Date: July 4, 2025
Time: 8:00 PM
Title: Philip Glass: Mishima Concerto
Location: Mýtna 1
Organizer: Large Concert Studio of Slovak Radio, Bratislava

July 4, 2025, 8:00 PM, Slovak Radio, Bratislava
Philip Glass: Mishima Concerto

Invited by the Viva Musica! festival, American composer and pianist Philip Glass first performed in Slovakia in 2015. Exactly ten years later, his music returns to the festival in the form of a new piano concerto — the Mishima Concerto. This work is based on Glass’s original score for the 1985 film Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters by Paul Schrader, which depicts the life of one of Japan’s most important writers, Yukio Mishima (1925–1970).

Although Glass’s music is not traditionally Japanese, its minimalist style enhances the themes of Mishima’s literary aesthetics, focusing especially on the contrasting eternal artistic categories such as beauty and death, as well as Mishima’s specific enthusiasm for samurai philosophy.

The Mishima Concerto, arranged by Michael Riesman, will be performed in Bratislava by the outstanding Japanese pianist Maki Namekawa, to whom Glass dedicated the piece.

“When I was preparing for the premiere of the Mishima Concerto, Philip told me that during the composition of the original film music he thoroughly studied the available literature and biographies of Yukio Mishima — the most important Japanese prose writer of the 20th century. As an exceptional observer of people, Philip always has fascinatingly precise insights. He expresses his opinions in a few simple sentences, focusing only on the essentials, without emotions — and rarely with a negative tone. The music he composed for Mishima reflects this side of his personality. The music does not accompany or describe the film’s events directly but rather represents a kind of reflection of how Philip perceives Yukio Mishima’s personality: his innermost thoughts and the anxiety accompanying the end of a period in his life. The final piece of the original soundtrack called Closing suggests that the end of this life is the beginning of another — not a sad conclusion, but the belief that things will always continue. Philip Glass’s music confirms this conviction,” explained Maki Namekawa.

The Brno Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by chief conductor Dennis Russell Davies, will also present on the evening the only symphony by Austrian-American composer and Brno native Erich Wolfgang Korngold — the monumental Symphony in F-sharp Major, Op. 40.

“Philip Glass and Erich Korngold are two composers separated by more than one generation, yet united by their shared love and deep understanding of theater and opera. Both managed to use the financial and technical possibilities of Hollywood to enrich their works without sacrificing artistic integrity. Korngold’s complex and masterful symphony was meant as a statement announcing his return to the European concert and theater scene after years in exile, fleeing Nazi terror. It was a deeply personal and dramatic gesture, which initially failed almost completely. Only in recent years has this exceptional work secured its place in the concert repertoire. Philip Glass and Michael Riesman created a new piano concerto from the music Glass composed for Schrader’s Mishima film to highlight a particularly fruitful period in Glass’s output and to pay tribute to the musical and pianistic virtuosity of Maki Namekawa — a longtime collaborator and close friend of the composer,” said Dennis Russell Davies.

The Brno Philharmonic Orchestra, under Davies’s baton, also performed at the Viva Musica! festival in 2022 together with the legendary Laurie Anderson.

Performers:
Maki Namekawa / piano
Brno Philharmonic Orchestra
Dennis Russell Davies / conductor

Photo © Andreas H. Bitesnich
Program and performers subject to change
www.vivamusica.sk

Donation Ticket:
We have reserved the best seats in the hall for you! For four of our concerts at the Large Concert Studio of Slovak Radio, you can purchase a special donation ticket. By doing so, you support the festival beyond the regular ticket price and help us continue our mission to create and bring extraordinary musical experiences. The standard ticket price is increased by a €20 donation, and the number of these seats is limited. Thank you for your support.

Discounts:

• 50% for immobile / disabled persons and their companion
• 20% for seniors over 65, pupils, students, holders of ISIC, ITIC, Euro<26 cards