Roll over, Beethoven.

The Rudolphinium is touted as being the best concert hall in Europe.  It's acoustics are apparently beyond reproach.  Tickets were available. And Beethoven was playing. The Emperor.  Priceless.

The Rudolfinum, one of the most noteworthy buildings in Prague, was built between 1876 and 1884 according to the designs of architects Josef Zítek and Josef Schulze. Originally intended as a multipurpose cultural building in Prague, the Rudolfinum was inagurated on February 7, 1885. It carried out its mission until 1919, when it was converted to the House of Commons of the Czechoslovak Republic. Concert activity was restored to the Rudolfinum during the German occupation, but full rehabilitation, particularly of the gallery, did not take place until 1992. After a general reconstruction by architect Karel Prager in 1992, the Rudolfinum became the home of the Czech Philharmonic and the Rudolfinum Gallery.

This fabulous building is 10 minutes from our hotel.  We dressed to thrill, me in my red dress and silk shawl, handsome husband Reno in his Boss linen jacket, and walked to the Rudolfinium through the back streets, past Prague old town square, the busking silent men painted gold, mulled wine sellers (I bought one and gave my leftovers to a cold, hunched up beggar) the sausage sellers, the sax and trombone and washboard players, the ghostly and glorious Gothic spires, the Astronomical clock, the centuries old churches touting for their own classical concerts of Dvorak, Vivaldi, Mozart, past so many garnet and amber shops and "original" pashminas.  

The building stands on the shores of the Vlatva, with a ghostly Prague Castle looming on the opposite hill.  The audience, lulled with Bohemian Rose, were a quiet and orderly, well dress lot; not the usual tourist trash in sneakers and backpacks. Tickets were cheap - $35 each; we sat upstairs in the gallery with perfect vision of Australian pianist Piers Lane as he played Beethoven's Emperor Concerto on a piano that had risen from the bowels of the concert hall onto the stage. Above our heads, glorious chandeliers and murals, velvety walls and marble columns.  And a rendition of Beethoven that carried us with every note, every hue, every grand and minute gesture, to transport us right into the heart of the music. The Emperor will reign in our hearts forever. We shouted bravo, bravissimo, but the restrained Czechs turned and glowered.

This was followed by Strauss' Don Quixote. What sort of ego does a composer have to  include 2 harps, 10 cellos, 8 bass and double bass, 22 violinists, 4 French horns, 4 oboists, a kettle drum, trombone, four trumpets, a full set o drums and ... the siren used for Venice's aqua alta, or the siren left over from WW2 just as the bombs were going to drop.  I would rather have root canal than listen to this piece ever again. The conductor  worked himself to a frenzy keeping the 120 players in tune; the musicians were clamorous, discordant, and too many.  I was too nervous to watch Reno, who was as appalled as I ... but it wasn't the place to laugh, and we couldn't escape. Instead we watched with musical horror as the wind machine was wound up and around, as the percussionist beat his 20 strikes with one eye on the conductor and the other on his watch; at the cellist, trying valiantly to be heard amongst the cat-calling, barbed wire rolling, rattlesnake rattling, wailing din as he tried not to fall off his little platform.  I am sure there must have been a triangle in there, somewhere ... or could it not fit on the stage.  The only way that anyone could be forced to pay for this would be as a follow on to Beethoven.

Reno and I laughed all the way home, relieving the tension with a well deserved KFC meal, in the company of derelicts, prostitutes and some relieved tourists.