Janáček Brno
After a long absence, the orchestra is appearing on Brno’s top stage. With the conductor Vasily Petrenko, Janáček’s Sinfonietta is heard alongside two works that perfectly suit the theatre—Stravinsky’s Petrushka and Bartók’s Wooden Prince.
Programme
Béla Bartók
The Wooden Prince, a little suite for orchestra, Op. 13
Leoš Janáček
Sinfonietta
Igor Stravinsky
Petrushka, concert performance of the ballet music (1911 version)
Performers
Vasily Petrenko conductor
Czech Philharmonic
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Performers
Vasily Petrenko conductor
Russian-British conductor Vasily Petrenko, “Artist of the Year” by Gramophone, is Music Director of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, a position he took on in 2021, becoming Conductor Laureate of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra following his hugely acclaimed fifteen-year tenure as their Chief Conductor from 2006‒2021. His immense impact he has had on the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and the city’s cultural scene has been recognised by two Honorary Doctorates.
He is Chief Conductor of the European Union Youth Orchestra (since 2015), the Associate Conductor of the Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León, and has also served as Chief Conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra (2013‒2020) and Principal Conductor of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain (2009–2013). He stood down as Artistic Director of the State Academic Symphony Orchestra of Russia ‘Evgeny Svetlanov’ in 2021 having been their Principal Guest Conductor from 2016 and Artistic Director from 2020.
Born in 1976, Petrenko was educated at the St Petersburg Capella Boys Music School – Russia’s oldest music school – and the St Petersburg Conservatoire where he participated in masterclasses with such luminary figures as Ilya Musin, Mariss Jansons and Yuri Temirkanov. He began his career as Resident Conductor (1994–1997) of St Petersburg’s Mikhailovsky Theatre. He has worked with many of the world’s most prestigious orchestras including the Berlin Philharmonic, Leipzig Gewandhaus, London Symphony, Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, and several ones in North America. He has appeared at the Edinburgh Festival, Grafenegg Festival and made frequent appearances at the BBC Proms. Equally at home in the opera house, and with over thirty operas in his repertoire, Vasily Petrenko has conducted widely on the operatic stage, including at Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Bayerische Staatsoper, and the Metropolitan Opera, New York.
In addition, he has established a strongly defined profile as a recording artist. Amongst a wide discography, his Shostakovich, Rachmaninov and Elgar symphony cycles with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra have garnered worldwide acclaim. With the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, he has released cycles of Scriabin’s symphonies and Strauss’ tone poems, and selected symphonies of Prokofiev and Myaskovsky.
In 2023/2024 he returns to tour the US and Europe with the Royal Philharmonic, makes his debut with the NDR-Elphilharmonie Orchestra in Hamburg and returns to the Seoul, Hong Kong, Israel and Dresden Philharmonics, the Pittsburgh and Dallas Symphonies, the Filarmonica della Scala, Milan, and the orchestra of the Palau de Les Arts, Valencia.
Compositions
Béla Bartók
The Wooden Prince, a little suite for orchestra, Op. 13
Leoš Janáček
Sinfonietta
The Sinfonietta is Leoš Janáček’s last orchestral work, finished in 1926. It was first performed that year on 26 June with Václav Talich conducting the Czech Philharmonic at Prague’s Municipal House as part of the Eighth All-Sokol Festival in Prague. The original title had been Military Sinfonietta, and the premiere was given under the title Sokol Festival Sinfonietta. Janáček called the composition a reminiscence of the experiences of the First World War and of what he felt when Czechoslovakia was established as a free country, as he formulated his thoughts in a recollection of his experiences in Brno in a short essay he wrote for the issue of the newspaper Lidové noviny that appeared on 24 December 1927: “And all at once I saw the city in a miraculous transformation. [...] The magical glow of freedom and rebirth loomed over the city on 28 October 1918! I saw myself in the city, and I belonged to it. And the blaring of victorious trumpets, the holy peacefulness of the Queen’s monastery at Úvoz, the nocturnal shadows and breath of the green hill, and the vision of the certain growth and greatness of the town, of my city Brno, gave rise within me to the Sinfonietta.” The composition was originally intended to be played outdoors, but it gradually grew into a work for full symphony orchestra. The composer later abandoned the programmatic titles of individual movements (Fanfares, The Castle, The Queen’s Monastery, The Street, and The Town Hall). The work is dedicated to the British author and arts patron Rose Newmarch, who made the arrangements for Janáček’s musical tour of England in 1926.
Igor Stravinsky
Petrushka, concert performance of the ballet music (1911 version)