“The Czech Philharmonic’s concert seemed to come from a different space-time,” wrote Jan Průša for the Opera PLUS website, when David Robertson conducted the orchestra in Olivier Messiaen’s symphony Turangalîla in the Rudolfinum. “Both the vocal and orchestral performances were first class and left us with a profound impression,” wrote Jan Říha in the Czech daily Právo, reviewing Robertson’s interpretation of Bartók’s opera Bluebeard’s Castle at the Prague Spring. The American artist is a true phenomenon. He headed the Sydney Symphony Orchestra as Chief Conductor and the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra as Music Director, he was Principal Guest Conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and, as a protégé of Pierre Boulez, he was appointed the first American Music Director of Ensemble Intercontemporain. He is just at home in the Classical-Romantic repertoire as he is in the contemporary sphere. Since his conducting debut in 1996 he has been a key player at New York’s Metropolitan Opera, where he opened the 2019–2020 season with an exceedingly successful production of Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess; he subsequently won a Grammy for his recording of the opera. He conducts some of the world’s finest orchestras, including the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and the New York Philharmonic, where he returns this season as well.

In 2024, under the leadership of the conductor and composer Enno Poppe, they will be giving world premieres of five new works commissioned from Czech and Slovak composers by the Prague Spring Festival, and they will commemorate the Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho with the passing of exactly one year since her death on 2 June 2023. The players will also be sharing their immense experience with young instrumentalists and composers at workshops and masterclasses. Rebecca Saunders is coming to Prague to serve as composer-in-residence. A British composer living in Berlin, she works with sounds, shaping them like the material of a sculpture. We will also hear music by Enno Poppe.

Before the concert at 6 pm, there will be a pre-concert talk (in Czech) with Jakub Hrůša

“I consider it an honour to be able to take on this iconic work of the Czech operatic stage, the celebrated, mythical opera by Bedřich Smetana, Libuše. This is a symbolic work of Czech state-forming culture, reflecting the composer’s greatest ability, and this from the mature period of his career,” Hrůša informs us. The two gala concerts will feature an ensemble of top-flight soloists headed by Kateřina Kněžíková and Adam Plachetka, the Prague Philharmonic Choir and the Czech Philharmonic.

Jakub Hrůša has a very strong attachment both to Bedřich Smetana’s music and to the Prague Spring. He has appeared at the festival on twelve occasions and he has twice opened the event with Smetana’s Má vlast – first as Chief Conductor of the Prague Philharmonia in 2005, then also in 2019 heading the Bamberg Symphony, which he heads as Chief Conductor to this day. He is also Music Director Designate of London’s Royal Opera House in Covent Garden and he regularly conducts the world’s most prominent orchestras, including the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics. He holds the title of Principal Guest Conductor of the Czech Philharmonic as well as the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, with whom he will also be performing at this year’s Prague Spring.

 “I consider it an honour to be able to take on this iconic work of the Czech operatic stage, the celebrated, mythical opera by Bedřich Smetana, Libuše. This is a symbolic work of Czech state-forming culture, reflecting the composer’s greatest ability, and this from the mature period of his career,” Hrůša informs us. The two gala concerts will feature an ensemble of top-flight soloists headed by Kateřina Kněžíková and Adam Plachetka, the Prague Philharmonic Choir and the Czech Philharmonic.

Jakub Hrůša has a very strong attachment both to Bedřich Smetana’s music and to the Prague Spring. He has appeared at the festival on twelve occasions and he has twice opened the event with Smetana’s Má vlast – first as Chief Conductor of the Prague Philharmonia in 2005, then also in 2019 heading Bamberg Symphony, which he heads as Chief Conductor to this day. He is also Music Director Designate of London’s Royal Opera House in Covent Garden and he regularly conducts the world’s most prominent orchestras, including the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics. He holds the title of Principal Guest Conductor of the Czech Philharmonic as well as the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, with whom he will also be performing at this year’s Prague Spring.

Mikko Franck began his conducting career at the early age of seventeen and has since worked with major orchestras and opera houses across the world. From 2002-2007 he was Music Director of the Belgian National Orchestra, and from 2006-2013 was General Music Director of Finnish National Opera. Since 2015, he has been Music Director of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, and throughout his tenure has been deeply committed to nurturing its creative and eclectic style of programming. He has led them on tours of Europe and Asia and recorded works by Franck, Debussy, Shostakovich, Stravinsky and Strauss. In addition, he is a regular guest of the world’s finest orchestras; in the past year he has conducted the Berliner Philharmoniker and the Chicago Symphony. Mikko Franck is a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, and last year the President of the Republic of Finland awarded him the Order of the Lion of Finland. Mikko Franck will present himself to the Czech audience for the very first time.

Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France excels for its incredibly nuanced tone culture. When the orchestra opened the Prague Spring in 2013, not only did they enchant the audience in the Smetana Hall of Municipal House, but also the music critics. “You hear a wide range of sound colours, which the musicians themselves play around with. The flute section delights in the moment they hand the music over to the violins, then the violins pass it on to the clarinettists, and the sound of one section seems effortlessly to glide into another,” wrote Petr Kadlec for the Aktuálně.cz website. These are the qualities that render the orchestra an ideal performer of the French repertoire, characteristic for its sophisticated instrumentation and sense of timbre.

With Mikko Franck at the helm, the orchestra will here present two works by Maurice Ravel, written for Sergei Diaghilev’s celebrated Ballets Russes: the second suite from the ballet Daphnis and Chloé and the dance poem La valse, both an ecstatic and ironic homage to the Viennese waltz. This special concert will open with the energetic Overture No. 2 in E flat major by Louise Farrenc, the French Romantic composer and pupil of Antonín Rejcha (Anton Reicha), whose music has deservedly enjoyed increasing popularity in recent years.

“Iveta Apkalna and her performance at the organ are something quite exceptional; her talent is beyond question. Both in concert and on recordings this outstanding artist has, for years, delivered organ culture of the highest quality,” wrote the German magazine Organ – Journal für die Orgel. She has won a series of prestigious awards, including the Latvian Grand Music Award; she is also the first organist to receive a coveted Echo Klassik award. Apkalna has been a top-league international performer since 2007, when she gave her debut with the Berlin Philharmonic under conductor Claudio Abbado. She appears regularly with some of the world’s finest orchestras, among them the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Cleveland Orchestra. This season sees her joining the Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam under Antonio Pappano, with whom she will perform Camille Saint-Saëns’s Organ Symphony. Solo recitals are also an integral part of her concert career; in addition to regular appearances at the Elbphilharmonie, we can also hear her perform at Berlin’s Konzerthaus, and she also gave a critically acclaimed debut in 2018 at the BBC Proms in London’s Royal Albert Hall.

Iveta Apkalna’s Prague Spring concert presents the most popular works in the organ repertoire – Toccata and Fugue in D minor by Johann Sebastian Bach, Suite gothique by Léon Boëllmann, along with music by Johannes Brahms, Franz Liszt, contemporary Latvian composer Pēteris Vasks, and a selection from the cycle Faust by Czech organ classic Petr Eben.

Alexis Kossenko plays both the modern flute and all its historical variants; he is also a successful conductor. He has appeared in concert in the Berliner Philharmonie, the Wigmore Hall and London’s Royal Albert Hall, and also in the celebrated Mozarteum in Salzburg. He has performed as principal flautist with the finest orchestras specialising in period instruments, such as Philippe Herreweghe’s Orchestre des Champs-Elysées and Hervé Niquet’s Le Concert Spirituel. He is the founder and Music Director of the orchestra Les Ambassadeurs. He has been involved in the music of Antonín Rejcha for many years and has recorded works by Eugène Walckiers on four CDs together with his colleagues, headed by leading French musicians Daniel Sepec and Christophe Coin.

“All three works on the programme are highly theatrical,” Kossenko tells us. Quartet No. 6 Op. 98 for flute and string instruments was published in Paris in 1820 and is one of Rejcha’s mature works. “Particularly noteworthy is the delicacy and expression of the slow movement and the feverish ardour of the finale,” states the French flautist.

Variations and Fantasy on a Mozart Theme dates from Rejcha’s Viennese period. “The eighteen variations in the first part of the work are based on the aria Se vuol ballare from Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro. Together they represent a little masterpiece filled with eccentric humour. The Adagio is a fantasy in the true sense of the word, a theatrical illusion. The finale returns to Mozart’s theme, but without the closing phrase; instead, the music is re-routed towards an intricate fugue. Everyone loses their way in contrapuntal twists and turns – a little game Rejcha loved to play. He upended the natural hierarchy of the instruments – leaving the cello to chirp in the high registers, while the flute is given the bass notes. Eventually, when all the players are worn out by this somewhat hysterical development, Rejcha grants us the long-awaited final notes of the theme, which bring a welcome sense of tranquillity,” says Kossenko.