Collegium Vocale Gent & Het Collectief / Reinbert de Leeuw

The central piece is the sombre Elegie na smrt dcery Olgy, which Janáček composed in 1903 after the death of his daughter Olga. Around this elegy will be works in which the 70-year-old composer looks back at his own youth and that of his children.

The concert opens and closes with Říkadla, a rapid succession of often-absurd nursery rhymes that alternate melancholy with innocent mischievousness. The chamber pieces Concertino and Mládi also balance between the two moods. The piano cycle V mlách acts as a link between the apparently carefree world of a child and the devastating grief of the elegy. Janáček has been embraced as an opera composer by many in the past few decades. It’s now high time to get to know his smaller works, which are no less intense or resourceful than his d operas.

Opening concert KU leuven