WIR 2

The second symphony concert brings together three Czech composers who incorporated the folklore of their homeland in their own tonal language and paved the way from the 19th into the 20th century: Antonín Dvořák, Leoš Janáček und Bohuslav Martinů. Dvořak's beautiful cello concerto, with its soaring cantabile melodies, is one of the centerpieces of the Romantic concert literature. The Hessian State Orchestra's principal cellist, Johann Ludwig, now makes his solo debut in the Kurhaus, under the baton of Patrick Lange.

Janáček's operas are characterised by a tremendous richness of musical colour; this season, "Jenufa" is on the Wiesbaden State Theatre's performance schedule. His 1928 overture to the opera "From the House of the Dead" is based on a text by Dostoyevsky and is set in a Siberian prison camp. Martinů's symphonies have only recently been re-discovered for the concert hall. The composer emigrated to the USA in 1940, where he made a new start and wrote his first four symphonies within a very short time. These works are characterised by the sound of Czech folk music, intertwined with American rhythms.