Thu, 20. 5. 2021, 7.00 p.m.
B7 BRAUNER ALPINE
Venue: Zlín Congress Centre | Organizer: Filharmonie Bohuslava Martinů, o.p.s. |
18.15 PRE-CONCERT TALK
CHARLES IVES
The Unanswered Question
WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART
Oboe Concerto in C-major, K.314
RICHARD STRAUSS
An Alpine Symphony, Op. 64
MARTIN DANĚK, oboe
BOHUSLAV MARTINŮ PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA
TOMÁŠ BRAUNER, conductor
Our final subscription concert of this season 2020–21 is also the last for Tomáš Brauner as our orchestra's chief conductor. The evening begins with The Unanswered Question, a small-scale piece by Charles Ives, one of the founding fathers of modern American music. This engaging piece is a perfect example of Ives's exceptional ability to make use of stratophony, in which a free-flowing string melody is superimposed with the notional question "why?" A fundamental question of life that is to remain unanswered.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Oboe Concerto in C-major, one of the staples of the literature for oboe, was written in 1777 for the celebrated oboist Giuseppe Ferlendis. Rich in melody and sweetly serenading, its harmonies are crystal clear and its structure perfect. Tonight's soloist accompanied by the Zlín philharmonic is Martin Daněk, winner of the latest Prague Spring Competition.
Closing tonight's concert is Richard Strauss's Alpine Symphony, one of the most technically demanding works in the symphony genre, and a fine example of the composer's passion for mountain walking and of his long affinity with the mountain environment. The work, completed in 1915, charts the course of day's walk in the mountains in 22 pictures, and today it still poses a considerable challenge for even the world's most consummate orchestras.