COMPOSER, CONDUCTOR, AND VIOLINIST ONDŘEJ KUKAL (born 1964) is one of the most significant and versatile Czech musical personalities of the middle generation. Regarding his Triple Concerto "Fight for Joy," op. 50 for piano trio and orchestra from 2016, composed at the request of the Kalliopé Trio Pragues, he expressed that it is currently the piece closest to his heart. From the first listen, it is evident that it serves as a counterpoint to the Piano Trio from two years earlier, titled Fight with the Fall, a rhythmically fractured evolutionary span where the principle of gradual growth intertwines with the principle of artfully layered contrasts. The opening section of the Triple Concerto, entrusted to the piano trio, emerges from the depths of a harmonic model, as if rolling forth some torturous weight. However, the musical flow soon begins to clarify and color with a plethora of brass timbres. On a solid rhythmic foundation, clusters of dancing figurative parts parade before us, alternating with unsettling vibrations (an obsession with tremolo) and immediately followed by an intrusive play of syncopation. The spontaneity with which this composition, almost symphonically expansive in sound, unfolds is perfectly balanced by a sense of musical logic...
