This year’s spring Prologue is the result of a collaboration between several prominent musical institutions and takes place within the architectural and cultural landmark of Hamburg – the Elbphilharmonie. 

The concert will feature works by Pavel Haas, Gideon Klein, and Bohuslav Martinů, performed by top-tier Czech and German soloists. While the first two composers gained fame primarily in memoriam due to the tragic events of World War II, Martinů managed to escape and literally conquer the world, though he never returned to his homeland.

The evening's dramaturgy presents key works and creative milestones of these masters. Bohuslav Martinů is represented by his early Duo for Violin and Cello No. 1, in which Parisian modernism and polyphonic dissonance meet the jazz rhythms of the 1920s, and his only, imaginatively styled Piano Sonata, H 350, written for the American piano professor Rudolf Serkin.

 Personal tragedy and unbreakable humanity resonate in Gideon Klein's String Trio, composed in 1944 in the Terezín ghetto just before the composer's deportation to Auschwitz; the motif of the Moravian folk song “Ta kněždubská věž” is used here as a symbol of preserving sanity in the face of unimaginable suffering. The fascinating Wind Quintet, Op. 10 by Pavel Haas, Leoš Janáček's most gifted pupil, was written in 1929 and embodies a synthesis of modernism, synagogue chant, and the raw memento of a silenced talent. Haas suffered the same fate as Klein and was deported to Auschwitz shortly after the premiere of his famous Study for String Orchestra in the Terezín ghetto. 

In addition to renowned musicians who also serve as educators at the cooperating music schools, the concert will showcase young artists whose careers are successfully flourishing—such as violinist Jan Novák, who became a laureate of the Prague Spring International Music Competition at just seventeen, or Tima Kadlec, who is not only a doctoral student at HAMU in Prague and the principal flutist of the Czech National Symphony Orchestra, but also leads a programming team at the Czech Academy of Sciences. 

This concert is the result of a collaboration between the Bohuslav Martinů Days Festival, the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg, the Faculty of Music and Dance of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, the Prague Conservatory, and the Association of Concert Artists.

More information about the concert please find here: https://1url.cz/Uezvg