1938

In June 1938, even as the skies darkened over continental Europe, a new star rose in the musical firmament. Vitezslava Kapralova arrived in London to conduct the BBC Symphony Orchestra in her own work, the Military Sinfonietta, to universal acclaim.

Young, Czech, a woman no less, Kapralova epitomised the cultural flowering of a proud new republic, albeit one already looking over its shoulder at the growing menace of an overbearing neighbour. The rhyme with our own time is unmistakeable. Within two years, she was dead, and the world was at war.

We look at the dramatic events of 1938 – Anschluss, Munich, Kristallnacht – through the lens of a musical genius, one cut short at the painfully young age of 25 but whose legacy of songs, piano and chamber work is as diverse as it is extraordinary.

As the season of Advent approaches, at the darkest part of the year, Tekla Arts and Marcel Music celebrate a new light, even as a troubled world waits on an uncertain future.

Featuring: Anna Muradyan (soprano), Nick Bowater (tenor), Caroline Soresby (piano), Andrew Campling (piano), Martha Nicholls (saxophone), Kiok Son (violinist), Ben Matson (cello), and readers John Fleming, Lenka Preston and Theia Galena Charles

Including: Waving Farewell and selections from Two Songs, Sparks from Ashes, An Apple from the Lap, Seconds, Sung into the Distance; the April Preludes; 5 Piano Compositions (arranged for saxophone); Elegie, Deux Ritournelles, Partita for Piano and Strings

With the words of: Virginia Woolf, Schopenhauer, Schoenberg, Martinů and Kafka; excerpts from the novels The Prague Sonata, The Glass Room, Crooked Cross, and The Good Soldier Svejk; the poetry of Jan Neruda, Vítězslav Nezval and Karel Čapek

And the voices of: Neville Chamberlain and Adolf Hitler

Devised and Directed by Theia Galena Charles

Musical Direction by Andrew Campling with Caroline Soresby