Prague International Spring Festival
Klaus Mäkelä
Truls Mørk Antonín Dvořák
Jean Sibelius

Antonín Dvořák (1841–1904) attempted, as a young and unknown composer, to write a cello concerto, but never completed it and lost faith in the cello as a solo instrument. Nearly 30 years later, a new cello concerto by his friend Victor Herbert restored his confidence. In 1896, his Cello Concerto in B minor was ready for its premiere in London, and the work would become a cornerstone of the cello repertoire.

Jean Sibelius (1865–1957) based the four tone poems of Lemminkäinen from 1896 on stories from the Finnish national epic Kalevala, in which Lemminkäinen is a fearless adventurer and charmer, a kind of Finnish version of Don Juan.

The first tone poem depicts Lemminkäinen's adventures among the maidens on an exotic, mythological island. In the next two, he travels to the realm of the dead and is killed, but he is brought back to life in the final poem. The most famous piece is The Swan of Tuonela, about the bird that guards the realm of the dead.