Middle-class Symphony Orchestra
For one festival the quartet grew into the thirty-piece Middle-class Symphony Orchestra and choir: Piaček’s symphony Nuntium Magnum, Zagar’s Festive Overture and Burgr’s oratorio The Last Kiss to a Dead Man opened the 10th Evenings of New Music.
Rehearsal at the VŠMU hall, June 1999 © Richard Benka-Rybár
The festive opening concert of the 10th Evenings of New Music, Symphonic Metamorphoses 2000, was played twice: on 4 June 1999 at the Stoka theatre and on 5 June at the VŠMU hall. Adrian Rajter conducted; soloists Stano Beňačka (bass), Ronald Šebesta (clarinet) and Peter Šesták (viola). Peter Zagar wrote a retro reconstruction of a classical symphonic movement, Simple Answers to Simple Questions; Ľubomír Burgr the farewell The Last Kiss to a Dead Man for bass, clarinet, viola, women’s choir and orchestra; and Marek Piaček his doctoral thesis, the symphony with final chorus Nuntium Magnum, whose second movement Four Sponsors has four sections, each symbolizing one of today’s sponsors of culture: the tobacco, spirits, oil and meat industries.
Performers
- 4 June 1999 Stoka · 5 June 1999 VŠMU hall
- Adrian Rajter – conductor
- Stano Beňačka – bass, Ronald Šebesta – clarinet, Peter Šesták – viola
Listen
Nuntium Magnum – 1. A quiet Central European Sunday atmosphere (Malomestský symfonický orchester Požoň Sentimental, dir. Adrian Rajter, 1999)
Sources
- Melánia Puškášová: Večery novej hudby 4.–18. jún. Hudobný život 7–8/1999.
- Slávo Krekovič: Nová hudba po slovensky. Domino fórum 30/1999.