Antonin Kubalek was a member of the wave of Czech artists, intellectuals and professionals that came to Canadian shores in the wake of the 1968 Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia. It was one of those dramatic reverse brain-drains with which this country has been blessed from time to time.

It may have been unfair that the CBC, when it recorded him shortly after his arrival, was only willing to entrust him with repertoire from his own country, repertoire in which his playing would not have to bear comparison with dozens of competing recordings in other words. He was soon to prove that he needn't fear such comparisons. Yet there's no denying that he was awfully good at the Czech stuff.

Echiquer Records has reissued some of the original CBC recordings and the results are bound to please anyone who admires Kubalek's work or is a fan of mildly out-of-the-way piano repertoire.

The Vorisek and Smetana pieces, written in the times of Beethoven and Brahms respectively, are delivered with the kind of second nature authority one would expect. The Janacek Concertino, on the other hand, involves a number of instrumentalists in addition to the pianist and in this recording they do not seem particularly familiar with the idiom. However, the performance is good enough that one can get an impression of this rare piece.

The remaining works are by Czech-born Canadian composers Milan Kymlicka, who arrived here at roughly the same time as Kubalek, and Oskar Morawetz who came in 1940.

Kymlicka's Four Pieces are said to be his only foray into the realm of 12-tone serialism. He was surprisingly good at it but those who just don't care for the serial technique at all will be pleased that the pieces average less than a minute each.

Considerably more accessible, though by no means tonally conservative, the Morawetz Suite for Piano finds Kubalek in a particularly expressive and persuasive mode.