Works for keyboard and string sextet performed by Charlie Albright, piano, and Musicians from Marlboro.Janáček: Sonata 1.X.1905Dvořák: Sextet in A Major; Op. 48, B. 80Today, we’ll hear from two important Czech composers: Dvořák, whose idiomatic Slavonic pieces were among the first to put Czech music on the Western classical “map,” and Janáček, whose inventive work brought it into the 20th century. We begin with Janáček’s Sonata 1.X.1905, an emotional epitaph written to commemorate František Pavlí, killed October 1st, 1905, in demonstrations in Brno. The demonstrators were calling on the government to open a university in the city; the peaceful protest turned violent when Pavlí, a carpenter, was bayoneted by soldiers. Janáček’s emotion about the incident, and also his reaction to it, is clear from the music. Next, we’ll hear Dvořák’s String Sextet in A Major. Written in 1878, around the same time as the wildly successful Slavonic Rhapsodies and Dances, the sextet, too, draws on traditional Czech forms and styles. The middle two movements are modeled on two such folk sources: the Dumka, a thoughtful and melancholy epic ballad, and the Furiant, a fiery Bohemian dance.