Czech Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra ⬩ Sebastian Bru, Josef Špaček

Jiří Vodička can’t play because of illness. Concertmaster Josef Špaček will take his place.

The third programme of Series K presents three works by young composers: Mendelssohn wrote his Octet when he was just sixteen years old, Janáček presented his Suite for Strings before enrolling at the Leipzig Conservatoire, and the Concerto for Violin and Cello by Antonín Rejcha is one of that composer’s early works. Both soloists are young as well – concertmaster of the Czech Philharmonic Josef Špaček and the Austrian cellist Sebastian Bru, a member of the Vienna Philharmonic. Upon its premiere, critics called Mendelssohn’s Octet “a miracle of nineteenth-century music”. Inspiration from Goethe’s Walpurgis Night, quotes from Handel’s Messiah, and the masterful use of polyphony are all permeated with youthful musical invention and brilliant compositional technique. Janáček originally gave the movements of his composition titles that had been in use for French dance suites: Prelude, Allemande, Sarabande, and Air, but he quickly abandoned them because his style as a composer was simply too original to fit in with labels from the old dance suite. At the midpoint of the programme is a concerto by the world traveller and extraordinarily gifted composer, teacher, and theorist Josef Rejcha.