Few artists are masters of more than one instrument at the highest level. One of those artists is Julian Rachlin––a magician on both the violin and the viola. Thus this virtuoso with perfect technique and at the same time strong interpretational emotion can sound both instruments in a single evening during the Prague Dvořák Festival, in the unique acoustics and atmosphere of the Church of St. Anne. On the previous festival evening, in the Rudolfinum, he also takes up the conductor’s baton. And so festival audiences have a wonderful opportunity to experience Rachlin’s exceptional interpretational art as violinist, violist, and conductor two evenings in a row.
Julian Rachlin, born in 1974 in Lithuania, emigrated at the age of four with his family to Vienna and earned a reputation as a child prodigy. When only fourteen he was elected the best musician in a Eurovision competition, and he became the youngest soloist ever to appear with the Vienna Philharmonic. He studied with the famous pedagogue Boris Kuschnir and also completed courses with Pinchas Zukerman. He likes to take on the challenge of contemporary works: for example last year in October he performed Penderecki’s Double Concerto, composed directly for him, in its world premiere in the Musikverein of Vienna. Rachlin is one of those extraordinarily active musicians, recording for Sony Classical, Warner Classics, and Deutsche Grammophon, serving as a professor at the Vienna Conservatory, organizing his own festival in Dubrovnik, and winning sympathy thanks to his philanthropic work, for instance in projects of UNICEF. He plays the ‘Ex Liebig’ Stradivarius violin from 1704, loaned to him thanks to the private foundation of Angelika Prokopp, and a viola by Nicola Bergonzi from 1786 loaned by Dmitry Gindin.
Rachlin and the Russian pianist Magda Amara, who is respected as both a soloist and a chamber player, will present a program in a romantic mood. The violin sonatas of Brahms are performed very frequently, yet their appeal has never faded––their world is an extraordinarily rich one, offering inexhaustible possibilities of interpretation, so each performance by a first-class artist brings a new quality. Similarly famous is the Sonata in A major by Franck, composed in 1886 as a wedding gift for Eugène Ysaÿe and often considered the most beautiful of all sonatas for violin and piano. Dvořák’s Romantic Pieces from 1887, a series of four short, contrasting gems, are characterized by thematic economy, especially in the fourth of them, based essentially on a single motive of three tones masterfully employed for strong expressive effect.
