Gilbert, Hough, Rett / Dvořák, Martinů by Pejačević, Martinů, Dvořák, Ó (2019/2019), Seoltóir Alan Gilbert, Wiener Konzerthaus, Vienna, Austria

The New York conductor Alan Gilbert has gained worldwide fame as head of the Philharmonic Orchestra of his home town. For his concerts with the Wiener Symphoniker in the Old World and for the sake of a purely Czech programme, he also brought with him a work which was created in the United States. Bohuslav Martinu’s Symphony No. 4, composed in exile in the US, is an impressive reaction of the Bohemian composer to the end of the Second World War in 1945. Gilbert loves the music of Martinu who, with his incredibly colourful, harmoniously dazzling and rhythmically explosive musical language, has substantially contributed to the history of music in the 20th century but who, according to Gilbert, has unfortunately been badly neglected to this day. Similarly, in Gilbert’s view, many of Dvorák’s works are still by far underrepresented in concert halls. And so, the composer’s seldom heard piano concerto will be presented (with the exceptional British pianist Stephen Hough) which, owing to its poetic and lyrical qualities, finds it difficult to be accommodated in the realm of virtuosity.