Thu, 22. 4. 2027, 19:00 hrs.

B6 Špaček Plays Korngold

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

April 2027 sees violinist Josef Špaček, one of the most prominent Czech performers of his generation and with regular appearances at the world's leading venues, returning to the Zlín Philharmonic under the baton of Robert Kružík in a programme exploring the themes of airiness, movement, changeability and the cyclical passage of time in musical expression and in the focus of the individual compositions.

We open with Mussorgsky's symphonic poem Night on a Bare Mountain in the version most often performed today with orchestration by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, who significantly revised the original work after Mussorgsky's death to add a calm ending, thereby giving the composition the form which has permanently established itself in the concert repertoire. This musical tableau of a witches' sabbath taking place on Midsummer's Eve has wild energy, sudden dynamic twists and dramatic momentum. Mussorgsky was partly inspired by Berlioz's Symphony No. 1, after which he created an evocative sonically captivating fresco that draws the listener into the vortex of a fantastical night.

This is followed by Korngold's Violin Concerto in D major, the composer's only contribution to this genre. The work was written in 1945 with the help of the legendary violinist Jascha Heifetz, and upon its completion, the composer dedicated it to Alma Mahler. The three-movement concerto features enchantingly rich melody and clear instrumentation, with the solo part winding through long cantabile lines. Among other things, Korngold incorporated thematic material from his film scores, lending the concerto a special lyrical radiance and generous emotionality. Although the piece elicited mixed reactions at its premiere in 1947 (one critic mocking Korngold as "more corn than gold", a pun alluding to the composer's name and Hollywood background), it quickly gained acceptance and over time became a staple of the world violin repertoire.

Our final piece tonight is Glazunov's The Seasons, music from the composer's one-act ballet composed in 1899 on commission from the director of the Imperial Theatres Ivan Alexandrovich Vsevolozhsky. The four movements gradually capture the changing seasons, from the awakening of spring through the fullness of summer and the calm of autumn to the chill of winter. The work exemplifies Glazunov's extraordinary sense of colourful orchestration in what can be seen as vivid musical depiction of nature's ever-repeating cycle.