Czech Philharmonic ⬩ Bryce Dessner

In Suk’s symphonic poem Praga, already at the time when it was written, listeners noticed tunes reminiscent of the Hussite melody Ktož jsú boží bojovníci (Ye, Who Are Warriors of God). There is no comment from the composer about the similarity of the melodies, but some historians have called it a pure coincidence.

In a letter, Suk had the following to say about his motivation to write the new work: “The main idea in it is to express my feelings for my beloved city (the idea came to me when I was so homesick abroad); it came into being and is written with enthusiasm from beginning to end, where I wished to express the ennoblement of Prague above all else.”

Three works that Suk composed around the time of the First World War have a clear relation to societal and political events. The Meditation on the Old Czech Chorale ‘St. Wenceslas’ (1914) was a reaction to the requirement of opening concerts of the Bohemian Quartet with the Austrian national anthem in order to bolster patriotic sentiment. The Legend of the Dead Victors (1920) pays tribute to the fallen. The triptych ends with an optimistic march for the Sokol patriotic gymnastics organisation with the title Towards a New Life (1919), for which Suk won second prize in 1932 at the Olympic Games in Los Angeles.
We get a look at California in the composition Carolyn by the Sea by the American multi-genre musician Bryce Dessner. When composing a concerto for two electric guitars, the very first composer-in-residence of the Czech Philharmonic took inspiration from the autobiographical novel Big Sur by Jack Kerouac. In it, not long before his death caused by alcoholism, the author describes the dissolution of the soul and body and gives an accounting of himself.

“Kerouac sits on the shore and sees his lover—a desperate creature—throwing herself into the sea. He thinks she’s going to drown, like Ophelia—that’s where Carolyn came from. I thought it was a beautiful image, dramatic. The piece kind of goes through the same intense mood swings and follows up on the drunken hallucinations that we find in the book”, says Dessner, who is incidentally also a member of the famous indie rock band The National.