St Giles Church concert, Prague

What the concert is

The concert lasts about an hour, with classical music played in the Church of St Giles, kostel sv. Jiljí, on Husova street in Prague's Old Town. A chamber ensemble from the Dvořák Symphony Orchestra plays, and the evening is billed with a soprano, an organist and a solo violinist. The organiser describes the orchestra as professional players drawn from the Czech Philharmonic, the National Theatre and other Prague orchestras. The room is the draw: a Gothic church consecrated in 1371, with a Baroque interior of painted vaults and gilded altars. Reviews praise the acoustics, the soprano and the organ. Expect strings, a voice and an organ, not a full symphonic band, in a room that keeps the sound close.

What the ticket covers

Your ticket is admission to one concert, and it includes a printed concert programme that tells you what is played on your evening. Dinner, drinks and the way to the church are yours to arrange, and so is any visit to the building outside concert hours, which is a separate matter from this ticket. Husova street is short and lined with palaces and a medieval chapel, so dinner nearby, before or after the music, is easy to fit in. You book through GetYourGuide, whose calendar carries the start time of each date and whose confirmation repeats it, so there is no need to remember an hour from this page.

Which date to choose

Your date sets the programme. The booking page names Vivaldi, Mozart, Albinoni, Smetana and Dvořák among the composers, and Vivaldi's Four Seasons is billed for some dates and not for others. If the Four Seasons is why you are going, read the calendar entry for your date before you pay. If you simply want an hour of live music under a painted vault, any date will do and your other plans can pick it. The printed programme is the only complete list, because the pieces change with the date. A friend's description of their evening may not match yours. If two dates look alike, pick the one that fits your dinner plans.

Who plays and sings

Three soloists headline the evening, a soprano, an organist and a solo violinist, with the chamber ensemble around them. The organiser says the soprano is a soloist of the National Theatre and the State Opera in Prague and that she and the organist have won international competitions. The violinist is described as a member of the National Theatre orchestra and a chamber-music specialist. Names and line-ups can differ from evening to evening, so read the programme you are handed. Concerts of this kind rotate their soloists, and the booking calendar is the one source that follows the changes.

The organ and the sound of the room

A Baroque church makes a good concert room because the stone and plaster let each note carry. Guests praise the acoustics, and the organiser says the building is a frequent venue for classical concerts because of them. The church has an organ case that František I. Weiss decorated in 1736 with angel figures and vases, and the evening is billed with an organist. The organ gives the programme a second voice beside the strings and the soprano. If the sound of a church organ is what draws you, that is one reason to prefer this concert to one in a hall.

The programme in outline

Five composers are named for the series. You will not hear all of them on one night.

• Vivaldi: The Four Seasons, four violin concertos published in 1725
• Mozart: who visited Prague in 1787 and premiered Don Giovanni here
• Albinoni: a Venetian composer, 1671 to 1751
• Smetana: the Czech composer of Má vlast
• Dvořák: born near Prague in 1841, and a church organist in the city

The room you are paying for

Archbishop Jan Očko of Vlašim consecrated the church on 4 May 1371, with King Charles IV, his wife Elizabeth of Pomerania and his son Wenceslas IV present. The Dominican order received it in the 1620s. In the 1730s the Gothic hall was given a Baroque interior: new vaults, stucco and altars, and frescoes painted by Václav Vavřinec Reiner in 1734 and 1735. Miloš Forman filmed some scenes of Amadeus here in the early 1980s. The history guide tells the story in order, and the Baroque room is what you see from your seat. The Gothic shell is still there: the church was built as a tall hall with aisles of equal height, and the remodel worked inside it.

Read next: The history of St Giles' Church

Seats, benches and arriving early

Seating is on wooden benches. Guests praise the sound and the setting, and several say the benches are hard and ask for cushions. One guest wrote that going in earlier would have meant a better seat, so reach the church with time in hand if you care where you sit. Reviews mention the setting as often as the music, which suggests the view is worth arriving early for. The altars and the painted vault are the sights of the room, and the quarter hour before the music is the time to look at them. Allow a few minutes at the door, where tickets are scanned.

St Giles' or the Týn Church concert

Prague has many church concerts, and this site shows one other: a concert in the Church of Our Lady before Týn. That church is a Gothic landmark above Old Town Square, with two towers Wikipedia gives as 80 metres high and a pipe organ built by Jan J. Mundt between 1670 and 1673. Its concert pairs strings of the Prague Philharmonic with a mezzo-soprano, an organist and a violin soloist. Choose St Giles' for a painted Baroque interior in a quiet side street. Choose Týn for the square and the towers. Both sell through the same booking site, and each has its own calendar.

How booking works

No tickets are sold on this site. The booking button opens GetYourGuide, which takes payment, sets the dates and handles refunds. For this concert a booking can be cancelled free of charge until 24 hours before the concert, and the fare can be settled later. Questions about a refund or a date change go to GetYourGuide, not to the church, the Dominican community or the orchestra. The calendar shows the dates, so use it to compare evenings, not this page. If a date is missing, it is not on sale, and the calendar shows which evenings run. Keep your confirmation, because it carries the meeting details.

Who this isn't for

The ticket is marked not suitable for wheelchair users. Anyone who needs padded seating should think twice, since the benches are wooden. If you want one fixed programme, such as the Four Seasons on a particular night, you may find the date you need plays something else, and only the calendar settles that. This is a concert, not a church visit: it is not the place to see the building at leisure. Travellers who prefer a large hall, an orchestra of full symphonic size or a late finish will find the format too small and too short.