A4 Kalabis. Mussorgsky. Schumann

The linking of the composers Viktor Kalabis, Modest Mussorgsky and Robert Schumann offers us a comparison of very different musical personalities. Viktor Kalabis was one of the most outstanding figures of the Czech music scene in the second half of the 20th century. He was influenced by some of the greats of the 20th century such as Hindemith, Prokofiev and Martinů. He wasn’t part of the avant-garde per se, but he made full use of the possibilities emerging from a looser tonality. His legacy lies mainly in symphonic and concerto music – he often wrote for his wife, the harpsichordist Zuzana Růžičková. 

Modest Mussorgsky is an important representative of the Mighty Handful – five composers who attempted to promote an authentic Russian style of music. In his music Mussorgsky focused on very realistic, almost naturalistic areas and subjects. The Songs and Dances of Death are a song cycle based on Kutuzov’s poems. The sombre character of the work corresponds to the theme of each song: in each of them the figure of Death appears at a different time and context. 

The soloist of the cycle is Olesya Petrova, a Russian mezzo-soprano who made her debut at the Bolshoi Theatre in 2018. The gloomy character of the songs will be offset by the optimistic Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major “Rhenish”. The Romantic composer Robert Schumann wrote it during a blissful period spent with his wife Clara. Incidentally, the best friend of the couple was none other than Johannes Brahms: the trio perhaps therefore form the most famous love triangle in the history of music.