Czech Philharmonic ⬩ Variations

This selection of pieces by Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven can without exaggeration be called a celebration of classicism. Joseph Haydn (1732–1809) was neither the first nor the last composer to set the famous story of Orpheus and Eurydice to music. His predecessors in this regard include Claudio Monteverdi, while Jacques Offenbach did the same after him. The selection of arias from the operas of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) illustrates the composer’s path towards absolute compositional mastery. While the comic opera La finta giardiniera (The Pretend Garden-Girl) is the work of an eighteen-year-old youth, Così fan tutte and Don Giovanni are some of the best of the genre and represent the culmination of the famous composer’s fruitful collaboration with his long-time librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte. Ludwig van Beethoven’s (1770–1827) fifth symphony needs no introduction. The leitmotif of the so-called Fate Symphony is the idea of the struggle of mental forces with a metaphysically understood fate full of crises and pain. The result is the search for inner harmony and peace.