Programme Notes
Dvořák’s Cello Concerto Thu 8 January 2026 • 20.15 Sun 11 January 2026 • 14.15
PROGRAMME conductor Giedrė Šlekytė cello Truls Mørk Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904) Slavonic Dance Op. 72 No. 1 (1886) Antonín Dvořák Cello Concerto in B minor, Op. 104 (1894) • Allegro • Adagio, ma non troppo • Finale: Allegro moderato – Andante – Allegro vivo intermission Franz Schubert (1797-1828) Symphony No. 8 in B minor, D. 759 ‘Unfinished’ (1822) • Allegro moderato • Andante con moto Zoltán Kodály (1882–1967) Dances of Galanta (1933) • Introduction – • Dance I (clarinet) – • Dance II (flute) – interlude – • Dance III (oboe) – interlude – • Dance IV (strings) – interlude – • Dance V (full orchestra) – interlude – • Coda concert ends at around 22.30 Most recent performances by our orchestra: Dvořák Cello Concerto: Nov 2023, cello Jaemin Han, conductor Alexandre Bloch Schubert Symphony No. 8: Feb 2019, conductor Lahav Shani Kodály Galanta Dances: Sep 2023, conductor Tarmo Peltokoski One hour before the start of the concert, Bart de Graaf will give an introduction (in Dutch) to the programme, admission € 7,50. Tickets are available at the hall, payment by debit card. The introduction is free for Vrienden. Cover: Photo Tim Mossholder (Unsplash)
Traditional costumes of Hungary. Illustration by Pietro Giarré from Il costume antico e moderno, Volume 7, Part 2 by Giulio Ferrario (1831)
Indigenous music Nationalism was a hot topic in the nineteenth century. With the radical redrawing of the map of Europe, huge numbers of artists went in search of national elements that characterised the art of their lands. On the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, similar developments were at play.
Transatlantic cello concerto
In 1885 the first American conservatoire was founded in New York. Antonín Dvořák – a Czech national – was offered the position of director. Not only because he was one of the most celebrated composers in Europe, but especially in recognition of everything he had done for the emancipation of Czech folk music. Following in the footsteps of his compatriot Bedřich Smetana, he had remoulded the melodies and dance rhythms of Bohemia and Moravia into a romantic form. The task entrusted to him on his appointment as director of the New York Conservatoire: to enable American national music to flourish in the same way. Dvořák seized the challenge with both hands. In 1892 he undertook the journey from Prague to New York, where he began giving lessons, delving into the spirituals of the AfroAmerican population, and studying the music and instruments of the indigenous tribes.
At the end of his first academic year, Dvořák spent the summer of 1893 with a community of Czech immigrants in Spillville, Iowa. Although he enjoyed spending time with his compatriots, this served only to increase his feeling of homesickness. This pull of his homeland can be heard in his Cello Concerto, that he began on his return to New York. The Bohemian influences – jollity and exuberance combined with a subtle melancholy – were never far away from his work: a music of worldly opulence and intimate emotion. The first movement is symphonic in scope; the cello enters only at the end of a long orchestral introduction. The themes are powerful, memorable, and eternal. The cello solo is technically demanding, lyrical, and noble. The intimate second movement is Dvořák’s ode to his sister-in-law Josefina Kaunitzová, with whom he had fallen in love thirty years earlier, before marrying her sister. Whilst he was composing the Cello Concerto, Dvořák
Antonín Dvořák. Portrait photo (1891) by Jan Mulač, Prague, signed by the composer
received the news that Josefina was dying. Shortly before the work was completed, she passed away. In the second movement Dvořák quotes his own song Kéž duch můj sám (Leave me alone), Josefina’s favourite song. The finale switches mood between dramatic grandeur, joyful folk dances, and bitter-sweet melancholy. As the music heads towards an apparently grand, heroic end, the mood suddenly becomes introspective
and we return to feelings of quiet intimacy, a yearning nostalgia, and sorrow. Dvořák turns his thoughts again to Josefina. Following a beautiful solo cello passage, the orchestra swells once more, culminating in a musical embrace of intense beauty.
Symphonic mystery
To this day, one of the greatest puzzles in classical music remains the question as to why
Schubert failed to complete his Symphony in B minor. How is it that the composer of two such immense movements, often described as the first genuine symphony of the Romantic period, did not complete the symphony in the remaining six years of his life? We will never know. Attempts were made to complete the symphony on the basis of Schubert’s drafts of a scherzo. But perhaps it functions best as a mysterious, incomplete work.
interrupted; at various points throughout this movement Schubert will mislead us.
After Schubert’s death, the score for his Unfinished came into the hands of one of his friends, who would keep it a secret from the world for almost forty years. The work was not premiered until 1865. Amongst the audience was music critic Eduard Hanslick, whose review waxed lyrical about the work.
Hungarian folk music
Attempts were made to complete the symphony. But perhaps it functions best as a mysterious, incomplete work ‘When, after a few introductory bars, the clarinet and oboe sing sweetly above the soft rustle of violins, any child recognizes the composer, and a half-suppressed exclamation passes around the concert hall: Schubert! He has hardly entered, but it is as if you knew his steps, his very way of opening the door. And then, at the end of this yearning melody in minor key, we hear a contrasting theme from the cellos, a delightful song in a major key, an infectious dance tune, we feel a sense of jubilation, as though after a long absence the composer is once more standing amongst us, full of life.’ But this rural, country-folk theme is brutally
In the beautiful second movement, the sky clears. The music is melodious, light, and grand at the same time. The music, scored Andante con moto, reaches a climax before dissipating to a gentle and quiet end. In the words of Hanslick, it is as though Schubert ascends into the infinite, and at the end we hear only the sound of his wings.
Zoltán Kodály was a man on a mission. Like his friend and Hungarian compatriot Béla Bartók, he sought to meld Central-European folk music with the traditions of classical music. The results produced by modernist Bartók were sometimes rather headstrong; by comparison, Kodály’s compositional style was a little more accessible. Bartók described it as follows: ‘Kodály does not seek Dionysian intoxication, but searches for inner contemplation. His music is certainly not what we would call modern. And yet he has found a new idiom. He says things that have never been expressed before, thus proving that the tonal system has not yet lost its rationale.’ Kodály’s Dances of Galanta was composed in 1933 to commemorate the eightieth anniversary of the Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra. The work honours the town on the Slovak-Hungarian border where the composer spent a large part of his childhood, and comprises five dances that merge seamlessly one into the other. Playing a prominent role here is the local folk music, not least the gypsy music, that Kodály himself recorded in the surrounding villages. Alexander Klapwijk
Photo: Theresa Pewal
Photo: Josh Boe
Giedrė Šlekytė • conductor
Truls Mørk • cello
Born: Vilnius, Lithuania Education: National Čiurlionis School of Art, Vilnius, studies orchestral conducting in Graz at the Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst, in Leipzig at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater, and in Zurich at de Zürcher Hochschule der Künste Breakthrough: 2015: nomination Salzburg Festival Young Conductors Award, award winner International Malko Competition for Young Conductors, Copenhagen Subsequently: guest appearances with Los Angeles Philharmonic, Wiener Symphoniker, Münchner Philharmoniker, Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden, Staatskapelle Berlin, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Swedish Radio, Netherlands Philharmonic; opera at Royal Opera House, Bayerische Staatsoper, Staatsoper Berlin, Komische Oper Berlin, Semperoper Dresden, Oper Zürich, Royal Danish Opera Debut Rotterdam Philharmonic: 2026
Born: Bergen, Norway Education: Edsberg Institute of Music with Frans Helmerson, with Heinrich Schiff and Natalia Shakhovskaya Awards: International Tchaikovsky Competition Moscow (1982); Cassado Cello Competition Florence (1983); UNESCO Award Bratislava (1983); Naumburg Competition New York (1986); Sibelius Prize (2010); Norwegian Critics Prize (2011) Breakthrough: 1994: USA tour with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra and Mariss Jansons Subsequently: Orchestre de Paris, Berliner Philharmoniker, Wiener Philharmoniker, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, Münchner Philharmoniker, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, New York and Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, symphony orchestras of Philadelphia, Cleveland and Boston Debut Rotterdam Philharmonic: 1993
Agenda Thu 15 January 2026 • 20.15 Fri 16 January 2026 • 20.15 conductor Lahav Shani violin Vilde Frang Bartók Violin Concerto Dvořák Symphony No. 8
Musicians Chief Conductor Lahav Shani Honorary Conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin
Principal Guest Music for Breakfast 3 Conductor Sun 25 January 2026 • 10.30 Tarmo Peltokoski HAKA Gebouw musicians and programme: rpho.nl/en
Fri 13 February 2026 • 20.15 conductor Tarmo Peltokoski violin Simone Lamsma Brahms Violin Concerto Vaughan Williams Symphony No. 3 ‘Pastoral’ Sun 1 March 2026 • 14.15 conductor and piano Lahav Shani Dukas The Sorcerer’s Apprentice Shostakovich Suite for Variety Orchestra Shostakovich Piano Concerto No. 2 Strauss Till Eulenspiegel Thu 12 March 2026 • 20.15 Fri 13 March 2026 • 20.15 Sun 15 March 2026 • 14.15 conductor Santtu-Matias Rouvali cello Senja Rummukainen Rimski-Korsakov Capriccio espagnol Elgar Cello Concerto Shostakovich Symphony No. 6
Galahad Samson José Moura Nunes Kerstin Bonk Janine Baller Francis Saunders Veronika Lénártová Rosalinde Kluck León van den Berg Olfje van der Klein Jan Navarro
Clarinet Julien Hervé Bruno Bonansea Alberto Sánchez García Clarinet/ Bass Clarinet Romke-Jan Wijmenga Bassoon Pieter Nuytten Lola Descours Marianne Prommel
First Violin Cello Marieke Blankestijn, Emanuele Silvestri Concert Master Gustaw Bafeltowski Vlad Stanculeasa, Horn Joanna Pachucka Concert Master David Fernández Alonso Daniel Petrovitsch Quirine Scheffers Felipe Freitas Mario Rio Hed Yaron Meyerson Eelco Beinema Wendy Leliveld Saskia Otto Richard Speetjens Carla Schrijner Arno Bons Laurens Otto Pepijn Meeuws Rachel Browne Pierre Buizer Yi-Ting Fang Maria Dingjan Killian White Marie-José Schrijner Trumpet Paul Stavridis Noëmi Bodden Alex Elia Petra Visser Adrián Martínez Double Bass Sophia Torrenga Simon Wierenga Matthew Midgley Hadewijch Hofland Giovanni Giardinella Ying Lai Green Annerien Stuker Jonathan Focquaert Alexandra van Beveren Arjen Leendertz Trombone Marie Duquesnoy Pierre Volders Ricardo Neto Javier Clemen Martínez Alexander Verbeek Second Violin Marta Fossas Mallorqui Remko de Jager Charlotte Potgieter Mario Fernández Frank de Groot Bass trombone Laurens van Vliet Rommert Groenhof Flute Elina Staphorsius Juliette Hurel Jun Yi Dou Tuba Joséphine Olech Bob Bruyn Martijn van Rijswijk Manon Gayet Eefje Habraken Maija Reinikainen Timpani/ Flute/Piccolo Babette van den Berg Beatriz Baião Percussion Melanie Broers Danny van de Wal Tobias Staub Ronald Ent Oboe Sarah Decamps Martijn Boom Karel Schoofs Anja van der Maten Viola Harp Anne Huser Oboe/Cor Anglais Albane Baron Roman Spitzer Ron Tijhuis