Classical songs with hammer piano will be heard in the Respirium of the Liechtenstein Palace
The last concert of the current season of the Society of Lieder is called “Love, Pleasure and Sorrow”. It takes place on Sunday, December 11 from 6 p.m.
The association will give up the seventh and last concert of the 2022 season The Lieder Company a tribute to the masters of classicism and early romanticism. The program of the chamber and intimate concert will include songs and canzonettas Franz Joseph Haydn, Jiří Antonín Benda AND Jan Ladislav Dusík. Similar to previous concerts, this dramaturgy is intended as a reminder of their anniversaries this year. Undoubtedly, the presentation of these songs with a hammer piano (hammerklavier) v Respiriu of the Liechtenstein Palace on Malostranské náměstí in Prague.
Austrian composer Franz Joseph Haydn (1732–1809) devoted himself to songwriting from a young age. Although it is quite extensive, it belongs to a lesser-known part of his work. The featured cycle VI Original Canzonettas however, it dates back to when he was working in London. It is the setting to music of several poems by the English poetess Anne Hunter, Haydn visited his literary salon, although he himself did not speak English very well. It is all the more interesting how he dealt with this particular language in this cycle and how impressively he set selected poems to music. He also reached for the text William Shakespeare or an English translation of the poem Pietro Metastasia.
Not very well known songwriting Jiří Antonín Benda (1722 – 1795) is special in that it is literally scattered throughout his collections Sammlung vermischter Clavier- und Gesangstücke (A collection of mixed piano and vocal compositions), Rondeaux and Lieder (Ronda and songs) or in period collections of songs by various authors. Unfortunately, they do not even mention the authors of the texts. However, Bend’s feeling for singing expression and the mood of the text is evident from them, to which his creation of melodramas undoubtedly contributed.
The last featured author did very little songwriting. Cycle Sei canzonette Jan Ladislav Dusík (1760 – 1812) is essentially the only divided work of this kind and a reflection of Dusík’s feeling for the composition of the piano part, in which, however, he makes considerable demands on the players. An interesting fact is that due to the lack of mention of the author of the lyrics, it is not clear in which language Dusík actually composed the songs – they appear in at least two versions in all editions. The Italian version will be played at the concert, which also corresponds to the generally mentioned name of the cycle.
The performers of the concert will be two respected specialists in the field of so-called historically informed interpretation: a soprano Irena Troupová pianist Petra Matějová. The songs will be performed in the original and supplemented with Czech subtitles. The concert takes place in Sunday, December 11 and for technical reasons it starts already in 18 hours.
Image: Jiří Antonín Benda