Bard Summerscape and Bard Music Festival 2025: MARTINŮ AND HIS WORLD

Fisher Center at Bard (photo-Peter Aaron '68/Esto)

Here's the schedule for Bard's summer festivities; note that getting this onto the blog meant that I lost most of the formatting and I have not restored all of it. For more information, see the Summerscape web site.

Pastoral
Fisher Center LAB Commission/World Premiere
 
Choreography by Pam Tanowitz
Décor by Sarah Crowner
Music by Caroline Shaw
Featuring Pam Tanowitz Dance
Inspired by Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6, “Pastoral”
 
Friday, June 27 at 7 pm
Saturday, June 28 at 7 pm
Sunday, June 29 at 3 pm
Sosnoff Theater

Dalibor
by Bedřich Smetana
SummerScape Opera/New Production
 
Libretto by Josef Wenzig, Czech translation by Ervín Špindler
Directed by Jean-Romain Vesperini
American Symphony Orchestra conducted by Leon Botstein
Sung in Czech with English supertitles
 
Friday, July 25 at 6:30 pm
Sunday, July 27 at 2 pm
Wednesday, July 30 at 2 pm
Friday, August 1 at 4 pm
Sunday, August 3 at 2 pm
Sosnoff Theater

The 35th Bard Music Festival
Martinů and His World
 
Weekend One: A Musical Mirror of the 20th Century 
August 8–10
 
Weekend Two: Against Uncertainty, Uniformity, Mechanization: Music in the Mid-20th Century
August 14–17
Weekend One: A Musical Mirror of the 20th Century 
 
Program One: The Peripatetic Career
Friday, August 8
Sosnoff Theater
7 PM Performance with Commentary
 
Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959)
Double Concerto, H271 (1938)
Piano Quartet No. 1, H287 (1942)
Symphony No. 2, H295 (1943)
Fantasia, H301 (1944)
Petrklíč / Primrose, H348 (1954)
 
Panel One
Why Martinů: Understanding Classical Music, Past and Future
Saturday, August 9
Olin Hall 
10 AM – 12 noon
 
Free and open to the public.
 
Program Two: The Emigree in Paris
Saturday, August 9
Olin Hall
1 PM Preconcert Talk
1:30 PM Performance
 
Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959)
String Trio No. 1, H136 (1923)
Flute Sonata, H306 (1945)
Duo No. 1 for Violin and Cello, H157 (1927)
 
Josef Suk (1874–1935)
Piano Quartet No. 1 in A Minor, Op. 1 (1891)
 
Maurice Ravel (1875–1937)
Violin Sonata No. 2 in G Major (1927)
 
Works by Jaroslav Řídký (1897–1956) and Alexandre Tansman (1897–1986)
 
Program Three: Music and Freedom
Saturday, August 9
Sosnoff Theater
6 PM Preconcert Talk
7 PM Orchestral Performance
 
Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959)
Memorial to Lidice, H296 (1943)
Symphony No. 6 (Fantaisies symphoniques), H343 (1951–53)
Piano Concerto No. 4, “Incantation,” H358 (1956)
 
Erwin Schulhoff (1894–1942)
Symphony No. 2 (1932)
 
Rudolf Firkušný (1912–94)
Piano Concertino (1929)
 
Program Four: The Search for a Distinctive Voice
Sunday, August 10
Olin Hall
11 AM Performance with Commentary
 
Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959)
Les Rondes, H200 (1930)
String Quartet No. 7, “Concerto da camera,” H314 (1947)
The Fifth Day of the Fifth Moon, for piano, H318 (1948)
Variations on a Slovak Theme, H378 (1959)
 
Vítězslava Kaprálová (1915–40)
String Quartet No. 1, Op. 8 (1935)
 
Program Five: New Shores: Influences and Contexts
Sunday, August 10
Sosnoff Theater  
2 PM Preconcert Talk
3 PM Performance
 
Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959)
La revue de cuisine, H161 (1927)
Harpsichord Concerto, H246 (1935)
Tre ricercari, H267 (1938)
Piano Sonata No. 1, H350 (1954)
 
Arthur Honegger (1892–1955)
Concerto da Camera, H196 (1948)
 
Aaron Copland (1900–90)
Sextet (1937)
 
Weekend Two: Against Uncertainty, Uniformity, Mechanization: Music in the Mid-20th Century
 
Program Six: The Spiritual Quest
Thursday, August 14, at 7 PM
Friday, August 15 at 3 PM
Church of the Messiah, Rhinebeck 
 
Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959)
The Mount of Three Lights, H349 (1954) 
Vigilie, H382 (1959)
 
Antonín Dvořák (1841–1904)
From Mass in D Major, Op. 86 (1887)
 
Leoš Janáček (1854–1928)
Veni Sancte Spiritus (ca. 1903)
Constitues eos principes (1903)
Ave Maria (1904) 
Postludium, from Glagolitic Mass (1926)
 
Petr Eben (1929–2007)
Finale, from Musica dominicalis (Sunday Music) (1958)
 
Program Seven: Myth, Faith, and Folklore
Friday, August 15
Sosnoff Theater
6 PM Preconcert Talk
7 PM Performance
 
Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959)
Mariken de Nimègue, H236/2 I (1933–34)
Field Mass, H279 (1946)
Brigand Songs, H361 (1957)
 
Panel Two: Music and Politics: From the Habsburg Empire to Contemporary Populism and Autocracy
Saturday, August 16
Olin Hall
10 AM – 12 noon
 
Free and open to the public.
 
Program Eight: Martinů and the Craft of Composition
Saturday, August 16
Olin Hall
1 PM Preconcert Talk
1:30 PM Performance 
 
Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959)
Duo No. 1, “Three Madrigals,” H313 (1947)
Cello Sonata No. 3, H340 (1952)
Nonet No. 2, H374 (1959)
 
David Diamond (1915–2005)
Quintet (1937)
 
Karel Husa (1921–2016)
Evocations de Slovaquie (1951)
 
Program Nine: Renewing the Public Power of Tradition
Saturday, August 16
Sosnoff Theater
6 PM Preconcert Talk
7 PM Orchestral Performance
 
Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959)
Violin Concerto No. 2, H293 (1943)
The Epic of Gilgamesh, H351 (1955)
 
Jan Novák (1921–84)
Ignis pro Ioanne Palach (1969)
 
Program Ten: Martinů’s Legacy
Sunday, August 17
Olin Hall
11 AM Preconcert Talk
11:30 AM Performance
 
Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959)
Three Czech Dances, H154 (1926)
Songs on One Page, H294 (1943)
Songs on Two Pages, H302 (1944)
 
Joan Tower (b. 1938)
Petroushskates (1980)
 
Kryštof Mařatka (b. 1972)
Báchorky, fables pastorales (2016)
 
Works by Jaroslav Ježek (1906–42), Frank Zappa (1940–93), and Iva Bittová (b. 1958)
 
Program Eleven: The Opera of Dreams: Martinů’s Julietta
Sunday, August 17
Sosnoff Theater 
2 PM Preconcert Talk
3 PM Semi-Staged Opera Performance
 
Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959)
Julietta, H253 (1937) (Martinů, after Georges Neveux)