Tour: Brno
Tuesday
15.11.2022
19:00 — Janáček Theatre
Tour
programme
Tomáš Netopil
conductor
Viktoria Mullova
violin
Dimitri Shostakovich
Concerto for violin and orchestra No. 1 in A minor op. 77
Leos Janáček
Suite from the opera The Makropulos Case – premiere (devised by Tomáš Netopil, orch. Tomáš Ille)
Modest Moussorgski
Pictures at an Exhibition (arranged by Maurice Ravel)
the music
After performing with the Grand Théâtre de Genève two days earlier, the Orchestra returns to the Janáček Theatre on 15 November with violinist Viktoria Mullova.
Shostakovich’s Violin Concert No.1 was composed in 1947, but had to forego a long wait before it’s premiere by David Oïstrakh as Shostakovich himself was persecuted by the Soviet government, forced to deliver a self-confession in front of all his colleagues. For the record, this concerto occupies the entire plot of Alexis Ragougneau’s novel Opus 77; the story of an imaginary conductor in Geneva, conductor of… the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande! We follow his adventures and state of mind according to the five movements which form the structure of the work: Nocture, Scherzo, Passacaglia, Cadenza and Burlesque.
Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition were masterfully orchestrated be Ravel, and are indelibly linked to the history of the OSR: the Orchestra recorded the masterpieces three times with it’s founder, conductor Ernest Ansermet, in 1953, 1958 and 1959.