ANTONÍN REJCHA (ANTON REICHA)
Lenora, grand musical tableau for soli, chorus and orchestra after a ballad by Gottfried August Bürger
Martina Janková soprano (Lenora)
Pavla Vykopalová soprano (Mother)
Wojciech Parchem tenor (Narrator)
Jiří Brückler baritone (Vilém)
Czech Philharmonic Choir Brno
choir director Petr Fiala
Filharmonie Brno
conductor Dennis Russell Davies
- In 2020 we celebrate the 250th birthday not just of Beethoven, but also his contemporary and friend Antonín Rejcha (1770-1836), a native of Prague, an important Czech composer and an influential teacher and theorist of his time. He worked in Vienna from 1802-1808 and in Paris until the end of his life ● His feature-long oratorio Lenora, written in Vienna in 1805-1806 after a Bürger ballad – on the same topic as Czech poet Karel Jaromír Erben’s The Wedding Shirts – though virtually unknown, is a captivating and monumental work ● Despite an intercession by Beethoven, the oratorio was at first banned by the Vienna censor due to its daring theme ● It is a musically and dramatically convincing expression of the story of the ballad: Lenora’s passion and soul-stirring sorrow, and Vilém’s victorious, destructive force
