very first clutch of CDs I ever bought was the set of all six Martinu symphonies by Neeme Jarvi (two dots over the "a" there, which again is beyond my contriving). These were made in the late 1980s, but remain very admired. Every time anyone else records one of these pieces, the reviewers say: yes well it's quite good, but it's not as good as Jarvi. I agree. These are wonderful performances and wonderful recordings, which capture the unique sound world of Martinu's symphonies wondrously.

The cliché about Martinu, referred to whenever yet another of his pieces has been recorded and is being reviewed, is that he wrote too much stuff and that most of it is junk. I agree with this. To my ear, the symphonies are an order of magnitude more splendid than almost anything else he wrote. I love the symphonies so much that for close on twenty years I have bought recordings of anything of Martinu's that I could, and yet in his entire output there is only one other piece of Martinu's that impressed me as much as all the symphonies have. It's called "Bergerettes", and I used to have a delightful recording of it by the Suk Trio, on vinyl. As for the rest, it is all of it dreary, repetitious, rhythmically relentless, utterly forgettable, utterly third rate tedium. Chunk chunk, clug clug, bonk bonk, scrape scrape. The symphonies are to the rest of his output (especially the chamber music) what flying is to staggering about on crutches.

I recall writing here about a similar contrast applying to another Czech composer, Antonin Dvorak (more impossible squiggles), whose symphonies are likewise all of them wondrous, and whose string quartets are likewise very dull and monochromatic by comparison. With Martinu, all that applies also, only more so.

It is often said that particularly famous and prestigious art forms can be off-putting, and that the wise artist might do better to steer clear of them and find his own more modestly appropriate forms. But what if the prestige of the art form puts the artist on his metal and makes him do better than usual? Brahms was said to be terrified of trying to follow in Beethoven's footsteps, but he rose to the challenge in the end, I would say. With Martinu, you get the feeling that when he was banging out one of his tedious little trios or quartets or sextets, taking not a lot longer to write the damn thing than it takes to play it, he was working privately, as it were. He didn't fear public opinion. He didn't mind if he made a fool of himself. Which meant that from where I sit, that's exactly what he did, again and again. But when he wrote symphonies, he slaved away at it until he really had something. This, he knew, was Martinu putting himself next to Beethoven and Brahms, and he didn't want any sniggering and tut-tutting. And, for me, it was mission accomplished.

Moral: some people should avoid writing too much, too often. They should work away at it, polish it, and bash away at it and redo it, until it is truly ready and truly good, and until it will stand comparison with the best.

Hm.