In Schubert’s works, the traveller is a lonely, wandering outsider trapped within his own inner world. However, the native Viennese’s fascination with the theme of travel may have been driven by a completely different motivation than mere lack of recognition, failing health and Prince Metternich’s repressive regime. For he was, in fact, a passionate traveller!

He left us a detailed travelogue of one of his holiday journeys in 1825 through the Austrian Salzkammergut region in his correspondence with his parents. In one of the letters, he writes: ‘I spent six weeks in Gmunden, whose surroundings are truly divine, and just like its inhabitants – particularly the lovely Traweger – it moved me deeply and did me a world of good.’

Together with his friend, the singer Johann Michael Vogel, they undertook excursions in the surrounding area, went on boat trips and played music practically every day at the home of their host, Ferdinand Traweger. Schubert also worked here on his Great Symphony in C major, which was admired by a number of Czech composers, including Bedřich Smetana, Antonín Dvořák and the young Leoš Janáček. It was not performed until eleven years after Schubert’s death, when Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy conducted it with his Gewandhausorchester in Leipzig in 1839.

If you’re an artistic soul, the Salzkammergut is highly recommended. Arnold Schönberg composed his first piece using the dodecaphonic technique here by Lake Traunsee, whilst the area around Lake Attersee was a favourite of Gustav Mahler and Gustav Klimt. So, if you’re looking to compose a symphony or paint a magnificent painting, the Salzkammergut is the perfect destination!

In the house, built in the Louis XV style, Chopin’s room had special soundproof shutters and heavily padded doors so that the maestro could compose undisturbed during the day, whilst George usually slept after a sleepless night. Although he appeared at first glance to be a gentle man, he often succumbed to fits of rage and despair, during which he would throw himself on the floor, scream, tear up his manuscripts, pound the keys and claim that he had no talent and would never compose anything worthwhile.

You can still visit George Sand’s house in Nohant today, where the Polish composer spent some of the happiest years of his life. And if you’re lucky, you’ll be served fresh rolls ‘à la George Sand’.

“Romantic music of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries will predominate, including works by Czech masters. The opening concert, bringing together Evgeny Kissin and Sir András Schiff on the same stage, is, in my view, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Personally, I am also very pleased that Grigory Sokolov will be returning, as he comes to the Czech Republic more or less exclusively for the Firkušný Festival,” says the festival’s Artistic Director Josef Třeštík. As for the performers, the festival once again combines established tradition with the energy of young talents. One of the most anticipated events will be the debut of Lukas Sternath, winner of the ARD Competition Munich 2022 and recipient of the ECHO Klassik Award 2024[JR1] , as well as the return of the outstanding pianist Anna Vinnitskaya, whose artistic profile includes appearances with the Berlin Philharmonic and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The Czech performing tradition will be represented by Marek Kozák, last year’s laureate of the Bach Competition in Leipzig and recipient of the Jiří Bělohlávek Prize 2025 (his festival debut in 2020 was streamed online). The 14th edition of the Firkušný Festival will conclude in grand style with one of the most original pianists on the planet, Grigory Sokolov, whose programme – as always – remains a closely guarded secret.

Ticket sales for all festival concerts will begin online at firkusny.cz/en/ on Thursday, 19 March at 11 a.m. Until June 4th, tickets are automatically discounted by 20% as part of Early Bird.

May 20 Barbara Hannigan & Bertrand Chamayou | A significant part of Barbara Hannigan’s first residency concert will be devoted to her soprano voice. However, the brilliant French pianist Bertrand Chamayou will also perform two exceptionally beautiful solo piano pieces by the Russian classic Alexander Scriabin.

May 22 American pianist Eric Lu, winner of this year’s Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw, will perform compositions by Chopin, Schumann, and Schubert at the Rudolfinum.

May 29 Ensemble Modern I Fans of contemporary music will enjoy the first Prague Offspring concert, which will feature the Double Concerto for Piano, Percussion, and Ensemble by Prague Offspring 2026 resident composer Unsuk Chin. Before the concert, you can meet this world-renowned composer in person at a discussion starting at 6 p.m.

June 1 Argerich & Shani & Rotterdam Philharmonic | The last tickets are available for the concert of world piano legend Martha Argerich with the Rotterdam Philharmonic and conductor Lahav Shani! Martha Argerich returns to Prague Spring after an incredible fifty-two years.é jaro po neuvěřitelných dvaapadesáti letech.

June 3 Lucas & Arthur Jussen | The first concert by today’s most sought-after piano duo with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields is already hopelessly sold out. However, you still have a chance to hear brothers Lucas and Arthur Jussen on June 3 in an attractive programme for two pianos and percussion instruments, for which the last tickets are available!

Programme

• Fryderyk Chopin: Prélude in D-flat major Op. 28 No. 15
• Fryderyk Chopin: Prelude in A-flat major B. 86 Op. Posth.
• Johann Sebastian Bach: Prelude No.1 in C major (from Book 1 of Well-Tempered Clavier) BWV 846
• Sergej Rachmaninov: Prelude in D minor Op. 23 No. 3
• Karol Szymanowski: Nine Preludes Op. 1, excerpts
• Olivier Messiaen: Preludes for piano, excerpts
• Fryderyk Chopin: Prelude in C sharp minor Op. 45
• Sergej Rachmaninov: Prelude in C-sharp minor Op. 3 No. 2
• Henryk Mikołaj Górecki: Four Preludes op. 1, excerpts
• Johann Sebastian Bach: Prelude No.2 in C minor (from Book 1 of Well-Tempered Clavier) BWV 847
• Sergej Rachmaninov: Prelude in G minor Op. 23 No. 5
• Fryderyk Chopin: 24 Preludes Op. 28

More information about the concert

“Last year’s nearly sold-out edition once again demonstrated how popular the piano recital genre is with Czech audiences. This year, we can look forward to another fascinating journey through the world’s piano repertoire, ranging from the Baroque to 20th-century music, featuring both grand Romantic works and intimate miniature forms. We will witness a dialogue across styles and generations. Personally, I am especially looking forward to Jan Lisiecki’s recital. His concert at Prague Spring on 23 May with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra is completely sold out. The Firkušný Festival offers the chance to hear his artistry once again in November, in an entirely exceptional repertoire,” says Prague Spring Festival Director Pavel Trojan. “The Rudolf Firkušný Piano Festival 2025 will, in a certain way, be dominated by the prelude form, which in every stylistic period has given composers space to express their most intimate emotions. However, we will also experience an American evening with Karel Košárek and Jiří Levíček, culminating in Dave Brubeck’s jazz composition Points on Jazz for two pianos, as well as a performance of Robert Schumann’s and Franz Liszt’s virtuoso works by the legendary Arcadi Volodos. This strong lineup of pianists ranks the Firkušný Festival among top-tier international musical events,” adds Prague Spring Programme Director Josef Třeštík.

8/11 Jan Lisiecki

For the first time, the festival will welcome thirty-year-old Canadian pianist Jan Lisiecki, performing a recital titled Preludes. “I enjoy programmes that balance the familiar with the unfamiliar,” says Lisiecki. “In the first half, I will present different composers’ approaches to the prelude form, while in the second, I will offer a cohesive cycle of Chopin’s Preludes, Op. 28. What makes this programme unique for me is that even the prelude form, in its natural state and on its own – without a following fugue – can lead from somewhere to something. Each piece in the programme has been selected to introduce the one that follows,” explains Lisiecki. Among the composers he will present in the first part of the evening are Johann Sebastian Bach, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Henryk Górecki, Olivier Messiaen, and Karol Szymanowski. Lisiecki’s Preludes programme has already enjoyed success in the Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall in New York, Teatro alla Scala in Milan, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, and BOZAR in Brussels. In Prague, this youngest-ever recipient of the Gramophone Young Artist Award, who has been a leading face of the Deutsche Grammophon label since the age of fifteen, will present it on 8 November 2025 in the Dvořák Hall of the Rudolfinum.

10/11 Yulianna Avdeeva

The second evening of the festival will be dedicated exclusively to the works of Dmitri Shostakovich. Through this exceptional programme, the festival will also commemorate fifty years since the composer’s passing, which falls this August. Yulianna Avdeeva, winner of the Chopin Competition in Warsaw, will perform a selection from the iconic cycle The 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87, which Shostakovich composed at the height of the Stalinist era, between 1950 and 1951. He was inspired to write the cycle by Johann Sebastian Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier, Books One and Two. “Still, I do not want to compare these two cycles, because 24 Preludes and Fugues is pure Shostakovich,” says Avdeeva. Only a handful of pianists worldwide have this complete cycle – one of the most important piano cycles of the 20th century – in their repertoire, Avdeeva among them. This year, she will present it in venues including the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, the Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin, and the Palau de la Música in Barcelona. A selection from the cycle will be performed in Prague in the Dvořák Hall of the Rudolfinum on 10 November 2025.

12/11 Karel Košárek & Jiří Levíček

The third evening of the festival will be dedicated to American 20th-century music, spanning from the Impressionist-tinged cycle 3 Tone-Pictures, Op. 5, by Charles Tomlinson Griffes, inspired in part by Yeats’ poem The Lake Isle of Inisfree, to Copland’s famous El Salón México in Leonard Bernstein’s piano arrangement, Samuel Barber’s Piano Sonata, and the electrifying Virtuoso Études after Gershwin, composed by one of America’s earliest piano virtuosos, Earl Wild. The Czech pianist Karel Košárek, winner of the Walter Naumburg Competition in New York (1997), will showcase his mastery in these pieces. In the second half of the programme, he will be joined by jazz pianist Jiří Levíček, winner of the Phillips International Jazz Competition (2009), for a performance of Dave Brubeck’s Points on Jazz for two pianos. An artist with extensive experience in the American jazz scene, Levíček spent several years as a member of the One O’Clock Lab Band, a group nominated multiple times for the Grammy Awards. Czech audiences know him primarily from his work with the Robert Balzar Trio and the B-Side Band. The evening, subtitled “God Bless American Jazz”, will take place in the Dvořák Hall of the Rudolfinum on 12 November.

13/11 Arcadi Volodos

The festival’s closing night will belong to one of today’s most original pianists, Arcadi Volodos. He previously performed at the Firkušný Festival in 2021, when he stunned audiences with his interpretations of Franz Schubert and Robert Schumann. For his return to Prague, he will once again open his recital with Schubert, this time performing his penultimate piano sonata, D.959, composed in the last year of his life. This will be followed by Schumann’s Davidsbündlertänze, Op. 6, a cycle of dances he began composing one week after his secret engagement to Clara Wieck in the summer of 1837. Schumann attributed the composition to his dual artistic alter egos, “Florestan” and “Eusebius”. The recital will culminate in Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 13 in A Minor in Volodos’ own arrangement, in which he merges introspective depth in musical structure with breathtaking virtuosity. Arcadi Volodos will conclude the 13th edition of the Rudolf Firkušný Piano Festival in the Dvořák Hall of the Rudolfinum on 13 November 2025.

Festival Partners

Partners of the 13th edition of the Rudolf Firkušný Piano Festival are the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic and the City of Prague. The Official Vehicle of the festival is Mercedes-Benz Česká republika.

Ticket Sales

Ticket sales for the 13th edition of the Rudolf Firkušný Piano Festival will begin on Wednesday, 19 March, at 11:00 AM. Tickets will be available for purchase online at www.firkusny.cz. Until 3 June, an Early Bird discount of 20 % applies to individual ticket purchases. A subscription ticket for all four recitals is also available with a 30% discount.