The justly celebrated
Karel Ancerl Gold Edition has now officially hit the bottom of the barrel. While volume 37 coupled Krejci's ever-popular Serenade with Pauer's equally celebrated Bassoon Concerto, this volume, number 41 of 42, contains two works by the renowned Jan Hanus, his Symphony No. 2 in G major and Suite No. 1 from his ballet Salt Is Better Than Gold. Even with the considerable skills of the masterful
Ancerl and the superb playing of the virtuosic Czech Philharmonic, Hanus' music is terrible. The opening of Salt Is Better Than Gold isn't bad -- a little Rimsky-Korsakov in the woodwinds, a bit of
Ravel in the harp, a touch of Roussel in the murmuring strings, a hint of Martinu in the tunes -- but it goes downhill rapidly after that. There are pages, themes, and movements in Hanus' music as bad as anything ever composed by anyone anytime anywhere. No kidding. The harmonies are trivial, the themes trite, the rhythms tired, the forms exhausted, the invention impotent. While not offensively bad, Hanus' music is nearly unendurably lightweight. Imagine Victor Herbert as a postwar Czech composer with more bombast, less taste, and far less talent and you've got some idea of how Salt Is Better Than Gold and the Symphony No. 2 sound. Supraphon's remastered 1955 and 1956 sound is faint and dim, but real.