Danube Cruise Day 3: Concert in the Mirror Chapel

 

When the concert was over, I heard more than one person say, "That was worth the price of the trip. I could go home now." I did not feel that way. It made me greedy for more and more beautiful music in jaw dropping settings.

We walked from the hotel through the Old Town at sunset.

Tonight's concert was in the ultra-baroque early 18th-c Mirror Chapel of a former Jesuit monastery, now the home of the national library. 

Again the ceiling was fabulous. I think those dark bits surrounded by gold are mirrors. There were other ornate mirrors on the walls.

The organ in the balcony at the back was played by Mozart.

This 19th-c organ in the front was played tonight. When he did Bach's "Toccata and Fugue in D minor", I  thought first of how much my mother-in-law, Claudia who has often traveled with us, would enjoy it. She was a church organist for decades. But I am low-brow enough to mostly picture Phantom of the Opera.

Besides the organ there was a string quartet from the Dvorak Symphony Orchestra and a soprano. The string quartet was excellent with the first violinist having particularly quick fingers on the Vivaldi, but it was the soprano who brought down the house. Her high notes were so effortless. She sang an encore from The Merry Widow with lots of laughing intervals, and the audience was so enthusiastic, she had to sing it again. (You aren't supposed to take pictures during a concert, so I didn't. Of course, you aren't supposed to clap between movements either, but we did on The Four Seasons and no one complained.)

Walking home after dark, I had to stop for a picture of the clock tower in the Old Town Square. We also stopped for one of the chimney cakes we have been hearing so much about, but skipped the ice cream that is often served in it like a cone. It's like a baked doughnut covered in cinnamon sugar. Made a great light supper after our late lunch.

Tomorrow will be mostly riding a bus to Budapest to get on the boat. Theoretically there won't be much to write about, but I have a feeling that won't be true.

Concert content:

October 17/Prague - Mirror Chapel

Dvorak Symphony Orchestra (in this case, it was a string quartet, organist and soprano)

PROGRAM

• G Bizet: Overture to CARMEN
• G. F. Handel: “Lascia ch’io pianga” from the opera RINALDO
• W. A. Mozart: selections from Divertimento in D Major and Agnus Dei from his Coronation Mass
• A Dvorak: Slavonic Dance No. 8
• F. Schubert: “Ave Maria”
• JS Bach: Toccata and Fugue in d minor for organ
• P. Tchaikovsky: Theme from ballet Swan Lake
• A Dvorak: “Song to the Moon” from Act I of the opera RUSALKA
• A VIVALDI: Spring and Winter Violin Concertos from The Four Seasons
• G. Rossini: Una Voce Poco Fa from The Barber of Seville
• Encore J. Strauss, Jr.: Adele’s Laughing Song from DIE FLEDERMAUS, performed by either Eliška Hanlová OR Lucie Laubová