Suk’s Asrael – Sir Charles Mackerras’s unreleased recording with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra.

Josef Suk began writing the funeral symphony Asrael to commemorate his teacher and father-inlaw Antonín Dvořák. During the course of the work, however, Fate dealt him another crushing blow: Asrael, the Angel of Death, took away Suk’s wife and Dvořák’s daughter, Otilie. The symphony is a story of a suffering whose strength seems simply unendurable, yet also a story of its overcoming, seeking solace and hope.

Sir Charles Mackerras’s live recording of Asrael originated on a Good Friday, 6 April 2007, one hundred years after the symphony’s premiere. The Australian conductor had first heard about the Asrael some sixty years previously from Suk’s close friend, Václav Talich. In later years, Mackerras confessed that he perceived the work in a completely different light after his daughter had died.

Sir Charles conducted Suk’s Asrael during one of his last performances with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra. It is also his last previously unreleased recording with this orchestra.

Recorded live at the Rudolfinum, Prague, on April 5-6, 2007.