Czech Philharmonic • Charles Dutoit
The French conductor Charles Dutoit performs two works that need little introduction. A concert performance of Murice Ravel’s longest composition—Dafnis et Chloé—and one of the last symphonies by a composer Ravel admired: Mozart’s 39th.
Programme
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Symphony No. 39 in E flat major, K 543
Maurice Ravel
Daphnis et Chloé, concert performance of the ballet music
Performers
Czech Philharmonic Youth Orchestra
Prague Philharmonic Choir
The Prague Philharmonic Choir (PPC), founded in 1935 by the choirmaster Jan Kühn, is the oldest professional mixed choir in the Czech Republic. Their current choirmaster and artistic director is Lukáš Vasilek, and the second choirmaster is Lukáš Kozubík.
The choir has earned the highest acclaim in the oratorio and cantata repertoire, performing with the world’s most famous orchestras. In this country, they collaborate regularly with the Czech Philharmonic and the Prague Philharmonia. They also perform opera as the choir-in-residence of the opera festival in Bregenz, Austria.
Programmes focusing mainly on difficult, lesser-known works of the choral repertoire. For voice students, they are organising the Academy of Choral Singing, and for young children there is a cycle of educational concerts.
The choir has been honoured with the 2018 Classic Prague Award and the 2022 Antonín Dvořák Prize.
Lukáš Vasilek
choirmaster
Lukáš Vasilek studied conducting and musicology. Since 2007, he has been the chief choirmaster of the Prague Philharmonic Choir (PPC). Most of his artistic work with them involves rehearsing and performing a cappella repertoire and preparing them to perform in large-scale cantatas, oratorios, and operatic projects in collaboration with world-famous conductors and orchestras (Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Czech Philharmonic, Israel Philharmonic, Kyiv Symphony Orchestra, etc.).
In addition to leading the PPC, he is active in a wide range of artistic projects, most notably in collaboration with the vocal ensemble Martinů Voices, which he founded in 2010. As a conductor and choirmaster, he appears on numerous recordings for major international labels, including Decca Classics and Supraphon. In recent years, he has focused systematically on recording the choral music of Bohuslav Martinů. His recordings have received extraordinary worldwie acclaim and have earned awards from prestigious publications such as Gramophone, BBC Music Magazine, and Diapason.
Charles Dutoit
conductor
Captivating audiences throughout the world for over six decades, Charles Dutoit has been one of today's most sought-after conductors, having performed with all the major orchestras on five continents. He received two of the most prestigious honours in the music world: in 2017, the gold medal of the "Royal Philharmonic Society" and the "Premio una Vita nella Musica 2022" from the Teatro La Fenice in Venice. Former Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the London Royal Philharmonic Orchestra as well as Principal Guest Conductor of the Saint Petersburg Philharmonic, he has enjoyed an artistic collaboration with the Philadelphia Orchestra that spanned 32 years. He has regularly appeared with the orchestras of Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles, and has been a regular guest on the stages of London, Berlin, Paris, Munich, Hamburg, Moscow, Sydney, Tokyo and Shanghai.
Charles Dutoit was Music Director of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra for twenty-five years and held the same position from 1991 to 2011 with the Orchestre National de France. He is "Music Director Emeritus" of the NHK Symphony Orchestra in Tokyo after having served as Principal Conductor and Music Director. Charles Dutoit's interest in mentoring the young generation has led to positions as Music Director of the Sapporo Pacific Music Festival and Miyazaki International Music Festival in Japan as well as the Canton International Summer Music Academy in Guangzhou, China and the Lindenbaum Festival in Seoul, South Korea. Music Director of the Verbier Festival Orchestra between 2009 and 2017, he is now "Conductor Emeritus". He has toured China 35 times, giving Chinese Premieres of such works as Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, Britten's War Requiem, Strauss' Operas, Elektra and Salome.
When still in his early 20’s, Charles Dutoit was invited by Karajan to conduct at the Vienna State Opera. He has since conducted at Covent Garden, the Metropolitan Opera in New York, Deutsche Oper in Berlin, the Rome Opera and Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. In 2014, he was given the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Classical Music Awards and received the Gold Medal from the city of Lausanne in 2016. His more than 200 recordings have garnered multiple awards and distinctions including two Grammys. A globetrotter motivated by his passion for history and archaeology, political science, art and architecture, he has traveled in all 196 nations of the world.
Czech Philharmonic
Student Programme
Dates and tickets
Dress rehearsal
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“A crazy week”, Maurice Ravel complained in a letter to Madame de Saint-Marceaux in June 1909. He was at work on preparing the new ballet Daphnis et Chloé, commissioned for the Ballets Russes by their impresario Sergei Diaghilev. Adding to the chaos and complications was the fact that the choreographer Michel Fokine could not speak a word of French, while Ravel could only curse in Russian.
Because the artists were unable to reach conceptual agreement, the work was revised several times, and its premiere was delayed until 1912. The tale of the love of the shepherds Chloé and Daphnis turned out to be Ravel’s longest composition. And according to Igor Stravinsky, a man otherwise stingy with complements whose Rite of Spring was heard the following year in Paris, Daphnis et Chloé was Ravel’s greatest work, and in fact one of the most beautiful pieces of the French repertoire.
Mozart’s Symphony No. 39 also got a warm reception. “The opening is so majestic that it so surprised even the coldest, most insensitive listener and non-expert, that even if he wanted to chat, it prevented him from being inattentive”, wrote one of the first listeners describing experience in 1792.
Ravel spoke of Mozart as one of the greatest masters in music history. He regarded a critic’s comparison of him to Mozart as an exaggeration, but he did not deny the strong closeness he felt to this predecessor. Now you can judge for yourselves.
The Czech Philharmonic Youth Orchestra will playplays Mozart’s Symphony No. 39.
The Czech Student Philharmonic is supported by the Czech Philharmonic’s general partner, the ČEZ Group.