Serious and lighthearted with Vladimír Válek
It is well-known that Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra honorary principal conductor Vladimír Válek was raised on jazz and that the rhythm of swing always delights and cheers him.
On Monday 3 April we will naturally encounter jazz inflections in the Concerto for Piano and Orchestra by Jaroslav Ježek, a great of Czech popular music and classical composer. The Czech Philharmonic performed the premiere of his graduate work in composing at the Prague Conservatory at the sublime Rudolfinum in June 1927.
However, the piece did break the rules of “classical” style, as he wrote the first movement as a foxtrot and almost as a tango. While 90 years ago the soloist was one of his closest friends, Václav Holzknecht, this time Tomáš Víšek, the latest faithful and devoted interpreter of Ježek’s, will be responsible for a compelling rendition.
Vladimír Válek has invited “outside” soloists, the soprano saxophonist Rostislav Fraš and the baritone saxophonist Róbert Mitrega, to perform a piece by Lukáš Hurník. The composer clearly draws on his rock beginnings In Variations on a Theme by Frank Zappa and the marked rhythmicity and wonderful space for solo saxophones will certainly contribute to the attractiveness of the programme.
The second part of the evening will belong to Czech classics. From Bedřich Smetana we will hear his Festive Overture in C major, which was written for a specific occasion: On the day the cornerstone of the National Theatre was laid on 16 May 1868 keen patriots created a tableau on the theme “the nation to itself” ahead of an evening performance of Smetana’s Dalibor. It was for this that Smetana wrote accompanying music that reaches a triumphal conclusion with the thought “let what was started gloriously also end gloriously”.
The close of this concert conducted by a native of Moravia will be given over to unquestionably the most important orchestral piece by Válek’s compatriot, Janáček’s Sinfonietta. Fanfares inspired by the trumpets of an army band grew into a five-movement symphonic piece with which he wanted – in his words – to express “today’s free man, his strength and courage”.
You can also listen to this PRSO concert helmed by Vladimír Válek live on the station Vltava – on Monday 3 April from 19:30.
