Thu, 11. 2. 2027, 19:00 hrs.

B4 Carefree Fantasies

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

Tomáš Hanus, Music Director of the Cardiff-based Welsh National Opera and Principal Guest Conductor of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, returns to Zlín after nine years with a diverse and fresh programme of 20th-century music in which he shares the stage with the Zlín Philharmonic and the award-winning American pianist Andrew von Oeyen, one of the most remarkable pianists of his generation, who has performed at the world's most prestigious venues.

Prokofiev completed his First Symphony in September 1917 just a few months before the outbreak of the October Revolution which later forced him to emigrate to America. The work shows a surprising tenderness, carefree spirit and cheerful optimism in a perfect synthesis of classical principles and modern elements. Its transparent orchestration, dynamics, energy and clarity of form give it an exceptionally fresh and playful feel.

Ravel originally intended to call his Concerto for Piano and Orchestra in G major a Divertissement ("distraction" or "entertainment") to capture the lightness and playfulness of the piece. Writing the concerto in the spirit of Mozart and Saint-Saëns,he presents music full of carefreeness, purity and lyricism, enhanced with refined detail and jazz elements.

Martinů composed his Symphonic Fantasies in the first half of the 1950s in exile in America. Commissioned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra and conductor Charles Munch, with whom he had become friends in Paris between the two world wars, the work, originally intended as the Nouvelle Symphonie Fantastique, pays tribute to the Symphonie Fantastique by Berlioz, whom Martinů greatly admired. The New York Critics' Circle named Martinů's Symphonic Fantasies the best symphonic work performed in New York in 1955.