PRESS RELEASE Brno, 26 November 2024program
The Filharmonie Brno is about to present its biggest concert project of the season , The Fabulous Mahler. It will be performed this Thursday and Friday at the Janáček Theatre, and on Sunday 8 December at the Musikverein in Vienna. “The centrepiece of the programme, Gustav Mahler’ s Das klagende Lied, will be performed in its original three-movement version on the day exactly ninety years after its premiere, which took place in Brno’s Blagoslav House. The project is part of the celebration of 100 years of broadcasting by Czech Radio Brno, which broadcast the premiere at the time and from whose orchestra the Filharmonie Brno orchestra later established itself,” said Marie Kučerová, director of Filharmonie Brno. Friday’s concert will therefore be broadcast live by Czech Radio Vltava.
Gustav Mahler is not only the main character of the programme but also the connecting element with two other authors of the project: Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Josef Bohuslav Foerster. He has met both of them several times and both have received great encouragement to work through him, especially Korngold, whom he described as a genius at the age of nine. His small cantata The Storm ppens the evening followed by Simple Songs. “I love their sensuality and the way Korngold creates an atmosphere with sound. Just a few bars and you can feel that you are immersed in a garden at night. How is it possible that such a young man had such a mature ability to express desire, love, emotion and the inner world? His music is full of colour, diverse and uplifting. In my experience, it is very accessible,” said soprano Chen Reiss, who performed Simple Songs with the Rotterdam Philharmonic in May, in an interview with Harmonie magazine. Korngold composed them at the age of 19, long before he moved to the United States, where he became famous in Hollywood as a film music composer, winning an Academy Award in 1938 for his score to The Adventures of Robin Hood. Korngold will be followed by Foerster’s Festive Overture, commissioned by the Theatre Royal Vinohrady for its opening in 1907.
The monumentality of Das klagende Lied will bring together nearly two hundred performers: soloists, the Czech Philharmonic Choir Brno and philharmonic musicians not only on stage but also behind it. In fact, Mahler prescribed a small orchestra behind the podium to achieve surround sound. “The work, which he completed at the age of twenty, surprises with its mature knowledge of orchestral and choral work and its admirable symphonic and dramatic construction. An admirer of Wagner, Mahler uses inspiration from fanfares, marches, chorales or pastoral themes, alternating the naive with the refined, the sombre with the joyful, the meditative with the lively. In short, practically everything that made Mahler Mahler Mahler even later is here in embryo,” emphasised Vítězslav Mikeš, dramaturge of Filharmonie Brno.
The balladic story tells how a wandering singer carves a flute from a found bone; when it rings out, it accuses the king of fratricide, which he committed to win his bride and crown. The wedding revelry disrupted by the dirge ends with the condemnation of the king and queen and the destruction of their castle.
Chen Reiss, who has performed with Mahler on the world’s most prestigious stages, is again the soloist, as he is one of her favourite composers. “I dare say I feel like a relative of his. We have the same date of birth, we were both born into a Jewish family, and I am as fascinated as he is by the question of what happens after death. I feel a great kinship with him, an understanding with his inner life,” Reiss told Harmony magazine. She will be joined by Stefanie Irani, Attilio Glaser and Michael Wagner as soloists. The concert is conducted by principal conductor Dennis Russell Davies.
Tickets are available in advance, on the filharmonie-brno.cz website and at the door half an hour before the start. Interested parties can purchase tickets as part of the Hvězdná subscription series, which offers four big evenings at the Janáček Theatre and starts with this project, so it is the last chance to buy it as part of a subscription.
Media contact Kateřina Konečná, Head of PR and Marketing, Brno Philharmonic
+420 775 426 040 katerina.konecna@filharmonie-brno.cz
