Prague Spring festival celebrates Dvorak centenary
Wednesday 12th May sees the beginning of one of Central Europe's major classical music events - the 59th Prague Spring Festival - bringing together top orchestras, ensembles and soloists from around the world. This year the festival is special: last Saturday was the centenary of the great Czech composer Antonin Dvorak's death. Radio Prague's David Vaughan spoke to the festival director Roman Belor, for a taste of this year's special Prague Spring.
There is another very special part of the Dvorak centenary celebration, which is that his great-grandson, the violinist Josef Suk is going to be coming out of semi-retirement, and I gather that he is going to be performing at the festival.
"We are very happy about this. Josef Suk has more or less finished his active career, nevertheless he is making an exception for the Prague Spring festival, and we are very proud that he has accepted the invitation to play a recital on the 19th May, totally dedicated to the works of Antonin Dvorak. Mr Suk and the pianist Marian Lapsansky are going to play romantic pieces, the Violin Sonata in F-Major, the Ballade in D-Minor, the Nocturne in B-Major and Mazurek. Fans of Dvorak's violin work have to come!"
When people talk about Czech classical music, it nearly always seems to be Smetana, Dvorak, Janacek, Martinu. Have you got something interesting from outside the famous four?
"We have invited a very interesting ensemble, the Ebony Band from the Netherlands, and this group of musicians - almost all of them are members of the famous Concertgebouw Orchestra - are concentrated on European avant-garde music. We are extremely happy that they are coming to Prague to pay tribute to Czech avant-garde music, with a special emphasis on E. F. Burian. He was an extremely important Czech avant-garde composer and also a theatre producer, founder of the famous theatre "D", and the concert is going to be held at the very same place, where Burian was active as a theatre producer - the Theatre Archa - the former D-Theatre."
For more about the Prague Spring Festival have a look at www.praguespring.cz, and you can find a longer interview with Roman Belor on www.radio.cz
