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Bard Music Festival 2025 programme: Martinů and his World
This year the 35th Bard Music Festival will take place.
This major American festival in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, is dedicated to a different composer each year, for example last year it was Hector Berlioz. We are very pleased that this year the life and work of composer Bohuslav Martinů (1890-1959) will be presented here.
Weekend One: A Musical Mirror of the 20th Century
August 8–10
Weekend Two: Against Uncertainty, Uniformity, Mechanization: Music in the Mid-20th Century
August 14–17
Over two weekends, the festival presents kaleidoscopic, performance-and-panel-based explorations of Martinů’s work: A Musical Mirror of the 20th Century (August 8–10) and Against Uncertainty, Uniformity, Mechanization: Music in the Mid-20th Century (August 14–17).
Here is a detailed programme for this festival, which will feature a series of lectures, concerts and opera performances, including the world premiere of the 1st version of Mariken de Nimègue.
Prior to the festival, The University of Chicago Press will be publishing the book Martinů and His World (eds. Michael Beckerman and Aleš Březina).
You can also listen to an interview with festival president Leon
Botstein: https://www.martinu.cz/…25/
Tickets go on sale on March 5.
For more information visit: https://fishercenter.bard.edu/whats-on/programs/bard-music-festival/
Main programme:
Weekend One: A Musical Mirror of the 20th Century
Program One: The Peripatetic Career (Friday, August 8)
Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959)
Double Concerto, H271 (1938)
Piano Quartet No. 1, H287 (1942)
Symphony No. 2, H295 (1943)
Fantasia for Theremin, H301 (1944)
Primrose, H348 (1954)
Panel One
Why Martinů: Understanding Classical Music, Past and Future (Saturday, August 9)
Free entry.
Program Two: The Emigree in Paris (Saturday, August 9)
Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959)
String Trio No. 1, H136 (1923)
Flute Sonata, H306 (1945)
Duo No. 1 for Violin and Cello, H157 (1927)
Josef Suk (1874–1935)
Piano Quartet No. 1 in A Minor, Op. 1 (1891)
Maurice Ravel (1875–1937)
Violin Sonata No. 2 in G Major (1927)
Program Three: Music and Freedom (Saturday, August 9)
Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959)
Memorial to Lidice, H296 (1943)
Symphony No. 6 (Fantaisies symphoniques), H343 (1951–53)
Piano Concerto No. 4, “Incantation,” H358 (1956)
Erwin Schulhoff (1894–1942)
Symphony No. 2 (1932)
Rudolf Firkušný (1912–94)
Piano Concertino (1929)
Program Four: The Search for a Distinctive Voice (Sunday, August 10)
Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959)
Les Rondes, H200 (1930)
String Quartet No. 7, “Concerto da camera,” H314 (1947)
The Fifth Day of the Fifth Moon, for piano, H318 (1948)
Variations on a Slovak Theme, H378 (1959)
Vítězslava Kaprálová (1915–40)
String Quartet No. 1, Op. 8 (1935)
Program Five: New Shores: Influences and Contexts (Sunday, August 10)
Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959)
La revue de cuisine, H161 (1927)
Harpsichord Concerto, H246 (1935)
Tre ricercari, H267 (1938)
Piano Sonata No. 1, H350 (1954)
Arthur Honegger (1892–1955)
Concerto da Camera, H196 (1948)
Aaron Copland (1900–90)
Sextet (1937)
Weekend Two: Against Uncertainty, Uniformity, Mechanization: Music in the Mid-20th Century
Program Six: The Spiritual Quest (Thursday, August 14, at 7 PM Friday, August 15 at 3 PM)
Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959)
The Mount of Three Lights, H349 (1954)
Vigilie, H382 (1959)
Antonín Dvořák (1841–1904)
From Mass in D Major, Op. 86 (1887)
Leoš Janáček (1854–1928)
Veni Sancte Spiritus (ca. 1903)
Constitues eos principes (1903)
Ave Maria (1904)
Postludium, from Glagolitic Mass (1926)
Petr Eben (1929–2007)
Finale, from Musica dominicalis (Sunday Music) (1958)
Program Seven: Myth, Faith, and Folklore (Friday, August 15)
Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959)
Mariken de Nimègue, H236/2 I (1933–34)
Field Mass, H279 (1946)
Brigand Songs, H361 (1957)
Panel Two:
Music and Politics: From the Habsburg Empire to Contemporary Populism and Autocracy Saturday, August 16 (Saturday, August 16)
Free entry.
Program Eight: Martinů and the Craft of Composition (Saturday, August 16)
Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959)
Duo No. 1, “Three Madrigals,” H313 (1947)
Cello Sonata No. 3, H340 (1952)
Nonet No. 2, H374 (1959)
David Diamond (1915–2005)
Quintet (1937)
Karel Husa (1921–2016)
Evocations de Slovaquie (1951)
Program Nine: Renewing the Public Power of Tradition (Saturday, August 16)
Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959)
Violin Concerto No. 2, H293 (1943)
The Epic of Gilgamesh, H351 (1955)
Jan Novák (1921–84)
Ignis pro Ioanne Palach (1969)
Program Ten: Martinů’s Legacy (Sunday, August 17)
Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959)
Three Czech Dances, H154 (1926)
Songs on One Page, H294 (1943)
Songs on Two Pages, H302 (1944)
Joan Tower (b. 1938)
Petroushskates (1980)
Kryštof Mařatka (b. 1972)
Báchorky, fables pastorales (2016)
Works by Jaroslav Ježek (1906–42), Frank Zappa (1940–93), and Iva Bittová (b. 1958)
Program Eleven: The Opera of Dreams: Martinů’s Juliette (Sunday, August 17)
Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959)
Juliette, H253 (1937) (Martinů, after Georges Neveux)