44th Brno International Music Festival
Moravian Autumn

2.–16.10.2009

Variation on a theme
of Bohuslav Martinů

Programme Director: Aleš Březina

Festival presents Statutory City of Brno
under the auspices
of Václav Klaus
president of the Czech Republic
and
Roman Onderka
Mayor of the Statutory City of Brno.

Financial support
Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic,
the South Moravian Region,
and Leoš Janáček Foundation.

The 50th anniversary of Bohuslav Martinů´s death (8.12.1890 Polička - 28.8. 1959 Liestal/Switzerland) was a decisive factor that dictated the dramaturgy of the festival Moravian Autumn 2009. To a certain extent, it is a reflection on the history of the festival – the program of the first year of the festival, as early as 1966, consisted of the music of this world-known Czech composer and then in 1990 Brno again paid tribute to Martinů when the 100th anniversary of his birthday aptly coincided with the revival of democracy to Czechoslovakia.
In 2009, however, other important anniversaries of world-famous composers will be commemorated with the aim to interconnect their music with the main theme of this year. First of all it will be the 200th anniversary of Joseph Haydn´s death whose undemonstratively ingenious compositional method was admired by Martinů. Then the 200th anniversary of Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy´s birthday who, in the same manner as Martinů, had a great love for Italian culture. Finally, it will be the 110th anniversary of Francis Poulenc´s birth, with whom Martinů took delight in jazz and neoclassicism in Paris between 1920 – 1930 (in the 20s and 30s of the 20th century).
In the Moravian Autumn 2009 the choice of the music will also focus on those musicians who were connected with Bohuslav Martinů either as his students (Vítězslava Kaprálová and Jan Novák as famous Moravian disciples) or the composers associated with Brno and Moravian culture through their music (Miloslav Ištvan and Vít Zouhar).
The dramaturgy of the Moravian Autumn 2009 as a whole aims to appeal to a wide spectrum of audience that enjoy disclosing hidden connections between current music and music of past centuries.

Aleš Březina