Wihan Quartet 40 & Lucie Kaňková

The Wihan Quartet will be celebrating their 40^th anniversary with a concert performed at the Prague Spring in 2025. The programme will present a fascinating juxtaposition between the last string quartets by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) and Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827), the latter of whose oeuvre is a key part of the Wihan Quartet’s repertoire. In the years 2007 and 2008 the ensemble made a recording of the complete Beethoven string quartets for the Lotos label. Works by the two masters of the First Viennese School will be accompanied by music from Czech composer Jindřich Feld (1925–2007), the centenary of whose birth falls in 2025. Three song cycles, one of which will be performed in its world premiere, will be sung by Feld’s granddaughter, soprano Lucie Kaňková, one of the finest Czech singers of recent years. “I’m delighted that Four Songs about Happiness, the last piece that Jindřich Feld wrote, will receive its world premiere, and this during the special 80^th edition of the Prague Spring festival,” says Wihan Quartet cellist Michal Kaňka.

The Wihan Quartet, whose current lineup comprises Leoš Čepický and Jan Schulmeister (violins), Jakub Čepický (viola) and Michal Kaňka (cello), entered the world stage after winning the London International String Quartet Competition in 1991, along with the Prague Spring International Music Competition three years earlier. They enjoy huge success not only in the Czech Republic, but also in Japan where, after winning the International Chamber Music Competition in Osaka, they have been returning regularly to the city’s associated Chamber Music Festa since 1996; they are likewise much admired in Great Britain, where they were nominated three times for the Royal Philharmonic Society Award.

Soprano Lucie Kaňková is one of the most talented Czech singers of her generation. In recent years she has won singing competitions in Italy and Switzerland and, in 2016, she triumphed at the Antonín Dvořák International Singing Competition in Karlovy Vary. She has given her debuts at Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf, Theater Biel Solothurn, Théâtre de Liège, Košice National Theatre and at National Theatre venues in Prague. In her interpretation Jindřich Feld’s song cycles promise to be a wonderful and dignified reminder of the 100^th anniversary of the birth of someone whose music was popular with performers such as James Galway, Eugene Rousseau, Mogens Ellegaard and the legendary Smetana Quartet. Jindřich Feld became celebrated particularly for his pieces for flute. His Sonata for Flute and String Orchestra from 1965 was hailed at a conference of the National Flute Association in 2000 as the best flute composition of the 20^th century. He was also one of the composers who openly opposed the invasion of the Warsaw Pact armies in August 1968. He expressed his protest through his Dramatic Fantasy for Symphony Orchestra “The Days of August”, which premiered in Adelaide in 1969.