Jakub Hrusa: Dvorak & Shostakovich

Jakub Hrusa: Dvorak & Shostakovich

Principal Guest Conductor Jakub Hruša conducts music by two of his countrymen, alongside Shostakovich’s youthful, popular Second Piano Concerto.

Before Dvoràk’s ebullient first set of Slavonic Dances, the work that set him on the road to international success, Jakub Hruša introduces the music of a less familiar compatriot, Miloslav Kabelàc.
Acknowledged as a worthy 20th-century successor of Dvoràk, Kabelàc was silenced by the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.
The Mystery of Time, one of his most compelling works, distils into 25 minutes a musical vision stretching ‘from the infinite past to the infinite future’.
Ethereal sounds emerge tentatively from nothing, and repeated motifs build up layers in a slow, inexorable crescendo, then subside back into silence.

Charismatic pianist Simon Trpceski, described by The Times as playing with ‘head plus heart, lots of heart’, is an ideal interpreter of Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 2, composed as both graduation showpiece and 19th birthday present for the composer’s son Maxim.

Programme

Kabelác: The Mystery of Time
Shostakovich: Piano Concerto No.2
Interval
Dvořák: Slavonic Dances, Op.46 (Series 1)

Performers

Philharmonia Orchestra
Jakub Hrůsa conductor
Simon Trpceski piano