Spectacular chamber conclusion of the Concentus Moraviae Festival

29 June 2022, 17:30
Spectacular chamber conclusion of the Concentus Moraviae Festival

This year’s 27th edition of the Concentus Moraviae Festival is history after almost a month of music. The gala closing concert at the Zlín Congress Centre presented a program of songs by Ernest Chausson, Igor Stravinsky, Johannes Brahms, Richard Strauss, Leoš Janáček and Antonín Dvořák. Magdalena Kožená, mezzo-soprano and patron of the show, performed as a soloist. She was joined by pianist and conductor Sir Simon Rattle, flutist and this year’s Artist in Residence Kaspar Zehnder, violinist Giovanni Guzzo, violinist Rahel Maria Rilling, violist Amihai Grosz, cellist Dávid Adorján, and clarinettist Christopher Richards. Dvořák’s songs were specially arranged for this ensemble by the English composer and conductor Duncan Ward.

The evening opened with the delicate Chanson perpétuelle by Ernest Chausson (1855-1899), which is also the composer’s last completed work. The piece was inspired by verses from Charles Cross’s collection Le coffret de santal (The Santal Box) and dedicated to the singer Jeanne Raunay, who managed to perform it before the composer’s death in January 1899. Magdalena Kožená conceived her staging in a rather expressive manner, taking into account the tragic character of the work and the text itself about unfulfilled love. The interpretation was expressively full and dynamically varied, creating some very successful highlights throughout the song. The musicians were excellently integrated with the soloist and with each other, and the result was not only dynamically balanced but also expressively and rhythmically unified and solid.

With Three Songs from William Shakespeare by Igor Stravinsky, the singer moved not only from French to English, but also from late 19th century music to a much more modern composition. Here, too, the soloist stuck to a more expressive expression, which, however, sounded somewhat overwrought and heavy in several places. In particular, When Daisies Pied lacked a certain lightness, while in Full Fadom Five the degree of expressiveness and a certain “playfulness” or lightness was ideally balanced.

The singer’s talent for subtle lyricism was most evident in Johannes Brahms’s Fünf Ophelia-Lieder on texts from Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Already the opening of the five – Wie erkenn’ ich dein Treulieb? – convinced that working with expression in more tender positions is Magdalena Kožená’s strong point. It was here, for example, that she could apply an impressive transition between a powerful vibrato and only a fleeting embellishment of the notes. Praise should also be given to the superbly constructed dynamic arcs, which she often ended with sweet pianissimo and gentle vibrato. The ideal sound was also aided by the German language, which in her performance sounded more natural in terms of phrasing and diction than the previous English. The musical staging of the instrumentalists was exemplarily uniform. In addition, the musicians ideally emphasized the melancholic mood of the songs by their appropriate use of tone color and dynamics.

The first half of the concert program closed with another Brahms composition, this time Zwei Gesänge für Alt, Viola und Klavier. In addition to the fine singing, one should appreciate the excellent viola solo interpreted by Amihai Grosz – his tone was sweet and lyrical, and the dynamics with rich expression also gave the solo a characteristic sensitivity.

A work by Richard Strauss opened the second half of the program. The piece Drei Lieder der Ophelia aus Hamlet is based, like the one by Brahms, on Shakespeare’s tragedy. However, it is melodically and harmonically much more expressive, which Magdalena Kožená also took advantage of in her staging. The powerful vibrato and sharp dynamic contrasts were characteristic of her musical take on Shakespeare’s verse. Especially the last of the trio of songs – Sie trugen ihn auf der Bahre bloß – provided ideal conditions for these sharp changes in the changing mood of the mad Ophelia.

Leoš Janáček’s playful Nursery Rhymes in a version for voice, clarinet and piano was a welcome change to an otherwise rather serious program. The involvement of the non-performers and their children was also cute. At selected moments they ran on stage and formed the protagonist’s chorus. Here, however, the singer’s perhaps over-expressiveness detracted from the ease and clarity of some of the songs. However, praise should definitely be given to Koza bílá hrušky sbírá (The White Goat Gathers Pears), which was ideally exuberant, yet perfectly balanced in terms of expression and dynamics.

The final piece was a Selection of Songs by Antonín Dvořák arranged by conductor Duncan Ward. There was My Song Again Sounds to Me with Love, Wide Sleeves, When My Old Mother and A String Tuned from Gypsy Melodies, Op. 55, My Heart Often from the cycle Four Songs, Op. 2 and The Maiden Mourned from the cycle In the National Tone, Op. 73. Dvořák – like Brahms – was the best choice in terms of the singer’s strengths. Her naturally velvety color in conjunction with the predominantly lyrical songs was strongest precisely in her handling of tone color, which she also spiced up with a very tasteful vibrato here and there. Also in terms of dynamics, Kožená built longer and musically well-pointed arcs. Ward’s arrangement was created especially for this occasion, and so the combination of all the instrumentalists created a rather large chamber ensemble. The conductor succeeded in preserving the characteristic charge of Dvořák’s music, while balancing the resulting arrangement to give ample space to the individual players. Here they demonstrated excellent interplay and a sense of the music’s momentum. The handling of tone color and the varied dynamic shading, which formed an ideal support for the singer herself, also deserve high praise.

The final concert of the 27th Concentus Moraviae Music Festival was relatively intimate, but this did not detract from its magnificence. The great performance of Magdalena Kožená and all the instrumentalists was a fitting end to the almost month-long journey, which brought, among others, tango, Irish rain and Bulgarian choirs. At the same time it opened the doors of the synagogue in Velké Meziříčí to music. Surely the upcoming 28th edition will not disappoint visitors with its abundance of quality music and dramaturgically varied programs.

Magdalena Kožená / mezzo-soprano

Sir Simon Rattle / piano

Giovanni Guzzo / violin

Rahel Maria Rilling / violin

Amihai Grosz / viola

Dávid Adorján / cello

Kaspar Zehnder / flute

Christopher Richards / clarinet

Ernest Chausson: Eternal Song Op. 37

Igor Stravinsky: Three Songs from William Shakespeare

Richard Strauss: Three Songs of Ophelia from Hamlet

Johannes Brahms: Five Songs of Ophelia

Johannes Brahms: Two songs for voice, viola, and piano

Leoš Janáček: Nursery Rhymes for voice, clarinet and piano

Antonín Dvořák: My Song Sounds to Me Again with Love, Wide Sleeves, My Heart Often, The Maiden Mourned, When My Old Mother, The String Tuned (a selection of songs from Opus Nos. 2, 55 and 73 arranged by Duncan Ward)

Mon 27/6/2022, 19:00, Congress Centre Zlín

Photo by Jiří Sláma

Comments

Reply

No comment added yet..

The Brno Philharmonic's New Year's concert on 1 January at the Janáček Theatre is already a well-established tradition. This year was no exception, and the orchestra, led by conductor Michel Tabachnik, gave a performance consisting mainly of works by Johann Strauss the Younger. This was the Brno Philharmonic Orchestra's show opening the 'Strauss Year'. After all, 2025 is the 200th anniversary of the birth of the composer, dubbed the king of waltzes. Strauss's compositions were accompanied by works by Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Richard Strauss and Dimitri Shostakovich.  more

"Culture is a Bridge" was the theme of the second Czech-Austrian Partnership Concert, held on Friday, 20 December at Schloss Thalheim. It was the final evening of the 5th year of the pan-European project Czech Dreams 2024, and also part of the celebrations of the Year of Czech Music and the Concentus Moraviae international music festival. Culture is a bridge that connects not only different generations and social classes, but also entire nations. And the Czech Dreams project, which in 2024 alone presented music by Czech composers in 25 European cities in 17 different countries, is an eloquent example of this. In December alone, besides the final concert in Austria, six more concerts were performed in southern Europe, from Amarante in Portugal to Varaždin in Croatia. The concert was dedicated to the Lower Austrian Governor Erwin Pröll, who has long been committed to building and deepening relations between the Czech Republic and Austria.  more

Christmas in Brno also means the traditional pre-Christmas concert of the Brno Contemporary Orchestra (BCO), this time entitled From America to Tuřany. It took place on 18th December and after a one-year break it returned to the Sokol Hall in Tuřany. The BCO, conducted by Pavel Šnajdr, performed works by Mauricio Kagel, Steve Reich, Trevor Grahl and, as always, Miloslav Kabeláč. Appearing together with the orchestra were four singers, Aneta Podracká BendováKornél MikeczMichal Kuča and Martin Kotulan. At the end of the first half, Pavel Šnajdr set aside his baton and clapped the beat, joined by Petr Hladíkmore

The now world-famous Swedish band Dirty Loops finished their autumn European tour on Saturday, 30 November at Brno's Metro Music Bar. The band featured on the programme of the seventeenth annual Groove Brno funk, soul and jazz festival. The virtuoso trio, consisting of Jonah Nilsson - vocals and keyboards, Henrik Linder - bass guitar and Aron Mellergård - drums, are famous for their flawless technical proficiency, sophisticated original compositions and cover versions of well-known numbers, especially pop songs. However, these songs are often reharmonised in their arrangements and the style is more a combination of disco, pop and jazz fusion. To avoid having to resort to using pre-recorded backing tracks, the trio was joined on tour by keyboardist and vocalist Kristian Kraftlingmore

Ensemble Opera Diversa put a distinctive "spin" on its last orchestral concert of the year. It took place on 26 November at the Alterna music club, which is more a rock, electronica and indie pop hangout than an artistic music venue. The pair of selected pieces consisting of Vojtěch Dlask's premièred work Querell Songs for soprano saxophone and strings and Miloslav Ištvan's Hard Blues for pop-baritone, soprano, reciter and chamber ensemble also reflected this. Naturally, it was Ištvan's Hard Blues that gave the evening its name - the clash of the artistic, composed and purposefully "artistic" world (not meant pejoratively) with authentic African-American musical expressions springing from the depths of the soul of a man tested by life formed as the centre of the evening. This was not merely a stylistic inspiration, but more thematic, which was also evident in the opening piece of the evening. This was the composition Querelle Songs, inspired by Jean Genet's novel, previously dedicated to Ensemble Opera Diversa, but this time in a new instrumentation.  more

Leoš Janáček's (1854-1928) Moravian national opera Jenůfa was brought to Brno for the Janáček Brno 2024 festival by the Moravian Theatre Olomouc in a co-production with the Janáček Opera NdB. Rather than using the Czech title Její pastorkyňa, the production team, headed by director Veronika Kos Loulová, decided to stage the work as Jenůfa, the name under which it is performed abroad. On Wednesday, 20 November, five days after its première in Olomouc, the audience at the Mahen Theatre could also see the latest domestic take on Janáček's most widely performed opera. The musical staging of the significantly modified original version from 1904 was the work of conductor Anna Novotná Pešková, and the main roles were played by Barbora Perná (Jenůfa), Eliška Gattringerová (Kostelnička), Josef Moravec (Laca Klemeň) and Roman Hasymau (Števa Buryja).  more

The office of Brno - UNESCO City of Music, with the financial support of the South Moravian Region, presents a line-up of active folklore groups (ensembles, chasers, musics) in the Brno region as part of the Year of Folklore Ensembles.  more

Trumpeter Jiří Kotača founded the big band Cotatcha Orchestra ten years ago. Nowadays, he performs a variety of programmes ranging from the most traditional jazz to a visionary fusion of jazz and electronica. We chatted with Jiří Kotača about how the orchestra has gradually developed, how the original repertoire is blurring the boundaries between jazz and electronica, and also about what fans can expect from the November concert to celebrate the orchestra's 10th anniversary. We also talk about Kotača's International Quartet, as well as how the trumpet and flugelhorn can be enriched with effects.  more

On Saturday, 24 August, the Korean radio orchestra KBS Symphony Orchestra with its musical director - Finnish conductor and violinist Pietari Inkinen - came to Brno's Špilberk Festival with an exclusively romantic repertoire. The invitation was also accepted by South Korean violinist Bomsori Kim, a graduate of the prestigious Julliard School.  more

For a quarter of a century now, the Brno Philharmonic has been organising the Špilberk Festival at the end of August in the courtyard of the castle of the same name. Four open-air musical evenings offer the audience a selection of concerts featuring classical, film and computer music, as well as often jazz and other genres. This makes it a diverse mix of performers and repertoires with an often pleasant, summery, laid-back ambience. This year's big and rapdily sold-out attraction was the Wednesday evening of 21 August, full of melodies from the James Bond films, performed by the Czech National Symphony Orchestra, headed by world-renowned conductor, composer and arranger Steven Mercurio. During the concert, the audience also got to enjoy singers Sara MilfajtováVendula Příhodová and David Krausmore

As part of its European tour, the Taiwanese Taipei Philharmonic Chamber Choir (TPCC), under the direction of artistic director and choirmaster Dr. YuChung Johnny Ku, took the city up on its invitation and visited Brno. The concert was held on Monday, 13th August in the hall of the newly renovated Passage Hotel.  more

The final concert of this year's season of the Brno Philharmonic was devoted to works by Antonín Dvořák and Jean Sibelius at the Janáček Theatre. On Thursday, 20 June, Danish conductor Michael Schønwandt, who had not appeared before a Brno audience since January last year, took the lead of the Philharmonic. In the first half of the programme, the orchestra was accompanied by violinist Alexander Sitkovetskymore

In the spirit of the idea that Brno and folklore belong together, the Folklore Ensemble Happening of the Year took place on Thursday 6 June. The event was organised by the Brno UNESCO City of Music Office in cooperation with the Brno Dances and Sings association. The event thus became part of a long-term project that set out to map the amateur music scene in Brno, and not only folk music. Last year Brno City of Music reached out to choirs in a similar way, and in the future will host garage bands and more. This just goes to prove the diversity of Brno's music scene, not only as regards professional ensembles, but also enthusiastic amateurs for whom music is an inseparable part of their lives.  more

The Brno Dances and Sings Association and TIC Brno organised the 49th annual Brno Dances and Sings show on 6 June. The programme, concentrated into a single day, was busier than in previous years. The subtitle Year of Folklore Ensembles was borrowed from the project of the same name organised by the Brno UNESCO City of Music Office.  more

A year ago we would have found an Asian market in the New Synagogue in Velké Meziříčí. However, the town decided to buy the building and has started to make more fitting and dignified use of it. On Wednesday 5 June, during the ongoing Concentus Moraviae festival, audiences could visit this heritage site and enjoy a chamber concert by singer and violinist Iva Bittová and her women's choir Babačka, featuring musicians Jakub Jedlinský (accordion) and Pavel Fischer (violin).  more

Editorial

The Brno Philharmonic has announced that due to the illness of Robert Kružík, Leoš Svárovský will take up the baton for Thursday's Concert with Laureates.  more

The production team and soloists will appear in a pre-première preview of the new production of Puccini's opera Manon Lescaut. The preview will take place at the Janáček Theatre and can also be watched online.  more

Iggy Mayerov kicks off 2025 with a new single, Feels Like Yesterday, offering an intimate look at life's losses and changes, and the path to come to terms with what we can't control. The single is currently available on YouTube as a recording of a live concert from the Brno Alterna club, and is a precursor to his upcoming album.  more

Brno's Pop Messe music festival, which showcases the contemporary foreign and domestic electronic, rap, pop and indie scene, has come up with the first confirmed names for next year's event. For the first time ever, Brno will be hosting dance club legend Orbital, one of the most influential producers of our time Danny L Harle, who has produced albums by Caroline Polachek and written hits for Charli XCX, Dua Lipa, Tommy Cash and Rina Sawayama, as well as Leon Vynehall and Batu, top names on the British DJ scene, and American hyperpop duo Frost Children, Toccororo, the queen of the Spanish club scene, Polish electronic duo Wczasy, the five-member Parisian collective 15 15 aka Quinze Quinze, who mix global underground culture with Tahitian roots, French dance duo Atoem, and Mikuláš Příhoda aka Kewu, whose set will feature the Czech-Slovak ballroom dancers Viktor Velvet and the Kiki Dancers collective.  more

Planes from all over the world have been landing in Brno Tuřany for seventy years now, but there hasn't been a single direct flight from America. The Brno Contemporary Orchestra decided to make up for this symbolic deficit with a concert entitled From America to Tuřany. And it's in just the right Christmas spirit. The ensemble will transform the Tuřany Sokol hall into the heart of the Euro-American world. It will be filled with Argentine rhythms, minimalism, a postmodern waltz and unorthodox carols.  more

The Leoš Janáček Foundation, the Society of Friends of the NdB and the JAMU Faculty of Music invite you to a discussion with singer and teacher Natalia Romanová. The event will take place in the Mozart Hall of the Reduta Theatre.  more

The management of the Brno Philharmonic is holding an audition for a player in the 2nd violin group (tutti). The expected starting date is 1 September 2025.  more

This evening from the Eyes of Brno series will be dedicated to Jana Kosíková, a long-time soloist of the NdB Ballet. Visitors can get a glimpse into the world of this successful prima ballerina and her career.  more

The Janáček Opera of the National Theatre Brno is holding an audition for a second bass for its opera chorus. Full-time position.  more

Dušan Holý has passed away

3 January 2025, 10:00

Dušan Holý, professor at the Institute of European Ethnology, Faculty of Arts, MU, singer, ethnologist and musicologist, has died at the age of 91.  more