Music Festival

Valtice Castle: like the Liechtensteins once did

Baroque splendor: Valtice Castle in South Moravia(Bild: South Moravia)

The South Moravian architectural jewels of Valtice Castle and Lednice Castle and their surrounding buildings provide a unique setting for a top-class music festival.

You almost think you've strayed to Schönbrunn - the "Reistenkolonnade" suddenly stands before you so majestically. As if they were the Gloriette's little sister. The Princes of Liechtenstein placed these and many other such staffage buildings in their landscape in the first half of the 19th century.

Around the baroque castle in Valtice (Feldsberg) and the Tudor-style Lednice Castle (Eisgrub). This unique cultural area, just a few kilometers from Poysdorf, now belongs to the Czech state and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

In Tudor style: Lednice Castle(Bild: Thomas Hajek)

The Viennese architect Joseph Kornhäusel, who also built the Vienna City Temple, is responsible not only for the colonnade, but also for a small pond castle and the enchanting Diana Temple.

Temple of Diana near Valtice(Bild: South Moravia)

Here you could listen to a wonderful concert: Jana Semerádová and her great colleagues beguiled the audience on her baroque flute with music by Bach, Frederick the Great, Georg Anton Benda and Carl Friedrich Abel.

Jana Semerádová plays in the Diana Temple(Bild: PAVEL KRISTIÁN JR.)

For the ninth time, the staffage buildings and castles provide a magnificent, unique backdrop for an autumn music festival (until October 12, www.lvhf.cz).

Maxim Vengerov at the Valtice Riding School(Bild: PAVEL KRISTIÁN JR.)

To kick off the festival, world-class violinist Maxim Vengerov played the first three Mozart violin concertos at the Valtice Riding School. And when Vengerov said afterwards that it was thanks to the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and Riccardo Muti that he had found the right approach to Mozart, the music once again made all boundaries disappear in the most beautiful way.