Czech Philharmonic • Yuja Wang

Unlike his contemporaries, who tried out a variety of techniques and styles, the American composer Samuel Barber (1910–1981) never departed from traditional forms and harmonies and always gave priority to melody; his Piano Sonata, Op. 26 (1949), contains his only venture into 12-tone technique. He composed works for the stage (ballets, operas), songs, and choruses, and among his works are two symphonies and concertos for violin, piano, and cello. His international fame rests largely on Adagio for Strings, Op. 11, probably his best-known work. Adapted from the second movement of Barberʼs String Quartet in B minor (1936), the work received its premiere on 5 November 1938, when Arturo Toscanini conducted the NBC Symphony Orchestra in a live NBC radio broadcast. He later performed it on tour, and other conductors soon followed suit. The work is cast in an arch form: its melody unfolds gradually, builds to a powerful climax, and then slowly subsides into repose. As the music fades away, an unresolved dominant chord leaves the ending hanging in the air. Much of the workʼs success lies in the atmosphere it creates, which has led to its frequent use in film soundtracks and to numerous arrangements for a wide variety of ensembles.

Barber’s Piano Concerto, Op. 38, was commissioned by the oldest music publisher in the United States, founded in 1861 by Gustav Schirmer (G. Schirmer, Inc.), who was of German origin. Members of the Schirmer family ran the publishing house for four generations. Barber worked on his concerto for four years, supposedly finishing the last movement just two weeks before the premiere given on 24 September 1962 for the grand opening of Philharmonic Hall at the Lincoln Center in Manhattan. The soloist was John Browning, for whom Barber had intended the concerto from the outset, and Erich Leinsdorf conducted the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

The first movement opens with the piano, which introduces three themes that Barber also develops in the remaining movements. The full orchestra then restates the principal theme and carries it forward. The second movement showcases Barber’s gift for melody, one of the defining qualities of his music; its principal theme is derived from his Elegy for flute and piano (1959). The finale, a fast-paced rondo, provides a sharp contrast. Wind instruments play a prominent role in the orchestration, while rhythm becomes the driving force. Samuel Barber won his second Pulitzer Prize in 1963 for his Piano Concerto (he first won the prize for his opera Vanessa in 1958). Barber’s Piano Concerto received its European premiere in 1965 during a tour of the Cleveland Orchestra with John Browning and the conductor George Szell. During the same tour, the work, described by Prague critics as “romantically conceived”, was performed at the Prague Spring Festival on 24 June 1965.

In the summer of 1953, Dmitri Shostakovich (1906–1975) was working on his Tenth Symphony, eight years after he had written his Ninth, and he completed it that October. This was at a time when he had made several trips to visit Western countries that exposed him to diverse opinions. In March 1949, he was a member of a Soviet delegation sent to New York for a “Cultural and Scientific Conference for World Peace”. Before his departure for America, he received a telegram of support from leading musicians who were Americans or were working in the United States. It was signed by Bruno Walter, Serge Koussevitzky, Aaron Copland, and Leonard Bernstein as well as by Samuel Barber, whom Shostakovich was able to meet in person at a conference. In February 1951 he was elected a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, and over the next two years he attended peace congresses in Warsaw and Vienna. All the while, his feelings became increasingly conflicted. Stalin died on 5 March 1953, and Izvestia and the journal Sovetskaya muzyka published articles under Shostakovich’s name calling for unity. At the same time, however, the composer was trying to come to terms with the Stalin era, not least through his music. While spending the summer at his dacha in Komarovo, he wrote to his pupil Kara Karayev: “I’m trying to write a symphony, and although no one is interrupting my work, it’s going slowly... I’m struggling with the first movement, and I don’t know how it will go after that.”

The gloomy themes of the first movement intertwine and overlap, and the central section rises to a huge climax of roaring chords, but the gloom remains unresolved. The second movement is a scherzo filled with sarcasm. Its principal theme is derived from material associated with the Prologue to Mussorgskyʼs Boris Godunov, which, in the year of Stalinʼs death, carried for Shostakovich associations of autocratic power exercised in the name of the people. In Shostakovich’s alleged “memoirs” published by Solomon Volkov, the composer is said to have commented as follows about the creation of his symphony: “I wrote it right after Stalinʼs death and no one has yet guessed what the symphony is about. Itʼs about Stalin and the Stalin years. The second part, the scherzo, is a musical portrait of Stalin, roughly speaking. Of course, there are many other things in it, but thatʼs the basis.” In all four movements, Shostakovich employs the notes d / e flat / c / b natural, which, when spelled in the central European manner as D / Es / C / H, represent the composer’s initials “D Sch”, a musical signature most prominently heard in the second movement and in the finale, where it comes fully into the open.

The Symphony No. 10 in E minor, Op. 93, was premiered on 17 December 1953, with Yevgeny Mravinsky conducting the Leningrad Philharmonic. The work prompted debate about the nature of symphonism and symphonic form itself. Contemporary critics faulted the work for lacking the sense of formal completeness expected of a cyclical symphony. Shostakovich responded that, in his view, the movements of a symphony should not be judged merely as parts of a larger whole, but rather as “independent large-scale works. Each movement ... must possess its own musical and dramatic development.” The composerʼs statement illustrates the situation in which he found himself: subjected to constant ideological pressure that did not abate even after the dictatorʼs death. “If the Tenth Symphony is criticized for lacking formal completeness, the criticism is justified”, Shostakovich admitted. “The finale is dominated by rapid, energetic themes; perhaps a more lyrical theme somewhere in the middle or towards the end would have been desirable. [...] Should I revise the finale or write a new one? Perhaps I shall one day, but not now. I have thought the work through, lived with it, and at present I could not return to it.” Opportunism? Not at all. Shostakovich remained convinced of the workʼs quality, and he never changed a single note.

Yevgeny Mravinsky and the Leningrad Philharmonic performed the Tenth Symphony on 3 June 1955 at the Prague Spring Festival, but the work had been given its Prague premiere during the festival’s previous season on 19 May 1954 with Franz Konwitschny conducting the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra.

Pianist Yuja Wang is celebrated for her charismatic artistry, emotional honesty and captivating stage presence. She has performed with the world’s most venerated conductors, musicians and ensembles, and is renowned not only for her virtuosity, but her spontaneous and lively performances, famously telling the New York Times. “I firmly believe every program should have its own life and be a representation of how I feel at the moment”.

She recently demonstrated her individuality and charisma in the spring and fall of 2025 during performances with the Cleveland Orchestra, when she played Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1, Ligeti’s Piano Concerto, and Ravel’s famous Concerto for the Left Hand. Also worth mentioning is her marathon performance of all four piano concertos by Sergei Rachmaninoff and Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini alongside conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the Philadelphia Orchestra, which took place during one evening at Carnegie Hall in 2023, 150 years after the composer’s birth. Yuja Wang also performed two of these concertos, the first and third, at the Rudolfinum accompanied by the Czech Philharmonic – first in 2022, when she was artist-in-residence there, and then two years later under the baton of Sir Simon Rattle.

Yuja was born into a musical family in Beijing. After childhood piano studies in China, she received advanced training in Canada and at the Curtis Institute of Music under Gary Graffman. Her international breakthrough came in 2007, when she replaced Martha Argerich as soloist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Two years later, she signed an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon and has since established her place among the world’s leading artists, with a succession of critically acclaimed performances and recordings. Her latest CD was released in 2025 to mark the 50th anniversary of Dmitri Shostakovich’s death and contains a selection of his piano works.

She was named Musical America’s Artist of the Year in 2017, and in 2021 received an Opus Klassik Award for her world-premiere recording of John Adams’ Must the Devil Have all the Good Tunes? with the Los Angeles Philharmonic under the baton of Gustavo Dudamel.

In the field of chamber music, Yuja has long collaborated with several leading artists, notably violinist Leonid Kavakos, with whom she has recorded Brahms’ complete violin sonatas. In 2025, she also toured with Icelandic pianist Víkingur Ólafsson, performing a wide range of works from Schubert to Cage. In the spring of 2026, she gave a series of performances with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, the Munich Philharmonic, and give a recital at the Dubai Opera.

We have seen one of today’s most distinguished conductors, Sir Simon Rattle, relatively often at the Rudolfinum in recent years. His long-term cooperation with the Czech Philharmonic has led to his appointment together with his wife, mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená, as Artist-in-Residence for the 2022/2023 season. At his appearances with the Czech Philharmonic, he has performed a number of symphonic works and, most notably, compositions for voices and orchestra from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the repertoire for which Rattle has been the most acclaimed. From the 2024/2025 season, he becomes the Principal Guest Conductor of the Czech Philharmonic with the title of “Rafael Kubelík Chair”.

Rattle, a native of Liverpool and a graduate of the Royal Academy of Music, has held a series of important positions in the course of his long career. He came to worldwide attention as the chief conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, where he was employed for a full 18 years (for eight years as its music director); next came 16 years with the Berlin Philharmonic (2002–2018; artistic director and chief conductor) and six years with the London Symphony Orchestra. He opened the 2023/2024 season as chief conductor of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. He also leads the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment with the title of “principal artist”, and he is the founder of the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group. Besides holding full-time conducting posts, he maintains ties with the world’s leading orchestras and gives concerts frequently in Europe, the USA, and Asia. He also appears occasionally at major opera houses.

He has made more than 70 recordings for EMI (now Warner Classics). He has won a number of prestigious international awards for his recordings including three Grammy Awards for Mahler’s Symphony No. 10, Brahms’s German Requiem, and Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms, which he recorded with the Berlin Philharmonic. His unique recording of Bruckner’s Sixth Symphony with the London Symphony Orchestra has been the subject of passionate debate.

Besides the prizes mentioned above, Rattle’s long-term partnership with the Berlin Philharmonic also led to the new educational programme Zukunft@Bphil, which has achieved great success. Even after moving on from that orchestra, Rattle did not abandon his engagement with music education, and he has taken part together with the London Symphony Orchestra in the creation of the LSO East London Academy. Since 2019, that organisation has been seeking out talented young musicians, developing their potential free of charge regardless of their origins and financial situation.