The Turn of the Century With Robert Jindra

Gustav Mahler: Blumine
Alban Berg: Seven Early Songs
Otakar Ostrčil: Symphony in A major, Op. 7

Robert Jindra conductor
Jana Kurucová mezzo-soprano

Mahler, Berg and Ostrčil, three quintessentially central European composers, will be brought together in a programme by Robert Jindra, the principal guest conductor of the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra. The evening will open with Blumine, a less than ten-minute work that Mahler originally intended as the second movement of his First Symphony, but soon removed from the symphony and is now performed separately. The young Alban Berg was undoubtedly strongly influenced by Mahler when, as a student of Arnold Schönberg, he wrote songs with piano accompaniment, which he later, as a mature composer, masterfully orchestrated. At that time, he had already completed one of his most important works, the expressionist opera Wozzeck, based on the play of the same name by Georg Büchner. The second opera house to perform Wozzeck after its Berlin premiere was the Prague National Theatre, conducted by the Czech conductor and composer Otakar Ostrčil. He is commemorated with the Symphony in A major from 1905.