Martin Dvořák / Beethoven-Tolstoj-Janáček: KREUTZER SONATA / ProART Company (CZ)

Martin Dvořák / Beethoven-Tolstoj-Janáček: KREUTZER SONATA / ProART Company (CZ) / Prague, NoD 2012

Choreography and direction: Martin Dvořák
Music: Ludwig van Beethoven, Leoš Janáček
Theme: by Leo N. Tolstoi / Kreutzer Sonata / and Sofia Tolstaja / The question of guilt /
Set and costumes: Jindra Rychlá+ Performed by: Irene Bauer, Alena Pajasová, Martin Dvořák, Robin Sobek+ Starring: Jolana Dvořáková - violin and Richard Pohl - piano; Miloslav Ištvan Quartett -- Lukáš Mik, Adam Novák - violin, Stanislav Vacek - viola, Štěpán Filípek - cello

At the beginning there was a violin sonata in A major from L van Beethoven who created it under peculiar conditions in 1803. Three-clause/record composition was created for the last minute before its first concert performance in May 1803. Beethoven was not able to finish the last clause/record, so he simply borrowed it from his earlier 6th sonata. This one, his 9th was performed for the first time by violinist Bridgetower and Beethoven himself playing the piano. Why is it devoted to Rudolf Kreutzer, another phenomenal violinist, who in fact never played it? Because Beethoven himself later in time "competed" with Bridgetown over a woman, and took revenge by assigning the sonata to someone else -- Kreutzer. This story precedes a novel by L. N. Tolstoj 48 years later. Author was so fascinated by the sonata that it inspired him to write a moral story of a voluptuous man, who kills his wife out of jealousy. She plays Beethoven's Kreutzer sonata with her friend-lover. The entire story was very critical to loose sexual moral of that time, and to date is considered timeless.

How does Leoš Janáček fall into the equation? 120 years later, after Beethoven, he composed string quartette called Kreutzer sonata. The circle closes here. Janáček was inspired by Tolstoj's novel. Even here the main theme is the marriage triangle, this time however seen from the prospective of a male musician, who interferes into life of a married couple. Above all it is a painful story of a woman. Escalated erotica is a source of the life's fullness, though tragic and with Janacek's uncompromised fatal accent. The whole piece surmounts Janáček's lifelong relationship to a married woman, which influenced his work of the last decade before his death in 1928.

https://youtu.be/FEnZGsWR9_I