Piano concert Jarmila Kozderková

Piano concert

Jarmila Kozderková

at the Benedictine Archabbey of St. Adalbert and St. Margaret

Monday, 17th July 2000

P.M.M., 40^th 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):	VARIATIONS “NEL COR PIU NON MI SENTO”
Bohuslav Martinů (1890-1959):	ETUDES AND POLKAS (Selection): Etude in A Etude in F Polka in A Etude in A Etude in F Etude in C
Fryderyk Chopin (1810-1849):	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 (1838-1881):	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 1700-1738, 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 high-baroque 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.