Otvárací koncert 59. ročníka Bratislavských hudobných slávnostíOpening Concert of the 59th Bratislava Music Festival

Natural phenomena and scenery are an inexhaustible source of musical motivation. Homage to rivers and streams is already known from Robert Schumann’s Rhine Symphony or Bedřich Smetana’s iconic Vltava. Alexander Moyzes’s Suite follows in the same footsteps “in modo slovacco”.

The Italian Nino Rota is best known as a composer of film and theatre music, but he did not shy away from the “classics” either, as evidenced by his operatic, choral, concertante and chamber works. Dmitri Shostakovich also excelled several times in the field of film music. His domain, however, was his symphonies, which were extremely effective in terms of expression. Beginning with the fourth, in them the composer responded to the atrocities of the Stalinist regime. After the tyrant’s death there was some relief, as Symphony No. 9 testifies. However, even the pretended ‘debauchery’ of the first movement does not stop the torrents of expressiveness, even sarcasm, that follow in the later movements.

The opening concert of the 59th BHS traditionally belongs to the resident orchestra - Slovak Philharmonic, again under the baton of its chief conductor Daniel Raiskin. The programme will be enriched by the extraordinary double bass soloist Roman Patkoló. His talent was discovered in the world before we did at home; he has won prestigious international competitions and at the age of 24 became one of the youngest professors in Europe (Munich’s Hochschule für Musik und Theater and the Hochschule für Musik in Basel).