Antonín Dvořák: Complete Works for Solo Piano - IV. American Horizon
Humoresque in F sharp major, B. 138
Two Piano Pieces, B. 188
Humoresques, Op. 101. B. 187
Performance of the Humoresque No. 7 in G flat minor (on an original insrument of Antonin Dvořák)
It's not every day one can attend a concert featuring several dozen compositions. Of course, festivals are ideal moments for special experiences. Under the guidance of Ivo Kahánek and the musicologist David Beveridge, audience members and young pianists will experience a marathon concert at which nearly all of Antonín Dvořák's music for solo piano and for piano four-hands will be heard. His piano works will be played in six topically arranged blocks that will encompass everything not already heard at the solo recitals of Iva Kahánek and the Ardašev Piano Duo.
Piano compositions are not in general among Dvořák's best known music - an exception perhaps being the extremely popular Humoresque No. 7 in G Flat Major. Still, he devoted himself to the piano continually, and he also frequently composed at the keyboard. This piano marathon is a special opportunity to get to know Dvořák's pianistic thinking at maximum intensity, magnified by insightful performing.
The patron of the event is the excellent pianist and popular Dvořák Prague Festival guest Ivo Kahánek. He already won over the festival public years ago as the curator of its Chamber Series and again last year performing Dvořák's Piano Concerto, for the recording of which he won a BBC Music Magazine Award. The marathon will also be an opportunity for the festival debuts of the pianists Marek Kozák, Natálie Schwamová, Matouš Zukal, Pavel Zemen, and Kristýna Znamenáčková.
Natalie Schwamová has played piano since age eight, and she is currently a student at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. She has won many piano competitions in the Czech Republic and abroad. At age 14 she took second place at the International Smetana Competition in Pilsen in the under-30 category, and a year later she became the youngest winner of the Frédéric Chopin International Piano Competition in Mariánské Lázně. In 2015 she was one of the youngest participants at the prestigious Chopin International Piano Competition in Warsaw. At age ten she made her debut in Mozart’s Piano Concerto in D Minor with the Buenos Aires Philharmonic. In this country, she has appeared with the Czech Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra in Pardubice, the Janáček Philharmonic in Ostrava, the Pilsen Philharmonic, and in 2014 and 2016 at the Rudolfinum with the Prague Symphony Orchestra. In 2017 she played the solo part in Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with the Aarhus Symphony Orchestra in Denmark. She has appeared as a soloist in recitals in Germany, Italy, Austria, Denmark, Spain, Argentina, and the USA.
Suk Hall is the newest hall in the Neo-Renaissance Rudolfinum. It was created from 1940 to 1942 during modifications of the adjacent Dvořák Hall, as a smaller concert hall. In designing the interior decor architects Antonín Engel and Bohumír Kozák took inspiration from the original style of the Rudolfinum’s architects Josef Zítek and Josef Schulz, thus Suk Hall fits perfectly into the original composition of the building. During the most recent modifications in 2015, according to a design by architect Petr Hrůša, the acoustics of the hall and its connection to the Rudolfinum’s atrium were improved while respecting the historical value of these premises, protected as a historical landmark. Suk Hall has a new grand piano and continues to be intended mainly for performances of chamber music.
