This album features Bohuslav Martinů’s Symphonies Nos. 1 and 2, composed during the early 1940s while the Czech composer was living in exile in the United States. His First Symphony, completed in 1942, is a powerful, large-scale work rich in energy and emotional depth, marked by motoric rhythms, lyrical themes, and a haunting Largo written shortly after the Nazi destruction of the Czech village Lidice. The symphony concludes with a triumphant finale and was premiered by the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Serge Koussevitzky. Symphony No. 2, completed just a year later in 1943, reflects a lighter, more pastoral mood with chamber-like textures, syncopated rhythms, and overt Czech color, despite the wartime context. It even includes a striking quotation from the “Marseillaise” in its third movement. Both works display Martinů’s unique orchestral voice and masterful craftsmanship, interpreted with passion and precision by Neeme Järvi and the Bamberger Symphoniker.