‘It must be!’
Program
Leoš Janáček
Piano Sonata ‘1.X.1905. From the Street’ (1905)
Karl Amadeus Hartmann
Sonata ‘27 April 1945’ Piano Sonata no. 2) (1945)
Bedřich Smetana
String Quartet no. 1 in E minor (‘From My Life’)
Ludwig van Beethoven
String Quartet no. 16 in F major,, op. 135
Artists
Ben Cruchley piano
Peter Hagmann Discussion
Friederike Wißmann Discussion
Zemlinsky Quartet
František Souček violin
Petr Střížek violin
Petr Holman viola
Vladimír Fortin violoncello
This concert juxtaposes two leading musical genres: the piano sonata an the string quartet. Questions arise regarding music and politics. The two piano sonatas are direct responses to political brutality: Leoš Janáček was outraged at the shooting of a demonstrator in Brno on ‘1 October 1905’, and Karl Amadeus Hartmann encountered a procession of inmates driven by the SS from Dachau concentration camp on ‘27 April 1945’. In contrast, the string quartets by Beethoven and Smetana are testaments to their authors’ undiminished will to create in response to deafness. The famous declaration of intent that Beethoven placed above the finale of his last string quartet, composed at great sacrifice, has gone down in history: ‘It must be!’
Beethoven-Haus
