Music at home for the Prague nobility and bourgeoisie
"My Prague friends understand me" (Mozart)
The era of Joseph II (the Josephine era), saw the destruction of many cultural values. Prague lost its high standing among the Empire’s artistic sites at the end of the eighteenth century; Josephine Prague led only in the fields of theatre and music.
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the palace was an important social meeting place. The cultural patron Clam-Gallas welcomed as guests to his palace many well-known artists, among them Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
Georg Druschetzky was born near Prague in 1745. His compositions and arrangements for wind ensemble of the latest opera scores, which have survived, for example, in the music collection of Count Pachta in Prague, met with particular favour in many musical centres across Central Europe.
The villa of the musical couple Josepha and Franz Xaver Duschek (‘Bertramka’) was a place where guests enjoyed uninhibited conversation and good music. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who stayed here in 1787 and 1791, found more to appreciate than just undisturbed peace for his work.
Johann Nepomuk Hummel was nine when he gave his first public performance on the piano, in Dresden, under the direction of his teacher Mozart. His first major concert tour, in the following year, took him to Prague, where he stayed with the Duscheks at the Villa Bertramka.
The quartets of Johann Christian Bach, originally written for flute and string trio, are to be found in the Prague National Library in a transcription for oboe and string trio from 1800.
Our programme brings together chamber music which is linked by the city of Prague, not as a source-based reconstruction of a historical concert experience, but through highlights of music history that wake the imagination.
"My Prague friends understand me." - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's cheerful remark is often quoted in Prague, but without evidence ...