Music!

After a morning and afternoon of free time, on our day in Prague, we went to a classical music concert at the Clementinum – Mirror Chapel.  Dat describes the concert:

The Dvořák Symphony Orchestra’s instrumentation may seem small—with only one cello, one violin, three violas, and a harpsichord—but they effortlessly filled the concert hall with their rich and vibrant sound.

And what a concert hall!  

They opened with Georges Bizet’s energetic Overture from the Opera "Carmen."  This upbeat little tune was a perfect way to start the program and left many of us thinking, “Oh, I heard this somewhere.”

Then the orchestra played three famous tunes from the Czech composer, Antonín Dvořak. Humoresque feels fast but it’s quite light. Some of us commented that this song reminded them of the Lord of the Rings. The next piece, the Largo from his New World Symphony is grand and majestic, an easy crowd-favorite. Lastly, Slavonic Dance No. 8 is a lively dance tune.  The question is, what is "Slavonic"?  In dictionary.com, the term defines a family of languages:

• a branch of the Indo-European family of languages, usually divided into three subbranches: South Slavonic (including Old Church Slavonic, Serbian, Croatian, Bulgarian, Bosnian, etc), East Slavonic (including Ukrainian, Russian, etc), and West Slavonic (including Polish, Czech, Slovak, etc.)    

In terms of Slavonic as music, it sounded like Dvořak was capturing the tunes of the national groups to the southeast of his home.

After that, we heard one piece from Bedřich Smetana, another Czech composer. Moldau sounds very fairytale like.  Its sweeping musical passages was meant to evoke images of the surrounding countryside, rivers, and of course, the city of Prague. It may be familiar to Jewish people familiar with Israel's national anthem, which seems to borrow Moldau's central theme.

The orchestra finished with Antonio Vivaldi’s Four Seasons (Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter). It really felt like the orchestra took us on seasonal trip. Spring would probably feel the most familiar to everyone’s ears (when most of us think of classical music, it’s this song). Summer surprisingly feels a bit darker than spring but that is because it is played in a minor key. This movement featured a very dramatic viola solo which left many of us on the edge of our seats. Fall should also be a familiar tune to most people (if you ever called someone and they had classical music as a ringback tone, it’s likely this one). Winter was also a dramatic tune, starting off steady staccato beat from the orchestra and accompanied with a fast, almost frantic, viola solo.


To our surprise the orchestra played two more songs. Ronald Binge’s Elizabethan Serenade (Alžbětinská serenáda) and Tomaso Albinoni’s quite somber, Adagio in G Minor (an odd somber choice).

I hope I can speak for many of us that the Dvořák Symphony Orchestra brought Prague’s history to life with their music.

He was there in spirit.

P.S. The organ in the concert hall was played by Mozart!