2/6/2009
Photos from the concert of the Prague Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Jiří Kout
The programme that Jiří Kout and the Prague Symphony Orchestra prepared was definitely among the most demanding of the Prague Spring Festival.
It opened with the largely unknown cantata by Bohuslav Martinů, a setting of the well-known poem ‘Svatební košile’ (The Spectre’s Bride) by the nineteenth-century Czech writer Karel Jaromír Erben.
The young Russian cellist Tatjana Vassilieva then gave a technically brilliant performance of Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme.
After the interval came Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. This classic work of twentieth-century music, which caused a now legendary scandal when it premiered in 1913, was enthusiastically received at this year’s Festival, evidence that it remains a gripping composition to this day.
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