Dvorák & Suk im Wiener Musikverein

About the Event

Josef Suk? This name makes the eyes of many Czech neighbors light up. Here, however, his music is still a rarity—and even Suk's 150th birthday in 2024 has been almost completely overshadowed by other anniversaries in this country. Tomáš Netopil is now remedying this situation in the most beautiful way possible: one of the orchestra's favorite conductors since his Tonkünstler debut in 2017, he has a particular fondness for Suk's wondrously late Romantic, sometimes impressionistically colored revelries of the heart. Bohemian joy of music‐making, paired with the dazzling fin de siècle: this also characterizes the E major symphony by the 24‐year‐old Josef Suk, completed in 1898, the year in which he married Antonín Dvořák's daughter Otilie, who was to die so tragically young in 1905. The elegiac, at times almost nostalgic tone of Dvořák's famous Cello Concerto, composed in 1895 in the USA, is a perfect match. Its virtuoso yet expressive solo part is performed by the celebrated German cellist Julian Steckel.

Wiener Musikverein

The Wiener Musikverein is one of the world's great concert halls. The home of the Vienna Philarmonic Orchestra and the centre of Viennese musical life, the building was opened in 1870 as a part of an ambitious plan to create an elegant cultural boulevard along the Ringstrasse. Designed in the Neo‐Classical style to resemble an Ancient Greek temple, the Great Hall of the Musikverein is deemed to be one of the best music halls in the world thanks to its impeccable acoustics.
In 2004 four new halls were added to the building. The Austrian architect Wilhelm Holzbauer recognised the aesthetic importance of the existing building and sought out ways to echo the style in a modern language of form. Each of the four New Halls focuses on a different material — glass, metal, stone, and wood.