Jan Jiraský

Bedřich Smetana – Sketches, Op. 5
Antonín Dvořák – Poetic Tone Pictures, Op. 85 (selection)
Josef Suk – Summer Impressions, Op. 22b
Luboš Fišer – Piano Sonata No. 4
Leoš Janáček – In the Mists

 

A very substantial part of the work of Bedřich Smetana (1824–1884) belongs to the piano. At the turn of the 1940s and 1950s, the young composer wrote a total of 24 pieces – the Album Leaves popular at the time. He also gradually published these, two quartets of which he published in 1858 under the title Skizzen (Czech: Črty) Op. 4 and 5, and dedicated them to the pianist and composer Clara Schumann. Sketches, Op. 5 presents four compositions, of which the most famous is probably the one with the poetic title A Friendly Landscape. 

Antonín Dvořák (1841–1904) composed the piano Poetic Tone Pictures in 1889. It is the composer’s most extensive and also his most elaborate piano cycle. In the same year the work was published by the Simrock Berlin publishing house and immediately became popular internationally.

Josef Suk (1870–1935) composed Summer Impressions in the happiest period of his life. With the Bohemian Quartet he conquered the world as a second violinist, he composed, and together with his beloved wife Otylka he rejoiced at the birth of his son Josef. This happy period soon ended with the death of his father-in-law Antonín Dvořák and shortly afterwards also Otylka. Summer Impressions is stylistically related to the composition Spring. The three pieces depicting three summer images in music, Noon, Children’s Games and Evening Mood, belong to Suk’s optimistic lyrical statements.

Luboš Fišer (1935–1999) is one of our most played composers. His extensive work includes compositions of various character in the orchestral field, as well as vocal and chamber works. He is also an unmissable composer of numerous film and television scores. The most important is his work for piano, in which eight sonatas form the central line. Sonata for Piano No. 4 was written in 1962, following the death of Fišer’s friend, pianist Antonín Jemelík. It is inspired by the last composition Jemelík studied, Alexander Scriabin’s Tenth Sonata. This very emotional piece was premiered in 1965 in the interpretation of Pavel Štěpán.

Janáček completed the piano cycle In the Mists in April 1912. Not long before that, in 1910, he moved with his wife and housekeeper to a new house in the garden of the organ school and there, hidden from the world, with his confidence shattered and in a melancholic mood, he composed his last major work for solo piano.

Jiří Zahrádka