The boundless emotion in the music of Mussorgsky and Mahler
…is sure to overwhelm you during a concert at the Rudolfinum’s Dvořák Hall on 4 April. No less a figure than principal conductor Lenárd, who has invited baritone Roman Janál to cooperate, is a guarantee of that.
Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky, blessed with God-given talent but unburdened by formal education, never ceases to astonish us thanks to his original musical mind.
Tune in to a live broadcast on Czech Radio Vltava from 19:30 on Monday 4 April
In the orchestral fantasia Night on Bald Mountain he reworked the fashionable Romantic subjects of a coven of witches and other “horror” elements in an idiosyncratic manner (though he later stated that it was in the main a portrait of the human heart and its passions and crises). Whatever the starting point, this music full of mystery, drama and onomatopoeia remains immortal.
À propos death… feared, frightening and forever inspirational spurred Mussorgsky to compose the cycle Songs and Dances of Death. The very title induces a chill that only deepens with greater familiarity. Death appears to us in four different situations – it preys on a child and a young girl, throws itself into a dance with a drunken farmer and appears on the battlefield. The expressiveness of the verse and the music will undoubtedly be intensified by the interpretation of the preeminent Czech baritone Roman Janál.
Mahler’s Fifth Symphony delivers a broad spectrum of experiences and atmospheres. Each of the five movements takes a completely different form. The first movement is a funeral march while the third is a stylisation of Austrian dance rhythms and the fourth is the popular Adagietto, featuring his supremely idyllic music. The monumental, in places even ecstatic, finale completes the ancient concept of “from the darkness to the light”.
