2024-09-15 21:04:30
Over 2,000 people heard Gustav Mahler’s seventh symphony played by the Czech Philharmonic and the Bamber Symphony on Wednesday evening at the Prague Exhibition Center despite the bad weather. The players of both orchestras performed under the baton of Jakub Hrůš at a special concert organized by the Prague Dvořák festival under the name Spojeni Mahler.
The event, the recording of which can be played on the Czech Television website, commemorated the world premiere of Mahler’s Seventh Symphony. It took place at the same place in 1908. Under the author’s direction, the orchestras of the Czech Philharmonic and the former New German Theater in Prague, whose members laid the foundations of today’s Bamber Symphony Orchestra after their expulsion from Czechoslovakia, performed at that time.
Last week, the Bamber Symphony opened this year’s edition of Dvořák’s Prague with its chief conductor Jakub Hrůša.
“For me, the whole event also has a social dimension, because I expect that there will be a harmonious coexistence of the Czech and German elements completely non-violently, without words and demonstrations,” announced the conductor before the concert. “I perceive the symbolism of the brotherhood of two nations that live side by side, that have had a lot of tension and problems between them in history, and I consider the connection and harmonization that will happen with the help of music to be very important. Although of course I know that music will not change politics, it can at least to show in which direction the mutual dialogue could go,” added Jakub Hrůša.
The stage has grown on the space in front of the Industrial Palace, which is currently undergoing renovation. Several dozen listeners stood next to the sold-out auditorium with 2,000 seats.
The organizers did not insist on a formal atmosphere and did not require a dress code, people could bring refreshments into the auditorium. Despite the light rain that accompanied more than half of the eighty-minute concert, the visitors stayed until the end. After him, they rewarded the orchestras with thunderous applause.
The concert Spojeni Mahler was one of the highlights of the Year of Czech Music celebrations. The name covers a cultural event commemorating significant anniversaries of musical personalities every ten years.
The organizers decided to treat Wednesday night as a comprehensive experience. Before the start of the performance, a documentary about the Seventh Symphony was shown on the big screen, and in the premises people could familiarize themselves with the historical circumstances of the world premiere in 1908.
The seventh of Gustav Mahler’s nine completed symphonies, an eighty-minute five-movement monument, was the only one to have its world premiere in Prague. The score is dated 15 August 1905, but the orchestration was completed in 1906.
Czech-Austrian composer Mahler was born in Kaliště near Humpolka and spent his childhood in Jihlava.
The Dvořák Prague Festival until September 24 commemorates not only Antonín Dvořák, but also Bedřich Smetana and other famous Czech natives and foreign composers.
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