Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto

Igor Stravinsky: Danses concertantes
Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy: Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in E minor
Antonín Dvořák: Czech Suite
Fedor Rudin violin, conductor

The Russian-born Austrian Fedor Rudin, the grandson of the composer Edison Denisov, has been the concertmaster of the Vienna Philharmonic, but currently tours the world as a violinist and chamber musician, as well as a conductor. In the Czech Republic, he is also associated with the Kroměříž Summer Music Academy as a lecturer. Mendelssohn’s 1844 Violin Concerto has an innovative arrangement, including melodic and harmonic interweaving of all three movements. It was written in close collaboration with the violinist Ferdinand David, concertmaster of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, of which the composer was chief conductor at the time. Today it is ranked alongside the Beethoven, Brahms, Bruch, Tchaikovsky, Dvořák and Sibelius concertos. Igor Stravinsky, one of the most stimulating musical creators of the 20th century, a cosmopolitan, synthetic and innovator, is commemorated in the programme by his abstract ballet Danses concertantes, which was not intended for the stage, but for concert performance. Stravinsky went to America during WWII, after France was occupied by Nazi Germany. This neoclassically spare ballet was commissioned by a Los Angeles orchestra. The program concludes with the Czech Suite by the classic Antonín Dvořák, containing a poetic and lively stylization of Czech folk dances – polka, sousedská and furiant, close to his Slavonic Dances; they are complemented by a lyrical Pastorale and a lyrical nocturne called Romanza. The piece was first performed in 1879 as part of a concert organised by the Czech Journalists’ Association and a year later at a fundraising concert for the construction of the National Theatre.

Ticket prices: CZK 590 | CZK 490 | CZK 390

The organiser reserves the right to changes in the list of scheduled performers.