PROGRAMS

- concerts, workshops, meetings -

Composer / Pianist

The concert, workshops, and meetings programs presented below offer not only to hear Kryštof Mařatka’s works, but also to start a dialogue with the composer in order to seize the universes which originate a musical writing.

This approach of transmission, dear to the composer, thus opens the door to the creation’s backstage to everyone, child and adult. Bringing the audience and the performers closer to the creator helps to better understand the quest for “the art of sound” and to appreciate even more the innumerable charms of new music in varied contexts.

The programs offered by Kryštof Mařatka draw on themes dear to him: the relationship between traditional music and art music, music and Prehistory, Czech folk musical instruments, the art of transcription, the melodrama, the question of authenticity and improvisation, the work of Leoš Janáček and much more!

1. THE INSTRUMENTS OF CZECH FOLK MUSIC

Meeting – discovery

Flute made out of a bone, nose flute, reed whistle, natural flute koncovka... Kryštof Mařatka presents and plays many Czech folk musical instruments and introduces his compositional approach in addressing the specificities of these instruments compared to those of the symphony orchestra.

He plays excerpts of recordings of his work Druhopisy (Paraphrases) - Workshop of Folk Music Instruments from the Czech lands for orchestra (2013) which evokes the sounds of the following instruments: gajdy, šalamajky, okarína, koncovka, dvojačka, fujarka, vábničky, flašinet, trumšajt, skřipky, vochlebky, husle, basa, niněra, grumle, Plochperment, kobza, bzučák, klapotka, ferule, řehtačky, zvonky, fanfrňoch, trouby, rohy, vozembouch...

Technical note:
Accessories: large table, audio device (computer, CD player), loudspeakers
Duration: between 30 min and 1h20

2. JOURNEY INSIDE THE PIANO

Workshop - concert

Aimed at pianists, musicians - young and old alike - as well as a public curious to discover the fascinating palette of the often hidden piano sound spectrum, in this workshop-concert, Kryštof Mařatka presents surprising techniques of piano playing creating a set of unusual sounds and atmospheres.

The composer completes the program by interpreting his work Onyrik, future and exotic tales for finely de-tempered piano (2013).

Technical note:
Accessories: grand piano
Duration: between 30 and 60 minutes

3. FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION

Film - meeting - concert

An evening in two parts:

• Part 1:

Kryštof Mařatka presents and screens his film From your life (74 min, in Czech with French or English subtitles). The Mařatkas are an illustrious family in Bohemia: from Josef Mařatka, great sculptor, pupil of Rodin, to Kryštof Mařatka, contemporary composer. Between the two, a fascinating character, son of the first, father of the second: Zdeněk Mařatka. An eminent physician born in 1914, this man has known eight different political regimes: the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the First Czechoslovak Republic, Czechoslovakia amputated of the Sudeten regions, the Nazi Protectorate of Bohemia-Moravia, and the Third Republic of 1945-1948, the different periods of the communist regime, the post-Velvet Revolution Czechoslovakia and finally the Czech Republic of today. He was awarded the 1997 Vision Award and the 2009 Dagmar and Václav Havel Foundation Award. For his 95th birthday, his son decided to shoot a film that would be dedicated to him. Touching, funny, melancholy... Against the background of philosophical reflection and discussions between several generations of a family, it is the whole of the 20th century that we see emerge here.

• Part 2:

Concert given by Kryštof Mařatka at the piano with works of composers mentioned in the film as well as his own music.

Technical note:
Accessories: dark room, video projector or computer to screen the film from a USB stick or DVD, screen, loudspeakers, microphone, grand piano for the concert part
Duration: 1st part 80 min, 2nd part: 50 min.

4. COMPOSER – ART MUSIC AND TRADITIONAL MUSIC

Meeting - discovery

Kryštof Mařatka recounts his work on one of the key work of his catalogue: Luminarium - Mosaic of Twenty-Seven Fragments of World Music - concerto for clarinet and orchestra (2002).

This piece is partially composed of transcriptions of traditional music of twenty-seven countries as recorded by ethnomusicologists around the globe. Every fragment of music of each country has its own history and its own language. The composer presents and plays their original recordings, he then plays the same passages in a recording of Luminarium to illustrate their transformation in the service of musical form and the genre of the concerto for clarinet and orchestra.

Technical note:
Accessories: audio device (computer, CD player), loudspeakers
Duration: between 40 min and 1h20

5. BOOKS IN MUSIC

Workshop – concert

On texts by Franz Kafka, Karel Čapek, Daniil Kharms, Claude Arrighi... How does one tell stories while accompanying oneself on the piano? Kryštof Mařatka performs his own melodramas playing simultaneously both roles: those of actor and of pianist. As composer, he Examines the balance between a declaimed text and a background sound in the context of a “performance” rooted in musical theatre. He interprets his melodramas in French, Czech, English and German.

Technical note:
Accessories: grand piano, standing microphone if needed (but preferably without microphone)
Duration: between 50 min and 1h20

6. PREHISTORY IN MUSIC

Discovery meeting

By projecting photographs of prehistoric rock art and presenting excerpts of recordings and films, Kryštof Mařatka traces the origins of his musical triptych, which spreads over an eight-year period. This large-scale work inspired by Palaeolithic art, by remains of musical instruments and by research on Man’s language acquisition, is composed of Otisk (Imprint) - Palaeolithic Site of Pre-instrumental Music for symphonic orchestra (2004), Zvěrohra (Game of Beasts) - collection of anthropoid chants for soprano and orchestra (2008) and Vábení (Attraction) - Ritual of Prehistoric Fossils of Man for mixed choir and symphony orchestra (2011). Analogies, hypotheses and questions about the correspondences between modern and archaic artistic expressions.

Technical note:
Accessories: dark room, video projector or computer to screen the film from a USB stick or DVD, screen, loudspeakers
Duration: between 60 min and 1h30

7. CONCERT - ENIGMA

Concert – workshop

Between creation, imitation, transcription and improvisation, Kryštof Mařatka plays on the piano and introduces various aspects of the field of musical composition to the public. He invites audience members to suggest themes or evocative words to improvise on and raises awareness of the attractions of musical creation through the experience in real time of the birth of a work. He also tries to make the audience guess an original piece among different imitations, before presenting the art of musical transcription and finishing the program with some of his own works.

Technical note:
Accessories: grand piano
Duration: between 30 min and 1h30

8. THE ART OF TRANSCRIPTION

Workshop - concert

Playing on the piano and putting on excerpts of recordings of his own arrangements, Kryštof Mařatka examines the need for this specific musical practice, as experienced by virtually every composer: the transcription. On the basis of various examples, he explains some transcription techniques and plays recordings of his own arrangements of repertoire pieces: Leoš Janáček’s Mládí arranged for string quartet, Antonín Dvořák’s Dumky Trio arranged for viola, clarinet and finishes the programme by playing his arrangement of Antonín Dvořák’s Symphony “From the New World” on the piano.

Technical note:
Accessories: grand piano, audio device (computer, CD player), loudspeakers
Duration: between 50 min and 1h30

9. LEOŠ JANÁČEK

Concert

Piano recital composed entirely of music by Moravian master Leoš Janáček:

• On a Overgrown Path (1900 - 1909)
• Sonata 1. X. 1905 (1905)
• In the Mists (1912)

These works are part of the fundamentals of piano literature of modern Czech music.

Technical note:
Accessories: grand piano
Duration: about 1h20

10. CZECH MUSIC

Concert

Piano recital featuring a personal approach to classical, modern and contemporary Czech music.

• Leoš Janáček - In the Mists (1912)
• Bohuslav Martinů - Ritournelles (1932)
• Kryštof Mařatka - Onyrik (2013)
• Antonín Dvořák - Symphony “From the New World” (1893) arranged by K. Mařatka (2017)

Technical note:
Accessories: grand piano
Duration: approximately 1h30

11. THE DIARY OF ONE WHO DISAPPEARED - JANÁČEK  

Concert

Leoš Janáček’s emblematic work The Diary of One Who Disappeared for tenor, viola, three female voices and piano is undoubtedly one of the most singular pieces in the catalogue of the Moravian composer. Halfway between a vocal cycle and a chamber opera, it concentrates all the peculiarities of the musical language of its author and seduces by its intimate, dramatic and deeply human aspect.

The program is complemented by other works by Leoš Janáček:

• Říkadla (Nursery Rhymes) for female voice, clarinet and piano
• Violin Sonata, in its unusual version for clarinet and piano

Technical note:
Instrumentation: tenor, viola, three female voices, clarinet, piano
Accessories: grand piano
Duration: about 1h20

Leoš Janáček : Zápisník zmizelého (The diary of one who disappeared) for tenor, piano, mezzosoprano and three female voices
Aleš Briscein, tenor / Michaela Kapustová, mezzo-soprano / Kryštof Mařatka, piano

12. CZECH MUSIC IN TRIO

Concert

A program composed of works for a rather rare formation in the Czech repertoire: viola, clarinet and piano. The proposed pieces are inspired by the world of traditional Czech music of the past but also by the universe of today’s popular instruments.

• Antonín Dvořák - Sonatine op. 100 (1893) in its version for viola and piano
• Leoš Janáček - Violin Sonata (1915) in its version for clarinet and piano
• Kryštof Mařatka - Báchorky (Pastoral Fables) trio for clarinet, viola, piano and Czech folk music instruments performed by the composer - pianist (2016)
• Antonín Dvořák - Dumky Trio (1890) arranged for viola, clarinet and piano by Kryštof Mařatka (2013)

Technical note:
Instrumentation: clarinet, viola, piano
Accessories: grand piano, large table on which to put the Czech folk instruments
Duration: about 1h20