František Macek / Mozart, Beethoven

We invite you to another concert in the “Stars with Sinfonietta” series, during which we will join forces with the acclaimed Czech clarinetist Anna Paulová and the charismatic conductor František Macek. This time, we will take you on a fascinating journey into the world of Viennese classical music.

We’ll begin the evening with the Overture to W. A. Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, a work that the composer, as was his custom, completed almost at the last minute, just before the opera’s premiere. The Marriage of Figaro quickly won over the Viennese audience, and its Prague premiere brought Mozart a true triumph. So great, in fact, that a Czech impresario commissioned another opera from him: Don Giovanni.

You will hear the Clarinet Concerto in A major, K. 622—considered one of the composer’s final masterpieces—in its most authentic version, performed on a basset clarinet built for Anton Stadler, a virtuoso of the instrument in the late 18th century. Its low register, with its warm and rich tone, allows for the full range of the work’s timbres to be showcased.

The program will culminate with Ludwig van Beethoven’s monumental Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op. 92, which Richard Wagner described as the “apotheosis of dance.” He wrote of its exuberance: “All this clamor, all this longing and the storming of the heart become here a delightful audacity of joy, which carries us with the force of a bacchanalia through the expanse of nature, through all the streams and seas of life, shouting in joyful self-awareness…”