{"id":2117,"date":"2021-06-24T07:51:45","date_gmt":"2021-06-24T05:51:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/firkusny.cz\/?post_type=event&#038;p=2117"},"modified":"2021-06-24T12:24:25","modified_gmt":"2021-06-24T10:24:25","slug":"slavka-vernerova-live-from-municipal-house","status":"publish","type":"event","link":"https:\/\/firkusny.cz\/en\/programme\/slavka-vernerova-live-from-municipal-house\/","title":{"rendered":"Sl\u00e1vka Vernerov\u00e1 \u2013 live from Municipal House"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Sl\u00e1vka Vernerov\u00e1 \u2013 \u017eiv\u011b z Obecn\u00edho domu\" width=\"1200\" height=\"675\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/YhSAwpoDRg8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Sl\u00e1vka Vernerov\u00e1 <\/h2>\n\n\n\n\n<div class=\"text-image text-image--right\">\n    <div class=\"container\">\n        <div class=\"text-image__wrapper text-image__wrapper--right\">\n                            <div class=\"text-image__content\">\n                    <p>Sl\u00e1vka Vernerov\u00e1 is one of the last pupils of the legendary Czech pianist Ivan Moravec (1930\u20132015). Critics concur that from her teacher, who described her as his best student, she acquired her refined touch, nobility and conscientious sense of self-criticism. With her recital tonight, incorporating works which she studied under Moravec\u2019s supervision, the soloist pays tribute to her professor, who would have turned ninety on 9 November.<\/p>\n<p>Martin Hr\u0161el, also a pupil of Moravec, was there at the start of Sl\u00e1vka Vernerov\u00e1\u2019s career. He immediately recognised her great talent and, while she was studying at grammar school, he offered to prepare her for her entrance examinations for Pardubice Conservatoire. While it meant getting up almost every day at 4.15am to travel to her lessons, Sl\u00e1vka \u2013 who had wanted to train as a doctor since she was a child \u2013 undertook this punishing schedule. Yet it paid off: she was accepted at the Conservatoire to study under Hr\u0161el, going straight into the second year. Not long after this she began parallel studies at Charles University\u2019s medical faculty in Prague. She opted finally for a musical career after winning the Smetana International Piano Competition in Hradec Kr\u00e1lov\u00e9 (1996); she is also a laureate of the international competitions in Wroc\u0142aw (1995), Missouri (1998) and Wales (2001).<\/p>\n<p>In 1998 she enrolled at Prague\u2019s Academy of Music, studying under Ivan Moravec, with whom she did her master\u2019s degree and her doctorate. She completed the latter in 2007 with a thesis on the piano oeuvre of Leo\u0161 Jan\u00e1\u010dek, whose practical part was a recording of the composer\u2019s complete solo and chamber works for piano. Two years later (still using her maiden name Sl\u00e1vka P\u011bcho\u010dov\u00e1) she recorded all of Jan\u00e1\u010dek\u2019s works for solo piano for her debut CD. A review of this recording by Jind\u0159ich B\u00e1lek states the following: \u201c<em>Her performance is remarkable. Each part has its own story, a clear culmination, a point, precise and logical touch registers. Thanks to this logic we hear a number of details in a new way, or we discover them afresh<\/em>.\u201d Vernerov\u00e1\u2019s album, released in 2010 on the Praga Digitals label, won the highest rating in\u00a0<em>Le Monde de la musique<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0<em>Harmonie\u00a0<\/em>magazines, and it was placed in the top ten by Belgium\u2019s radio Classic.<\/p>\n                                    <\/div>\n                                        <div class=\"text-image__image-wrapper\">\n                                            <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/firkusny.cz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Sla\u0301vka-Vernerova\u0301-5-web.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"text-image__image\">\n                                        <\/div>\n                    <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n<div class=\"text-image text-image--left\">\n    <div class=\"container\">\n        <div class=\"text-image__wrapper text-image__wrapper--left\">\n                            <div class=\"text-image__content\">\n                    <p>In 2002, when Sl\u00e1vka spent three months on a post-graduate course at London\u2019s Royal College of Music, Czech Television made a 40-minute documentary about her entitled\u00a0<em>Profession: Pianist<\/em>, directed by Jan Mudra. Two years later she gave her solo debut at the Prague Spring. Since that time she has appeared with virtually all of the most important Czech orchestras and conductors (Libor Pe\u0161ek, Ji\u0159\u00ed B\u011blohl\u00e1vek, Martin Turnovsk\u00fd, Jakub Hr\u016f\u0161a). Outside the country she has performed with the Gunma Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Liverpool Orchestra, among others, and in 2009 she joined V\u00e1clav M\u00e1cha to perform Bohuslav Martin\u016f\u2019s\u00a0<em>Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra\u00a0<\/em>with Ji\u0159\u00ed B\u011blohl\u00e1vek conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the celebrated Proms festival. She has given solo recitals in the Prague Symphony\u2019s piano series, also in Zurich\u2019s Tonhalle, in Osaka and Ottawa. In the meantime she made two further albums for Praga Digitals: a CD featuring works by Chopin and Schumann, and the 2013 release of her recording of three Mozart piano concertos with the Pra\u017e\u00e1k Quartet; the record received all five \u201cGolden Tuning Forks\u201d from the prestigious\u00a0<em>Diapason<\/em>\u00a0magazine.<\/p>\n<p>Sl\u00e1vka Vernerov\u00e1 is a keen chamber musician; she is a founding member of the Dvo\u0159\u00e1k Piano Quartet, she performs in the Spring Duo with her husband, she appeared in the Kinsky Trio Prague in the years 2008\u20132015, and she works with leading instrumentalists and ensembles on the Czech music scene. She lives in Prague with her husband, the violinist, violist and conductor Petr Verner, and their two children.<\/p>\n                                    <\/div>\n                                        <div class=\"text-image__image-wrapper\">\n                                            <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/firkusny.cz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Sla\u0301vka-Vernerova\u0301-1-web.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"text-image__image\">\n                                        <\/div>\n                    <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Programme note<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>LEO\u0160 JAN\u00c1\u010cEK<\/strong>&nbsp;(1854\u20131928) was not only an exceptional, highly original composer, but he was also a patriot with strong social empathy. Accessible education for all Czechs was important to him and he supported endeavours to establish a Czech university in Brno, which culminated in 1905. Fearing the decline of their influence, the prevailing German inhabitants of the city summoned their representatives to a&nbsp;<em>Volkstag<\/em>&nbsp;at the beginning of October, while Czech deputies were to convene in Besedn\u00ed d\u016fm (Meeting House). These officially sanctioned events were accompanied by mass demonstrations which Jan\u00e1\u010dek attended as well. In doing so he witnessed a tragic incident in which a German soldier stabbed a 20-year-old joiner\u2019s assistant, Franti\u0161ek Pavl\u00edk, with his bayonet. The composer was shocked by his death, along with the entire Czech community: tens of thousands of people showed up at the young man\u2019s funeral and Jan\u00e1\u010dek even gave a short speech at his graveside. He projected his distress, perhaps also memories of his only daughter Olga, who had died of typhus two years previously, into a three-movement piano piece entitled&nbsp;<strong><em>From the Street, 1 October 1905<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The composition acquired the name \u201csonata\u201d \u2013 reflecting the form of the first movement \u2013 at a time when it was considered lost. In January of 1906 the composer attended a general rehearsal of new music by some of his colleagues (works by Josef Bohuslav Foerster, V\u00edt\u011bzslav Nov\u00e1k and Josef Suk, including part of the latter\u2019s&nbsp;<em>Spring&nbsp;<\/em>cycle), which led to a bout of extreme, destructive self-criticism. He destroyed the third movement just before the premiere and threw the remaining two parts into the Vltava river after an informal performance in Prague. Nevertheless, they survived in a copy (today unfortunately missing) kept by the work\u2019s first performer, Ludmila Tu\u010dkov\u00e1; Jan\u00e1\u010dek later came to view the piece differently and ultimately consented to its publication.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In this work we will particularly note the use of a broad range of expressional means confined within a small space. In Presentiment the composer combines traditional elements (e.g. polyphony, imitation, inversion) with his typical compositional tools, such as \u201cdulcimer\u201d arpeggios, modality, speech melodies and what he termed&nbsp;<em>s\u010dasovky<\/em>&nbsp;(the embodiment or process of rhythmical organisation and rhythmical dimension). The main key of E flat minor moves in the exposition to the positive key of G major (later G flat major), while the presentiment motif culminates in the development section (a descending tonal series), together with a greater density of sound, which moves fluently to the recapitulation and its \u201cresigned\u201d coda. This is followed by the elegiac part Death, typical for its treatment of rhythm and its economy of expression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The eight-part piano cycle&nbsp;<strong><em>Humoresques Op. 101<\/em><\/strong>&nbsp;by&nbsp;<strong>ANTON\u00cdN DVO\u0158\u00c1K<\/strong>&nbsp;(1841\u20131904) emerged towards the end of the composer\u2019s American period, written during the summer vacation of 1894 at his summer residence in Vysok\u00e1 near P\u0159\u00edbram. Dvo\u0159\u00e1k intended to conceive the work as a continuation of his&nbsp;<em>Scottish Dances Op. 41&nbsp;<\/em>from 1877, thus he kept the 2\/4 time signature and the regular eight-bar period; however, the result gave rise to pieces of such colourful character that he decided to give them a more universal title. On this occasion he drew inspiration from his American sketchbooks. He had jotted down a note in New York on New Year\u2019s Eve 1893 relating to the theme for&nbsp;<em>Humoresque No. 1 in E flat minor&nbsp;<\/em>(Vivace), describing it as a \u201cmarcia funebre\u201d; in the repetition of the second theme in E flat major he used the syncopated \u201cScotch snap\u201d (a short, accented note followed by a longer note), familiar from the&nbsp;<em>New World Symphony<\/em>.&nbsp;<em>Humoresque No. 3 in A flat major&nbsp;<\/em>(Poco andante e molto cantabile) incorporates a succession of syncopation, dotted rhythms and the pentatonic scale, while&nbsp;<em>Humoresque No. 5 in A minor&nbsp;<\/em>(Vivace) is constructed on a modal theme with five repeated notes which we then hear more than thirty times in different keys.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Musicologist Ji\u0159\u00ed Berkovec had this to say about the piano cycle&nbsp;<strong><em>Spring Op. 22a<\/em><\/strong>&nbsp;by&nbsp;<strong>JOSEF SUK<\/strong>&nbsp;(1874\u20131935): \u201c<em>\u02bdSpring\u02bc is once again a work suffused with the kind of atmosphere and flair we will find in the composer\u2019s music for Julius Zeyer\u2019s staged fairy tale&nbsp;<\/em>Rad\u00faz and Mahulena<em>; its images are pastel-coloured; butterfly wings of delicate notes flutter above the keyboard, irradiated by flashes of fiery accents<\/em>\u201d. Suk wrote the cycle in April 1902 and he did, indeed, have spring in his soul: happily married to Anton\u00edn Dvo\u0159\u00e1k\u2019s daughter Otilie, he was delighted to announce the birth of a son, Josef.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Suk\u2019s celebration of joy begins with the energetic&nbsp;<em>Spring<\/em>, which introduces a key element of the entire cycle: three ascending chords followed by a dotted rhythm. For the first fifty bars or so the composer avoids the principal key of E major; only after this do we hear the theme, which opens with three ascending notes. All the motifs are developed in various ways, such as via a chromatic progression in the bass, harmonic shifts and ornaments, before the return \u2013 in an almost exact repetition \u2013 of the theme in the fundamental key. The dotted rhythm reappears in the middle voice towards the end, and the softer dynamics intimate the atmosphere of the subsequent part. The shimmering, gentle&nbsp;<em>The Breeze<\/em>, from the outset established in the key of C major, is a subtle impression, leading to the part entitled&nbsp;<em>In Expectation<\/em>. Here the music is filled with tension for the first time, with emotional flurries, heightened chromaticism, syncopation and a denser texture; the dotted rhythm also returns. The conclusion brings a sudden pianissimo, while the melody is taken over by the bass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After the preceding G flat major of&nbsp;<em>In Expectation<\/em>, the mere twenty-one bars of the fourth part without a poetic title are framed by the keys of A minor\/A major, the composer ostensibly allowing the previous ideas to linger while preparing the listener for the passionate love song&nbsp;<em>Longing<\/em>, which follows&nbsp;<em>attacca subito<\/em>. The expansive melody in D flat major comprises a dotted rhythm which later functions as a counter-voice. After numerous variations of the main theme the musical current is momentarily brought to a halt with three chords (in a reminiscence of the introductory part), and three brusque chords also bring the entire cycle to a close.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We should thank destiny that, in 1834,&nbsp;<strong>ROBERT SCHUMANN<\/strong>&nbsp;(1810\u20131856) fell in love with 18-year-old Ernestine von Fricken, since it was she who inspired the composer to write the collection&nbsp;<strong><em>Carnaval Op. 9<\/em>.<\/strong>&nbsp;The girl to whom he was briefly engaged hailed from the town of Asch, and Schumann, a lover of puzzles, appreciated the fact that the letters spelling out the name of the town could be conveyed in notes (in the musical cryptogram A \u2013 Es [E flat] \u2013 C \u2013 H [B]); moreover, these letters were contained in his own name as well. They simply lent themselves to musical treatment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Schumann used the four notes as a musical base for all the parts of this highly diverse work, a depiction of a masked ball. We encounter stylised characters from the&nbsp;<em>commedia dell\u2019arte<\/em>, Ernestine appears under the name Estrella (along with a declaration of love in No. 18, Aveu), as does Schumann\u2019s future wife Clara (Chiarina) and composers he admired (Chopin and Paganini). Schumann himself is present in a dual role, two individuals who represent a soul rent in two: the impetuous, defiant and fiery Florestan and the gentle, serene and restrained Eusebius. Both were principal members of the&nbsp;<em>Davidsb\u00fcndler&nbsp;<\/em>(\u201cLeague of David\u201d), a fictitious secret society created by the composer for his critical texts. The march of the&nbsp;<em>Davidsb\u00fcndler<\/em>&nbsp;against the Philistines, deliberately written in triple time, ironises the latter group \u2013 as representatives of all things obsolete \u2013 via the melody of the German Baroque dance&nbsp; \u201cGrossvatertanz\u201d. Towards the middle of&nbsp;<em>Carnaval<\/em>we find the mysterious Sphinxes, where three different variants of the above-mentioned four-note series stare stonily at us from the manuscript, with no specific tempo or other indications. According to a note in Clara Schumann\u2019s edition, they are not meant to be played, however, certain pianists allow them to make their presence felt (such as Mitsuko Uchida).&nbsp;<em>Carnaval<\/em>&nbsp;ends, as is fitting for a ball, on the stroke of midnight \u2013 here signified by a chord in A flat major.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Dina \u0160nejdarov\u00e1<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>English translation by Karolina Hughes<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sl\u00e1vka Vernerov\u00e1 Programme note LEO\u0160 JAN\u00c1\u010cEK&nbsp;(1854\u20131928) was not only an exceptional, highly original composer, but he was also a patriot with strong social empathy. Accessible education for all Czechs was&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":2074,"template":"","event_category":[],"event_type":[15],"class_list":["post-2117","event","type-event","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","event_type-prague-spring"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/firkusny.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/event\/2117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/firkusny.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/event"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/firkusny.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/event"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firkusny.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/firkusny.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"event_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firkusny.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/event_category?post=2117"},{"taxonomy":"event_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firkusny.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/event_type?post=2117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}