Thu, 2. 3. 2023, 7.00 p.m.

B5 PETR / ALTRICHTER

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

Few playwrights have sparked the interest of composers as much as Shakespeare, whose unrivalled output has for centuries been and still is an inexhaustible well of inspiration for artists, and one such work with a Shakespearian theme is Hector Berlioz's dramatic symphony Romeo and Juliet. Berlioz was so impressed with a performance of the tragedy about the two lovers from Verona which he attended in 1827 that shortly after, together with the librettist Émile Deschamps, he drew up the first outline of his work. The piece was premiered 12 years later with considerable financial backing from his friend, the violin virtuoso Niccolò Paganini.

Robert Schumann's cello concerto is often ranked as one of the top three Romantic concertos for that instrument. It was written in a matter of two weeks in October 1850, shortly after the composer took up the post of musical director at Düsseldorf, but it was never performed in his lifetime and evidently because of its unusual structure and departure from convention, it did not readily feature on the concert platform. Over time however, audiences and critics alike came to discover its compositional qualities and the work, now a staple in the cello repertoire, is played tonight by Václav Petr, cello concertmaster with the Czech Philharmonic.

Brahms' First Symphony came into being over the course of 21 years after a long gestation. The composer was rather self-critical and even destroyed a number of his early works, seeking in this piece to live up to the great expectations that his friends had of him, but he eventually came up with a powerful opus worthy of the Beethoven tradition. No wonder, then, that the eminent pianist and conductor Hans von Bülow called the symphony "Beethoven's Tenth", and the prominent Austrian music critic Eduard Hanslick unreservedly compared the work to Beethoven's ninth, as the theme of the final part of Brahms' symphony reminded him of the Ode to Joy. Tonight the Bohuslav Martinů Philharmonic Orchestra is under the baton of the acclaimed conductor Petr Altrichter, whose long association with the Orchestra dates back to 1978.