Schedule for Vergnugungszug (Pleasure Train) of Johann Strauss 2022

PETERSBURG STATE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA "KLASSIKA"
Maestro Alexander Kantorov, Artistic Director and Principal Conductor

THE GREAT PETERHOF PALACE
The idea to build a suburban residence that would compete in its luxury with the famous Versailles of the French, came to Peter the Great in 1714. The Tsar’s surviving drawings, decrees and notes on some documents allow us to maintain that the general concept of the ensemble layout and even the detailed design of some elements in the architectural projects and fountain structures belonged to the founder of Peterhof himself. In August 1723, the ceremony of the inauguration of Peterhof ("Peter’s court" in Dutch) took place. But on the whole, work on the construction of the ensemble would continue for about two centuries.
As a result of the Imperial residence’s two-hundred history, there emerged a palace in which, next to the interiors preserving their appearance from the Petrine age, were the sumptuous and majestic halls of the mid-eighteenth century, the quiet and austere halls of the Classicist period, as well as the mid-nineteenth-century interiors based on the revival of the fundamental Rococo principles.
During the two centuries, there was accumulated a large number of beautiful works of painting, sculpture, furniture, artistic bronzeware, porcelain and glass. Well-known craftsmen working in the various fields of decorative art added to the wealth and magnificence of the Great Palace making it an outstanding treasure-house of culture.
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Peterhof Palace was the central structure of the official, "crowned" residence of the Russian Emperors. Many remarkable events took place in its halls, from large-scale festivals to grand receptions.
The daily life of Peterhof and the Great Palace radically changed in the early 20th century. After the fall of the Tsarist regime there were some irresolute attempts at recording the innumerable riches housed in the palace. But soon the Provisional Government, afraid of the advancing German troops, ordered to evacuate the treasures to Moscow. It was only in 1920 that all these objects were returned to Peterhof. The subsequent years saw great efforts undertaken to reorganize the Great Palace into a museum.
During World War II the palace was greatly damaged. But already in 1947 the project of its restoration was prepared. In 1957, the magnificent facade of the Great Palace began to crown once again the terrace over the Great Cascade and in 1964 first visitors came to the newly restored halls.