Repertory of CKF 

 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart  /1756 – 1791/

In the Mozart jubilee /last year 2006/ all world music organizations, concert agencies, opera houses, orchestras and festivals  devoted themselves to the work of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart with  increased intensity.Prague has a very strong Mozart tradition – his influence on the Prague and Czech musical environment was large and it was supported not only by personal visits of the composer, but also by his famous opera premieres. In the lapse of time however it seems that Mozart’s Prague entail was limited only on the premiere of  Don Giovanni, the stay at the villa Betramka and the close friendship with Josefina Dušková.

The vice versa aspect – the influence of the Czech music element on Mozart, belongs exclusively to the domain of specialist’s literature although it is clearly witnessed by Mozart’s music itself as well as by his life. Mozart as a great musical personality possessed without any doubt a highly developed sense for anything new and was able to utilize such impulsions accordingly. We therefore can maintain without exaggerating that he acquired many an inspiration from the authors living in Bohemia as well as from the authors called with some imprecision “Czech musical emigration of the 18th century”.

That for instance plastically describe the friendship of both Mozart with Josef Mysliveček (“...it is an honest man and we closed a true friendship with him”. Also the enthusiasm of Mozart for Jiří Antonín Benda is known (“...he always was my favourite among the Lutheran conductors...”). Here of course also belongs Mozart’s relationship to František Xaver Dušek (numerous mutual visits and composition of arias for Josefina).

Mozart also met Czech composers on his concert tours and during his Vienna activities; he performed his string quartets with Jan Křtitel Vaňhal who in return played his violin concerto in Augsburg; he taught the same pupils like Leopold Koželuh and a certain rivalry existed between them  which unpropitious effected upon Koželuh´s reputation in Prague. Pavel and Antonín Vranický were not only witnesses of the first night performance of Magic Flute, but also the first guests at the home rehearsal of the opera Cosi fan tutte.

Mozart’s relationship to the Czech musicians therefore deserves the attention. The repertoire of the ČKF orchestra therefore are includes compositions that not only prove the mutual influence but also draw attention to undeservedly omitted qualities of their music that slumbered in the dust of the archives until recently. The Czech Chamber Philharmonic succeeded to revive some of the forgotten symphonies for instance those of Jiří Antonín Benda or Antonio Rosetti. A unique deed was the discovering and recording of the symphonies of Josef Bárta, a composer, who at the first hearing will persuade every listener of his mature ness, musicality and composer art. These world premieres of the works of Czech masters of the 18th century are being recorded by the ČKF on the CDs being currently in preparation.

The proposed programmes also should be a remainder of how carefully should be operated with the term of “Mozart’s precursor” and to show that the music and personality of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart do not hover in a vacuum but are firmly anchored in a certain historical context.

Such remainder of the approaching Mozart jubilee is certainly interesting and not entirely current. It at the same time pays honour to the Czech composers whose significance for the European music of the 18th century was not doubted by anybody at that epoch, they having been considered as the European top of the contemporary musical life, on the contrary. And Mozart lived that time, listened in and absorbed the music of other authors was an equally indivisible part of the musical world of the epoch like his Czech colleagues: friends and contemporaries.