Subscription Series 4K

The great composers create music that allows us to look into our souls – into that mysterious place where people’s lives are projected and from which they are directed at the same time – their thoughts, feelings, decisions, and struggles.

4K1 — Janáček’s Jenůfa • Four steps to the New world

Dvorak Hall

What's on

“My servant recalls that during her second year with us, I began composing Jenůfa. That was in 1896. In those days, I was only a part-time composer! Being a church choir director and organist, a music teacher at an Austro-Hungarian normal school, the director of an organ school, a conductor of concerts at the Symphonic Society – having a terminally ill daughter at home – that was my life. Well, composing was hard, so I didn’t do much of it. For that reason, it is also hard for me to reminisce about it.” (Leoš Janáček, 1917) – “My husband had just finished Jenůfa. The whole time he was working on the opera, Olga was terribly interested in it. Now she asked: “Daddy, play Jenůfa for me; I’ll never hear it again.” Leoš sat down at the piano and played… I couldn’t bear it, so I ran away…” (Zdenka Janáčková)

Performers

Petr Kadlec
guide

Soloists and choirs TBA

Marko Ivanović
conductor

Czech Student Philharmonic

(Czech Philharmonic players, members of the Orchestral Academy of the Czech Philharmonic, and students from music schools)

More information

Photo illustrating a concert - event Janáček’s Jenůfa Four steps to the New world

4K2 — Four steps to the New world • Beethoven’s and Kabeláč’s Mystery of Time

Dvorak Hall

What's on

Beethoven was a man of his times, but he wrote timeless musical works. One of them is Egmont Overture, which concerns freedom and the courage to risk confronting the powerful. Lamoraal, Count of Egmont, lived in the sixteenth century and became a symbol of the Dutch revolt against Spanish domination and the Inquisition. In 1956, Beethoven’s Egmont became the unofficial anthem of the Hungarian uprising against Soviet hegemony. – “Alongside Bohuslava Martinů and Karel Husa, Miloslav Kabeláč was the most important modern Czech composer. During the war, he refused to divorce his Jewish wife, so he was forced to leave his job in radio broadcasting, and he spent the rest of the war in hiding to avoid being sent to a concentration camp. After the war, he went back to work in radio, but he did not join the Communist Party. He was a musical programming director and a composer. His composition The Mystery of Timeis in perfect opposition to the regime – the communists felt that they had time under control. And Kabeláč makes it clear that there is still some sort of cosmic time that is indifferent to whether some plodding regime exists or not.” (The composer Milan Slavický, 2004)

Performers

Petr Kadlec
guide

Soloists and choirs TBA

Marko Ivanović
conductor

Czech Student Philharmonic

(Czech Philharmonic players, members of the Orchestral Academy of the Czech Philharmonic, and students from music schools)

More information

Photo illustrating a concert - event Four steps to the New world Beethoven’s and Kabeláč’s Mystery of Time

4K3 — Dvořák’s Stabat Mater • Four steps to the New world

Dvorak Hall

What's on

“I had been yearning to perform Dvořák’s Stabat Mater for a very long time. After more than thirty years, I wanted to engage in polemics with the conductor Karel Kovařovic, whose wonderful performance back then provoked in me an effort to stand one day on the podium and come to terms with that ten-movement song about suffering and loss, beginning with heavy, implacable sorrow and moving down a long, black corridor towards the light of paradise and a trusting Amen. (…) At Christmas I came into possession of Škréta’s painting of the Crucifixion… Unlike other depictions of a “general assembly” beneath the Cross of Christ, Škréta limits himself to the gently inclined heads of the Sacrificial Victim and of the Mother of God, whose sad eyes gaze motionlessly, fixed on Christ’s face. The two of them are alone. The other figures in the picture are in the background and are only sketchily portrayed, as if to indicate how remote the world is from us when we encounter true sorrow. And it is in such loneliness that sorrow grows into an unbearable horror. I am glad that the honour of being the interpreter of this work by Dvořák has come to me so late: when I was young, I would not have been capable of it at all, and it was truly necessary to have life experience and to know human misery for me to be able to bow down before the Stabat Mater…” (conductor Václav Talich, 1952)

Performers

Petr Kadlec
guide

Veronika Rovná Holbová
soprano

Markéta Cukrová
alto

Richard Samek
tenor

František Zahradníček
bass

Collegium paedagogicum, mixed choir of Charles University Faculty of Education

Prague Conservatory Choir

Marek Valášek
choirmaster

Marko Ivanović
conductor

Czech Student Philharmonic
(Czech Philharmonic players, members of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestral Academy, and music school students)

More information

Photo illustrating a concert - event Dvořák’s Stabat Mater Four steps to the New world

4K4 — Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet and Swan Lake • Four steps to the New world

Dvorak Hall

What's on

“The sun was already setting when I had my tea and went for a walk… Deeply moved by the beauty of the forest, the setting sun, and the balmy evening, it occurred to me how such moments make it worthwhile to bear the little vexations with which life is filled… Such moments are enough for us to love life. We are promised the eternal joy of immortal existence, but we do not recognise or understand this. But if we are worthy of such moments and if they are truly eternal, we soon learn to enjoy them. Then one wishes to go on living, so there might be a repeat of moments like what I experienced yesterday. (…) Formerly, music was composed, created; now it is conceived, invented. This purely intellectual process of musical creation is reflected in how contemporary music is clever, piquant, curious, even delightful (…), but at the same time, it is cold, lacking the warmth of inspiration.” (Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, 1880)

Performers

Petr Kadlec
guide

Soloists and choirs TBA

Marko Ivanović
conductor

Czech Student Philharmonic

(Czech Philharmonic players, members of the Orchestral Academy of the Czech Philharmonic, and students from music schools)

More information

Subscription Series 4K

4K1 — Janáček’s Jenůfa • Four steps to the New world

What's on

Performers

4K2 — Four steps to the New world • Beethoven’s and Kabeláč’s Mystery of Time

What's on

Performers

4K3 — Dvořák’s Stabat Mater • Four steps to the New world

What's on

Performers

4K4 — Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet and Swan Lake • Four steps to the New world

What's on

Performers

Subscribe to our Magazine

Custom cookie settings