The music begins the second the seatbelt indicators flip off. It is Smetana’s Ma Vlast (My Nation), that perennial patriotic tune.
Hankie makers should develop wealthy assembly the demand amongst returning exiles at Prague airport with this music taking part in.
Music means a lot to the Czechs. The Soviet Thought Police informed Russian composers what to jot down and banned pop music. However they by no means fairly managed to snuff out the spirit of music in what was then Czechoslovakia, which they managed for 44 years till 1989.
In Prague jazz continued to bloom. On my go to the saints have been proudly marching in underneath the solemn statues on the Charles Bridge, led by a grizzled outdated trouper from the era who saved toes tapping at nighttime outdated days.
Prague is among the most charming cities on the planet…
Flashback to 1787 when Mozart gave the world premiere of Don Giovanni right here within the Stavovske Theatre. The Bohemians took immediately to this masterpiece, whereas Mozart knew his native Vienna would have been disapproving.
Don Giovanni is Prague’s high declare to cultural fame, and so they have a good time it each day in a superb, decreased model performed by puppets. It isn’t vacationer kitsch – a superb recording, wonderful sound, six hard-working puppeteers, comedian and ribald.
Wherever you stroll in central Prague folks promote you tickets to quick, classical-lite live shows held in church buildings each evening. However there are solely so many instances you may absorb Eine Kleine Nachtmusik whereas gazing at some ornate baroque altarpiece.
Such performances are musical appetisers, however Czech music moved on to the primary course this yr. It’s the one centesimal anniversary of the demise of Antonin Dvorak, a passionate Czech who synthesised the center and soul of his beloved homeland in notes.
Dvorak wrote for the world – and, finally past it. He spent three years in New York as director of the Nationwide Conservatory, although his coronary heart ached for Bohemia.
His American keep impressed the New World Symphony, and astronaut Buzz Aldrin performed it in the course of the first
Moon touchdown. References to the composer abound. His statue is exterior the Rudolfinum live performance corridor on Jan Palach Sq.. His mass Stabat Mater was carried out, with Czechoslovakia lastly free, on the inauguration of President Havel in St Vitus Cathedral excessive above town.
They have been taking part in the composer’s American Quartet as I visited his museum within the Villa Amerika. I preferred the random gadgets on show: his Cambridge robe, from when he obtained an honorary doctorate; a poster for an Albert Corridor efficiency; his ticket for that emotionpacked return from America.
His birthplace is within the little village of Nelahozeves, a 30-minute drive north. Dvorak’s father ran the pub, now a museum dedicated to his son. On show is the primary recording of the New World, on ten 78rpm discs. And a letter from NASA confirming its first efficiency in area.
Was Dvorak the primary trainspotting musician? His love of steam engines started when the railway from Prague reached his village. (His different large love was pigeons.)
The penniless boy departed to play in bands within the cafes of Prague. However why wasn’t he talent-spotted by the Lobkowitz noble household, who lived within the huge chateau close to the pub?
They definitely appreciated music: Beethoven devoted his Eroica Symphony to Prince Lobkowitz. I marvelled at an early rating of the symphony within the chateau, now restored as one of many most interesting stately properties in central Europe.
The chateau has great artistic endeavors. My information led me, with no trace of the wonders to return, via a number of rooms of tedious portraits. We entered a room stuffed with manic aquatic bustle in a really acquainted setting: Canaletto’s two variations of the Lord Mayor’s procession on the Thames.
However the home’s most interesting work is Bruegel the Elder’s Haymaking. The Met in New York has one other on this sequence and a 3rd was stolen from this fortress. One way or the other I do not assume it will likely be recovered: it was snatched in the course of the 30 Years Warfare, from 1618-1648.
The native boy is honoured right here each summer time in a music pageant. One other Dvorak cease is the manor home, close to the village of Vysoka, 40 miles south-west of Prague, the place he spent his final years along with his household and his beloved pigeons.
Close by is Rusalka (water nymph) Lake, the inspiration for his most well-known opera. I took the prepare again to Prague, for extra music. Smetana has the perfect museum spot, on the banks of the Vltava, the river of his Ma Vlast.
However the best of Prague musicians must be Mozart. He penned the Prague Symphony in its honour. The Quantity 7 tram took me to his museum, in Villa Bertramka. He completed Don Giovanni on this quiet retreat underneath a hill, and the primary billboard for the opera is on show.
Mozart’s wind serenade was taking part in, and I noticed a lock of his hair on show. What might a mad scientist create from the DNA!
On Charles Bridge a flexible violinist was taking part in Mozart. I browsed among the many T-shirts in a store. There was one for Amadeus, however no Dvorak. Possibly he’s already shut sufficient to Czech hearts.
I turned to go. This store, like a lot in central Prague, is dear, though costs, significantly in pubs and eating places, nosedive just a few streets away.
‘Nothing you want right here?’ mentioned the assistant. ‘We’ve got Cliff Richard. Wait, I do you a reduction.’
