Dvorák & Suk

Josef Suk? A name that lights up the eyes of many of our Czech neighbours. But here in Austria his music is still a rarity – and even Suk’s 150th anniversary in 2024 was almost completely eclipsed by other commemorations. Tomáš Netopil remedies this state of affairs in fine style. One of the orchestra’s favourite conductors since his Tonkunstler debut in 2017, he has a special passion for Suk’s wondrously late-Romantic, sometimes Impressionist-coloured, warm opulence. Bohemian musical joy with a scintillating fin de siècle ambiance:  these are the defining features of the symphony in E major that the 24-year-old Josef Suk completed in 1898, the year in which he married Antonín Dvořák’s daughter Otilie, who would die so tragically young in 1905. The elegiac, at times almost nostalgic underlying mood of Dvořák’s exquisite Cello Concerto, composed in 1895 in the USA, fits ideally here. Its virtuosic yet expressively singing solo part is performed by the German cellist Julian Steckel.