THOMAS HAMPSON FOR PRAGUE

A language comprehensible to everybody, a link to all languages and a connecting line between earth and heaven – that is what music is for the composer Sylvie Bodorová. According to her, music reaches where no words can and that is how the title of her new song cycle Lingua angelorum came about. She drew inspiration from the era of Rudolf II, when the alchemists John Dee (1527–1609) and Edward Kelley (1555–1597) attempted to communicate with higher powers using an artificial language, the Lingua angelorum. Bodorová has composed the cycle as a commission for the world renowned American baritone Thomas Hampson.

The symphonic suite Sheherazade composed by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov in 1888 combines two features typical of Russian music in general and of Rimsky-Korsakov in particular: dazzling, colorful orchestration and an interest in the East, which figured greatly in the history of Imperial Russia, as well as orientalism in general. The name "Scheherazade" refers to the main character Scheherazade of the One Thousand and One Nights. It is one of Rimsky-Korsakov's most popular works.