PRAGUE SYMPHONY CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

PAUL HINDEMITH (1895 ̶ 1963) was one of the leading German avant-garde composers of the interwar years. His composing was closely linked to his viola playing, as well as his theoretical work and his activity as a pedagogue. Hindemith devoted a considerable amount of time to amateur musicians and students. To this field belong his Eight Pieces for String Orchestra from 1927, which are part of a set of pieces known as Schulwerk für Instrumental‐Zusammenspiel, Op. 44, No. 3 (Educational works for Instrumental Ensembles). These compositions, aimed at advanced players, have been included, thanks to their appeal, in the repertoire of many professional ensembles.

The Prague Symphony Orchestra FOK has chosen two artists of residence for its  2011/2012 season, one of them being the singer Dagmar Pecková and the other the Prague-based composer JURAJ FILAS (*1955), who has three compositions being performed during this FOK season. Juraj Filas is a composer who wittingly follows the structural principles of the musical giants of the past, but at the same time reacts to important contemporary social events (for instance his Requiem – Prayer of Hope from 2002 devoted to the victims of terrorist attacks). Here is the composer’s comments on the Concerto for Viola and Chamber Orchestra, the premier of which we shall hear tonight: “The one movement concerto in fact covers two movements, as is usual in my works. The composition should sound like an apotheosis of harmony and a dominance of the positive and constructive. Many of my compositions end in this kind of 'victory' of positive forces, in accordance with the credo of my life-long musical creation”.

IGOR STRAVINSKY (1882 - 1971) composed his Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra between two important ballet pieces (Apollón Musagète and The Fairy’s Kiss, 1928) and the grand Symphony of Psalms (1930) written to mark the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. In his book of conversations with Robert Craft he admitted that his Capriccio was directly influenced by C. M. Weber. An interesting aspect of this piece is the way the composer works with the piano sound, which is stylized in some places so as to sound like a harpsichord.  Stravinsky took a liking to harpsichord when he was composing Ragtime for Eleven Instruments (composed all at the harpsichord), but according to his own words, he couldn’t find players good enough to write the piece directly for this instrument. His relationship with the harpsichord is evident in his Capriccio (mainly in the Cadenza and the second movement, which he likened to “music in Romanian pubs”). It was performed for the first time by Stravinsky and the Paris Symphony Orchestra on the 6th of December 1929 under Ernest Ansermet. In Czechoslovakia the Capriccio was performed by Stravinsky and the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra under Václav Talich in the Smetana Hall on the 26^th of February 1930.

The Italian composer and conductor NINO ROTA (1911 ̶ 1979) is renowned mainly as a composer of film music, but he is also the author of a large number of chamber and symphonic pieces, ballets and operas, the first of which he wrote when he was only fourteen years old. In the 1950s he began significant collaborations with Frederico Fellini and other key directors, composing some of his best film music (he gained an Oscar for his music in Francis Ford Coppola’s film Godfather). His origins as a film music composer are obvious immediately in the first movement of his four-movement Concerto per archi, from the years  1964-65, but otherwise the composition is built in the traditional form of a concerto cycle.