Repentance in Villa Stiassni with Milan and Katarína Paľová

1 November 2022, 1:00
Repentance in Villa Stiassni with Milan and Katarína Paľová

The latest addition to the concert series organized by the Brno-based Ensemble Opera Diversa is a chamber recital by violinist Milan Paľa and pianist Katarína Paľová entitled “Repentance”. The program, which took place on Sunday 30 October at Villa Stiassni, presented works by composers Valentin Bibik and the recently deceased Roman Berger, whose Adagio No. 2 "Repentance" (Pokánie) inspired the title of the evening.

Although Berger's composition was originally first on the program, it was the one-movement Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 2, Op. 111, by Ukrainian composer Valentin Bibik that opened the concert. The work begins with a fragile but inherently urgent dialogue between piano and violin – Milan Paľa purposefully accommodated this inner tension in his interpretation, not only in his work with dynamics and accents, but above all with subtle (and abrupt) contrasts in expression. This is a manner typical of Paľa's staging, and the structure of Bibek's sonata gave him more than ample opportunity to apply his characteristic interpretive language. This detailed – sometimes even eccentric – handling of the subtlest stirrings of specific musical phrases was literally and unabashedly breathless. The dramatic areas of gradation, in which Paľa whipped the violin to a physically crippling expressiveness, all with impeccable intonation, was a highlight of the work and the interpretation. No less impressive was the performance of pianist Katarína Paľa whose polished musical sensitivity formed not only an excellent backdrop to her husband's musical frenzy, but also excelled in her own escalations. In general, however, the piano part can be described as more delicate, and Paľová lived up to this with her sometimes ethereally tender playing. The emotional power of her interpretation was then most developed especially in the final reconciliatory movement of Bibik's sonata. Indeed, since both musicians present the work on a suitable level of virtuosity is evidenced by their 2021 release of the album “Valentin Bibik: Sonatas for Violin and Piano” through Pavlík Records. I recommend the album, which includes Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 2, to all interested listeners.

I will not deny that I was not surprised by Roman Berger's Adagio No. 2 "Repentance" following Bibik's sonata. By contrast, Berger's piece begins (seemingly!) naively simple with relatively simple harmonies and more or less traditional tonal language. Appearances, though, (at least here) are undoubtedly deceptive. Not only are such pieces often much more challenging to interpret, since the musicians have to avoid the appearance of banality, but they also provide much more scope for accessing musical contrasts. Although there may have been relatively settled procedures on the score paper at the outset, the resulting music was still far from any kind of blandness or mundanity. The piano introduction by Katarína Paľová carried a deep anguish and a kind of light, barely graspable hope. At the moment when Paľa’s violin began, the entire piece took on a completely different connotation. Like Bibik's sonata, it too contained extremely heart-rending areas of violin incisions as well as inevitable and ever-increasingly intense piano strikes. Here again, the cathartic conclusion resulted in a submerged silence that only very reluctantly yielded to the nascent applause.

The autumn concert, directed by Ensemble Opera Diversa, lived up to all expectations. In good conscience, I cannot think of a single fault to the Sunday evening concert at Villa Stiassni. Perhaps only a slightly higher turnout would have made the Repentance concert more deserving.

Valentin Bibik: Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 2, Op. 111 (1995)

Roman Berger: Adagio No. 2 "Repentance" for violin and piano (1988/1989)

violin by Milan Paľa

piano by Katarína Paľová

30 October 2022, 19:00

Villa Stiassni

Photo EOD archive

Comments

Reply

No comment added yet..

For the twenty-eighth year running, the Concentus Moraviae International Music Festival presents dramaturgically varied and interpretively refined evenings set not only in concert halls, but also in courtyards and chateau salons, castle halls, basilicas, churches and synagogues. The theme of this year’s 28th edition is Between Kroměříž and Vienna. Vienna, the cultural centre of Europe, served as the seat of the Habsburg emperors, while Kroměříž was the home of the archbishops of Olomouc. The dramaturgy of this year’s edition was prepared by a trio of respected experts: the Dean of the JAMU Faculty of Music, harpsichordist, organist and musicologist Barbara Maria Willi; historian, musicologist and choirmaster Vladimír Maňas; and Otto Biba, Austrian musicologist and long-time director of the Vienna Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde archive.  more

The celebrations of the 100th anniversary of Brno’s Besední dům, which take place within its premises and elsewhere, have an interesting and distinguished dramaturgy that manages to transport the audience to the early days of this concert venue. Two concerts took place on 4 and 5 May and were entitled “Janáček” and “Horňácká muzika”. I took part in the first one; it was a truly momentous experience prepared by the Brno Philharmonic and Petr Mička’s Horňácká muzika. Friday’s repeat of the concert was broadcast by Czech Television. Both nights were sold out and standing tickets were even added to the sale.  more

The Brno Philharmonic’s headquarters and one of Brno’s most important historical and cultural landmarks – the Besední dům – celebrates its 150th anniversary this year. Exactly on 3 April 1873, when the auditorium (great hall) of the building designed by architect Theophil von Hansen, author of the famous Musikverein in Vienna, was ceremonially opened, this magnificent building became the centre of Brno’s culture and its distinctive artistic life. A century and a half later – on Monday 1 May 2023 – an afternoon gathering and a subsequent concert entitled When Smetana First Played in Brno. . . will launch a series of concerts that pay tribute to unique milestones in the city’s cultural history.  more

Singer-songwriter Martina Trchová, winner of the Anděl award for her album Holobyt, recently disbanded her band and now performs mainly as a soloist. She is slowly working on a new album and is also focusing on visual arts. Her new book Babi, will soon be published, and she’ll also be holding another festival in the Obřany district of Brno.  more

I talked to Barbara Maria Willi, the dean of the Faculty of Music at the Janáček Academy of Performing Arts, dramaturge, teacher, populariser of classical music, harpsichordist, organist and specialist on the hammered dulcimer, about the 20th anniversary edition of the music series Barbara Maria Willi presents..., as well as about historically informed interpretation and further plans. The fact that she was actively teaching a foreign student just before our talk is the best indication of how busy her schedule is.  more

The end of the Lenten season culminates in the Passover week with the commemoration of Christ’s Passion, whose motif was also the main dramaturgical idea of the Ensemble Opera Diversa concert entitled Lamento. The Wednesday evening of 29 March was devoted to works on lamentations by Czech and British composers. Conveniently, the ensemble chose for this concert the Baroque Hall of the Convent of the Merciful Brothers, which enhanced the Lenten atmosphere.  more

Armenian jazz pianist Tigran Hamasyan has long been dedicated to either his own work or to the inspiration of Armenian folklore. It wasn't until his tenth album, StandArt, that he decided to work with jazz standards, compositions that work for most jazz musicians as basic preparation and as material that players from all over the world agree on when jamming together. The pianist will present his current album on Friday 24 March 2023 at the Sono Centre in Brno as part of the JazzFestBrno festival.  more

After the American tour, the Brno Philharmonic, led by chief conductor Dennis Russell Davies, has prepared a mini-festival of three interconnected evenings called Dialogues. Each of these evenings offered a unique dramaturgy with extraordinary repertoire. It was partly linked to the aforementioned tour (e.g. the concert From America to the Czech Republic). The final concert of the trilogy, which took place on Friday 10 March at the Janáček Theatre, offered the home audience monumental orchestral works from the pens of composers Alfred Schnittke and Sergei Rachmaninoff. The entire concert was broadcast live on Czech Radio's Vltava station.  more

La Cantiga de la Serena is a trio from southern Italy, focusing on the music of the Mediterranean, seen as a bridge between the West and the East. The ensemble's repertoire consists of medieval dances and songs, sacred songs including pilgrim songs, medieval secular songs, and songs of the Sephardic Jews who had to leave what is now Spain and Portugal at the end of the 15th century. In 2021, the group released its third and most recent album to date, La Mar, and in the summer of 2022 performed in Brno at the Maraton Hudby festival. You can even recall the concert thanks to this interview. Our questions are answered by Fabrizio Piepoli, who sings and plays the Italian battente chitarra, as well as Giorgia Santoro, who plays a variety of flutes and whistles, including the Indian bansuri and Irish tin whistle, and the Celtic harp. Finally, the third member is Adolfo La Volpe, who plays the Arabic lute, classical guitar and Irish bouzouki.  more

The concert with subtitle “Comradeship, Cooperation, Subversion and a Big Battle at the End”, directed by the Brno Contemporary Orchestra (BCO), offered a remarkable programme of contemporary music. It consisted of three Czech and one world premiere, performed at the Besední dům on 27 February under the baton of the tribal conductor Pavel Šnajdr. The choice of the concert hall was anything but random. The Besední dům is celebrating 150 years since its opening this year, and the ensemble held an annual community concert to mark the important anniversary.  more

Last year’s album Morytáty a romance by Brno singer-songwriter and TV dramaturge Ivo Cicvárek scores points in annual polls beyond the pure folk genre. Ivo recorded his big project with his renamed band, which he now calls Živo, and a number of guests. In the interview he explains what is behind the songs of the album and talks about his future plans.  more

Naloučany is a small village on the Oslava River in the Vysočina region. The village has its own photographer, and his portraits of the village locals have found their way to the American Library of Congress and have become part of the largest collection of this medium since its beginnings. This is naturally a source of pride for nearly two hundred of the village’s inhabitants. That’s why they all joined forces to give their native photographer an event that would be remembered not only by them and by the photographer himself, but also by all the other visitors who took the trip through the snowy rolling landscape to the village’s community centre.  more

Folklore enthusiasts from all over Moravia met in the reconstructed hall of the largest Czech Sokol Hall on Kounicova Street in Brno. The traditional seventy-first ball was organised by the Slovácký krúžek Brno Club on Saturday 21 January. Two associations with a deep First Republic tradition were thus connected, and it seemed that they had shared a natural common bond all that time.  more

The Brno City Theatre has launched the Czech premiere of the musical “Matilda” based on the famous book of the same name by Roald Dahl, one of the world’s best-selling authors. Directed by Petr Gazdík, the family show aspires to be a spectacle for the auditorium for all ages. On stage, however, it is the children who win in this demanding production, led by the lead actress Maruška Juráčková. Her performance inspires respect beyond the quantity of text, the quality of her singing, and her command of movement. To be fair, however, the children’s roles are alternated three times, and these performers have undergone the same training.  more

Noam Vazana, performing under the name Nani, is an Israeli singer who performs songs in the Jewish language Ladino. For her 2017 album “Andalusian Brew”, she collected folk songs, some of which she heard as a child from her grandmother. In 2021, she recorded her first original album of songs in Ladino, entitled “Ke Haber”. In autumn 2022, she performed in Brno at the Music Lab club in a duo with Brno percussionist Jakub Škrha. The following interview was conducted before the concert.  more

Editorial

The 28th edition of the Concentus Moraviae Festival will remind us of the musical life between Kroměříž and Vienna in the 17th and 18th centuries. Concerts are traditionally held in the courtyards and salons of chateaux, in castle halls, and in the pews of basilicas, churches and synagogues. The legendary Viennese ensemble Concentus Musicus Wien has accepted the position of ensemble in residence. Today’s opening concert will feature this ensemble under the direction of Czech conductor Tomáš Netopil.  more

Tomorrow, that is Thursday, 1 June 2023, an International Children’s Day celebration will take place on the piazzetta in front of the Janáček Theatre. The event is for children ages 4 and up.  more

The Czech Ensemble Baroque will present a Czech program today at the Cathedral of St Peter and St Paul, the last concert of the 11th season of the Bach to Mozart series! The main guest of the evening will be the world-renowned countertenor Andreas Scholl. The motets by the Czech conductor František Ignác Tůma, whose work will be performed by Scholl for the first time in his career, will be showcased in a modern world premiere.  more

A new project titled the European Dance Competition Brno 2023 is being developed at the Brno National Theatre - an international dance competition for students of dance conservatories and professional ballet schools from all over Europe from ages 12 years to graduation. The aim of the competition is to become a platform for discovering, supporting and promoting new promising dance talents.  more

The celebration of International Dance Day will take place on the piazzetta in front of the Janáček Theatre. The evening programme will end with a gala evening of the NdB Ballet with international participation.   more

The National Theatre in Brno (NdB) commemorates the 115th anniversary of the birth of dancer, choreographer, and leading personality of the Brno Ballet Ivo Váňa Psota with an e-exhibition mapping his life and work.   more

The Year of Czech Music will present unjustly neglected composers, monumental symphonies, and commemorations of important anniversaries during the season. The Brno Philharmonic presents its 68th season, which continues its long-standing concepts and brings news for subscribers. The orchestra will enter the new season on September 14 with Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, “Resurrection”, conducted by Principal Conductor Dennis Russell Davies.   more

This year’s European Music Day in Brno will be dedicated to the broad theme of local amateur choirs. The event, to be held on 21 June at the Zelný trh Square in Brno, is the largest planned event of a year-long project called the Year of Choirs under the auspices of the Office for Brno – UNESCO City of Music. More than thirty choirs will perform there.   more

Today, 7 May 2023, the opera singer and actress Soňa Červená died. Her operatic beginnings are associated with the Brno Opera, where she also returned in recent years.   more

The Pop Messe festival is expanding its line-up for 2023. Artists such as Spiritualized, Gilla Band, Tommy Cash, Kokoko!, Clark, Mareux, Kode9, Tim Reaper, Fvck Kvlt, Berlin Manson, Kalle, and many more will be visiting the third edition of the festival in Brno.   more