#SymphonistOfTheWeek Before over-indulging on fattening food this #Christmas , get in shape with my feast of marvellous #Martinu @martinuofficial. Feed your mind and move your feet with music that's healthy for body and soul.

#SymphonyOfTheDay I only have time for 6 symphonies during my final #SymphonistOfTheWeek thread of 2018. Luckily for me, that's how many @martinuofficial wrote. So, without further ado, let's get into the swing of things.

If you'd like to learn a little more about the life of my #SymphonistOfTheWeek, here's a nice little article about @martinuofficial, courtesy of @interludeHK. http://www.interlude.hk/front/bohuslav-martinu/

The most important fact you need to know about #Martinu before we hear more of his wonderful music: he liked cats.

#Martinu began his career as @CzechPhil violinist, and wrote late-Romantic patriotic blockbusters like the massive Czech Rhapsody, which went down a storm as his homeland declared its independence after World War 1.

Despite the success of his early music, #Martinu was to radically change his style. There was clearly no future in blockbusting Bohemian Rhapsodies, was there?

#SymphonyOfTheDay Like all #Martinu's symphonies, No. 2 was written long after he left his Czech homeland for Paris, then the USA. Their shimmering textures and restless dancing rhythms occupy a whole new world after his first Romantic outpourings.

How did @martinuofficial make the musical journey from old-school Romantic to a brave new world? Find out tomorrow on #SymphonistOfTheWeek.

#SymphonistOfTheWeek In 1923 #Martinu left his homeland and his late-Romantic music behind for Paris. There he absorbed Jazz and neoclassicism while studying with #Roussel. His music transformed into a thoroughly modern riot of rhythm and colour.

The bracing modernism of "La Bagarre" caught the eyes and ears of Serge #Koussevitzky, a prime mover in the Parisian music scene. Later the conductor commissioned #Martinu's 1st Symphony, and #Martinu dedicated the dark, dramatic 3rd to him as well.

#SymphonistOfTheWeek In Paris #Martinu experimented with jazz, hard-edged modernism, and unusual instrumental combinations. The 1933 Concertino for Piano Trio is steeped in Stravinskian spikiness, yet still smiles - a trademark of Martinu's style.

#SymphonyOfTheDay Another #Martinu trademark is the piano in his orchestral music, making the sound world of his symphonies shimmer, twinkle and glow. And that cheeky smile is still there. I love this performance - the scherzo goes like a rocket!

#SymphonistOfTheWeek #SymphonyOfTheDay #Martinu began composing in Czechoslovakia, found his true voice in Paris, and absorbed further influences from the USA, his adopted home from 1941. Some sections of No. 5 could almost be by #Copland.

#Martinu at first struggled to find his feet in his new American home. His connections from cosmopolitan Paris helped, including conductor Serge #Koussevitzky and fellow symphonist David Diamond, who became a lifelong friend.

#SymphonistOfTheWeek Martinu returned to France in 1953. His late European works are filled with a strain of ecstatic fantasy that makes them among his most magical.

#SymphonyOfTheDay Czech-French-American @martinuofficial wrote his last symphony in America and France, and dedicated it to French conductor Charles #Munch, who premiered it in America, then brought it back home in this vintage @CzechPhil recording.

#Martinu was driven from his Czech home across Europe by his musical dreams, and to the New World by war, to become a citizen of the world. Yet his heritage is woven into every bar of his music. Each new piece I hear leaves me loving him more.