PIANOFONIA II
In cooperation
We all know what a piano sounds like. But what do the individual parts sound like? You will find out at a concert that the Prague Spring Festival is presenting in cooperation with the most important Czech manufacturer of grand and upright pianos, Petrof. Individual piano components from the smallest to the largest will be scattered around the premises of the National Technical Museum along with two complete instruments. The they will be heard in a new composition created by Michal Rataj and Jan Trojan on commission for the festival.
This concert is presented at 7.00 pm and 9.00 pm.
Programme
- Michal Rataj & Jan Trojan: Pianofonia (world premiere of a new work commissioned by the Prague Spring)
Performers
- Ivo Kahánek - piano
- Michal Nejtek - piano
- Štěpán Hon - piano objects
- Michal Rataj - piano objects, live electronics
- Jan Trojan - piano objects, live electronics
National Technical Museum and PETROF
have prepared the exhibition “PETROF 160. Piano as a technical work”. The exhibition was created on the occasion of the 160th anniversary of the founding of the company, which is one of the most important European manufacturers of acoustic pianos and grand pianos. The spectacular exhibition will give an insight into the history and present of this important Czech company and will present the process and technical background of the creation of instruments whose sound resounds all over the world and spreads the good name of Czech craftsmanship. Thanks to its own research and development department, PETROF is one of the leading innovators in the industry and holds several patents. The exhibition takes place from 10 April 2024 to 31 January 2025 in the large exhibition hall of the National Technical Museum.
The two authors have already encountered each at the Prague Spring Festival at the venue of the National Technical Museum for the premiere of Jan Trojan’s spatial composition Circulation in 2017. “The piano is an instrument of Western musical culture, but its deeper musical essence brings together much more,” says Michal Rataj, explaining the new joint project. “On the one hand, the elegant design of the instrument’s cabinet conceals the mystery of the string as the basic unit setting the sound in motion. On the other hand, what we tend to reveal is the history of the rhythmic drive that is common to perhaps all cultures on earth. One can actually look at the vibrating string and pulsating rhythm as basic musical elements without which music could not exist. The design of the piano gives them form.”
The concert grand piano as we know it from classical concerts will be played by Ivo Kahánek, a leading Czech performer of worldwide fame whose collaborators have included the Berlin Philharmonic and Simon Rattle. This will not be his first collaboration with Michal Rataj. The Czech Philharmonic and the conductor David Robertson joined Kahánek in performing Rataj’s piano concerto titled Movis at the Prague Spring Festival in 2022. The piano will be played in a non-traditional way by Michal Nejtek, himself a wonderful composer, whose music has been heard in the
