The Prague Spring International Music Festival
Prague - Rudolfinum
While it stands to reason to think that one shouldn’t really require an excuse or a reason to visit Prague, because the city itself is the reason, those who are not yet persuaded by its charms but who do enjoy the soothing sounds of symphony orchestra and chamber music should look into visiting the city during its annual Prague Spring International Music Festival.
The festival was started in 1946 in order to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra and it was mainly a local or domestic affair – however not exclusively – but the festival continued throughout the decades and it steadily became a much more international affair.
The festival is held each years starting from the 12th of May and it commemorates several musical anniversaries while presenting Czech as well as world premieres of compositions by contemporary authors; only artists and orchestras of the highest calibre are invited to perform during the festival.
This year’s 67th Prague Spring International Music Festival will start, as it is tradition by now, on the 12th of May and it will end on the 3rd of June, this is almost a full month of musicians, soloists and orchestras from the entire world, and it promises to be a huge hit yet again.
Historically speaking the Prague Spring has focused on supporting younger performers with the Prague Spring International Music Competition having been set up just one year after the festival and has been held each year since then.
The festival’s traditional venue is the Rudolfinum concert hall, which was opened in 1885 and built in a Neo-Renaissance style features an excellent auditorium, as one might expect. It is actually one of the oldest concert halls in Europe and is also noted for the fact that Antonin Dvorak himself conducted the Czech Philarmonic here on the 4th of January 1896.
What initially started as a celebration and an expression of the liberation at the end of the Second World War, has grown and developed into one of Europe’s major music festivals, and one terrific reason to visit a city that doesn’t really need one to be visited to start with.
