Přátelé Pražského jara – Prague Spring

Göteborgs Symfoniker to Commemorate Bedřich Smetana’s Swedish Sojourn

Iva Nevoralova — Thu, 22 May 2025 11:52:00 +0000

On 23 May, Göteborgs Symfoniker will perform one of the so-called “Swedish” Symphonic Poems written by Bedřich Smetana in Gothenburg between 1856 and 1861. Let’s take a little look back in history and recall this important stage in Smetana’s life.

Bedřich Smetana left for Sweden in the autumn of 1856, shortly after a family tragedy struck him when all three of his children died in quick succession and his first wife, Kateřina, fell ill with tuberculosis. He did not compose in his first two years in Sweden. He opened a music school there, also gave private lessons and, with his compatriot Josef Čapek, founded the tradition of subscription chamber concerts in Gothenburg. It was his visit to Franz Liszt in Weimar that gave him a new impulse to compose. Following his example, he turned to programme music on his return to Sweden and composed three symphonic poems: Richard III, Wallenstein’s Camp and Hakon Jarl. The third, inspired by the life of the Norwegian king Haakon Sigurdsson, will be performed by Göteborgs Symfoniker at the Prague Spring Festival.

The Mysterious Beauty Fröjda Benecke

Fröjda Benecke was an important part of Smetana’s life in Gothenburg, although their relationship is still shrouded in mystery. After their first meeting, the enchanted Smetana wrote a composition for her, Ball Vision, in which he incorporated letters from Fröjda’s name, F – E – D – A. His diary entries from early 1859 suggest that he and Fröjda became very close, but the true intensity of their relationship is unknown. Fröjda Benecke still played an important role in Smetana’s life in the early 1870s, when Smetana became ill and began to lose his hearing. At that time he asked his Swedish friends for help and Fröjda organised a collection for him, which raised over 1,200 guldens for his treatment. However, even doctors abroad could no longer help him.

Angel Called Manon Gropius

Iva Nevoralova — Thu, 15 May 2025 11:47:00 +0000

The NHK Symphony Orchestra Tokyo concert on 15 May at the Rudolfinum will feature one of the most remarkable works of the 20th century: the Violin Concerto by Alban Berg, which bears the poignant subtitle “To the Memory of an Angel”. The composer originally did not want to compose a violin concerto at all. The inspiration for his last work was sparked by the death of the only 18-year-old Manon Gropius, daughter of Alma Mahler and the founder of the Bauhaus, the architect Walter Gropius.

Manon was exceptionally gifted, gentle, spirited and beautiful. She was studying acting when she was stricken with cerebral palsy, which led to paralysis of the spine and death. The shaken Berg composed a concerto as a requiem for this lovely girl. The subtitle “To the Memory of an Angel” is then a very specific reference, as the famous director Max Reinhardt was at that time planning the girl’s debut as the Angel in his Salzburg production of Everyman.

Berg had a reputation as a very slow composer, but the Violin Concerto burst out of him with an urgency, ease and speed he had never experienced before. “I am perhaps even more surprised than you,” he wrote to violinist Louis Krasner, who premiered the work in 1936 and who initiated Berg into the mysteries of violin playing. “I was certainly diligent like never before in my life, and I must add that the work brought me great pleasure. I hope, nay, I am convinced that I have succeeded.”

The premiere of the Violin Concerto with the Spanish Orchestra in Barcelona was originally to have been conducted by Anton Webern, but he withdrew at the last minute, so that in the end on 19 April 1936 conductor Hermann Scherchen gave a downright heroic performance. Alban Berg did not live to see the first performance of one of his most famous works. He died on Christmas Eve, 24 December 1935.

In the Swedish Footsteps of Bedřich Smetana

Anežka Kochová — Tue, 01 Apr 2025 14:00:06 +0000

The Friends of Prague Spring trip to Gothenburg took place between 18 and 21 March. Sweden’s second largest city is home to one of Europe’s finest ensembles, the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, which with its Finnish chief conductor Sanut-Mathias Rouvalli and pianist Jan Lisiecki will perform at this year’s 80th Prague Spring Festival. The Czech composer Bedřich Smetana also spent time in the capital on the west coast of the Scandinavian country. He also composed three so-called Swedish symphonic poems there. One of them, Hakon Jarl, inspired by the life of the Norwegian king Haakon Sigurdsson, will be performed at the beginning of the orchestra’s festival debut.

After an opening dinner in the hotel restaurant, the program began the following day with a rehearsal of the orchestra’s evening concert. In the afternoon, there was a tour of the unique concert hall that houses the orchestra. The modernist building space, dominated by marble and warm shades of wood, was designed in 1935 by architect Nils Einar Ericsson, and the Friends of Prague Spring were guided through it by Katarina Danielsson, a native of Slovakia who made her life’s work with the local orchestra. The day culminated in a concert at which the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra was conducted by Anna Rakitina, and the brothers Arthur and Lucas Jussen, well known to the Prague audience from their extremely successful Czech debut at the Rudolf Firkušný Piano Festival, appeared as soloists in Poulenc’s Concerto for Two Pianos.

The morning of the second day was devoted to an individual tour of the city. In the afternoon, the tour was hosted by musicologist Anders Carlsson, whose specialty is the musical history of the city. He took the Friends of Prague Spring to Stora Nygatan Street on the banks of the canal, where Bedřich Smetana stayed during his stay, and together they illuminated the interiors of the neoclassical Bursa building, normally inaccessible to the public, and the historic headquarters of the Freemasons, where Bedřich Smetana held concerts. That evening, patrons had the opportunity to attend a performance of English composer Benjamin Britten’s Peter Grimmes at the Gothenburg Opera House, built on the shores of the North Sea bay in the early 1990s.

Thank you to all the patrons who joined us for another memorable trip abroad.

We wish you a happy and prosperous year 2025 🍀

Iva Nevoralova — Mon, 30 Dec 2024 07:24:27 +0000

Have a wonderful time in 2025!

Join the project “Stories of the Prague Spring”

Iva Nevoralova — Wed, 18 Dec 2024 10:25:00 +0000

Do you have a photograph, programme or other similar item at home that evokes a personal memory of a past Prague Spring Festival? Write to us and share your story!

On the occasion of the 80th birthday of Prague Spring we are preparing a series of personal memories of our spectators and fans of the Prague Spring festival. It can be an inspiring encounter with one of the artists, a first love, anything that touched you and you still remember it years later!

Send us by post, email or WhatsApp message any visual material related to the event: a photo, a signed programme, a newspaper clipping, etc., along with a short narrative of your story and your contact details (email, phone) in case we need to know more.

Use: We would like to use your stories for the catalogue, website and social networks of Prague Spring (FB, IG).

Deadline: Send your stories ideally by 31 January 2025 to nevoralova@festival.cz or by SMS or WhatsApp to +420 608 028 054. Mailing address: Pražské jaro o.p.s. (to the attention of Iva Nevoralová), Hellichova 18, 118 00 Praha 1

Important: Please note that by submitting your story and images, you give Prague Spring permission to publish them on the above platforms, including the publication of your name. If you wish to have your contribution published anonymously or under first name only, please mention this in your message.

Photographs: If the photographs are not from your personal archive and are subject to copyright, please provide the name and contact details of the photographer. This applies to photographs only, not photo reproductions of newspaper articles, programmes, etc.

Thank you!