The Czech premiere of the composition Meditation – to the Victims of the Tsunami 11/3 by Toshio Hosokawa will take place today and tomorrow in Besední Dům. The work is a reaction to the results of a natural catastrophe which struck the north-east coast of Japan in 2011. The Brno Philharmonic and Vilém Veverka will perform under the leadership of Alexander Liebreich.
The Meditation as a one-movement musical stream, Hosokawa has divided it into several passages, their programmatic character captured by names inscribed into the score: Rumbling Earth (blows on the bass drum corresponding to the cosmic pulse), Calligraphy (a melody evoking oriental calligraphy), Meditation, Elegy (a lament), Fears (brass and percussion in the background as the threat of the approaching disaster) and prayer. “I followed the television reports about mothers who lost their children in the catastrophe. The wave of the tsunami hit a primary school and swept away all the pupils in one of the classes. Their bodies are yet to be recovered from the sea. Even though several months have passed from the catastrophe, one mother still goes every day to look for her child,” says Hosokawa describing his motivation to create these works.
In Brno the composition will be conducted by Alexander Liebreich, who commissioned it from the author and conducted the world premiere. “A tsunami is actually a natural phenomenon and we as people have to be a little humble. We are sometimes overly arrogant, because we think: it is a natural catastrophe … But no. It is a normal natural phenomenon, which is a catastrophe for us, since we are dependent on nature. Toshio’s composition is not about grief, even if written in memory of the victims, but is really about homage to nature which is bigger than us – homage with a little fear. It is not lamentation or melancholy, but meditation, peace, it is naturally something Asian, Zen and Taoist,” said Liebreich in an interview for Czech Radio.
This quarter-hour-long composition is followed by the similar length Zimmermann Concerto for Oboe and Small Orchestra from 1952, which forms together with the concertos of Richard Strauss (1945) and Bohuslav Martinů (1955) a trio of the key works in the oboe concerto literature of the 20th century. Its highly virtuoso approach advanced the technical and expressive possibilities of the oboe, which after its boom in the eras of the Baroque and classicism and a certain stagnation in the Romantic period returned to it the dignified role of the solo instrument. In the Brno programme Vilém Veverka, one of the best Czech oboists will be performing, having already played it several times, among others twice with the Tokyo philharmonic. In 2004 he also gave the Czech premiere of the work.
In the second half of the evening will be heard the dramatic overture to the opera L'isola disabitata, which recounts the tale of two sisters – castaways, and an early symphony, sometimes called the Mourning, by Joseph Haydn.
Thursday’s concert will be broadcast by Czech Radio Vltava and taken up by the Euroradio radio network (EBU) as part of the Euroradio Premium Concerts. A novelty of the evening will be that listeners in the hall will be able to hear the commentary of the presenters from the speakers in the hall, which is unusual.
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