This year’s cycle of piano concerts by Hybatelé Resonance will start this Monday, October 2, in Prague’s St. Anne’s Monastery with a recital by Jan Bartoš. He will present the repertoire from the album he released in February. The leading Czech pianist and artistic director of two festivals will play Bedřich Smetana’s Dreams or Miloslav Kabeláč’s Eight Preludes for Piano.
The humanistically oriented work of Miloslav Kabeláč, who lived from 1908 to 1979 and was one of the greatest Czech symphonists of the 20th century, in a certain respect continues the legacy of Bedřich Smetana and Leoš Janáček. “I have always felt a strong inner kinship between these authors,” he says Jan Bartos.
Both authors composed their most important piano cycles at a time when they were working on major orchestral compositions. Smetana created Dreams in 1875, when he was finishing Šárka and Z české luhů a hájů from the cycle My Homeland. Miloslav Kabeláč then created eight preludes for piano between 1954 and 1956, when he was working on his supreme symphonic opus Mysterium czau.
It is true for both of them that their modern and timeless piano work remains in the shadow of the top symphonic works, Jan Bartoš thinks. “We can also see parallels in their artistic journeys. They were not only recognized composers, but also respected conductors and pianists,” compares the forty-one-year-old native of Ostrava. He performs at solo recitals, with important orchestras and at chamber music concerts. His recording of Kabeláč and Smetana’s compositions was published by Supraphon this year.
The sixth edition of the Hybatelé Resonance cycle will present four artists who will present a program of their choice on the C. Bechstein D 282 concert grand piano. The second concert will be on Monday, November 6, by 52-year-old Jitka Čechová, who will play compositions by Vítězslav Novák, Josef Páleníček, Leoš Janáček, Jaroslav Ježek and Josef Suk.
The first spring concert of next year will take place in the rhythm of jazz. On Monday, April 8, the leading jazz pianist, thirty-seven-year-old Vít Křišťan, will perform at Hybatele Resonance. It follows the suite for piano, voice and extended orchestra called Mandala, which he performed this year with the Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra. At the same time, he will refer to inspiration from Polish music, introduce some jazz standards and improvise.
Ivo Kahánek will close the festival on Monday, May 13 with compositions by authors influenced by the Czech track. He will perform works by Domenico Scarlatti, Johannes Brahms, Ferenc Liszt and Béla Bartók.
The Cycle Drivers of Resonance became the successor to the two-year Saleem Ashkar Beethoven Residency series, where all 32 Beethoven piano sonatas were performed in eight concerts. As part of this concert series, Lukáš Klánský, Tomáš Kačo, Beata Hlavenková, Miroslav Sekera and Nikol Bóková have performed so far. The organizers provide space for outstanding personalities of the Czech piano school and present them in profile recitals, expressing their artistic opinion and preferences.
Video: Jan Bartoš plays Kabeláč and Smetana
Supraphon released a recording of Kabeláč and Smetana’s compositions performed by Jan Bartoš this year. Photo: Vojtěch Havlík | Video: Supraphon
