Czech Philharmonic • Velvet Revolution Concert

“Working with Josef Špaček is amazing. He is a wonderful person with good heart. You can feel this in his playing, which is gracious, teeming with emotion. And his technique is marvellous. He is one of the greatest solo violinists of the present time,” says the conductor Manfred Honeck, under whom the young virtuoso has regularly given concerts, in the Czech Television documentary Devět sezón (Nine Seasons) The 2023 film provides an interesting account of Špaček’s life, also shedding light on his nine-year tenure as the Czech Philharmonic’s concert master.  

Although not having been a member for four years, Josef Špaček has not ceased to collaborate with the Czech Philharmonic, pursuing numerous joint projects. And even though appearing as a soloist with celebrated orchestras worldwide and as a chamber player at the most prestigious concert venues, he continues to perform in Czech towns and remote villages. 

Josef Špaček is a member of the exciting international Trio Zimbalist, giving performances all over the globe. He has regularly appeared in the Czech Republic with the cellist Tomáš Jamník and the pianist Miroslav Sekera, with whom he has created critically acclaimed albums. He has also made recordings with the Czech Philharmonic (featuring Janáček’s and Dvořák’s violin concertos, and Suk’s Fantasy), the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Petr Popelka (Bohuslav Martinů’s music).

Born in 1986 in Třebíč, Bohemia, Josef Špaček showed his exceptional talent at an early age. Music was a natural part of his childhood (his father has been a cellist of the Czech Philharmonic for over three decades, and his siblings played instruments too), as described by his mother in the book Špačci ve fraku. After graduating from the Prague Conservatory 
(under the tutelage of Jaroslav Foltýn), Josef went on to study in the USA, where he attended the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia (his teachers included Ida Kavafian and Jaime Laredo) and The Julliard School in New York (tutored by Itzak Perlman). 

After completing his formal education, he returned to his homeland, where he was named the youngest ever concert master of the Czech Philharmonic. At the same time, he performed as a soloist and chamber player, garnering international recognition. A watershed in his career was victory at the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels, whereupon he began receiving invitations from the world’s most renowned institutions. Due to his having an ever more challenging and busy schedule as a musician – and to his family situation, especially following the birth of three children – he resigned from the post of concert master of the Czech Philharmonic so as to focus solely on being a soloist. Owing to his immense talent and great diligence, his childhood dream to become a famous violinist has come to pass.  

“My mission is to make audiences love the viola just as much as I do,” says Antoine Tamestit, who has conveyed this passion of his to music fans all around the world.  Performing as a soloist and chamber player, the Paris native’s repertoire ranges from Baroque to contemporary. Such distinguished composers as Jörg Widmann, Thierry Escaich, Bruno Mantovani and others have written works for him. 

Antoine Tamestit’s first instrument was the violin, yet at the age of nine he was so mesmerised by J. S. Bach’s Suites for Solo Cello that he felt the urge to master a lower-range instrument. He therefore cursorily acquainted himself with the cello, but was not overly excited. When, however, he found out that the Suites can also be played on the viola, he did not hesitate and fully embraced the instrument. Love at first sight would grow into a lifelong bond. Taking lessons from Jean Sulem, Jesse Levine and Tabea Zimmermann, he soon won a number of coveted prizes (William Primrose Competition, ARD-Musikwettbewerb, etc.). Tamestit would perform on stages worldwide along with renowned orchestras (Berliner Philharmoniker, Koninklijk Concertgebouworkest, Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, Orchestra dell’Academia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, New York Philharmonic, etc.) and conductors (Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Sir Simon Rattle, Daniel Harding, Paavo Järvi, etc.).

Owing to his impeccable technique and rich tone, Tamestit has gained international fame. He plays the first viola ever built by Antonio Stradivari (1672), provided to him by the Stradivari-Stiftung Habisreutinger. “We have lived through a lot, and yet we continue to get to know each other. Initially, it was not easy. I think there are two personalities on stage. But today it is a symbiotic relationship. We constitute a single entity, helping each other to express ourselves,” Tamestit said in an interview within the Prague Spring festival, where in 2023 he held the post of artist-in-residence. He has collaborated with the Czech Philharmonic over the long term. One of the works they have performed together, in Prague and within a tour of Central Europe (with the late Jiří Bělohlávek), is Bohuslav Martinů’s Rhapsody, Tamestit’s favourite piece, which he has referred to as “beautiful, moving and ravishing”. 

He has devoted to chamber music too, regularly working with the pianist Emanuel Ax, the violinist Isabelle Faust and the clarinettist Martin Fröst. He is a member of Trio Zimmermann, whose recordings have received worldwide critical acclaim (highly lauded has been their 2019 album of J. S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations, as arranged by Tamestit). Moreover, he is a splendid soloist. He premiered Jörg Widmann’s Viola Concerto, a recording of which has received the prestigious Premier BBC Music Magazine Award.

Antoine Tamestit is also a sought-after educator, teaching at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz in Cologne and the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de danse de Paris, as well as within the Kronberg Academy masterclasses. For over a decade, he has been artistic director of Japan’s Viola Space festival.

One of the most inspiring young Czech conductors, since the beginning of the 2024/25 season Petr Popelka has been music director of the Wiener Symphoniker. Previously holding the post of principal conductor of the Norwegian Radio Orchestra, he continues to be music director of the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra. 

Popelka started his artistic career as a double-bassist. Following his studies in Prague and Freiburg, he was engaged at the Staatskapelle Dresden, where he would serve as deputy solo double-bassist for almost a decade. While still a student, he developed a keen interest in conducting, and also composed music. In addition to taking private lessons, he closely observed conductors in action. “Every day with the orchestra was actually like a small masterclass for me,” Popelka said. In 2016, he arrived at the decision to learn conducting in earnest, and duly began studying with Vladimir Kiradjiev, and attending classes led by Alan Gilbert and others. Soon after receiving the Neeme Järvi Prize at the Gstaad Conducting Academy, he was named assistant to Gilbert, chief conductor of the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester. A year later, in 2020, Popelka was appointed principal conductor of the Norwegian Radio Orchestra, while also performing with the Gewandhausorchester, Staatskapelle Berlin, Bamberger Symphoniker, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and others. Amid his growing international reputation, Popelka was named main visiting conductor of the Janáček Philharmonic Ostrava and also invited to work with the Czech Philharmonic. In September 2022, he assumed the post of principal conductor of the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra. One of the highlights of the 2022/23 season was a concert in Prague Popelka conducted of Arnold Schönberg’s monumental cantata Gurre-Lieder, performed by the Norwegian Radio Orchestra and the Prague Radio Orchestra. 

Besides giving concerts, he has conducted opera productions, including at the Norwegian National Opera in Oslo, the Semperoper in Dresden and the National Theatre in Prague. Popelka also continues to play the double-bass, appearing occasionally at chamber music performances. 

“Experts who have had the opportunity to peruse the score are enthusiastic over the beauties of the new composition. The opera The Two Widows is said to be worthy successors to The Bartered Bride. The composition is rather in the character of the salon, but once again there is Smetana’s lovely music that seems to flow directly from the songful breast of the nation itself!” That is how Jan Neruda welcomed Bedřich Smetana’s new opera The Two Widows two weeks before its premiere. It was first played on 27 March 1874 at the Provisional Theatre under the composer’s baton. Apart from the unfinished opera Viola, The Two Widows is Smetana’s only stage work based on a play. The author of the one-act comedy Les deux veuves, premiered at Paris’s Thèatre Française on 14 May 1860, was the French dramatist Jean-Pierre Félicien Mallefille. Two years later, the play was given at Prague’s Estates Theatre in a German translation, and on 25 May 1868 it was played in Czech with the title Dvě vdovy (The Two Widows) at the Provisional Theatre. The translator was Emanuel Züngel, and naturally it was he who adapted it into a libretto for Smetana, who had been looking for new subject matter for a comic opera. In the spirit of the subject matter, Smetana modelled his opera after the genre of the French opéra comique, creating a conversational salon opera with spoken dialogues. Later on, after having gone deaf, he set about revising the opera; the new version with musical recitatives and other alterations was premiered at the Provisional Theatre on 15 March 1878. The overture sets the mood of the opera, makes use of catchy motifs associated with the story’s characters (the ill-humoured gamekeeper Mumlal, the widows Karolina and Anežka, and Ladislav), and is dominated by the characterful, lively rhythm of the polka.

Josef Suk’s single-movement Fantasy in G minor for violin and orchestra, Op. 24 represents the composer’s original solution for the form of the violin concerto. The solo part does not play a dominating role in the work; the violin and orchestra are equal partners. The work’s designation as a fantasy corresponds to its relaxed structure, which nonetheless preserves the outlines of sonata form. The composition was first heard on 9 January 1904 with the Czech Philharmonic led by Oskar Nedbal. The soloist was Karel Hoffmann, the first violinist of the Bohemian Quartet (later called the Czech Quartet). Another important performance occurred on 30 May 1908 at the Jubilee Exhibition of the Prague Chamber of Commerce and Trade. On that occasion, Vilém Zemánek led the expanded forces of the Czech Philharmonic, and the soloist was František Ondříček. The reviews were excellent, and Suk’s new work soon made its way beyond the borders of his homeland. Right from the start, the work was taken up by a leading violinist of the day, Carl Flesch, who performed the Fantasy under the baton of Arthur Nikisch on 18 December 1911 in Berlin and shortly thereafter in London with the conductor Sir Henry Wood. After a performance of the work in Vienna on 12 November 1913 by the orchestra of the Musikverein with the conductor Carl Loewe, again with Carl Flesch as the soloist, a critic wrote that “there is no need to lament that the composing of concertante works for violin is in decline” as long as there are works in existence like this one by Suk. “Suk’s Fantasy is an important symphonic composition, rich in melody, a work that must cause the pulse of any conductor to race, yet at the same time it is a wonderful opportunity for an outstanding violinist.”

Many of Bohuslav Martinů’s works came into being because of external stimuli: requests from performers or commissions from conductors, orchestras, or institutions. The Rhapsody-Concerto for viola and orchestra was commissioned by the violinist and violist Jascha Veissi (1898–1983), a native of Odessa. Since 1920, Veissi had been living in the United States, where he got his start with the Cleveland Orchestra before setting out on a solo career; later on, he worked in other American orchestras. Martinů composed the work in a single month in early 1952. It is regarded as the beginning of the composer’s final creative period, in which he left Neoclassicism behind and arrived at his own original synthesis characterised by a simplification of harmonic resources and by heightened expressivity. The combination of free rhapsodic form with a three-movement layout made it possible to write a solo viola part in a manner that matches its characteristic sound and its technical possibilities. The work develops a central four-note motif that serves the composer as a kind of “motto”. In the first movement, individual episodes follow upon each other loosely, the solo part predominates in the second section, then reminiscences of previous material appear in the finale. The premiere took place on 19 February 1953 with the Cleveland Orchestra led by George Szell and with Jascha Veissi, who had commissioned the work, as the soloist. Veissi also gave the work’s European premiere with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande. The first violist to perform the work in this country was Hubert Šimáček, who made the first Czech recording in 1973 with the Prague Symphony Orchestra and the conductor Ladislav Slovák. 

The Sinfonietta is Leoš Janáček’s last orchestral work, finished in 1926. It was first performed that year on 26 June with Václav Talich conducting the Czech Philharmonic at Prague’s Municipal House as part of the Eighth All-Sokol Festival in Prague. The original title had been Military Sinfonietta, and the premiere was given under the title Sokol Festival Sinfonietta. Janáček called the composition a reminiscence of the experiences of the First World War and of what he felt when Czechoslovakia was established as a free country, as he formulated his thoughts in a recollection of his experiences in Brno in a short essay he wrote for the issue of the newspaper Lidové noviny that appeared on 24 December 1927: “And all at once I saw the city in a miraculous transformation. [...] The magical glow of freedom and rebirth loomed over the city on 28 October 1918! I saw myself in the city, and I belonged to it. And the blaring of victorious trumpets, the holy peacefulness of the Queen’s monastery at Úvoz, the nocturnal shadows and breath of the green hill, and the vision of the certain growth and greatness of the town, of my city Brno, gave rise within me to the Sinfonietta.” The composition was originally intended to be played outdoors, but it gradually grew into a work for full symphony orchestra. The composer later abandoned the programmatic titles of individual movements (Fanfares, The Castle, The Queen’s Monastery, The Street, and The Town Hall). The work is dedicated to the British author and arts patron Rose Newmarch, who made the arrangements for Janáček’s musical tour of England in 1926.