Thu, 14. 2. 2019, 7.00 p.m.

B4 GREAT SYMPHONISTS

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

Ludwig van Beethoven completed his Triple Concerto for Violin, Cello and Piano in 1804 and dedicated it to the great music lover and patron Prince Franz Josef Maximilian Lobkowicz. The work was first performed with its three instrumentalists four years later with Beethoven himself taking the piano part, although the listening public did not immediately take to the piece. The concerto form for multiple instruments with orchestral accompaniment had already made its appearance earlier (notably in the Baroque concerto grosso), and Beethoven thus helped to revive this type of composition for two groups of instruments - soloists and orchestra. At the same time he was striving for a steady balance between the qualities of the individual solo instruments which he subsequently achieved and complemented sensitively with the sound of the orchestra as a whole. The soloists tonight are the three prominent South Korean musicians Park Ki-ri, Lee Hoo-seong and Ei-Eun Shin.

While Beethoven is often considered the early 19th century's superlative symphony composer, many deem one of his 20th century counterparts to be Dmitry Shostakovich who wrote 15 symphonies, the 10th of which was completed in 1953 shortly after the death of Joseph Stalin. Given that the work was being written at the height of totalitarianism in 1951–1953, it is no surprise that the atmosphere of the Stalinist era and of Zhdanov's cultural doctine, to which Shostakovich himself also fell victim, has left its clear mark. The putative portrait of Stalin in music comes in the second movement whose markedly sinister character conjures up feelings of fear and apprehension which, in the interpretation of some musicologists, aptly portrays the Soviet dictator.