Agon Orchestra and Filip Topol: Brutální muzika / Brutal Music (programme)
Intersecting Circles (MF Dnes)

Poster
Previous recorded broadcast of the concert on internet
The other concerts and performances of Agon Orchestra in the Archa Theatre




Agon Orchestra and Filip Topol: Brutální muzika (Brutal Music)

Petr Kofroň conducts the Agon Orchestra

Filip Topol and the group made up of Jiří Jelínek, David Skála and Luděk Horký.

Petr Kofroň arranges the composition of Kruhy (Circles), to be performed by Agon Orchestra and Filip Topol.

The concert of Agon Orchestra together with Filip Topol and members of his group, Psí vojáci (Dog's Solders) is the only logical beginning to this series of concerts that Agon has recently been presenting in the Archa Theatre. One of the most successful concerts, not to say it in vain, was last year's City Life in which Agon presented the music of the composers from New York' s downtown music scene.
          But what about Prague's downtown music? No doubt, Filip Topol is one of the most representative. In romantic times of totalitarianism, the music ranged from Topol's Psí vojáci (Dog's Solders) to the underground. Today we can say that their music has grown up from the hot bed of the city, whose downtown is admittedly much smaller than New York's, but almost one thousand years older. Apart from the dark wildness, the music of Psí vojáci also contains dimensions of šanson combined with the sounds of classical music.
          For the opening of the concert, Heiner Goebbel's composition will be heard - Sampler Suite - which Agon Orchestra successfully performed during last year's Marathon of Contemporary Music. The composer, who is perhaps the most admitted German composer of contemporary music, has his roots in alternative rock. Maybe, some members of the audience will be reminded of his illegal concert with the group Cassiber in the eighties in Prague.




Intersecting Circles

The introduction to the evening entitled Brutal Music was a logical prelude to its core which lasted eight minutes. In Samplersuite, Agon Orchestra combined Heiner Goebbels' own instruments with the electronics to create a contemporary sound and feeling; Psí vojáci (Dog Solders) then thundered their own personal big beat, frantic, deep music which created a long-lasting union of the performers.
          But the audience came on March 22 to Prague's Archa Theatre owing primarily to the intersection: Agon Orchestra entered the stage, and from the piano, Filip Topol drew back to his mike. What rang out were Kruhy (Circles) - the song by Psí vojáci, how composer/conductor Petr Kofroň listened to it and translated it into his orchestral language. Topol himself was likely surprised - less than the audience: the industrial drums led the music to harmonic sectors, which were farther than the complex sound of his piano. In addition, the returns in the songs gave yet another pulse: originally the author shouted "help me already!", as Agon led him to a doleful restraint. In response to the ovation, Agon and Topol simply repeated the song Kruhy (Circles). A good decision: partly because this time the song sounded different than the first, partly you can hardly believe your own ears. It seems that this is the beginning of an inspirational musical movement: Kofroň enjoys new experiences, and Topol does too. They say the repertoire of "Psí Agon" (The Dog's Agon) will broaden during the concert in April, which will take place within the framework of the International European Theatre Meeting.
          To ask for new works from well-tried creators is a good thing in the world. Here it is exceptionally finding the way. It is great that Archa was the initiator of this union: it can seem to one as though he were in Europe - at least for a little while.

25. 3. 2000, MF Dnes
Pavel Klusák
(Author is a member of the free association Periskop.)