The 10th edition of LVMF will discover a New World. A world of music from the continent where Antonín Dvořák arrived on his life mission in 1890s, a world from which the Liechtenstein gardener Joseph van der Schot (1763–1819) imported tree and plant seeds for the landscape of Lednice-Valtice area.
The music of the American continent has matured, the trees in the castle parks of southernmost Moravia have grown. It is time for new inspirations and a new joint act. You will hear it at this year’s Lednice-Valtice Music Festival where we will present compositions by Bernstein, Korngold, Copland, Barber, Williams and many other composers with a close relationship to the New World. Musical treats, including Dvořák’s “New World Symphony” will be entrusted to artists from the USA, Israel, Slovakia and the Czech Republic.
Music from the New World is the motto and programming line of the 10th Lednice-Valtice Music Festival. It connects the annual event with some great ideas that have shaped the world around us. The main one is the arrival of music, composers and artists from America, where Antonín Dvořák championed the new American music in the 19th century. All this is so similar to how Joseph van der Schot once had seeds imported from America planted to create an artistic landscape of unprecedented beauty.
Musical and landscape inspirations meet not only in the LVMF 2025 programme, but also in its visual form. Illustration of eastern redbud (Cercis canadensis) from the herbarium of the Bauer brothers (natives of Valtice) will accompany us throughout the festival. Their joint work from 1776–1804 is a 14-volume herbarium that contains 2,748 authentic watercolour (almost three-dimensional) images of plants imported from all over the world, including America. This unique work was later donated to the Princely House of Liechtenstein and is preserved in the archives of the Princely Collections in Vaduz. It is from here that the illustration of the marigold is on loan for exclusive use at the 10th LVMF. You can also admire the eastern redbud in the park in Lednice near the minaret, it blooms in April and will adorn this year’s festival in its full glory. Let’s enjoy it together from 20 September to 18 October 2025.
Did you know:
At the end of 19th century, American music critics came to believe that Dvořák laid the foundations of the new American music. Largo from his Symphony no. 9 “From the New World” inspired by black spirituals, Indian laments and Dvořák’s homesickness, even became the national anthem of the state of Iowa.
Cercis canadensis has pink flowers that grow right out of the bark and decorate the entire shoots, thick branches of the tree or even the trunk? Its large, rounded, full leaves with a distinctive heart-shaped base are aesthetically attractive as well.
Josef Anton Bauer (1756–1831), Franz Andreas Bauer (1758–1840), Ferdinand Lukas Bauer (1760–1826)
“CERCIS canadensis Lin: (…)”, from: Hortus Botanicus or Liber regni vegetabilis, plants assembled by Norbert Boccius, Prior of the Monastery of the Brothers of Merci in Feldsberg (Valtice), Volume 12, fol. 136, 1798
LIECHTENSTEIN. The Princely Collections, Vaduz–Vienna, Inv. GR 527.12
© LIECHTENSTEIN. The Princely Collections, Vaduz–Vienna