A3: Stravinsky’s Firebird

ABOUT THE CONCERT

The third concert of the P subscription cycle will present works of two outstanding personalities of the music of the first half of the 20th century, Béla Bartók and Igor Stravinsky. At the roots of the compositional activity of both composers was folk music, from which they both drew inspiration for their first avant-garde breakthroughs. While before the First World War Béla Bartók was attracted by symbolism, late Romantic soundscapes and an impressionistic orchestral palette, from the 1920s onwards his works acquired an expressionistic brevity, rawness and intensity thanks to his close study of Hungarian and Romanian folk music. These features also characterise Bartók’s Second Violin Concerto from 1937-1938. This leading work of the 20th-century violin repertoire will be performed by the world-renowned and award-winning violinist Ilya Gringolts.

The Paris premiere of the ballet The Firebird in 1910 brought fame and admiration to the previously unknown Russian composer Igor Stravinsky. The composer adapted the well-known Russian fairy tale for Sergei Diaghilev’s ballet ensemble, with whom he also collaborated on his other famous ballet compositions. Stravinsky’s musical interpretation of The Firebird still enchants with its orchestral vividness and oriental atmosphere.

The concert will be performed under the baton of conductor Andrey Boreyko, who is now a regular guest of the JPO and other distinguished European and American orchestras.

PROGRAM

Béla Bartók
Concerto for Violin and Orchestra No. 2

Igor Stravinsky
Firebird, suite from the ballet

 THE CAST

Ilya Gringolts – violin
Janáček philharmonic Ostrava
Andrey Boreyko – conductor