A4 Krejčí. Hummel. Veit. Mendelssohn-Bartholdy

When we talk about Czech music, we usually think of Smetana, Dvořák, Janáček, or Martinů. However, many other interesting composers have lived and worked in the Czech lands in every era: our fourth subscription concert will be proof of this.

Although the name of the Neo-Classical composer Iša Krejčí is not unknown to Czech audiences, his work is not systematically presented. The talent and wit with which Krejčí handled his 18th-century inspirations earned him the affectionate nickname Mozartino in Prague music circles.

A hundred years earlier, in the early 19th century, the now almost forgotten composer Václav Jindřich Veit (aka Wenzel Heinrich Veit) had delighted the people of Prague with his music. This early Romantic composer was well acquainted with the music of Beethoven and Schubert and was one of the most popular composers of his time. However, he did not devote most of his life to music: he earned his living as a clerk at Prague City Hall.

His contemporary, Johann Nepomuk Hummel, born in what is now Bratislava, Slovakia, was a pupil of Mozart. Hummel’s virtuoso Trumpet Concerto in E flat major, the most advanced work for the instrument in its time, will be performed by one of the most outstanding trumpeters of the emerging generation, the still-24-year-old “trumpet sensation” Lucienne Renaudin Vary.