Thu, 12. 2. 2026, 19.00 hrs

B5 JOEL FAN PLAYS RACHMANINOV

Venue: Zlín Congress Centre  |  Organizer: Filharmonie Bohuslava Martinů, o.p.s.  |  Price: 390,- 330,- 280,-

Tonight’s soloist is the American pianist Joel Fan, hailed by the prestigious Washington Post for the "spontaneity, wit and emotional urgency" of his performance. A native of New York, he has played with orchestras all over the world, from the New York Philharmonic to the London Sinfonietta to the Singapore Symphony Orchestra. Tonight he joins the Orchestra in Zlín to perform Sergey Rachmaninov’s third piano concerto, one of the most technically challenging concertos in the piano repertoire in terms of its extraordinary unrelenting physical demands and the exceptional stamina it requires from the performer. Indeed, some pianists have quipped quite seriously that climbing Everest is much easier than getting through a performance of this concerto unscathed. But playing this work was far less of a challenge for Rachmaninov himself as his very long fingers, wide palm and large span allowed him to play the required solo passages composed in thirteenths - extensions that are practically unplayable for the vast majority of other pianists.  Paradoxically, the pianist Josef Hofmann, to whom Rachmaninov dedicated the concerto, never performed the work because his hands were just too small. But this is certainly not the case with Joel Fan, who will make the work sparkle under the baton of chief conductor Robert Kružík.

Before the Rachmaninov concerto we present the Lachian Pictures orchestral suite written  by one of our Orchestra’s former members Aleš Pavlorek, who drew inspiration for this four-movement piece, which is also his tribute to Leoš Janáček and his unique musical language, from the environment, folklore and landscape of the Lachia region of north-east Moravia. In the piece, the composer invokes typical Lachian themes, depicts the transformations of nature in the Hukvaldy area, and showcases the spirited musical cadences of the stylized dance routine known as the Ondráš.

The concert concludes with  Dmitry Shostakovich’s fifth symphony, which, after its premiere in 1937, created a huge stir in the Soviet music world at a time when the composer’s work faced sharp criticism and his reputation had taken a serious blow. It was against this heavy backdrop that the symphony was written, drawing on both classical and Russian musical traditions, yet remaining a deeply personal confession. Shostakovich, under the pressure of the regime, did not compromise his ideals, but chose a more comprehensible musical language and his message remained extremely strong. Even those who previously rejected his work had to acknowledge that it was extraordinary. The composer himself called the fifth symphony his own "Lyric Diary", writing "At the centre of my work I saw a person with all his experiences." The symphony's joyous, even triumphant finale may, on first hearing, sound like a surrender to the demands of the times, but many still see something much deeper in this music - a hidden message of despair, defiance and human pain concealed behind a victory mask.