Bard Music Festival
Program Four • Martinů’s Distinctive Voice
August 10
Bard Music Festival
August 10
In this thoughtfully curated concert with commentary, scholars-in-residence Michael Beckerman and Aleš Březina present chamber works by Martinů and his gifted composition student Vítězslava Kaprálová, with whom he was in love.
Folk idioms permeate Kaprálová’s accomplished First String Quartet, as they do so much of Martinů’s music, from the six instrumental miniatures of Les Rondes, which include some of his earliest uses of Moravian folk song, to the Variations on a Slovak Theme for cello and piano, written just months before he died. Yet Martinů’s characteristic sound reflects a wide and eclectic range of influences. The composer reveals a Stravinskyan approach to rhythm and dissonance in Les Rondes; draws on his love of Renaissance madrigals in the heartfelt slow movement of his Seventh String Quartet, “Concerto da camera”; and experiments with pentatonic harmonies in The Fifth Day of the Fifth Moon, written for Lee Hsien-Ming, the first female pianist to graduate from the Shanghai Conservatory, and the wife of his friend Alexander Tcherepnin.
Photo: Vítězslava Kaprálová, 1935, Brno. Photo: Atelier Klaska, Brno-Královo Pole. © The Kapralova Society Archive.
11 am • Performance with commentary by Michael Beckerman and Aleš Březina
Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959)
String Quartet No. 7, “Concerto da camera,” H314 (1947)
Poco allegro
Andante
Allegro vivo
Balourdet Quartet
The Fifth Day of the Fifth Moon, H318 (1948)
Danny Driver, piano
Les Rondes, H200 (1930)
Poco allegro
Poco andantino
Allegro
Tempo di valse
Andantino
Allegro vivo
Alexandra Knoll, oboe
Yoonah Kim, clarinet
Thomas English, bassoon
Zachary Silberschlag TŌN ’18, trumpet
Jenny Huenigen and Shannon Lee, violin
Danny Driver, piano
INTERMISSION
Vítězslava Kaprálová (1915–40)
String Quartet No. 1, Op. 8 (1935)
Con brio
Lento
Allegro con variazioni
Balourdet Quartet
Bohuslav Martinů
Variations on a Slovak Theme, H378 (1959)
Theme: Poco andante, rubato
I. Moderato
II. Poco allegro
III. Moderato
IV. Scherzo: Allegretto
V. Allegro
James Kim, cello
Danny Driver, piano
Oboe
Bassoon
Clarinet
Trumpet
Piano
Violin
Violin
Cello
2025 Bard Music Festival Scholar in Residence
2025 Bard Music Festival Scholar in Residence
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