CHANGE OF PROGRAMME AND PERFORMERS

Claude Debussy (ed. Kenneth Cooper)
Images for oboe, horn and harpsichord

François Couperin
Concert No. 14 from Les goûts réunis

Benjamin Britten
The Grasshopper from Two Insect Pieces

Thomas Adès
Sonata da caccia

Jean-Philippe Rameau
Pièces de clavecin en concerts: Concert V

Toshio Hosokawa
Spell Song for solo oboe

Giuseppe Sammartini
Sonata G dur, GSM 1306

Antonio Vivaldi
Sonata for Oboe and Basso Continuo in G Minor, RV 28

Martin Daněk – oboe
Paweł Cal – horn
Mélusine de Pas – viola da gamba
Julia Karpeta – viola da gamba
Monika Knoblochová – harpsichord

The first concert of the Janáček Philharmonic Ostrava’s chamber subscription series presents the unusual instrumental combination of oboe, French horn and harpsichord. The programme brings together Baroque music and works from the 20th and 21st centuries, revealing how musical imagination and instrumental colour have evolved across the centuries.

A poetic sound world is introduced in Claude Debussy’s Images for oboe, French horn and harpsichord, reconstructed by Kenneth Cooper. The French Baroque master François Couperin served at the courts of Louis XIV and Louis XV at the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries. In 1724, he composed the cycle Les goûts réunis for festivities at Versailles, combining French elegance with the virtuoso Italian style associated with Arcangelo Corelli. A humorous contrast is provided by The Grasshopper from Benjamin Britten’s Two Insect Pieces of 1935. The distinctive colours of this unusual combination of oboe, French horn and harpsichord inspired Thomas Adès to compose his Sonata da caccia in 1993, paying tribute to both Debussy and Couperin.

After the interval, the programme continues with the fifth concert from Jean-Philippe Rameau’s 1741 cycle Pièces de clavecin en concerts, a remarkable collection of chamber works featuring a brilliant harpsichord part. This is followed by Toshio Hosokawa’s 2015 Spell Song for solo oboe, inspired by East Asian calligraphy. The concert concludes with Sonata in G major, GSM 1306, by the Italian Baroque composer Giuseppe Sammartini.