Thu, 15. 5. 2025, 19.00 hrs

B7 ENIGMA

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

Our final concert in this subscription cycle presents Marek Šedivý, music director at the National Moravian-Silesian Opera Theatre in Ostrava, conducting the Zlín Philharmonic in a programme of German and English works by Bach, Elgar and Mendelssohn.

The concert opens with Johann Sebastian Bach's Fantasia and Fugue, originally written for organ, probably in 1723, and transcribed almost two centuries later by the English composer Edward Elgar into a spectacular orchestral work of Straussian character. This is followed by two Romantic concert pieces by Felix Mendelssohn for clarinet and the now half-forgotten basset horn, composed during 1832 and 1833. These are played tonight by leading clarinettist Anna Paulová, winner of the Prague Spring Competition and semi-finalist of the prestigious ARD Musikwettbewerb, and Matej Veselka, clarinettist with the Bohuslav Martinů Philharmonic.

In the evening of October 21st 1898, the story goes, after a hard day giving viola lessons, Edward Elgar sat down at the piano and began improvising various tunes to amuse his wife Caroline. Caroline is said to have been so taken with one of the themes that she asked him to start improvising variations on it, each of which was meant to be a musical reflection of the character of one of their friends. Elgar was so impressed with the result that he decided to transform the whole thing into an orchestral work called Variations on an Original Theme. These form a set of fourteen variations which follow the introduction of the theme itself. Each variation is then preceded by a nickname or initials intended to guide the listener to recognise the individuals in question. The composition is thus essentially a kind of musical enigma, although it was soon deciphered.