Thu, 25. 1. 2024, 19.00 hrs

B4 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND

Venue: Zlín Congress Centre  |  Organizer: Filharmonie Bohuslava Martinů, o.p.s.  | 

The aroma of afternoon tea and biscuits wafts its way through our fourth Series B subscription concert in our musical rendezvous of Czech and English culture, beginning with Lukáš Sommer’s work Smrtihlav 2020, a symphonic poem dedicated to the Bohuslav Martinů Philharmonic and inspired by a tale by the English Romantic poet and writer Edgar Allan Poe. The work, which has its world concert premiere tonight, expresses the hope that even in the deepest darkness there is light shining brightly just round the corner.

This is followed by Petr Salajka performing Ralph Vaughan Williams’s tuba concerto, one of the first full-scale concertos written for solo tuba. The piece reflects the composer’s distinctive musical style, frequently incorporating elements of Tudor Renaissance music and English folk song marked by his unusual inventiveness, engaging melodies and imaginative instrumentation.  Our concert concludes with Antonín Dvořák’s much-loved eighth symphony dubbed “English”, which is undoubtedly a high point not only of Dvořák’s own output but of late 19th-century Europeanmusic in general.