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Bard Music Festival 2025 programme: Martinů and his World

For the first time in its history, this year's edition of the prestigious American Bard Music Festival will be dedicated to the work and life of Bohuslav Martinů!
The 35th Bard Music Festival, held on the campus of Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, will be subtitled Martinů and His World. The dramaturgy of the festival was prepared together with the festival team by Aleš Březina, director of the Bohuslav Martinů Institute, and the eminent American musicologist Michael Beckerman. The festival will feature many of Martinů's works, including two operas, one of which (the first version of Mariken de Nimègue, published in 2024) will even be given its world premiere!
Those interested in the festival's events need not travel all the way to the United States - most of the concerts will be available via live stream.
During two themed weekends - A Musical Mirror of the 20th Century (8-10 August) and Against Uncertainty, Uniformity, Mechanization: Music in the Mid-20th Century (14-17 August) - the festival will offer eleven programmes with an exceptionally varied selection of orchestral works, chamber music, sacred and stage works by Bohuslav Martinů. In addition to well-known opuses such as Symphony No. 2, Memorial to Lidice, Field Mass or Violin Concerto No. 2, there will also be lesser-known works such as the experimental Fantasie for Theremin, the poetic cantata Mountain of Three Lights or the late Nonet No. 2.
The festival emphasizes the broader cultural context of Martinů. The accompanying programme will include panel discussions on political and aesthetic issues of Martinů's time, his position in modern music and his legacy. Highlights of the festival will include two opera productions: the famous Juliette and the world premiere of the first version of the early opera Mariken de Nimègue.
The festival is accompanied by the publication of the English-language monograph Martinů and His World (The University of Chicago Press, eds. Aleš Březina and Michael Beckerman), which brings a new perspective on the composer's work and fate in the light of contemporary international scholarship. More information: https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo258537662.html

You can also listen to an interview with festival president Leon Botstein: https://www.martinu.cz/...25/
For more information, visit the festival website: https://fishercenter.bard.edu/.../bard-music-festival/
Tickets can be purchased here: https://tickets.fishercenter.bard.edu/3454/3435
The festival offers a 20% discount when attending three or more programmes - for more information: https://tickets.fishercenter.bard.edu/components/precart?p=536870912&promo=26780
It is possible to book a livestream for individual concerts - more information: https://tickets.fishercenter.bard.edu/3431/3447
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)