Cherubini. Beethoven. Brahms

In the last season the Prague Philharmonia cel ebrated great success with Cherubini’s Requiem No. 1 in C minor. The orchestral evening in March will offer another piece of the composer’s oeuvre, namely that made him famous in Paris at the beginning of the 19th century. The opera Les Abencérages was very popular in its time and its premiere was attended by Napoleon himself. After Napoleon’s fall, however, Cherubini’s music fell into near oblivion and is only now beginning to enjoy a new wave of interest.

The last completed piano concerto by Ludwig van Beethoven, written during the siege of Vien na, is also closely linked to Napoleon’s cam paigns. While Cherubini was benefiting from Napoleon’s favor in Paris, Beethoven was hiding in his brother’s cellar with pillows over his ears to preserve what remained of his hearing from the siege's deafening explosions.

The solo part will be played by a lover of Beethoven’s music, the Irish pianist Barry Douglas, who in addition to his international performing career is also Artistic Director of Camerata Ireland and the Clandeboye Festival.

The seventh evening of Orchestral Series A will be conducted by Prague Philharmonia’s Music Director and Chief Conductor Emmanuel Villaume, for whom the concert is also an op portunity to continue his long-term project of presenting symphonic works by Johannes Brahms. In connection with Beethoven’s Piano Concerto, Brahms’s Symphony No. 3, which Hans Richter, its first conductor, called “Brahms’s Eroica”, comes directly to mind.