Thu, 1. 2. 2018, 7:00 p.m.

A4 AN EVENING WITH DVOŘÁK

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

Two Czech composers, but more than a century apart. Dvořák's opera Vanda was reprised in 1880 at the Prozatímní Divadlo, but with a newly written overture. Vanda is not one of the frequently performed operas, but this overture is worth performing as a composition in its own right.

In terms of musical elements, Dvořák's piano concerto is a work of almost symphonic stature. The piano part, interwoven into the composition's weft and warp of ideas, plays as important a part as the orchestra in the thematic development. The concerto was said to be so technically difficult that it had to be reworked into a playable form, and that is what the Czech pianist and piano teacher Vilém Kurz did. The first pianist to return to the original score was Sviatoslav Richter when he had already made his name. Jitka Čechová, a first-class Czech pianist and member of the Smetana Trio, plays the piece in its original form. Jiří Gemrot began writing his Second Symphony in September 2012. The work was not a commission, but stemmed from the composer's intrinsic need to make a statement of his compositional progress, It demonstrates that the conventional four-movement symphonic form can be further developed and refined.

The concert will be conducted by the musical director of the Ostrava-based Moravian-Silesian National Opera, Jakub Klecker.