Moravian Autumn Under the Sign of ®evolution

The last concert of the 49^th Moravian Autumn International Music Festival took place on Saturday 28 October. Immediately before its fiftieth anniversary the festival chose as an overarching theme ®evolution and the inevitability of progress. For a month signs and posters in Brno have called out to passers-by and attracted them to this ambitious spectacle. After a quick look at the programme, it was clear that the pivotal musical works this year will be primarily innovative achievements of the first half of the 20th century seasoned with the musical delicacy that is early music.

The programme divided the Moravian Autumn into five main parts. The Prologue involved only one concert with the subtitle A festival hors d’oeuvre, while the most numerous  was the part named Piano – with the piano dominating six concerts out of the total of seventeen. The true heart of the festival however was the programme sections Drama and Rituals. It was here that Moravian Autumn concentrated its most serious and revolutionary works. The closing Epilogue featured an imaginary lighthouse guiding lost ships into the calm and safe waters of a musical harbour.

Moravian Autumn began its 49th year with a luxurious festival hors d’oeuvre. Although it was not the inaugural concert of the festival, the fresh and internally contrasting dramaturgy of the evening certainly belonged to the overall conception of Moravian Autumn. The Tongyeong Festival Orchestra and the violinist Clara Jumi Kang performed the suite Le tombeau de Couperin and music from the ballet Mother Goose by Maurice Ravel. These works by Ravel formed the well thought-out backbone of the concert, in which could be heard the more demanding, although precisely performed Concerto No. 3 for violin by the Korean composer Isang Yun and the Introduction et Rondo Capriccioso by Camille Saint-Saëns. In particular the Concerto No. 3 for violin featured the fresh and revolutionary excitement of the festival, its insertion amongst the remaining melodious and mostly tonal works, however, ensure the desired balance of the evening.

The inaugural concert with the subtitle In the Name of ®evolution, preceded by Erik Satie’s the 28-hour contrapuntal experiment Vexations, thundered out with uncompromising and disarming vigour. Here there already was no space for balancing older and modern musical language, with only the Sinfonietta by Leoš Janáček providing a conciliatory ending to the opening concert of the festival. The Kleine Sinfonie by Hanns Eisler and the Piano Concerto No. 1 by Alexandr Mosolov together with the symphonic movement Pacific 231 by Arthur Honegger took the listener into a world that had been decimated and was still in shock after the First World War. It was a time and place that rather than seeking false patterns from the past looks to a still malleable, unrestrained, brutal but honest future. Evolution precedes revolution. The soloist for the evening was the pianist Steffen Schleiermacher, whose indisputable quality of interpretation was also on display in the context of a solo concert for Moravian Autumn entitled Russian Futurism and the Czech Avant-garde. In both evenings the pianist was able with skilfully and dynamically colourful violence perform a repertoire of Russian futurism, as well as the substantially much friendlier music of the Czech avant-garde.

The impression that the festival program has drawn mostly on the rich reserves of modern Russian music that is seldom performed here is no illusion. Furthermore the festival has turned its eyes and ears to the east deliberately. The Drama part drew on two original Russian works – the opera Victory Over the Sun and the Symphony of Sirens. Victory Over the Sun and the Symphony of Sirens however sounded completely new and the performances of both works constituted a kind of modern premiere. From the opera Victory Over the Sun much of the musical has not been preserved, but even what has survived show does not show what a true revolution it was. Even the author of the original music, Mikhail Matyushin, was not that enthusiastic about the musical side of the opera. Therefore it was given a new form – the music was taken on by the composer Jiří Najvar, the scenery and costumes were the work of David Janošek and the direction was by Marek Mokoš. The final result was quite the opposite. While the original work was intended as a celebration of victory over the false and insincere spirit of romanticism, the contemporary version cynically raises a finger over an almost daring defence of the abomination and debauchery of the times. Here the sun eventually wins over all expectations as the main and almost sole protagonist.

The Symphony of Sirens represents a genuine musical fascination with noise. This work by Arsenij Avraamov was reconstructed at the Brno Exhibition Centre to a plan from Andreas Ammer & FM Einheit. Here and there the work suffered from an imperfect balancing noise and the impacts of the cannon which were intended to separate individual parts to a large extent disappeared in the noise of other sounds. Even so, it was fascinating to watch the crowds driven by perfectly adjusted criers with sonorous pipes, who – much like Verne's characters – maintained steady and dignified facial expressions. The suggested earplugs were an unnecessary measure which I was a little sorry about after the performance. An essential part of the festival was the Silent Songs by Valentin Silvestrov performed in the intimate twilight of the Tugendhat House by the bass baritone Tomáš Šelc and the pianist Dana Hajóssy.

Moravian Autumn however was not built only on Russian contributions to ®evolutionary musical culture. Among the pillars of the festival was for example also David Greilsammer’s piano concert Scarlatti: Cage: Sonatas. This unique project by the Israeli pianist and conductor David Greilsammer placed alongside each other the sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti (an Italian 18^th century composer) and those of John Cage for prepared piano. Greilsammer does not keep to the rigorous rules of performing 18^th century music, but in the case of this concert no-one could really ask that of him. Rather, it is commendable that the pianist was so able merely with unifying expression to connect two disparate works so much into one organic whole.

My personal favourite among all the concerts of Moravian Autumn was undoubtedly the evening given the subtitle Rituals, in which the Last Pagan Rites buy the Lithuanian composer Bronius Kutavičius was performed in the Evangelical Church of Jan Amos Comenius along with the Symphony No. 8 by the Czech composer Miloslav Kabeláč, Antiphons. The performance was by the Lithuanian Aidija Chamber Choir alongside the Kantiléna children and youth choir of the Brno Philharmonic, both under the choirmaster Romualdas Gražinis. Also performing were the wind section of the Brno Philharmonic and the organist Renata Marcinkute-Lesieur. In the second half, which took place in Brno’s cathedral, they were joined by the Czech Philharmonic Choir Brno under Jiří Najvar, the percussion section of the Brno Philharmonic and at the organ Renata Marcinkute-Lesieur was replaced by Přemysl Kšica. The soloist for the second half of the evening was Lucie Silkenová, and the conductor was Marko Ivanović.

In the silence of the darkened church was heard the whisper of the choirs, interrupted only by the tones of the organ. Kutavičius’ work shows the signs of musical minimalism, but despite this the composer work with original Lithuanian folk music, tastefully dressed in almost sacred garments. The interpreters, especially the Aidija and Kantiléna choirs, deserved great praise. Also exemplary was the work with the space, sending shivers up the backs of the audience. Both choirs circled around the space of the church becoming a repetitive musical factor and thus achieving vastly different tones at different moments.

The festival concluded with Epilogue, made up mainly of concerts that formed a smart and accessible counterweight to what was otherwise a thoroughly progressive programme. The Ensemble Berlin Prag performed works by Jan Dismas Zelenka, Johann Sebastian Bach, Mark Kopelent and Isang Yun. The Accademia Bizantina chamber orchestra which concerns itself with period interpretation performed pieces by Giovanni Lorenzo Gregori, Niccolo Jommelli, Arcangelo Corelli, Niccolo Porpora, Antonio Porpora, Antonio Caldara, Antonio Vivaldi and Francesco Geminiani. The Janáček Quartet played both of the Leoš Janáček’s string quartets and a transcription of the wind sextet Youth by Kryštof Mařatka.

Moravian Autumn is approaching its jubilee 50^th year and we can only guess at what the organisers will come up with on such a special occasion. What is certain is that it will be a grand spectacle. I would venture to assert that with the theme ®evolution the festival has entered a new age, giving more and more space to unjustly ignored musical works from past and present. On such a significant anniversary however there will certainly be works that helped create and constitute the full and rich musical language of not only art music. We can look forward to it!