Concert for IMF Český Krumlov Friends Club Members

The program of the International Music Festival Český Krumlov, which will take place from 18^th July till 16^th August, has been released. One of the festival concerts is traditionally dedicated to the members of the IMF Český Krumlov Friends Club, who have free admission to this concert or a significant discount, according to the type of membership card. This time it will be the concert of violin virtuoso Ivan Ženatý, who is regarded as one of the most outstanding Czech violinists of the present day by expert critics, audiences as well as musical colleagues. The concert will take place on 26^th July 2014 at the Castle Riding Hall.     

In the music field this year is titled Year of Czech Music. Therefore this concert will pay tribute to Antonín Dvořák, the most widely played Czech author in international context, whose artistic legacy belongs to the basic pillars of European cultural heritage.

Ivan Ženatý will perform Dvořák’s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in A Minor, which ranks among the favourite and most often played opuses of its author and nowadays it inherently belongs to the basic works of world violin repertoire. Ženatý will be accompanied by the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra under the baton of renowned Romanian conductor Ion Marin. Carnival Overture, Op. 92, will open Dvořák’s evening. At the end the audience will hear Dvořák’s world-famous Symphony No. 9 “From the New World”.   

This symphony, Dvorak’s most popular in an international context, was written during the first year of the composer’s tenure in the United States. An ideal set of circumstances had presented themselves by this stage in his career: strong impressions of his new environment, financial independence, a sense of his role as an “ambassador” of Czech music, and his ambitions to ensure that he would not fall short of expectations. All this found Dvorak at the height of his creative energy and contributed to the genesis of a work of exceptional quality. The New World Symphony is the composer’s ninth, and also his last (nine is something of a magical number in the history of music: various world composers completed the same number of symphonies, such as Beethoven, Schubert, Bruckner and Mahler).

New York Herald, 16 December 1893:
“Dr. Antonin Dvorak, the famous Bohemian composer and director of the National Conservatory of Music, dowered American art with a great work yesterday, when his new symphony in E minor, ‘From the New World,’ was played at the second Philharmonic rehearsal in Carnegie Music Hall. The day was an important one in the musical history of America. It witnessed the first public performance of a noble composition. It saw a large audience of usually tranquil Americans enthusiastic to the point of frenzy over a musical work and applauding like the most excitable ‘Italianissimi’ in the world. The work was one of heroic proportions. And it was one cast in the art form which such poet-musicians as Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Brahms and many another ‘glorious one of the earth’ has enriched with the most precious outwellings of his musical imagination. And this new symphony by Dr. Antonin Dvorak is worthy to rank with the best creations of those musicians whom I have just mentioned. […].”

We trust that also this year this concert as well as the whole festival will bring you many once-in-a-lifetime experiences. The organizers of the festival, International Music Festival Český Krumlov, o.s. and Auviex, s.r.o., look forward to meeting you.