Prague Spring

With 66 years of history, Prague Spring International Music Festival is perhaps the most respected and authoritative music festival in the Czech Republic, attracting international stars each year for its three-week run. This year's program has a strong emphasis on Mahler, in celebration of the centennial of the conductor's death, with several compositions rarely heard in Prague or anywhere, and a few surprise guests.

The opening concert as usual has a decidedly Czech theme, with conductor Jiří Bělohlávek leading Prague Conservatory Symphony Orchestra through a performance of Smetana's beloved Má vlast cycle (May 12). The concert marks the 200th anniversary of the founding of Prague Conservatory, from which Bělohlávek himself graduated, along with a number of other notable Czech musicians, including František Brož and Václav Neumann. Although Má vlast has in recent years become the soundtrack of tourist advertisements - and more recently, Terence Malick's upcoming film The Tree of Life - the cycle in its entirety is breathtaking.

Several top-notch representatives of the international scene will be performing in Prague during the festival, including Lisa Batiashvili, Michael Tilson Thomas and Sir Simon Rattle.

Batishvili, a lauded Georgian violinist, will be playing her 1709 Engleman Stradivarius with the New York Philharmonic in a concert featuring pieces by Bartok and Beethoven (May 24). A regular performer at Prague Spring, Thomas, conductor of the San Francisco Symphony, returns this year for two concerts, the first featuring music from Cowell, Berg and Beethoven and the second a performance of Mahler's Symphony No. 2 (May 19 and 20). Rattle, leading the Berlin Philharmoniker, will give the festival's closing concert, with a performance of Mahler's Symphony No. 6 (June 4).

Despite the level of the players and conductors at this year's festival, it is Mahler who takes center stage, with performances of several of his symphonies, including his Symphony No. 8, also known as his Symphony of a Thousand, for the number of vocal and instrumental performers required to perform it. The vastness of the symphony ensures it is only rarely performed, and indeed has been heard at Prague Spring only once before, at St. Vitus Cathedral in 1993. The concert will take place May 18, exactly 100 years after Mahler's death. Because of the size requirements, the festival has commissioned the O2 Arena (May 18).

As usual, the festival holds a few surprises. American actor John Malkovich will perform this year, giving a dramatic recitation of Michael Sturminger's "The Infernal Comedy" accompanied by Orchester Wiener Akademie, as well as sopranos Bernada Bobro and Aleksandra Zamojska. Malkovich plays a dead serial killer who returns from the grave to give his confessions. Billed as a black comedy, the performance will bring a lighter, literary air to the festival (June 2).

Fans of organ music will not be disappointed this year, either. "Prague Organ Days" features three performances by leading Czech organists. Italian organist Luigi Ferdinando Tagliavini will perform music from Vivaldi, Pasquini and others (May 15). One of the country's most successful organists, Aleš Bárta will perform music from Händel, Husa, Bach, Liszt and Mendelssohn accompanied by the Epoque orchestra (May 28). Finally, Drahomíra Matznerová will give a solo performance of organ music from Wiedermann to Guilmant (May 29).

Those who prefer their keyboard music with more groove should try the Ondřej Pivec Organic Quartet, a young Czech funk-jazz keyboardist based in New York City (May 24).

The outstanding Hilliard Ensemble, a vocal quartet specializing in early music, will return to Prague for a performance Heiner Goebbels' I Went to the House But Did Not Enter, a tableu of music and four texts at Národní Divadlo (June 2-3).

Other features of this year's festival are from farther afield conceptually. Museum Kampa will hold an exhibition of Slovak artist Milan Grygr's "Scores," a series of audiovisual drawings, which will be displayed to the accompaniment of the Mondschein Ensemble (May 26). Two concerts will feature tributes to "atonality and abstraction." The first, led by mezzosoprano Dagmar Pecková, will feature less mainstream music from Schönberg and Mahler (May 30). Soprano Anna Maria Pammer will lead a concert featuring music from the same composers as well as Webern (May 31).

Early risers will be pleased to know there is also a series of "Morning Concerts" taking place each Saturday at 11 during the festival. The first of these will feature chamber music from the popular Orbis Trio, Puella Trio and Quartetto di Gioia playing Martinů, Eben and Ravel (May 14).

Interested audiences are advised to purchase tickets well in advance, as many of the least expensive seats have already been sold. There is truly something for everyone at this year's Prague Spring, and the quality of the performers and the diversity of the music are unparalleled in Prague and almost anywhere else.

Stephan Delbos can be reached at
sdelbos@praguepost.com