A neo-Renaissance concert hall on the river, home of the Czech Philharmonic, where Dvořák conducted the opening concert and where the parliament sat for twenty years.
The hall
Opened in 1885 as a multi-purpose house of arts, named for Crown Prince Rudolf, and the Dvořák Hall inside it is one of the great concert rooms — a shoebox of about 1,100 seats with an acoustic that regularly appears in lists of the best in the world.
Antonín Dvořák conducted the opening concert of the Czech Philharmonic here in 1896, and the orchestra has been resident ever since.
Where the parliament sat
Between 1918 and 1939 the building was the seat of the Czechoslovak parliament, the concert hall having been converted into a debating chamber. It was returned to music after the war.
There is a story attached that during the occupation the Germans ordered the statues of composers on the balustrade to be removed because one was Mendelssohn, who was Jewish — and that the workmen, not knowing which was which, took down the one with the largest nose, which turned out to be Wagner. Jiří Weil built a novel around it. Historians treat it as a legend, and it is repeated on every tour.
Going to a concert
The Czech Philharmonic is a genuinely first-rank orchestra with a distinctive dark string sound, and hearing it play Dvořák, Smetana, Janáček or Martinů in this room is the point.
Tickets are a fraction of what an equivalent concert costs in Vienna, London or Berlin. Book on the Rudolfinum’s or the orchestra’s own site.
The Prague Spring festival in May and early June is the major event — it opens every year on 12 May, the anniversary of Smetana’s death, with Má vlast, and closes with Beethoven’s Ninth. Tickets for the opening go on sale months ahead.
The Czech Philharmonic also plays free open-air concerts in the summer.
The gallery
Galerie Rudolfinum occupies part of the building and runs a serious contemporary art programme, free or nearly. It is one of the better exhibition spaces in the city and is entirely separate from the concerts.
Around it
The building sits on the river opposite the castle, beside Josefov and the Museum of Decorative Arts.
Jan Palach Square in front of it is named for the student who set himself on fire in 1969; there is a memorial on the corner of the building.
What not to buy
Street sellers in Mozart costume around the Old Town Square sell tickets to short tourist concerts in small churches. They are legitimate and they are not this. If you want to hear music properly in Prague, buy from the Rudolfinum, the National Theatre, the Municipal House or the State Opera.
