The Great Vienna Classics Cycle      On 31 March 2007 it will have been exactly 275 years to the day when Joseph Haydn, the first of the three Viennese classics was born. This composer of more than a hundred beautiful symphonies, many masses and innumerable other symphonic and chamber compositions set the standards once and for all in his works for that which we nowadays regard as classical music – his legacy was then developed among others by another two permanent members of the three stars of Vienna: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven, but also by the whole of the emerging compositional generation of the 18th century, of which the most famous – and most classical of the Viennese composers is Johannes Brahms.      Haydn’s church composition found a home in all of the important choirs in Prague and throughout the Czech lands and still constitutes the backbone of their repertoire. So many papers have already been written about Mozart’s relationship with Prague, that anything else would be like carrying coals to Newcastle. Even Beethoven visited our country a few times and he wrote his amazing work Missa Solemnis for the Archbishop of Olomouc. And it was Johannes Brahms who opened the path to the rest of the world for the greatest Czech composer Antonín Dvořák.      This is the reason that on the occasion of Haydn’s jubilee, we are commemorating some of the pivotal spiritual works of these Viennese greats of world music: Haydn’s Nicolai Mass, Nelson Mass and the famous “Seven last words of our saviour on the cross”, Mozart’s unfinished Great mass in C minor, Beethoven’s Mass in C major and Brahms’ German Requiem – the performance of which will be complemented by lesser although no-less-famous works by the same composers.    Program of concerts::   6.4.2007 J. Haydn: The seven last words of our saviour on the cross, Hob XX/1 A   Interprets: Bum´s Chamber Orchestra (Bumův komorní orchestr) Conducted by Petr Verner   8.4.2007 Haydn: Missa Sancti Nicolai   G. F. Händel: Halleluja from the Messiah oratorio, HWV 56 W. A. Mozart: Regina coeli laetare, KV 276 W. A. Mozart: Misericordias Domini, KV 222 J. Haydn: Missa Sancti Nicolai (Nikolaimesse), Hob XXII:6 J. Haydn: Te Deum (for the Empress Marie Therese) Interprets: Prague Cathedral Choir and Orchestra Conducted by J. Kšica   28.4.2007 J. Brahms: German requiem, op. 45   Interprets: Prague Singers, Orchestr „Medicanti“ (Dresden)   26.5.2007 Beethoven: Mass in C Major   W. A. Mozart: Veni Sancte Spiritus, KV 47 W. A. Mozart: Exultate, iubilate, KV 165 L. van Beethoven: Mass in C Major, op. 86 Interprets: Collegium Strahoviense Conducted by Vladimír Roubal   16.6.2007 Haydn: Nelson-messe   J. Haydn: Missa in angustiis (Nelson-messe), Hob XXII:11 J. Haydn: Te Deum Hob XXIIIc:2 Interprets: Piccolo Coro, Piccola Orchestra Conducted by Marek Valášek   29.9.2007 W. A. Mozart: Great mass in C minor, KV 427   Interprets: Prague Cathedral Choir and Orchestra Conducted by Josef Kšica