Joker - Jan Kučera
The Joker for trumpet and piano was commissioned for the purpose of the International Prague Spring 2010 competition , where it was set as a compulsory piece for the second round. The award for its best performance went to the brilliant French trumpetist Olivier Bombrun, who finished third in the competition itself. We also cooperated with Olivier on a recording of the piece for the Czech Radio. It was thanks to the prestigious competition that the composition to my great delight got widely recognized, especially in France and the USA.
The idea for an orchestral version of the score occured to me already during the competition, where it was my pleasure to conduct the brilliant performance sof the contestants. I was very pleased to find out that the jury president, the legendary French trumpetist Guy Touvron, as well as yet another member of the jury, the long-standing first trumpetist with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra Miroslav Kejmar, welcomed and supported my spontaneous idea. The orchestral version was created over the summer in 2011 and it was finished by January 2012.
Differences from the piano version can be found mainly in the interludes where I wanted to provide more space for the full orchestra sound. As far as the form is concerned, any extensions derive merely from further development of already existing thematic material. The extension is most palpable in the middle slow-tempo section, whose intention was to point out the fact that humour can afer also to more substantial matters. In accordance with the overall nature of the piece, I was striving for a varied, colourful, even ironic instrumentation, which accounts for the rather extensive size of the orchestra, given the limited scale of the composition. The original piece of the piece was characterised by following short watchwords which I believe hold good for the orchestral setting as well: „Playful above all. Sense of humour. Self-irony. Non-seriousness. The imp in your mind. Fair play as a matter of course. This is Joker. Your Joker…“
Other compositions by Jan Kučera published in Czech Radio:
Baroque Reminiscence
Baroque Reminiscence / piano score
Benedicamus Domino
Birth
Contemplation
Dancing You Within
Full House
Suite Concertante
Parts only for hire at nakladatelstvi@rozhlas.cz