Download Jarmila Kozderková

Piano concert
Jarmila Kozderková
at the Benedictine Archabbey of
St. Adalbert and St. Margaret
Monday, 17th July 2000
P.M.M., 40th Microsymposium “Polymers in Medicine”
Biography
Jarmila Kozderková graduated from the Prague
conservatoire.
After finishing her studies, she concentrated on chamber
music both at home and abroad and obtained significant
international evaluations. She made numerous recordings
as soloist for many radio stations such as BBC, BRT, and
all Dutch and German broadcasting stations. She became
popular by her recordings of the 20 th century music of O.
Messiaen, P.Boulez, K. Stockhausen, F.Poulenc,
I.Stravinsky, P.Hindemith, A.Schönberg, and A.Webern,
as well as of compositions of Czech composers - L.
Janáček, B.Martinů, K.Slavinský, J.Klusák.
She made a number of recordings of works of old Czech
masters, mostly from the not yet published transcripts. In
the Netherlands, she made a live recording of the world
premiere of the main concerto by J.N. Kaňka, an old
Czech master, under the baton of E. Bour.
Her soloistic concerts:
Mozartsaal (Vienna), Wigmor Hall (London), Gaveaux
(Paris), Liechtenstein Palace (Prague). She has been
invited to guest performances in Germany, the
Netherlands and Switzerland.
Jan Křtitel Vaňhal
(1739-1813):
Bohuslav Martinů
(1890-1959):
Fryderyk Chopin
(1810-1849):
VARIATIONS “NEL COR PIU
NON MI SENTO”
ETUDES AND POLKAS
(Selection):
Etude in A
Etude in F
Polka in A
Etude in A
Etude in F
Etude in C
NOCTURNA: Es dur op.9 No 2
b moll op.9 No 1 (...
in B minor)
SCHERZO: Nr. II b moll, op.31 (...
in B minor)
intermission
Modest Petrovicz
Musorgski (18381881):
PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION
Promenade
Gnomus
Promenade
Old castle (Il Vecchio Castello)
Promenade
Children playing and squatting (Les
Tuileries, Dispute d'enfants après
jeux)
Bydlo (an Ox-wagon)
Promenade
Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks
(Ballet de poussins dans leurs
cocques)
Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle
Promenade
The Market Place of Limoges
(Limoges. Le Marché)
Catacombae
Cum mortuis in lingua mortua
The Hut of Baba-Yaga (La cabane
sur des pattes de poule)
The Great Gate of Kiev (La grande
porte de Kiev)
Jan (John) Křtitel (Baptist) Vaňhal (1739-1813)
was one of those Czech composers of the classical period
who, after a short residence in Bohemia (as organist in
Opočno), left to study in Vienna. He became a teacher, the
author of theoretical works, and also a successful
composer. He composed operas as well as chamber and
symphonic works. Variations on favourite opera melodies
of the period ranked among popular genres at that time.
The work presented today belongs to that kind of music.
The composer displays his inventiveness in many
variations of the basic melodic style.
Bohuslav Martinů (1890-1959) will lead us into an
entirely different world. The Czech composer, after studies
in Bohemia, left for Paris from where, after the German
occupation, he fled to the USA. There he became
renowned both for his symphonic works and his operas.
His musical evolution proceeded in many stages such as
fascination with the new sounds of modern music and jazz
inspirations, which he incorporated into many of his
compositions (e.g. the opera Greek Passion, and
symphonic works such as Frescos, Rocks, Symphonic
phantasies and Symphony No. 6). In the nineteen-twenties,
he composed études and polkas, into which he put
traditional inspirations reformulated by entirely new
harmonic means. His music is frequently technically
challenging. After 1945, he planned to return to Bohemia
but the totalitarian Communist regime showed such
reluctance that he preferred to remain abroad until his
death. At present, Martinů, together with Smetana, Dvořák
and Janáček, is considered one of the four greatest
composers of Czech music. The compositions presented
here are products of a certain time period and are in the
nature of miniature compositions.
Fryderyk Chopin (1810-1849) lived a tragically short
life; most of his compositions are for the piano. He left
behind many splendid works, e.g. nocturnes, ballads,
mazurkas, Viennese waltzes, preludes, études, polonaises,
and sonatas. They ravish listeners by their romantic
emotivity, wonderful melodic imagination (nocturnes), and
unique and demanding virtuosity (Scherzo). Like Martinů,
Chopin spent a major part of his life in France. Suspected
of being an active revolutionary, he was not allowed to
return to Poland.
Modest Petrovich Musorgskii (1839-1881), a
Russian composer, started his career first as an army
officer, then as a civil servant. In spite of his love of music,
he had no systematic education in the field. Nevertheless,
he became a member of a composer group, which was very
active in the development of Russian national music.
Musorgskii's life was dramatic; he became an alcoholic
and died young. He left behind a number of works; some
of them were finished by his friends (in particular N.
Rimskii-Korsakov), such as his opera Boris Godunov. The
piano cycle Kartinki (Pictures from an Exhibition) is one
of his renowned compositions. This opus shows a unique
variety of sound colour, thematic diversity, and inventive
originality; it inspired another twentieth century composer,
Maurice Ravel, to orchestrate it. Nevertheless, the original
version for piano has unique characteristics.
The composer was inspired by the paintings of his friend
Viktor Aleksandrovich Hartmann. The recurring theme is a
promenade, i.e. a walk as if strolling from one painting to
another in an art gallery. The melody is distinctly Russian.
The composition contains the following scenes: Gnomus
(picturing a toy with knock-knees, a crippled creature), Old
Castle (a lyric love song of a troubadour), Children
playing and squatting (a watercolour with scenery of
Tuilleries, a Paris park), Bydlo (a contrast picture of a
lumbering country waggon, a symbol of fate), Ballet of the
Unhatched Chicks (a scene of children dressed up as
chickens), Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle (a picture of
two Jews that depicts two natures, a rich, fat man and a
lamenting, poor man), The Market Place of Limoges
(whirling life in a multicoloured square), Catacombs
(meditation foreshadowing death), Cum mortuis in lingua
mortua (With the dead in their language; developing the
preceding picture), The Hut of Baba-Yaga (a carved witch
and horrible figures). The final monumental scene is The
Great Gate of Kiev that was to have been built in honour of
the Russian Tsar Alexander II. The promenade theme
sounds here with an incredible pathos that culminates in
bell peals. This unique, extremely technically demanding
section ends the work.
Jiří Pilka
Břevnov Monastery
In 993, St.Adalbert as the Prague bishop and Boleslav II
as the Czech duke founded the Břevnov monastery,
called later on archisterium or aricoenobium
(archmonastery). So the more than the thousand-year
history of the oldest contemporary friary began in
Bohemia. St.Adalbert brought the monks of the
St.Benedict order from the Roman monastery at
Aventine. In the years 1035-1089, under the abbot
Menhart, a stone church was built the patrons of which
were St. Alexius, St.Boniface and St.Benedict). The
remains of its crypt have been preserved up to the present
time. In Břevnov, hermit Vintíř (Guntherus, died 1045)
was buried and his local cult started to develop.
In 1262, the Hungarian king Béla II donates to the
monastery a part of remnants of St. Margaret and, later
on, her cult developed here. She is the patron of the
present archabbot basilica. In 1290-1332, under the abbot
Pavel Bavor of Nečtiny, the Břevnov monastery church
was rebuilt as a Gothic basilica. In 1663-1700, under the
abbot Thomas Sartorius, the monastery was again rebuilt,
but it suffered damage through a fire. A part of the
convent still stands and bears the abbot‘s name. In 17001738, under the abbot Otmar Zink, both the monasteries,
in Břevnov and in Broumov, flourished and were
extensively rebuilt by prominent artists (Christoph and
Kilian Ignaz Dienzenhofers, Peter Brandl and others). At
that time, the Břevnov monastery acquired the shape
known today.
In 1950, the Břevnov monastery like all the other
monasteries in Czechoslovakia was cleared out by the the
State Security Police and the friars were taken to
Broumov. Later on, they were allowed to dissipate. The
activity of monasteries was forbidden.
In 1990, the monastery was reclaimed; the friars moved
into the Sartorius convent.
The medieval configuration of the monastery was totally
supressed by later modifications. The today’s monastery,
a vast two-storey complex with three yards in the highbaroque style, was built by Christopher and Gillean
Ignatius Dienzenhofer in the years 1709 - 1720.
Many areas modified in the baroque or classicism style
were preserved in the interior. Of them, the Theresian
Hall excels with its beautiful frescos on the ceiling and
two marble fireplaces.