2024-09-30 14:08:26
This Wednesday, the Czech Philharmonic opened its 129th season in Prague’s Rudolfinum with a concert featuring works by Antonín Dvořák and Hector Berlioz. Instead of the indisposed chief conductor Semjon Byčkov, who underwent back surgery and needs four weeks of recovery, the orchestra was led by 87-year-old Swiss Charles Dutoit.
The performance is repeated on Thursday. The recording of Wednesday evening can be seen on the Czech Television website.
Antonín Dvořák’s piano concerto was played by 33-year-old Daniil Trifonov, who will be the resident artist of the Czech Philharmonic in the upcoming season. A pianist with Russian roots living in America received the appreciation of the audience, who applauded the encore with a long applause.
The second part of the evening was followed by Berlioz’s Fantastic Symphony from 1830, which conductor Leonard Bernstein described as “the first musical excursion into psychedelia”. At the beginning of this composition was an unrequited love for the Irish actress Harriet Smithson. The famous romantic gem is considered an “explosion of accumulated emotions” by the then twenty-six-year-old French author.
The Swiss conductor Dutoit is one of the greatest experts on French and Russian music of the 19th and 20th centuries. He conducted the Czech Philharmonic fourteen times in more than six decades. He visited Prague for the first time in 1972, so far the last time he met the Philharmonic was in 2007.
The 85-year-old German-Polish conductor Marek Janowski will replace the indisposed Semjon Byčkov in the first subscription week of the Czech Philharmonic’s new season. The program will include the works of Johannes Brahms: his Second Symphony and Four Serious Songs, which will be sung by Christian Immler in an arrangement for bass-baritone and orchestra.
This year’s part of the season is also supposed to belong to the Year of Czech Music, i.e. cultural events commemorating significant anniversaries of musical personalities every ten years. This stage culminates in the December residency tour of the Czech Philharmonic to New York and Toronto with cellist Yo-Yo Mae, violinist Gil Shaham and the pianist from the opening concerts. “Daniil Trifonov will also be one of the soloists of December’s Czech Week in New York’s Carnegie Hall, which will culminate the Year of Czech Music 2024,” confirms David Mareček, general director of the orchestra.
Conductors Alain Altinoglu, Giovanni Antonini and Tomáš Netopil will return to him in the coming months. For the first time, it welcomes the conductor Nathalia Stutzmann or Alan Gilbert. Debut soloists will also arrive – Australian pianist Kristian Bezuidenhout, British cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason or Italian pianist Beatrice Rana. Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes will perform with the Philharmonic in Prague.
The Czech artists will include violinists Jan Fišer and Jiří Vodička, violist Eva Krestová and cellist Ivan Vokáč. The regular artistic partner of the orchestra remains the Prague Philharmonic under the direction of Lukáš Vasilek. The traditional Concerts for Freedom and Democracy will take place on November 16 and 17 in the Rudolfinum with violinist Josef Špaček and conductor Petr Popelka.
In the 2024/2025 season, the Czech Philharmonic will release a CD with three major symphonies and concert overtures by Antonín Dvořák and a recording with Legends and Slavic Rhapsodies under the direction of Tomáš Netopil. The project of an ensemble recording of Gustav Mahler’s symphonies continues, culminating in the Eighth Symphony.
The budget of the Czech Philharmonic is 450 million crowns. Approximately 270 million is provided by the Ministry of Culture, around 80 million is contributed by sponsors and donors. The file is approximately 41 percent self-sufficient.
Chief conductor Semjon Byčkov announced this year that he will step down in 2028. “After ten years of leading this orchestra, the time will come for me to step down from the position of chief conductor and music director,” he said. The St. Petersburg native will be 76 years old at that time. The name of his successor has not yet been announced by the Czech Philharmonic. Its main guest conductor remains Jakub Hrůša, who will be joined this season by the famous Sir Simon Rattle for another five years.
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