Czech Chamber Music Society • Jan Fišer
This year, the Czech Chamber Music Society opens its concerts in Dvořák Hall with Beethoven’s violin sonatas—and Series R is no exception. His last three sonatas will conclude their complete presentation at our first early evening recital. At the centre of the programme is Beethoven’s famed Kreutzer Sonata, a complex work that inspired both Tolstoy and Leoš Janáček. The performers will be concertmaster Jan Fišer and Martin Kasík.
Programme
Ludwig van Beethoven
Violin Sonata No. 8 in G major, Op. 30, No. 3
Violin Sonata No. 10 in G major, Op. 96
Violin Sonata No. 9 in A major, Op. 47 “Kreutzer”
Performers
Jan Fišer violin
Martin Kasík piano
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Performers
Jan Fišer violin
Czech Philharmonic concertmaster Jan Fišer already exhibited his obvious musical talent as a child, winning many competitions (Kocian Violin Competition, Concertino Praga, UNESCO Tribune of Young Musicians, Beethoven’s Hradec etc.). He comes from a musical family, quite literally a family of violinists—his father is one of the most respected violin teachers in this country, and his younger brother Jakub plays first violin in the Bennewitz Quartet. Jan Fišer took his first steps as a violinist under the guidance of Hana Metelková, and he later studied at the Prague Conservatoire under Jaroslav Foltýn. He went through the famed summer programme of the Meadowmount School of Music three times, where he also met his future teacher, the concertmaster of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra Andrés J. Cárdenes. It was in the studio of that important professor who continued the great Ysaÿe–Gingold–Cárdenes tradition of violin pedagogy that Fišer graduated from the Carnegie Mellon University School of Music in Pittsburgh in 2003.
Just when he was deciding whether to remain in the USA or to return to the Czech Republic, the Prague Philharmonia announced an audition for the position of concertmaster. Fišer won the job and stayed with the orchestra for a full sixteen years, until he left the first chair of the Prague Philharmonia for the same position with the Czech Philharmonic, where he remains to this day alongside Jan Mráček and Jiří Vodička. He has also appeared as a guest concertmaster with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Bamberg Symphony, and the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern; he also collaborates with important Czech orchestras as a soloist (Prague Philharmonia, Janáček Philharmonic in Ostrava etc.). He has assumed the role of artistic director of the Czech Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra.
Besides engaging in a wealth of orchestral and solo activities, he also devotes himself actively to playing chamber music. With pianist Ivo Kahánek and cellist Tomáš Jamník, he belongs to the Dvořák Trio, which has already enjoyed many successes at competitions (such as the Bohuslav Martinů Competition) and on concert stages both at home and abroad. Jan Fišer has appeared at festivals abroad and in famed concert halls worldwide not only as a soloist, but also as a chamber music player. For example, the Dvořák Trio has made guest appearances at the Dresden Music Festival and at renowned concert halls like the Berlin Philharmonie and Hamburg’s Elbephilharmonie.
Fišer’s French violin from the early 19th century is attributed to the violinmaker François-Louis Pique; the instrument has also been heard in recording studios: Jan Fišer records for television and radio, and he was one of the five laureates to take part in recording the CD “A Tribute to Jaroslav Kocian” for the 40th anniversary of the Kocian International Violin Competition. He is also following in his father’s footsteps as a pedagogue, serving as one of the mentors for the MenART scholarship academy, and he regularly teaches at music courses including the Ševčík Academy in Horažďovice and the Telč Music Academy.
Martin Kasík piano
Martin Kasík is widely acclaimed for his inventive, poetic approach to performing, through which he captures the mood of the moment. He studied at the Janáček Conservatoire in Ostrava under M. Tugendliebová, the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague under I. Klánský and participated in masterclasses under L. Berman, G. Ohlsson, and P. Badura-Skoda.
His path to stages around the world (Carnegie Hall, Wiener Musikverein,Gewandhaus Leipzig, Suntory Hall Tokyo etc.) was opened by victory at the 1998 Prague Spring Competition and at the 1999 Young Concert Artists Competition in New York. Since then, he has been collaborating with the most important ensembles including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, Rotterdam Philharmonic, or Czech Philharmonic. His recordings on the Supraphon and Arco Diva labels have won top honours in the journals Gramophone, Repertoire, and Harmonie.
He also teaches at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague and at the Prague Conservatoire, and he is the artistic director of the Chopin Festival in Mariánské Lázně.
Compositions
Ludwig van Beethoven
Violin Sonata No. 8 in G major, Op. 30, No. 3
There is also a remote connection between Russia and the set of three sonatas for violin and piano that Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) designated as his Opus 30 and dedicated to Alexander I, the young Tsar of Russia. The composer apparently attached great importance to these sonatas, having dedicated them to such an exalted figure. According to some sources, he received an additional fee for the dedication, which was paid to him at the Congress of Vienna (1814–1815). But now we are getting ahead of ourselves. When the sonata was written (1801–1802), many of the tragic events of the Napoleonic wars had not yet taken place, and the powers who would ultimately be victorious (Prussia, Austria, and Russia) had not yet formed the Holy Alliance. For Beethoven, this was also a critical moment in his personal life. It was in 1802 that he wrote what is called the Heiligenstadt Testament, a letter to his brothers Carl and Johann that was never sent, in which he mentioned his worsening deafness and the depression arising from it, which was difficult for him to overcome.
The Violin Sonata No. 8 in G major, Op. 30, No. 3, is illustrative of how tricky it can sometimes be to comment on the circumstances of a work’s creation, or even to understand the psychology of the composer based on musical analysis. About the first movement (Allegro assai), for example, one can read that it was written with carefree humour, but also that it is full of élan, the third movement (Allegro vivace) was seen as referring to dancing in Vienna’s ballrooms, but also to the “internal struggle between life and death” then taking place within Beethoven! A more sober view of musical construction would assert that the first movement flows along in sonata form, the unusually lengthy second movement (Tempo di Minuetto, ma molto moderato e grazioso) is in ternary form, and the composer fashioned the concluding movement in the form of a rondo. In any case, the Sonata in G major and Opus 30 as a whole hold a place of importance among Beethoven’s works for violin and piano. The first edition was published in 1803 by the Bureau des Arts et de l’Industrie in Vienna.
Ludwig van Beethoven
Violin Sonata No. 10 in G major, Op. 96
Ludwig van Beethoven
Violin Sonata No. 9 in A major, Op. 47 “Kreutzer”