| Chicago Symphony Orchestra | |
| Jaap van Zweden | Direction |
“I would go to hell if they gave me a permanent orchestra,” Theodore Thomas, the first music director of what is now the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO), allegedly replied to his friend Charles Norman Fay in 1889, when asked if he would be willing to move from New York to Chicago under certain conditions. Thus began the history of an ensemble long considered, for example by Gramophone magazine, one of the world’s finest orchestras. CSO’s appearance at the Prague Spring Festival will be particularly special as it marks the orchestra’s very first concert in the Czech Republic! Under the baton of conductor Jaap van Zweden, CSO will perform one of the most impressive works by the Czech native Gustav Mahler (1860–1911) – his autobiographical Symphony No. 6, in which the composer portrayed, among other things, his tumultuous relationship with Alma Mahler. “Mahler led a life full of contradictions: the rollercoaster he experienced in his family life, his divergent feelings about human existence. It’s all in his music,” said Jaap van Zweden referring to the Sixth Symphony.