麻豆社

Petr Popelka, chief conductor of the Norwegian Radio Orchestra, conducts the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra in this highlight from the European concert season.

The programme opens with the Concerto for Violin, Piano and Orchestra that Bohuslav Martin暖 wrote in New York in 1953. The piece bears the typical features of its composer鈥檚 later work, combining restless expanses with simple intimate melodies.

After the interval, the concert continues with a contemporary composer's response to the work of one of the greats of musical history.

Wolfgang Rihm wrote Ernster Gesang (Serious Song) in the 1990s at the behest of conductor Wolfgang Sawallisch, as a composition intended specifically to be played before the music of Johannes Brahms.

At the time, Rihm sought inspiration in Brahms's later songs and piano pieces, the harmonies of which enchanted him with their "sharpness and at the same time dark sweetness". He derived the title from the Four Serious Songs that Brahms wrote for bass and piano a year before his death in Vienna. Rihm's introverted, lyrical work prepares the atmosphere for one of Brahms's greatest works: the Symphony No. 3 in F major, written in the summer of 1883 in the spa town of Wiesbaden.

Josepf Spacek, violin
Miroslav Sekera, piano
Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra
Petr Popelka, conductor

Martinu: Concerto for violin & piano
Rihm: Ernster Gesang
Brahms: Symphony No.3 in F, Op90

Concert given in the Dvorak Hall, Rudolfinum, Prague, on 09/10/2021