Homage to Josef Suk

“Even Schoenberg, who attaches special value to flops, was envious of me because of this one”, Josef Suk wrote after the Berlin performance of his Second String Quartet in 1912, where there were riots in the audience. A friend expressed the opinion that the work seems so hypermodern that it is at least ten years ahead of its time. Few people know today that Josef Suk is considered one of the most influential Czech composers of the 20th century. When people hear his name, most think first of the great violinist of the world-famous Czech String Quartet, or of the man who was Antonín Dvořák’s son-in-law and Bohuslav Martinů’s teacher. Violinist, pianist, composer, teacher – the versatile musical talent of Josef Suk from Bohemia was already evident early on. He was only eleven when he began studying at the Prague Conservatory. During the final year of his studies he became a student of Antonín Dvořák, with whom he composed his first work that was published: the Piano Quartet in A minor, op. 1.

This concert with chamber music works by the Czech composer, to whom the Berliner Philharmoniker are devoting a programmatic focus this season, traces Suk’s development from his late romantic piano quartet, still under Dvořák’s influence, to the avantgarde Second String Quartet referred to above. Along the way he composed the Piano Trio in C minor inspired by the Bohemian idiom, the Piano Quintet in G minor, which aroused Johannes Brahms’s admiration, the seemingly transcendent Elegy in D flat major, which Suk composed upon the death of his friend, writer Julius Zeyer, as well as the Four Pieces for Violin and Piano, in which the composer created various atmospheric pictures – melancholy, passionate, mysterious, humorous. The Meditation on the Old Czech Chorale “St. Wenceslas” occupies a special position in Suk’s oeuvre. Only rarely did the composer fall back on pre-existing melodies; in this case, he used a well-known Czech church hymn from the 12th century, on the basis of which he composed a contemplative, heartfelt musical prayer.

Philharmonic musicians and ensembles will participate in this homage to Josef Suk: First Concertmaster Noah Bendix-Balgley, the Philharmonic String Quartet, the Philharmonia Piano Trio Berlin, the Feininger Trio and the Venus Ensemble.