ASRAEL

Each work of art reflects the mental life of its creator in its own way. Sometimes more obviously, sometimes less so. In the case of Josef Suk (1874–1935), however, it is supremely striking. His life developed happily: as a thirty-year-old composer, Suk had been known for a long time, widely performed and published at home and abroad, as the second player of the internationally successful Czech quartet, he gave concerts all over Europe. He liked to return home to his family, whose background he loved just as much as his father-in-law Antonín Dvořák. The news of Dvořák's death hit him all the more cruelly on the tour in Madrid. While still on tour, he conceived the concept of a great funeral symphony. Less than a year after Dvořák's funeral, in the middle of work on the adagio of the fourth movement, his wife Otylka died - and his beloved home world collapsed for good. Such a fate either destroys a person or brings to the surface everything strong that has been dormant in him. It seemed that the first one would catch me, but the music saved me... He started a completely new adagio and after it he was able to write a finale that evaluates everything that happened in the symphony; in the silent conclusion, Asrael flies away as a friend….

LEOŠ JANÁČEK Adagio for orchestra
GUSTAV MAHLER Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (Songs of a wandering journeyman)
JOSEF SUK Symphony in C minor op. 27 "Asrael"

Roman Hoza baritone
Brno Philharmonic
conductor Robert Kružík