Bamberg Symphony Orchestra And Jakub Hrusa Smetana: Má Vlast

Compared to other European orchestras with centuries-old legacies, the relatively young Bamberg Symphony Orchestra has earned a reputation through its many tours and recordings. The ensemble was founded in 1946 by members of the Prague Deutsche Philharmonie, a wartime orchestra that only lasted from 1939 until 1945. The orchestra's principal conductors have been Joseph Keilberth (1940-1945, 1949-1968), Herbert Albert (1947-1948), Eugen Jochum (1948-1949, 1968-1973), James Loughran (1978-1983), Witold Rowicki (1983-1985), and Horst Stein (from 1985). Jonathan Nott took over the post in 2000.

When the Bamberg Symphony and their principal conductor Jakub Hrůša went on tour in Germany with Mahler's Fourth Symphony in January 2020, no one would have thought that this symphony in particular would become a kind of "symphony of fate" of the year, for only two months later, the performance of major symphonic works was impossible for a long time after the "corona lockdown" in Germany, which hit cultural institutions particularly hard.