Suchon premiere in London

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isokani
Pianophiliac
Posts: 335
Joined: Tue Sep 15, 2009 1:29 pm
Instruments played, if any: piano
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Location: Stronie, Poland

Suchon premiere in London

Post by isokani »

Suchoň's 50-minute 'cycle of cycles' receives its probable Western European premiere!

Thursday 2 September, 6.30pm
Schott Recital Room
48 Gt Marlborough St
London W1

£10/6 tickets on door

Eugen Suchoň: Kaleidoskop [UK premiere]
Kaikhosru Sorabji: Gulistan
Nikolay Medtner: Sonata op.25 no.2 'Night Wind'

Jonathan Powell, piano

Eugen Suchoň (1908–1993) was, with Alexander Moyzes, the most significant Slovak musician of the 20th century. Early studies with the composer-pianist Frico Kafenda were followed by intensive further study with Vítězslav Novák in his renowned composition masterclass at the Prague Conservatoire. His operas Krútňava and Svätopluk established the genre in his country, while orchestral works such as Baladická suita and Metamorfozy are worthy successors to the works of his teacher Novák and those of another important early influence, Josef Suk. Initially employing a late-Romantic idiom that displays some elements of folklore, Suchoň subsequently developed a highly individual style that at once looks back and forward.

Suchoň’s piano music consists chiefly of three large cycles – Metamorfozy, Obrázky zo Slovenska and Kaleidoskop, which is the most ambitious. Not merely a cycle of pieces, but a cycle of six cycles, the series is subtitled ‘Evoluzioni armoniche’, thus giving an important clue to the way the work progresses. Written in the 1960s, the composer – according to the note accompanying the work’s publication in the early 1970s – ‘wanted to initiate to listeners brought up in the music of past centuries into the fantastic sonic richness of 20th-century music through use of all 12 pitches of the tempered chromatic scale. In the “Two Preludes in the Old Style” (dedicated to Debussy), the composer develops chordal material based on thirds and sevenths, but in the following cycles he gradually moves on to octatonic and, eventually, to 12-tone groups’.

The contents of Kaleidoskop are, however, far more important than just a description of compositional and technical development. In the composer’s words, ‘this is a kaleidoscope of images, the origin of which was brought about by extremely varied artistic and non-artistic experiences. If listeners immerse themselves in this music with this point of view, they will surely grasp the essence of my ideas’.
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