Home - Recent News -

A unique collection of John Lennon’s memorabilia are being presented by the Czech Museum of Music in Karmelitska Street at the Beatlemania exhibition.

The collection of Lennon’s artefacts made it to the Czech Republic thanks to the cooperation with Hard Rock International.

Beatles for everyone

Amongst Lennon’s personal items is his suede jacket known from the CD cover Rubber Soul which will be exhibited between 21st July and 15th September. “For the autumn we are preparing another unique overseas loan as well as other concerts and accompanying events,” said the new director of Czech Museum of Music, Emanuel Gadaleta. 

The exhibition met with great success, in a short time it has been seen by over 12 thousand visitors.  The collection of Lennon’s items were ceremonially unveiled by people close to Beatles, that is people from the tad more wrinkled generation and included representatives of various genres, such as composer Ondřej Soukup, musician Michal Dvořák, text writer Michal Horáček and violin virtuoso Jaroslav Svěcený with help of the director the National Museum Michael Lukeš.

Jaroslav Svěcený about the Beatles

One of the passionate collectors of violins and Czech violin virtuoso Jaroslav Svěcený

What draws a man, who plays classical music, to the Beatles?

“I never resist contact with different genres because classical music, as we call it nowadays, used to be very popular in its times. For me, the Beatles are as timeless as Beethoven, Dvořák, Mozart... It is the type of music that will reverberate across many ages as it has such an undoubted quality; it was spawned out of the dynamic cultural mix of the1960s at the times of this art’s heyday.  The Beatles made clean and musically straightforward compositions, they use stringed instruments; you can hear string quartets and quintets in their songs. They worked with beautiful ideas and their melodies are memorable for every generation.”

Do you play any Beatles?
 
“In my repertoire I have many Beatles adaptations for violin and piano, which I often add to my concerts.”

Which period of Beatles do you like and which is more connected with classical music?

I don’t prefer any period, or to be more correct, from each I chose something. When you listen well for example to the Yellow Submarine and become aware of its interlaced harmonies, you can feel the guiding hand of genius the boys composed it with. These are in fact simple things, like those composed by Mozart, but try to think them up…! It is simply pure genius.”

You became a patron of the exhibition, why?

All my life I have been cooperating with musicians from different genres, that is why. We are currently working on the project Vivaldiano. I work on it with Michal Dvořák, who was also part of the Lennon project, and Radim Hladík, who performed at Chodov Fort at my festival.  These are people I respect and admire, musicians that have achieved something in their field … It is good when the genres become interconnected, that’s also why I follow the various trends in popular music.”