FESTIVAL FORFEST CZECH REPUBLIC - OPENING NIGHTS

ComposerUSA /2003/

This year’s 14th anniversary of the International Festival of Contemporary Arts with Spiritual Orientation FORFEST CZECH REPUBLIC 2003 passed quite clearly with the target of promoting the latest music compositions. It was held in the term 21st-29th June in the cultural centre of Moravia, the town Kromeriz, which it has been closely connected since the 90-ies with. 

This year was unusually generous as for the program offers which included not only exhibitions, concerts and literature evening parties, but also a 4-days-colloquium on the topic “Spiritual Streams in Contemporary Arts” and a lot of workshops.

All the events can be said to be concentrated on opening nights performances from small chamber compositions to large ones. As for the future this trend is very promising.

It is not possible to include all these events to one article. I try to /mention/ explain its most significant features at least. Already the opening concert of the Festival was a real feast of music. The Philharmonic Orchestra of Bohuslav Martinu, the Augustinian Choir from Brno, the Moravian Madrigalists and 8 singing soloists from Bohemia and France, conducted by the excellent  conductor Milan Kanak performed the compositions “Homage” by William Toutant,”River of Time” by Daniel Kessner, “Déjà vu” by Liviu Marinescu and II-nd Symphony “Passion” by Pavel Zemek.

Toutant, Kessner, Marinescu perform at the CSUN in L.A., Zemek at the Janacek Academy of Music in Brno. So this extremely successful concert was a “fruit” of Czech-American cooperation.

The “Homage” by Toutant, devoted to Toutant´s wife concentrated the listeners already by its symphonic opening on spiritual spheres untouched by ordinarily. Expressive musical ideas, the architectonics using impressively, contrasts, stress build in layers of various areas, surprising and at the same time quite real turnovers – all this kept deep attention of listeners for all the time and it called out unforgettable experiences. “River of Time” by Daniel Kessner

Is a reasonably composed composition – a symphonic picture of rich sound colors. It is the most mature work of three big one by Kessner, directed to monumental future conceptions. It creates a remarkably tectonically closed complete without striking topics, but strongly impressive by its stringent gradation in which each utilized element gains more and more stringing shapes in relation to other ones in the perfectly deliberated composition structure. Liviu Marinescu – the youngest of all the composers at the event was the most courageous one as for the material selection. In contrast to both previous compositions by him the orchestra preserves a homogenous unity of expression. Each soundtracks is homogenous, dividing into “layers” appears quite rarely. Expressively stress spots hide complicated movements inside one self so that no voice from the network of orchestral voice is dominating, or on the contrary the single voice lines are unified by several common features: dynamics, rhythm and melodies. Each of the 3 compositions is expressively unique. All of them together created an interesting sound world which was with enthusiasm accepted by the audience which was moved and brought to maximal concentration and it praised the performance by long lasting applause.

 

The second half of the concert was devoted to the main part of the large 2^nd Symphony by Pavel Zemek which was composed for soloists, choir and orchestra with the lyrics of St. John’s Passion. The composition was praised in the contest by the “Fund of Leos Janacek” in 1997.The total time of this composition is more than 90 minutes, but it must still wait for its first night performance. But on 22^nd June 2003 in Kromeriz a substantial selection of its compositions /12/ was performed – the author himself in cooperation with the conductor has actively contributed to its new layout. ”Passion Symphony” is a really unique work in the up-to-date Czech music creation. The individual composition language by Zemek basically comes out of one voce.  But by sensitive and profound compositional work it acquires an interesting effect, it provides freedom for melodically lines to be able to develop and they link one another in fragile but at the same time complicated layers which are percept by listeners as unique ones even if they are natural. The variable area metric and rhythm contrasts become interesting elements too. The colorful orchestration moves as far as pilgrim positions but it is directed and simplified in expression tops which as a paradox cause a very amazing effect.

All the four compositions, which started their concert life on 22^nd June, are those ones which expressively enrich the repertoire of each symphonic orchestra. Without even a small decline as for the audience’s taste, the whole concert was accepted by this very audience with a completely extraordinary ovation. The special reviews showed the same opinion. The opening concert of the 14^th FORFEST was quite unanimously its dominant No.1

 

In addition every festival day brought pleasant surprise by highly vital new works. The following Sunday varnishing day of the outstanding exhibition of American creative women artists from the area of South California called “MIND TRIPS” was opened by the first night’s violin composition “Contrasts” by the Slovak composer Ilja Zeljenka.

The curator Louise Lewis chose an unpretentious way of presentation – the very title “Exploration of Inner Space” reminds of an almost introvert direction of the participating 16 authors – mostly teachers of the California State University – the decisive majority were actually women. There are several surprising moments in the conception of the exhibition which only apparently does not differ from the postmodern script.- namely the self-reflection of present America which feels the necessity to change the present “businessman” state of arts. The statement that the secular atheistic America has potential space for spiritual topics will be perhaps unacceptable for many people. The evaluation way of well-known circumstances of the start of American’s “flower babies” of 60-ies-70-ies by the curator Louise Lewis is at least remarkable. The selected group of artistic works witnesses of an extremely decent attitude towards hot topics of the present time. The secret radiating from the Kat Skrab´s events would undoubtedly become a lecture for many performers in our European area, especially his delicate adequateness or even chastity of expression at the topics where you have already got used to an attacking naturalistic intrusivity. Despite of this fact the meditative lower streams of arts have a strong tradition in the Czech Republic …

 

 The chamber compositions by Zeljenka of the opening of this exhibition commemorate of a mosaic composed by small glittering sound tracks which roll out one another or just simply pass by one another, get thick or split to disappear, loaded by fresh lapidary melodies. 5 significant cyclic compositions being a thin counterpoint of his numerous symphonic creations were composed for solo violin.

The young tenor singer organ player, conductor and composer Frantisek Fiala ranks among very all-round  author types, whose compositions were introduced at the author concert on 23^rd June 2003.The dramaturgy of the evening aiming to the mass performance / “In Modo Gregoriano”/ took also a first night’s composition into account. It was the organ composition “Biblical Paintings” in the author’s authentic layout – a three – part-composition the parts of which are inverted by a biblical text´s quotation.

The main top of the concert by the outstanding English choir “The Fibonacci Sequence” was the performance of the composition “Flying of Marsyas” in front of the equally titled Tizian´s painting, exposed in the Kromeriz chateau gallery, by the contemporary British author David Matthews. His composition is a somewhat sober “chamber poem” for a string or piano quartet with an oboe solo. Various expressive elements of present composition expression, especially in the oboe part, are used here. Also the Czech composer Jaroslav Stastny created his first night’s composition for the same instruments. The composition “Fibonacci Phantasias” has three parts using numerical sequences by the Italian philosopher and mathematician Fibonacci in its composition. We can find in this work aleatorics, glissando parts, micro intervals and special sound elements in it. But he especially utilizes his profound knowledge of string instruments. The partly pastorally, partly dramatically sounding chamber composition is very impressive. There were several brand new violin works performed at the FORFEST. Especially two sonatas for solo violin are worth mentioning. The sensitive compositionally excellently equalized one-part-sonata full of rich cantability by the German composer Matthias Drude and the three-part-sonata called “The Verticals” by the Czech composer Jan Vrkoc are noticeable to listening to. The Verticals bring a lot of moods using a very naturally coherent form. It is a brief and fresh composition full of ideas.

The present preference of multimedia works reflected also at the festival. The most interesting novelty in this respect was created by the couple of the composer Rudolf Ruzicka and the film producer Petr Baran.  The result of their cooperation was the multimedia composition “Creation” with the electro-acoustic music part which was transformed into a film shape. Great attention was paid to it by the audience and specialists in its own right. Not even the vocal sphere was neglected. The choir adaptation of the psalms by the Czech composer Antonin Tucapsky who lives in London at present shows deep conductor experience of the author. In this work the broad cantilena, balanced composition with polyphony – the final layout is nevertheless more traditional. More daring psalm topic was worked out by the composer Alois Pinos. The author – a significant Czech representative of the “new music” streams / already since the 60-ies of the 20^th century/ has been recently dealing with the spiritual topics which is taken by him quite in accordance with his all-life composition targets. Nevertheless in new works he eliminates all outer flamboyant influences and is outstanding in his penetration into latent spheres of human consciousness and feeling.

The composer Milos Stedron from Brno chooses quite a different way in his first night’s composition “In morte del eccellentissimo Monteverde”. He processes the used brief text with a joyful exaggeration. This melodious celebration of Master Monteverdi ranks among those compositions by Stedron which find a spiritual and musical inspiration in the past. Nevertheless they are expressed by present language which is not quite without irony.

The concert by the American guitar player  William Feasley was enriched by two novelties. The first one was composed by the Czech Guitar player and composer Pavel Ciboch. His composition “Celtic Goddesses” for two guitars -   the performance of which  he contributed to surprises by the wideness of used color nuances  - from subtle pianissimos up to the almost orchestral final sound. Musical image of Gaelic surroundings is conceived with a typically Czech cantability. The other guitar novelty was composed by Vojtech Mojzis. The composition with the title “Slavkovske slunce”/the Sun of Austerlitz/ is related to the native place of the author – not far away from the Peace Monument in the area of the Battle of Three Emperors from the period of Napoleonic wars. The sober rhythm maintains the composition in simple stress the expression of which escalates the not evenly long, contrasting, meditative and dramatically parts. The tender exact cut main topic in its contours, quiet in its character, sounds only for a short time at the beginning and than at the end of t he composition the principle of which is more or less a fantastic one.

The small choir of the “Industrial Philharmonic Orchestra” from Kojetin presented itself by a first night’s composition too. The 3^rd Symphony by Petr Samlik meant a significant shift compared with the last years performance of the 2^nd Symphony by the same author. The score of the 3^rd Symphony is destined merely for instruments of “industrial” nature. In spite of this their music is not even distantly similar to the sound of industrial music groups. It is decent, coming out of silence and bound by a fixed form. The musician use special notation.

American, German, Austrian and Spanish music had its first performance in our country at the FORFEST. The re-introduction of the works by Jan Novak was a novelty. This composer – one of the most expressive personages of the Czech avant-garde in 6O-ies of 20^th century. He was forced to emigration and sentenced to be erased from the history of modern Czech music by the totalitarian Communist order. His work, re-performed at the Festival, proved again quite decisively its high artistic quality and beauty which cannot be silenced. The straight concentration on up-to-date composition was reflected even in the 4 days lasting festival Colloquium and workshop topics.

The actuality of this trend reflected itself also in the amount of participated specialists of all branches performed at the Festival. It is a pleasant fact that the influence of the FORFEST is not limited only to the festival week, but its range of significance as to creation of inspiration activities passes on almost always as far as the opening of the next festival year. The program of this event is as for the future perspective almost inexhaustible.

SABINA VÁŠOVÁ