Janne Thomsen / flétna, Olli Mustonen / dirigent, Prague Philharmonia

Festive opening concert
The concert was sponsored by the Ambassador of Finland to the Czech Republic, J.E. Pasi Tuominen.

Janne Thomsen / flute
Olli Mustonen / conductor resident artist of the 29th festival
Prague Philharmonic

Program:
Olli Mustonen
Concerto for flute and orchestra "Sadunkertoja" - world premiere
Bedrich Smetana
String Quartet No. 1 in E Minor "From My Life" (Arrangement for George Szell Symphony Orchestra)

The opening concert of this year's festival portrays the main dramaturgical idea in an exemplary way, without being didactic in the least. Renowned Finnish composer, conductor and pianist Olli Mustonen will perform there as the conductor of the Prague Philharmonia Orchestra with the world premiere of his flute concerto Sadunkertoja, which is a musical metamorphosis of one part of the famous Finnish folk epic Kalevala. Due to the dramaturgical focus on the work of Bedřich Smetana, presenting a number of his orchestral and operatic works in a reduced form, the opposite case of the arrangement of the String Quartet No. 1 in E minor From my Life for a symphony orchestra is a certain revival. Its author is Hungarian in origin, but later mainly American conductor and pianist Georg Szell, who got to know Prague intimately in the first half of the 1930s as the conductor of the New German Theater (today's State Opera). In his brilliant arrangement, the piece sounds as natural when performed by a symphony orchestra as if it had never existed before in a form for just four string instruments.