RECITAL: PAVLA VYKOPALOVÁ (Janáček Brno 2024)

ABOUT

The concert of our leading soprano Pavla Vykopalová is combined with a performance of the equally renowned clarinettist Karel Dohnal and pianist Eliška Novotná. The compositions of the Czech composers have a common denominator: the folk song.

Vítězslava Kaprálová (1915–1940) was one of the true talents of interwar Czechoslovakia, not only as a composer but also as a conductor. Unfortunately, her illness and early death prevented her from fully developing as a composer. She studied at the Master School with Vítězslav Novák and then privately with Bohuslav Martinů. She composed the cycle Seconds of a Year, a collection of occasional songs for voice and piano with piano interlude, between 1936–39. The premiere took place after the composer’s death in 1945 in Prague.

The Sonata for Clarinet and Piano by Miloslav Ištvan (1928–1990) was written in the gloomy times of 1969 and 1970. It is the author’s last composition, which follows the principles of the so-called New Music. The piano is designed dodecaphonically to a certain extent, while in the cello the emphasis is on sonority. 

Songs on One Page by Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959) are among the gems of Czech song literature. Martinů composed them during the difficult times of WWII, when he had to emigrate to the United States. There in 1943, filled with longing for his native land, he composed seven songs to the lyrics of Moravian songs from Sušil’s collection. 

 Antonín Tučapský (1928–2014), a conductor, choirmaster and composer living in forced exile in Great Britain since 1975, composed his cycle of arrangements of Moravian folk songs gradually between 1983 and 1991. He arranged the songs for soprano, clarinet and piano. 

Two Wallachian Dances by Vítězslav Novák (1870–1949) for piano from 1904 are a very virtuosic piece technically, demonstrating the author’s close relationship to folk culture, which he was experiencing during this creative period.

Leoš Janáček (1854–1928) gifted himself with the whimsical Nursery Rhymes shortly after his seventieth birthday. These years are typical of the composer’s remarkable chamber instrumentation (Nursery Rhymes, Concertino, Capriccio). Inspiration came, as it had several times before, from his favourite Lidové noviny, when the supplement Dětský koutek (Children’s Corner) published short rhymes illustrated by Josef Lada, Ondřej Sekora and Jan Hála. The concert will feature the original version of the Nursery Rhymes for mezzo-soprano, clarinet and piano. 

Jiří Zahrádka

Programme

Pavel Haas: Six Songs in Folk Tone for Soprano and Piano, Op. 1
Miloslav Ištvan: Sonata for Clarinet and Piano
Bohuslav Martinů: Songs on One Page
Antonín Tučapský: The Sorrow of Love; Five Moravian Songs
Vítězslav Novák: Two Wallachian Dances, Op. 34
Leoš Janáček: Nursery Rhymes

Cast

Soprano: Pavla Vykopalová

Klarinet: Karel Dohnal

Piano: Eliška Novotná