Thu, 19. 10. 2017, 7:00 p.m. (6:15 p.m. TALKING ABOUT MUSIC)

B1 KATEŘINA JAVŮRKOVÁ

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

In a concert programme, Bohuslav Martinů once said how he liked to return to the concerto grosso form. His Toccata sweeps in like a Bach allegro, the first Canzona has an initial delicate solo piano motif, the second begins with a dramatic challenge. While he was writing the second Canzona, Bohuslav Martinů suffered a life-changing blow to the head, and perhaps this is what gave the conclusion its sense of depression, if not tragedy.

Joseph Haydn's horn concerto is technically difficult but very pleasing to the ear. The soloist tonight is the Prague Spring competition laureate and Czech Philharmonic Orchestra member Kateřina Javůrková, whom we also heard performing here at the Congress Centre in the Talentinum 2016 festival. Beethoven gave the first movement of his Fourth Symphony a slow introduction in a minor key, and it thus begins in apprehensive, low-spirited fashion. The lugubrious opening succession of key changes modulates into the major-key motif of the sonata-form movement that follows. The overriding atmosphere of the first movement, therefore, is bright and lively. At the podium with the Bohuslav Martinů Philharmonic Orchestra is its Principal Guest Conductor Leoš Svárovský.