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Tag: Bohuslav Martinu

Bard Music Fest: Martinů’s World Explored

I was so self-indulgent in my last post with my impressions of Friday night’s opening concert of the Bard Music Festival (this year, “Martinů and His World”), impressions which somehow wound up being both comprehensive and a mite jejune, I realize that if I continue in that fashion I couldn’t possibly relate everything before the festival commences its second weekend. So for everyone’s sake, I should probably rein it in and restrict myself to the high points and otherwise notable features of this past Saturday and Sunday. It’s good sometimes to have to work within set limitations.

Saturday morning at Bard is devoted to scholarly panel discussions held at Olin Hall, Bard College’s 300-seat auditorium, where daytime chamber concerts are also performed. These sessions are not only informative, they are entertaining, with back-and-forth between the scholars and an audience Q & A. The better panels, as this one was, are full of wit and personality. The panel consisted of festival scholar-in-residence Michael Beckerman, Cambridge’s Marina Frolova-Walker, and festival co-artistic and music director Leon Botstein, who always manages to steal the show. The moderator was co-artistic director Christopher H. Gibbs. I wish I could share more – I took a lot of notes – but for reasons of concision, I will force myself to refrain.

With only an hour’s break before the afternoon chamber concert, preceded by the unmissable Byron Adams’ preconcert talk, I was pretty much nailed to the spot, forced to subsist on a Bard torture wrap from the refreshments table – not really horrible as those things go, but not great either. Definitely food on the run. Happily, I made another Bard friend over a chance conversation about American composers. (The festival’s focus in two years will be George Gershwin.) It’s not every day that you find someone who can speak knowledgeably about Ross Lee Finney’s Symphony No. 1 and can share not one, but TWO personal Walter Piston anecdotes. I look forward to speaking with him again this weekend. We’ve already struck up quite the email correspondence.

One of the high points on the Saturday afternoon chamber concert was the Bassoon Sonatine by Alexandre Tansman, a work that was new to me, really sold by Thomas English, a phenomenal bassoonist, with Danny Driver at the keyboard. Also Martinů’s Flute Sonata, always one of my favorite works by the composer, written on Cape Cod in 1945. This was performed by Brandon Patrick George, whom I remember from his fine performance of a riveting solo flute suite by Egon Wellesz during “Vaughan Williams and His World” in 2023. Again, Danny Driver was the pianist. The program also included attractive works by Josef Suk (an early Piano Quartet), Jaroslav Řídký, Albert Roussel, and one of the few repertory works to be heard during this year’s festival, Maurice Ravel’s Violin Sonata. If all the performers really were outstanding, is it possible to assert that any of them stood out? And yet they did. All of them. I am sorry not to have the space to credit them all here.

Saturday night’s orchestral program, at the 900-seat Sosnoff Theater in the campus’ Fisher Center for the Performing Arts, was dedicated to Martinů’s friend (the two escaped Europe together) and champion, Rudolf Firkušný, also a valued friend of the Bard Music Festival, appearing as he did as part of “Dvořák and His World,” back in 1993, and honored, following his death, at “Janáček and His World” in 2003. Saturday’s concert included a real rarity in Firkušný’s recently-rediscovered Piano Concertino, written when he was just 17. This was quite the enjoyable showpiece, conceived in a post-Romantic, almost proto-Hollywood idiom. I can understand why he shelved it, when even Rachmaninoff was being ridiculed for this kind of thing, but Firkušný certainly didn’t embarrass himself. The flamboyant Piers Lane reached into his psychedelic wardrobe for a blue sort of tie-dye jacket and what looked like glow-in-the-dark socks. You be you, Piers!

But even Lane seemed conservative next to Jeonghwan Kim, the gesticulating bleach-blond soloist who tackled Martinů’s fantastical Piano Concerto No. 4, one of several works the composer wrote for Firkušný, which on this occasion certainly lived up to its subtitle, “Incantation.”

The program opened with Erwin Schulhoff’s Symphony No. 2, full of jazzy inspiration, with solos for trumpet and saxophone, and also a part for banjo. All in all, another delightful Bard discovery.

The concert also included Martinů’s somber “Memorial to Lidice,” a commemoration of the village and its inhabitants wiped out by the Nazis in reprisal for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, “Hitler’s Hangman,” by operatives of the Czech resistance, and the Symphony No. 6, subtitled “Fantaisies-symphonique.” The 6th is the composer’s strangest symphony, with its interludes of roiling notes, which remind many listeners – and musicologists too – of swarming bees. Leon Botstein conducted his post-graduate group, The Orchestra Now. Great stuff!

Sunday’s chamber music concert, hosted by Bard’s scholars-in-residence, Michael Beckerman and Aleš Březina, consisted of works by Martinů and his student/lover Vítězslava Kaprálová. The highlight for me was Martinů’s “Les rondes” – not literally anything to do with rounds, as in “Row, Row, Row Your Boat,” but rather an allusion to round-dances. It’s a folk-inflected work, filtered through a Stravinskyan neoclassicism. It’s scored for seven instruments: oboe, clarinet, bassoon, trumpet, two violins, and piano.

I also enjoyed Beckerman and Březina’s introductory attempt to lend authenticity to “Variations on a Slovak Theme,” one of Martinů’s final works, by singing a rough-edged folk duet.

Perhaps now would be a good time to mention clarinetist Yoonah Kim, who emerged as an artist of real grace and subtlety. She shone not only in “Les rondes” (it was a pleasure to hear here alongside bassoonist Thomas English and oboist Alexandra Knox) but also in Aaron Copland’s Sextet – the composer’s reduction of his “Short Symphony,” undertaken by Copland after it was deemed unplayable by Serge Koussevitzky and Leopold Stokowski (only to have Carlos Chávez prove them wrong), which was among the works featured on the concluding program, back at the Sosnoff. There, Kim sat center stage, before the piano (Piers Lane donning another flashy jacket) and flanked by members of the dynamic Balourdet Quartet.

Everything about that concluding concert was a joy. The program opened with the suite from Martinů’s “La revue de cuisine,” a 1927 ballet about love and intrigue among the kitchen utensils. Scored for a sextet of clarinet, bassoon, trumpet, violin, cello, and piano, the inner numbers are based on popular dances and flanked by a jaunty, syncopated march. This is fun music. How many ways can I say that all the musicians were superb? It was evident not only here, but in their other appearances throughout the festival.

Unfortunately, in one of the very few snafus of the weekend, violinist Yuoshang Fang must have gotten her foot tangled up in her dress, or her electronic tablet just didn’t read the signal from her Bluetooth page-turner, and one of the “La revue” movements had to be started over again. This is the 21st century equivalent of when the sheet music used to fall off the stand, and I’ve been waiting for it to happen since these screens have proliferated. That said, it’s the first time I’ve actually witnessed it. It was easily remedied, with a quip from Thomas English and the musicians taking it from the top. Everyone played, and the audience gratefully received it, as if nothing had ever happened.

This final program had a high ratio of excellent and enjoyable pieces. Orion Weiss played Martinů’s Piano Sonata No. 1. In a bit of luxury casting, Mahan Esfahani was the soloist in Martinu’s Harpsichord Concerto. I’m wondering if this is the first 20th century harpsichord concerto I’ve ever heard live? It can’t be, can it? (Yes, I have heard harpsichords live in Baroque music.) Anyway, I was struck, having learned so much of this repertoire from recordings, how quiet an unamplified harpsichord can be, in relation to the more modern instruments. It was not inaudible. The balance was just unanticipated, as recording engineers are forever boosting the levels. Another fine performance, by the way.

As the presence of a harpsichord would suggest, there was neoclassicism in abundance. The program also included Arthur Honegger’s delightful “Concerto da Camera,” with Keith Bonner, flute, and Alexandra Knoll, oboe – a pastoral diversion devoid of expressive dissonances of a kind heard in some of the composer’s other pieces (including even his “Christmas Cantata”).

The last word was given to Martinů and his “Tre ricercari,” its Baroque affinity suggested right there in the title. In all, this was a winning program, again well exceeding the projected two-hour running time.

The festival has been a little light on the merch this time around. Ordinarily there are tables of CDs offered by Rhinebeck’s Oblong Books, but on the first weekend, anyway, there were no shiny jewel cases to entice the crows. And no, I don’t think it’s because the compact disc is an outmoded format. If you were there in past years, you would know that the inventory gets whittled down quite a bit over the two weekends. I wonder if there was an issue with the store getting stuck having to handle too many returns to the distributors or having to absorb the unsold material into their own inventory. I imagine under normal circumstances, Martinů is not exactly flying off the shelves!

However, there is still the festival-related book, “Martinů and His World,” edited by scholars-in-residence Beckerman and Březina, which this year includes not only essays about the composer and his works (there’s a healthy section on his operas), but also a recently-rediscovered personal diary and interviews with those who knew him during his American years.

And of course, there’s the “Martinů and His World” t-shirt, sporting one of the composer’s humorous doodles (really self-caricatures). It’s a keeper, bound to be a conversation-starter (albeit a one-sided conversation). Amaze and zombify your friends!

What am I especially looking forward to hearing this weekend? “The Epic of Gilgamesh,” for one, with tenor John Matthew Myers, who sang Smetana’s Dalibor last month at Bard (and knocked my socks off as Strauss’ Guntram, also conducted by Botstein, at Carnegie Hall in June), alongside Martinů’s Violin Concerto No. 2, both highlights on Saturday night. Michael Beckerman revealed during this past Saturday’s panel that it was a chance encounter with the slow movement of the concerto on a recording that turned him on to the composer and determined the direction of his life.

On Saturday afternoon’s chamber music program, I am looking forward to hearing Martinů’s Cello Sonata No. 3 and one of my personal favorites, the Nonet (No. 2). Of the other composer’s works, I eagerly anticipate David Diamond’s Flute Quintet, Witold Lutoslawski’s “Dance Panels,” and Joan Tower’s “Petroushskates.” And to conclude the festival on Sunday afternoon, Martinů’s opera “Julietta,” in a semi-staged production.

Okay, I ran long again. Kind of like one of Bard’s programs. At least I managed to cram in the rest of the information I wanted to convey. The Bard Music Festival continues this weekend at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY. For more information, visit:

Bard Music Festival

Fisher Center at Bard

August 14, 2025
Martinů at Bard: Weekend 1 Impressions

Okay, here we go: my impressions of this year’s Bard Music Festival, “Martinů and His World,” Weekend 1. If you’re looking for festival background, see yesterday’s post.

One of the things I’ve always found refreshing about the Bard approach to its honored subject (this year, the chameleonic composer Bohuslav Martinů) is its mix-and-match philosophy of programming. With the exception of Saturday night concerts, for which larger forces are amassed for the duration – an orchestra, with perhaps the addition of soloists and/or a chorus – it’s not uncommon to experience instrumental, vocal, chamber, and orchestral music on the same program.

Concerts frequently push, and sometimes exceed 150 minutes. At Bard, there is no such thing as too much of a good thing. There is an intermission, of course. Sometimes. This past Sunday morning’s concert ran two hours without break. It was projected to run 90 minutes.

The Friday night opener took place at Bard College’s 900-seat Sosnoff Theater, inside the Frank Gehry-designed kaiju armadillo that is the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts. Festival inaugural concerts always serve as introductory affairs, so we were treated to Martinů across various genres and periods.

The program commenced with Orion Weiss, a pianist whom I’ve heard at Bard pretty much every year since I first encountered him there in 2008, during “Prokofiev and His World.” That would have been my first visit to the festival, which was established in 1990. Throughout the weekend, Weiss exhibited a remarkable grasp of the Martinů idiom. For starters, he played two selections (both in F major) from the composer’s “Etudes and Polkas.” I would have liked to have heard more of these, so delectable they were. I’ve enjoyed them very much on record. But on Friday, they were mere appetizers.

As was the folk-inflected “Primrose,” a collection of five brief, though characterful songs for two voices, violin (an inspired choice on the part of the composer), and piano. This is music with roots in the soil of Moravia and shoots in the New World. The vocal duets were sung by soprano Jana McIntrye and mezzo-soprano Taylor Raven, with foundations and embellishments provided by violinist Luosha Fang and pianist Erika Switzer.

In browsing the promotional material during the weeks and months leading up to the festival, it did not register that the third work on the program, titled “Fantasia,” was indeed Martinů’s Fantasia for Theremin, Oboe, String Quartet, and Piano. If you don’t know the theremin, it’s that electronic instrument often used in old science fiction movies to denote UFOs and mad science. Tones are conjured and bent without physical contact by manipulating electromagnetic fields with hands held in varying proximities to the machine’s dual antennae. You have to give Martinů credit for employing this most unusual device for its musical capabilities, as opposed to gimmicky ends.

Believe it or not, this is not the first time I’ve encountered the piece. I heard it performed in 2013 by the Concordia Chamber Players with the New Jersey Symphony’s Darryl Kubian on the theremin. Granted, that was in a more intimate venue (Trinity Church in Solebury, PA), but the instrument, and by extension the work itself, made more of an impression on that occasion. That said, I must confess, despite some intriguing interplay between the theremin and the oboe, for me the piece kind of outstays its welcome. But not by much. Maybe I’m just one of those vulgarians who actually craves more mad science. On Friday, Dorit Chrysler was the thereminist. She shared the stage with oboist Alexandra Knoll, the Balourdet Quartet, and again, pianist Orion Weiss.

The first half of the concert concluded with Weiss and members of the Balourdet in a profoundly absorbing performance of Martinů’s Piano Quartet No. 1. This is a work of urgency and uncertainty that yet manages to attain real beauty with its flashes of irrepressible humanity. In my notebook, I jotted down the impression that Shostakovich might have recognized the emotional soundscape of the work’s second movement. A ray of hope appears in the third, and it occurred to me, perhaps quirkily, that Martinů’s piano passages, when he is in hopeful mode, put me in the mind, somewhat, of Vince Guaraldi’s “Cast Your Fate to the Wind,” if only in spirit. I mean that generally, not just in this piece. But Martinů is never the same for long. As it was, hope was not to continue untroubled, and peace was not guaranteed. Optimism pierced the gloom, shining sporadically, like shafts of light through clouds.

For me, this was the high-point of the program thus far, and perhaps it would have carried the evening, had it not been for the Double Concerto for Two String Orchestras, Piano, and Timpani. Positioned as it was after interval, on top of everything else, the Double Concerto had the advantage of contrast with the smaller-scale works on the concert’s first half, which enhanced its impact enormously. As I observed in yesterday’s post, it was like the effect of having viewed a 35 mm film and then having the screen suddenly open up to the dimensions of Cinemascope.

The visual of pianist Michael Stephen Brown seated in an antiheroic position, behind the instrument, the piano perpendicular in relation to the seats in the auditorium, so that hands and keys were invisible to the audience, emphasized his neoclassical function as a musician in, as opposed to apart from, the orchestra, as in a Baroque concerto grosso. But there was nothing remotely 18th century about the content of the music, with its white hot divisi strings ratcheting up the intensity. I own several recordings of the Double Concerto, but it wasn’t until I heard it live in concert, here for the first time, that I realized what an outstanding work it truly is. Again, as I remarked yesterday, this is searing, full-bodied music that can stand toe-to-toe with the finest works of Béla Bartók. Music director Leon Botstein (also Bard’s co-artistic director) and the young musicians of The Orchestra Now, Bard’s graduate training ensemble, gave it as fine a performance as I ever expect to hear.

In the wake of this emotionally-taxing work and the staggering success of its execution, I was all set to decompress with the Symphony No. 2, one of the composer’s more carefree inspirations. It’s a piece that bears the influence of Martinů’s Czech antecedents (especially Dvorak), but also conjures the kind of wide-open positivity we associate with a lot of American music of the era. By then, 1943, Martinů was safely across the Atlantic and composing in the United States. The work was written for the Czech community of Cleveland and first performed by the Cleveland Orchestra conducted by Erich Leinsdorf.

To be fair, Botstein and his musicians had set the bar awfully high. So when the symphony commenced, my heart sank a little, as I began to suffer flashbacks to a performance of Charles Ives’ Symphony 2 these same forces had given last season at Carnegie Hall that just refused to spring to life. One of my favorite American symphonies wound up sounding like John Knowles Paine on a bad day. I feared a recurrence on Friday, with the first movement of the Martinů symphony played, to my ears, with more diffidence than such a characterful, optimistic piece should have been. It lacked forward momentum, which is not something you generally experience with this composer.

Or at least, that was my impression. Who knows. Maybe it was just me. (I HAD eaten some undercooked salmon for dinner.)

HOWEVER, I am very happy to report, things improved markedly in the second movement, which of course could handle a more relaxed tempo. The third movement, lively in its mechanized energy, was better still. It made me wonder if my reaction to the first was but “an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of underdone potato.” The last movement was exuberant, exciting, and ebullient. The performance had rebounded – possibly; again I concede that it could have been fine all along – and the work was brought to a satisfying close. Not quite on the level of the Double Concerto, mind you, but still, a job well-done.

At various points throughout the concert, Botstein offered some remarks while the stage was being reset. The man is a master of extemporization. If you’re ever looking to fill five, ten, or even thirty minutes with engaging perambulation, then Botstein is your man. A lifetime of public speaking and a devotion of one’s thoughts to interesting things will do that. Before the concert, he was presented with a framed certificate by New York Assemblymember Didi Barrett in honor of his 50 years as president of Bard College.

Apologies. This is getting long again. I’ll have to wrap it up tomorrow, likely in a more concise fashion. Otherwise, I’ll never get it all in before Weekend 2!

The Bard Music Festival, “Martinů and His World,” will continue this weekend at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY. For more information, visit

Bard Music Festival

Fisher Center at Bard

August 13, 2025
Bard Music Festival: Exploring Martinů and His World

Tackling a topic as vast as the Bard Music Festival can be intimidating. Also, life tends to get in the way, often keeping me from being my best self, particularly in the narrow windows during which my brain is actually firing at peak capacity. All disclaimers aside, let’s see what I can do.

The Bard Music Festival, now in its 35th year, is the crown jewel of Bard SummerScape, an eight-week celebration of the arts, held on the campus of Bard College beginning in late June. The Bard Festival itself, which spans two weekends in August, focuses on certain composers and their worlds – encompassing works by their associates, contemporaries, influences, and those who were influenced by them. The subject’s life and artistry are explored by way of marathon concerts, but also through pre-concert talks, Saturday morning panels with visiting and resident scholars, a book of related essays, and a 70-page festival program booklet which is so much more than a utilitarian compilation of concert listings, lavishly-illustrated and brimming with valuable information about every aspect of the subject.

This year’s focus is the neglected Czech master, Bohuslav Martinů, whose life took him from the comparative isolation of a childhood spent in a provincial bell tower, to a period of lackluster studies in the city of Prague, to an artistic flowering in Paris, to a flight from war and authoritarianism in Europe to safety and recognition in the U.S., to final years spent in Switzerland on the estate of conductor and music patron Paul Sacher. That’s quite a journey, and Martinů was an expert assimilator, sensitive to stimuli from a broad array of influences, all siphoned through a lively, fecund, and voracious sensibility. All converge in his highly unique, multifaceted creations, which are full of human touches, while often seeming to churn with the vitality of a mechanized age.

Alas, Martinů has shared the fate of so many composers who clove to tonality in the 20th century. A multiplicity of factors that contributed to the “Great War” sent strains of decadence and malaise out into the arts. There was a little bit of a reprieve during World War II, when a certain amount of populism was tolerated, in the interest of keeping up the morale of the unwashed. But after two devastating conflicts, the Holocaust, and the atomic bomb, arbiters and academics tended to marginalize composers who did not cast off tradition, which they perceived as upholding destructive tendencies, to embrace the brave new world of the avant-garde. Ironically, the sterility of the Ivory Tower was viewed as the only way forward.

Thankfully, we are, for the most part, beyond all that, and composers of Martinů’s generation, who continued to seek new ways within a continuity of tradition and form, are gradually being reassessed. However, the process has been a slow one. Many still get lost in the cracks between the classics and the “new” – younger, trendier composers – while concert programmers wrangle with the challenges of fulfilling their obligations to the living and programming enough Beethoven and Mahler to guarantee a full house.

Bard is in the unique position that it doesn’t have to worry about all that. With Leon Botstein at the helm, fashion and factionalism are shown the door in favor of unbiased inquiry and clear-eyed appreciation. Not only is he insatiably curious, he is also Bard’s president, as he has been for the past 50 years. (He assumed the position at the age of 28!) Botstein serves as co-artistic director of the festival with Christopher H. Gibbs. He is also its music director.

Many of the concerts feature the young players of Bard’s graduate training ensemble, The Orchestra Now, a post-conservatory group of highly-skilled performers. Others feature the American Symphony Orchestra, a professional group founded by none other than Leopold Stokowski, which Botstein has directed since 1992. Soloists and chamber instrumentalists are equally questing, vibrant, and first-rate. Many are long-time Bard associates or faculty. Pianists Piers Lane and Danny Driver have long recorded unusual and neglected repertoire for Hyperion Records, among others. Occasionally, there are genuine “celebrity” guests. I’ve seen Michael York and David Strathairn there. This past weekend, Mahan Esfahani, whose recordings on Hyperion and Deutsche Grammophon have helped develop a world following, was the soloist in Martinů’s Harpsichord Concerto.

Daytime panels and chamber concerts are held in the 300-seat Olin Hall, in Bard’s Franklin W. Olin Humanities Building. Evening concerts are held at the 900-seat Sosnoff Theater in the campus’ Frank Gehry-designed Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts, which I have often described as a gigantic, reflective armadillo. Under certain conditions, it’s hard to get a good photo, because of the venue’s sleek, reflective surfaces.

My plan today had been to give an account of the festival’s first weekend, but already this is getting a little long. So watch this space! More tomorrow. The Bard Music Festival, “Martinů and His World,” will continue this weekend, with choral, chamber, instrumental, and orchestral works – and even one of Martinů’s 14 operas, “Julietta.”

For more information, visit

Bard Music Festival

Fisher Center at Bard

August 12, 2025
Bard Music Fest Martinů Double Concerto Sizzles

I’m home again and finally got my first decent night’s sleep in three days. As I flip through my notes and organize my thoughts on the first weekend of the Bard Music Festival, here’s a write-up in the New York Times.

I too remarked on the striking layout of the musicians in Bohuslav Martinů’s powerful “Double Concerto for Two String Orchestras, Piano, and Timpani,” which serves as a visual analogue to the dramatic content of the music. I have several recordings of the piece, which I first encountered when programming it blindly on one of my morning shows many years ago, thinking “Martinů… concerto grosso… this should be delightful…” Note: NOT to be used as background music for parfaits and scones! This is searing, full-bodied music that can stand toe-to-toe with the finest works of Béla Bartók, BEST APPRECIATED IN CONCERT.

It was especially impressive on Friday night, coming as it did, directly after intermission, on a program in which the first half was made up of instrumental, vocal, and chamber works. Going from the Piano Quartet No. 1 – every bit as worthy as the Double Concerto, in its way – had the impact of viewing a 35 mm film and then having the screen suddenly open up to the dimensions of Cinemascope. Even followed, as it was, by Martinů’s Symphony No. 2, the Double Concerto was the true climax of the evening. That said, I would have no hesitation whatsoever about programming the Symphony No. 2 on a morning radio show!

More soon. For now, enjoy the Times article. “Martinů and His World” will continue next weekend at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY.

Michael Beckerman is one of the festival’s scholars-in-residence. I’m sharing his link to the free article, as my subscription doesn’t seem to want to cooperate!

August 11, 2025
Martinu’s World at Bard Music Festival

As a longtime attendee of the Bard Music Festival, I recognize that the schedule is not quite as brutal as it once was. There aren’t as many concerts (at one time, there were three in a day) and they now try to rein them in so that they clock at around two-and-a-half hours; but the rigors of travel, living off coffee and wraps and sleeping in a strange place, can still beat the tar out of you. Even so, I’m having a blast. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Bohuslav Martinů is the sleeping giant of Czech music.

Leon Botstein, co-artistic artistic and music director of “Martinů and His World,” asserts that the composer’s star is on the rise. I certainly hope so. But if it is the case, I have yet to see it. I was happy to note the New York Philharmonic programmed the Cello Concerto No. 1 not too long ago, and I heard Steven Isserlis play the Cello Sonata No. 1 in Philadelphia this past season. Also, the Philadelphia Orchestra performed the Rhapsody-Concerto for viola, which I heard the orchestra for the first time some 40 years ago – in the mid-‘80s, the first Martinů piece I ever heard, as a matter of fact. It was love at first encounter.

Come to think of it, I guess that is a lot, compared to past seasons…

But a comment during yesterday morning’s panel Q&A got me thinking how many of Martinů works I have ever actually heard in person. I tallied eight, prior to the festival. So already, I’ve more than doubled my intake. I’ve gotten to know a portion of the composer’s prolific output (more than 400 works) mostly through recordings. And what varied and magnificent stuff it is! But I’ll have to go into all that in another post. The first concert begins this morning at 11:00 – a late morning at Bard, but a man’s got to eat breakfast and pack up.

This morning, I’m looking forward to hearing no less than four Martinů chamber works, along with a string quartet by his illicit sweetheart, Vítĕzslava Kaprálová. Later in the afternoon will be the jaunty suite from Martinů’s jazz ballet “La revue de cuisine,” the Piano Sonata No. 1, the Harpsichord Concerto (with Mahan Esfahani), and “Tre ricarcari,” in addition to Aaron Copland’s Sextet (a reduction of his then-deemed-to-be-unplayable “Short Symphony”) and Arthur Honegger’s neoclassical “Concerto da Camera.”

The 35th Bard Music Festival, “Martinů and His World,” will continue next weekend at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY. According to Bard co-artistic director Christopher H. Gibbs, the festival will cover no less than 33 works by the composer on concerts presented over seven days.

Catch a rising star! For more information, visit

Bard Music Festival

Fisher Center at Bard

August 10, 2025

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