Slovak Philharmonic

Orchestral Series 2023/2024

Ticket price: 17,00 - 25,00 EUR

Programme booklet 2023/2024

Franz Schubert: Overture to the melodrama The Magic Harp, D 644
Ludwig van Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major, Op. 58
***
Franz Schmidt: Symphony No. 3 in A major

The beginnings of the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra were accompanied by great expectations, as evidenced by the fact that the internationally renowned conductor Václav Talich supported its establishment in 1949. Since then, the orchestra has been conducted by numerous great conductors, including Karel Ančerl, Franz Konwitschny, Václav Neumann, Kurt Masur, Sir Charles Mackerras, Claudio Abbado, Riccardo Muti, Kirill Kondrashin, Sergiu Celibidache, Neeme Järvi, Mariss Jansons and Valery Gergiev. Today, it is led by Daniel Raiskin, a conductor described by Gramophone magazine as “a sensitive musician who knows his craft well”. Raiskin comes from the Russian musical tradition, which gave him a solid foundation, but he now works mainly in Western Europe and the USA. He is a connoisseur of the broadest symphonic repertoire and builds upon the successes of the leading Slovak orchestra.

Croatian pianist Lovre Marušić came to the attention of the international audience when he won the silver medal at the prestigious Cleveland International Piano Competition in 2021. In Maribor, he will demonstrate his skills with a performance of a popular Beethoven concerto.

The focus of the Slovak Philharmonic’s concert programme is a work by the Bratislava-born Austrian composer Franz Schmidt, who is accurately described in Reclams Konzertführer as the “the prototype of an all-too-obviously neglected composer”.Schmidt worked in Vienna, where he initially played the cello in the orchestra of the State Opera and the Vienna Philharmonic during Mahler’s golden Viennese period. He then established himself as a composer of powerful symphonic and vocal-instrumental works, characterised by the opulent musical style and sophistication of late Romanticism. We are sure that the performance of Schmidt’s Third Symphony in our orchestral cycle will be a real treat.