The Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra will present a program in which spiritual testimony meets the magical beauty of Janáček’s musical world. Dvořák’s Biblical Songs and Janáček’s Suite from the opera The Adventures of the Cunning Little Vixen promise an evening full of emotions, lyricism and captivating orchestral power.

Antonín Dvořák
Biblical Songs, Op. 99, B. 185 (arr. J. Burghauser and J. Hanuš)

Leoš Janáček
Suite from the opera The Cunning Little Vixen (arr. J. Hrůša)

PERFORMERS

Jan Martiník – baritone
Sára Slováková – soprano
Symfonický orchestr Českého rozhlasu (Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra)
Elias Grandy – conductor

A simple yet genuine and deeply felt faith is reflected in Antonín Dvořák’s Biblical Songs, Op. 99. The cycle of ten songs, for which the composer chose verses from the Psalms in the Czech translation of the Kralice Bible, was written in March 1894 during Dvořák’s stay in the United States. Their melodic beauty and fragile intimacy place the work among the gems of Czech song literature. The orchestral version was created by the composers and renowned Dvořák scholars Jarmil Burghauser and Jan Hanuš.

The worlds of animals and humans intertwine in a distinctive way in The Cunning Little Vixen, one of Leoš Janáček’s most popular operas. Janáček adapted the libretto himself from the story by Rudolf Těsnohlídek, which he first encountered in 1920 in the newspaper Lidové noviny. The story of the vixen Sharp-Ears, whom a forester finds abandoned in the forest and attempts to raise at the gamekeeper’s lodge together with a dachshund and a group of hens, is told from an “animal’s” point of view. The opera combines humorous, fairy-tale and serious dramatic moments, culminating in the forester’s existential reflection on the eternal cycle of life in nature. At its premiere in Brno on 6 November 1924, the opera was warmly received, though it achieved decisive success only many years later. The orchestral suite from The Cunning Little Vixen, arranged in 2017 by the leading Czech conductor Jakub Hrůša, highlights the almost Debussy-like colourfulness and the irresistible beauty of Janáček’s music.