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Masters of the piano in the Dvorak Hall of the Rudolfinum.

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I travel a great deal and so I have a basis for comparison. I can say with a clear conscience that Prague is truly lucky in having acoustically good concert halls. The Dvorak Hall can hold its own even beside such

celebrated venues as the halls in Amsterdam, Boston and Vienna. Paris, for example, doesn't have this kind of quality and in New York there is only the Carnegie Hall. But the Dvorak Hall has not only outstanding acoustics, but also a unique charm, producing a feeling of special intimacy.

(Garrick Ohlson on the Dvorak Hall of the Rudolfinum in an interview about the Prague Spring Festival 2000)

The Great Hall of the Rudolfinum, only renamed the Dvorak Hall years after the Second World War, was the first Prague concert hall designed just for music. It is acoustically ideal for solo piano, which is why so many masters have played here and such a large number of outstanding and lasting recordings of masterly interpretations have been recorded here.

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The Rudolfinum was opened for concerts 120 years ago on the 7th of February 1885. This was just as the great epoch of piano virtuosity and composing for piano was coming to an end both in the Czech Lands and internationally. Less than a year beforehand Bedrich Smetana had died, and just over a year afterwards Franz Liszt. Throughout Europe the following years were above all the epoch of their pupils, although of course musicians and composers from other schools and following other models were active as well. The only one of Bedrich Smetana's pupils to achieve the status of virtuoso pianist was Josef Jiranek, who retained and recapitulated Smetana's own style in his play and even the details of his idiom. He played solo and in chamber music at the Rudolfinum, among others with the Czech Quartet. The crown of his activities in this period were his performances at concerts for the Smetana exhibition in 1917. Jindrich Kaan of Albesty was a pupil of the Karel Proksch School and of Vilem Blodek. He distinguished himself as the Liszt type of piano virtuoso with spectacular technique, and like Liszt he wrote virtuoso transcriptions and fantasias and performed them with brilliance. One of Kaan's pupils was Karel Hoffmeister, the pianist contemporary of Vitezslav Novak and Josef Suk. He placed the emphasis on accuracy of performance in terms of style and content, and was an outstanding teacher. In the last years before and during 1st World War the Rudolfinum witnessed the first great triumphs of Mikes's pupil Jan Herman. He shone with his performances of the Beethoven concertos G major and E flat major with the Czech Philharmonic (1907, 1913) and from 1909 as an interpreter of the works of Bedrich Smetana as well. All these pianists had become professors at the Conservatory in Prague before the 1st World War.

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The intellectually and poetically orientated musician, aesthete and composer Vaclav Stepan, the pupil of various Czech and foreign teachers,...

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