Ponc/ Haba/ Ullman/ Kozelj/ Herbers - Around Prague 1922-1937

The city of Prague was a cultural hotspot in the 1920s and 30s. Three population groups, enriched by emigrants from Russia, the Ukraine, Germany and Austria, competed with one another but also inspired each other. This was the city of the composers on this recording by Werner Herbers and the Ebony Band, long known as champions of unknown or forgotten music from the first half of the 20th century. In the repertoire on this album we hear the old and the new, tradition and renewal, but above all, imagination and talent. When the border between East and West opened up in 1991, this music had hardly been heard in the West for some fifty years, having been suppressed first by the Nazis and then by suffocating communist rule.