A1 Suk. Dvořák

The PKF — Prague Philharmonia will enter its 30th anniversary season with what is intrinsically deeply rooted in it: music by Czech composers. In the history of Czech music, it would be hard to find composers as close to each other as Josef Suk and Antonín Dvořák.

Suk was a pupil of Dvořák, and especially in his early works the influence of his teacher is clearly noticeable. Their professional connections soon became very personal — Suk not only got on with Dvořák, but also with his daughter Otilie, whom he married in 1898.

Of course, Josef Suk was not the only composer influenced by Dvořák. Dvořák participated in the development of Czech music with a large number of his own works, and one of his creative peaks came during his stay in the USA.

There he wrote his Cello Concerto in B minor, a work which, despite Dvořák’s famous complaint that the cello “whinges up above, and grumbles down below”, has become a seminal piece of literature for this instrument. 

The concerto, which abounds with Dvořák’s characteristic melodic invention, was written at the very end of his American sojourn.

At the same time, he created the “American” Suite in A major, in which he bids farewell to the “New World” using techniques derived from the music of that country.

The soloist of the evening will be the cellist Jan Vogler, a great lover of the music of Dvořák, who last year recorded an award-winning album of Dvořák’s chamber pieces.