Thu, 24. 9. 2020, 7.00 p.m.

M ŠPAČEK & FBM

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

The opening concert of our 2020-2021 season, which also marks the start of our 18th Harmonia Moraviae festival, features monumental works by Johannes Brahms and Ludwig van Beethoven, two great figures of world music whose legacy had a fundamental influence on successive generations of composers.

Brahms's only violin concerto is undoubtedly one of the finest and most frequently performed works of its kind. Completed in 1878 and dedicated to the virtuoso violinist Joseph Joachim, the work immediately became a sensation with critics and the public and is even today a staple in every world-class violinist's repertoire. Tonight's soloist is the internationally acclaimed Josef Špaček, one of the top-ranking contemporary Czech violinists.

Beethoven visited the Czech lands several times, including a number of curative stays in 1811 and 1812 at the spas in Karlovy Vary, Františkovy Lázně and Teplice in particular, and it was during his first visit to "Little Paris", as the Teplice spa town was often nicknamed, that he began writing his Symphony No. 7, which he later dedicated to Count Moritz von Fries. The work was completed in May of the following year when Beethoven was already almost completely deaf, and had its first performance on 8th December 1813 at a charity concert in Vienna organised by Johann Nepomuk Mälzl, well-known as the inventor of the metronome, who also made a hearing trumpet for Beethoven. The symphony was very well received even at its premiere, so much so that the audience spontaneously requested that the movements be played again.

At the podium for the opening concert of this new season is the Bohuslav Martinů Philharmonic's Chief Conductor Tomáš Brauner.