Max Schönherr, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Antonín Dvořák
Opening Concert
Coproduction with the Slovene National Theatre Maribor.
The opening concert of Festival Maribor 2024 lifts the veil on a musical world that Mate Bekavac will gradually reveal to us through the festival concerts.
Bekavac writes: “This is music about indigenous people, local inhabitants and emigrants. Above all, it is a hymn to homesickness and nostalgia, a eulogy to the Slavic soul in the form of a great teardrop.
While working for a short period in America, the musical poet Dvořák internalised the sound of the roots of the new world and skilfully interwove it with the music of Slavic folklore. Although his Symphony No. 9 “From the New World” has a hint of black spirituals and Indian ritual rhythms, it has a much stronger Czech flavour, in which one can sense the parting and sadness that are so characteristic of Czech and Slavic music in general, the sounds of one’s own land, of folklore… Maribor also had its New World (a popular restaurant called Novi Svet), and it was Czech musicians who were largely responsible for the development of music and cultural heritage in Slovenia. Dvořák has a lot in common with Max Schönherr, a forgotten compatriot from Maribor and the descendant of a renowned musical family.”
Schönherr chose a lighter muse. He moved to Vienna and built a career there as a prominent Kapellmeister and respected connoisseur of operetta and the works of the Strauss dynasty. Bekavac believes that “something of Schubert and Dvořák can also be felt in his works. In several of his collections, he combined Austrian folklore, village dances and bourgeois dances, thus paying tribute to the roots of his homeland”.
Once we have reached Vienna, Mozart is not far away. “In my opinion, the second movement of Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante has the strongest Slavic flavour of all of his compositions, thus encapsulating and connecting the historically intertwined musical roots of our geographical centre.”
The Hungarian string players Barnabás Kelemen and Katalin Kokas also originate from this centre. In performing Mozart’s music, they will awaken its Central European nobility and gild it with virtuoso brilliance.
* Tickets (online purchase): 24 € , 21 € / Senior 19,20 € / Students, Dissability 12 €¸/ Children 5 €.
Discounted tickets can be purchased at the Information office of Narodni dom Maribor or at the concert venue up to an hour before the concert.
This concert is part of the Slovenian National Theatre Maribor’s Symphonic Cycle, for both season ticket holders and the general public.
