Pannon Philharmonic

Conductor

Howard Williams

One of Britain’s most experienced conductors on the international platform, Howard Williams has covered a formidable range of work both in the opera house and concert hall, with a quite exceptionally large and broadly-based symphonic repertoire and over seventy opera titles to his credit.
In the UK, he has… More

Soloist

Vilmos Szabadi

About the Programme

Without a doubt, one of the most important musical culture among the Central European ones is in the Czech Republic. The Czech music achieved international rank in the second half of the 19th century, thanks to the works of those romantic masters who -proud of their origin- had been using their country's folk music and folk dances found their individual voices. The first act of the Pannonicum Series, compiled from Bedřich Smetana and Antonin Dvorak's works, however, also shows that the best-known Czech composers have become renown through their universality: their art showed beyond an (at that time) popular idiom, and they were at home in several genres. This time Smetana is going to be presented by his most popular symphonic poem, The Moldau, and by an extract from his opera The Bartered Bride (1866); while Dvořák, who marched into music history primarily with his symphonies, by a concerto, orchestral dances and a symphonic poem, which seldom can be heard in Hungarian concert halls (The Wild Dove, 1896).