Baroque gems and Mozart’s clarinet – live from the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra
Baroque trumpet music and a classic work from the clarinet repertoire will delight listeners and viewers of a live concert broadcast the PRSO is preparing for Monday 12 April. In Czech Radio’s Studio 1, the ensemble’s solo trumpeter Jiří Houdek and laureate of the Prague Spring International Music Competition Anna Paulová will show off their talents under the baton of Vojtěch Spurný, who will also play the harpsichord.
Live broadcast by Czech Radio Vltava. Recorded broadcast on Czech Radio D-dur. Live video stream on the PRSO Facebook profile; the stream is also accessible for listeners who do not have a Facebook profile – the link is HERE.
The concert will open with the prelude to Handel’s Acis and Galatea opera, a piece infused with a lyrical, pastoral mood, a depiction of love and, last but not least, dramatic tension.
Baroque trumpet music
At the age of just 16 Jiří Houdek swept the board at the 30th year of the Concertino Praga international radio competition, taking first place in both the young performers category and in the international competition as a whole. Since then he has been invited to perform with many orchestras. He was still twenty when he became the first trumpeter of the PRSO, and he has remained loyal to the ensemble for 22 years now. His home orchestra also accompanied him on his most recent CD of baroque music.
Jiří will have his work cut out for him: first he will perform the Suite from Handel’s popular Water Music, arranged for trumpet and orchestra; then he will retune his piccolo trumpet from A to B for Antonio Vivaldi’s Concerto in B flat major.
Clarinet music
The evening will culminate with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Concerto in A major, originally intended for basset horn. The composer completed it in October 1791, just two months before his death, at the wish – or insistence, even – of his friend, the virtuoso Anton Stadler. In this way Mozart bestowed on clarinet players a supreme work of art shot through with optimism and sadness, sparkling virtuosity and profundity. An impressive rendition from Anna Paulová is guaranteed.
It is not just the choice of repertoire, the young soloists and the radio orchestra that will guarantee a wonderful musical experience, though. The conductor and harpsichord player Vojtěch Spurný will imbue the performance of historic music with his legendary passion and wealth of experience.
PROGRAMME:
George Frideric Handel: Acis and Galatea, prelude to the opera (instrumentation: W. A. Mozart)
George Frideric Handel: Suite in D major for trumpet and orchestra HWV 341
Antonio Vivaldi: Concerto in B flat major for trumpet and orchestra
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Concerto in A major for clarinet and orchestra K. 622
Vojtěch Spurný – conductor
Jiří Houdek – trumpet
Anna Paulová – clarinet
Související
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Solo for trumpet and clarinet
Studio S1 ČRo, April 12, 2021 at 8 p.m. You can listen to the recording of the concert on the ČRo Vltava website.
