35th Bard Music Festival

Martinů and His World

"Part boot camp for the brain, part spa for the spirit" —The New York Times

The Bard Music Festival returns with an intensive two-week exploration of Martinů and His World. In eleven themed concerts featuring its boldest and most adventurous programming to date, the festival’s 35th season examines the life and times of Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959), one of the most fascinating and prolific composers of the 20th century, whose music is nonetheless largely unfamiliar to U.S. audiences today. 

Schedule Of Events:

10:00 am - Panel Two - Music and Politics: From the Multinational Empire to Contemporary Populism and Autocracy

A panel discussion and Q&A with Michael Beckerman, moderator; Larry Wolff; and others.

Free and open to the public.

Location: Olin Hall

1:30 pm - Program Eight - Tradition and Innovation
This program celebrates Martinů’s gift for synthesizing the old and the new. Named for Renaissance part-songs and inspired by Mozart, the First Duo from his “Three Madrigals” is nonetheless contemporary in its idioms; his lyrical Third Cello Sonata features both traditional and progressive harmonies; and his Second Nonet, composed in his final months, finds fresh colors and textures within its neoclassical form. These will be heard alongside mid-century chamber works by two of Martinů’s younger contemporaries. David Diamond, a friend and colleague whom he had known in Paris, is represented by the energetic and tonally centered Quintet for flute, piano, and strings. By contrast, the Évocations de Slovaquie by Pulitzer Prize laureate Karel Husa—another Czech who settled in France before emigrating to the States—is already atonal and forward-looking, despite dating from the composer’s Paris years between the wars.

Program
1 pm - Preconcert talk: TBA
1:30 pm - Performance: Alex Sopp, flute; Michael Stephen Brown, piano; Shannon Lee & Austin Wulliman, violin; Luosha Fang, viola; Nicholas Canellakis & Thomas Mesa, cello; and others

Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959)
Duo No. 1, “Three Madrigals,” H313 (1947)
Cello Sonata No. 3, H340 (1952)
Nonet No. 2, H374 (1959)

David Diamond (1915–2005)
Quintet (1937)

Karel Husa (1921–2016)
Evocations de Slovaquie (1951)

Location: Olin Hall

3:30 pm - Summer Soirée
As SummerScape ends and the Bard Music Festival draws to a close, there is one more chance to come together and celebrate. Nestled perfectly between Bard Music Festival Program Eight: Tradition and Innovation and Program Nine: The Epic Power of Tradition, this annual affair includes performances, signature cocktails, light fare, and a guaranteed good time.

Location: Blithewood

7:00 pm - Program Nine - The Epic Power of Tradition
This program comprises choral and orchestral music by Martinů and perhaps his finest student, Moravia’s Jan Novák. Set to his own Latin text, Novák’s moving cantata Ignis pro Ioanne Palach commemorates a desperate young activist who immolated himself to protest the end of the Prague Spring. As a former professional violinist, Martinů wrote for the instrument with intimate understanding, and his Second Violin Concerto stands among his mature masterpieces. It was commissioned by the great Mischa Elman, who premiered the work with Koussevitzky and the Boston Symphony, before performing it for many years, as did Isaac Stern and Josef Suk. Completing the program are an aria from Martinů’s one-act opera Ariane, a surrealist take on the Theseus myth that was inspired by Maria Callas, and The Epic of Gilgamesh, the composer’s only large-scale oratorio. Scored for narrator, soloists, choir, and orchestra, this takes its text from an English translation of the Mesopotamian saga, and is notable for some of Martinů’s most inspired choral writing.

Program
6 pm - Preconcert talk: Michael Beckerman
7 pm - Performance: Leah Hawkins, soprano; John Matthew Myers, tenor; Norman Garrett, baritone; William Guanbo Su, bass-baritone; TBA, violin; Bhavesh Patel, speaker, The Epic of Gilgamesh; Bard Festival Chorale, James Bagwell, choral director; American Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Leon Botstein, music director

Jan Novák (1921–84)
Ignis pro Ioanne Palach (1969)

Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959)
Ariane (Aria)
Violin Concerto No. 2, H293 (1943)
The Epic of Gilgamesh, H351 (1955)

Location: Fisher Center, Sosnoff Theater

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