Thu, 4. 11. 2021, 7.00 p.m.

A2 GLAZUNOV | PROKOFJEV | BORODIN

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

The second concert in our Subscription Cycle A features works by three Russian composers, part of whose professional lives was bound up with the musical scene in the city of Petrograd.
First we hear Alexander Glazunov's Oriental Rhapsody for large orchestra which the composer, a native of Petrograd, dedicated to the eminent Russian painter Ilya Repin. The work, comprising five musical pictures, is a striking example of the composer's fascination for exotic themes and his exceptional ability with original and colourful instrumentation.

Sergey Prokofiev, who studied at the famed Petrograd Conservatoire, wrote his second violin concerto shortly after returning to the Soviet Union from Paris. The work was promised to the eminent French violin virtuoso Robert Soetense, who premiered it in December 1935. Its captivating melodies in particular soon made it one of the best-liked and most frequently performed pieces of its genre in the world. Our performance tonight in Zlín is given by the acclaimed Polish violinist Jarosław Nadrzycki, winner of a number of prestigious European violin competitions.

In the second half of the concert we hear the second symphony by Alexander Borodin, who was born and spent much of his life in Petrograd. The composer, held by many to be one of the founders of the Russian symphony, wrote the work between 1869-76. The epithet "Heroic" was later applied to the work by Vladimir Stasov, the eminent Russian art critic and a longstanding friend of Borodin. Interestingly, the conductor at the work's premiere in Petrograd in March 1877 was a Czech, Eduard Nápravník. Conducting the Zlín Philharmonic Orchestra tonight is the Ukrainian conductor Yuriy Yanko, who has been working for many years with a whole series of European symphony orchestras.