R6 / Ilan Volkov – 20th Century Classic • Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra

A varied programme combining music by Czech, English and Russian composers will feature a guest appearance by leading Israeli conductor Ilan Volkov. The evening will open with Symphonic Variations, composed by Viktor Kalabis at the instigation of the Czech Philharmonic and its former chief conductor Václav Neumann. This will be followed by the Sinfonia da Requiem, whose title and the titles of the individual movements refer to the Latin Mass for the dead. Twenty-six-year-old Benjamin Britten composed the work in 1940 as a requiem for his parents. It also reflected the dark atmosphere of the beginning of the Second World War. The evening will culminate with the Seventh Symphony, the last great work by Sergei Prokofiev. The composition was commissioned by the editors of children and youth programmes at Moscow Radio. Although playful motifs referring to the world of childhood can be detected in it, Prokofiev created an elaborate work whose melancholic tone irritated the Soviet authorities so much that they demanded that the seriously ill composer rework it.