On today’s date in 1945, Serge Koussevitzky conducted the Boston Symphony in the premiere performance of the Third Symphony of the Czech composer Bohuslav Martinu.

Martinu had finished the first two movements of his symphony as the Second World War was rushing to a close and later claimed he had Beethoven’s Third, the “Eroica,” very much on his mind, convinced that there was somehow an ethical force at work in the creation of a symphony, and, just as in Beethoven’s “Eroica,” it was possible to express moral and ethical ideals in music.

As an exile from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia and France, Martinu had come to the United States in 1941, and his mood is understandable in the anxious yet hopeful spring and summer of 1945.

After liberation of Czechoslovakia, Martinu returned to his homeland and was offered a teaching post in Prague. Martinu, unhappy with Czechoslovakia’s new Communist rulers, declined the offer, and returned to America, where he became a naturalized citizen in 1952.  After his death in 1957, Martinu’s remains were eventually returned to his family mausoleum in Czechoslovakia, and in 1990, the Centenary of his Birth was celebrated in that country as a major cultural event.

Bohuslav Martinu (1890 – 1959) — Symphony No. 3 (National Orchestra of Ukraine; Arthur Fagen, cond.) Naxos 8.553350