An evening full of joy, youthful energy, and musical beauty! This time, the JFO Orchestra joins forces with talented pupils from elementary art schools. Together, they will perform Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme — a work radiant with elegance and charm, inspired by his admiration for Mozart — and Dvořák’s Eighth Symphony, shining with optimism, melody, and love for the Czech countryside.

PROGRAMME

Johann Christian Bach
Cello Concerto in C minor, 1st movement

Edvard Grieg
Piano Concerto in A minor, 1st movement

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Variations on a Rococo Theme for Cello and Orchestra, Op. 33

Antonín Dvořák
Symphony No. 8 in G major, Op. 88, B.163

PERFORMERS

Alessandro Mastracci – cello
Markéta Štenclová – cello
Štěpán Novotný – piano
Pupils of elementary art schools as tutti players
Anna Bangoura – presenter
Janáček Philharmonic Ostrava
Stanislav Vavřínek – conductor

For Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Mozart’s music was one of the ultimate artistic ideals. From childhood, he studied Mozart’s scores, developing a particular fondness for Don Giovanni, and in his mature years he found balance and serenity in the Mozartian style. Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme for Cello and Orchestra, written in 1876–1877 for the German cellist Wilhelm Fitzenhagen, professor at the Moscow Conservatory, may also be understood as a tribute to Mozart. This graceful and elegant work, based on Tchaikovsky’s own Rococo-style theme, has become a beloved staple of the cello repertoire.

“In Dvořák’s music, the sun still shines,” once declared the feared Viennese critic Eduard Hanslick. Dvořák’s Eighth Symphony, too, is a work filled with joy in life and admiration for beloved nature. Most of the symphony was written in late summer 1889, when Dvořák was staying in Vysoká, his country summer residence near Příbram, and it was completed in Prague in November of the same year. Dvořák’s extraordinary compositional invention gave rise to a richly varied work whose melodic abundance clearly reflects inspiration from Czech folk music. The Eighth Symphony is among the most beautiful of Dvořák’s late orchestral masterpieces.

For this concert, talented pupils from elementary art schools will join the members of the JFO Orchestra.