5th Academy Concert 2022/23 (Jindra)

The 5th Academy Concert is dedicated to one of the so-called house gods of the Bavarian State Opera: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. He probably composed his Concerto for Flute and Harp in April 1778 in Paris as a commission for the flute-playing Comte de Guines and his daughter, who played the harp. The work has not been performed at the Musikalische Akademie since 1906; at that time with Leonore Kennerknecht-Buff on the harp (see tile “Women in the Orchestra”). In the same month, Mozart wrote to his father about the composition of a “sinfonie concertante”, the original score of which is said to have been lost. The Sinfonia Concertante for winds has long been thought to be an arrangement of the lost piece, but some scholars now doubt that Mozart was the author of this work.

In Prague, Mozart composed the aria “Bella mia fiamma” for the singer Josepha Duschek while he was there in November 1787 to prepare for the premiere of Don Giovanni. Just two months later, the composer himself conducted the premiere of his Symphony No. 38, nicknamed the “Prague Symphony”, on January 19, 1787 in Prague. The conductor of the 5th Academy Concert Robert Jindra himself comes from Prague, where he studied opera singing and conducting at the conservatory, and now holds the position of music director of the National Theater.


Photo credit: Prague around 1800 (anonymous etching)