2024-05-18 11:24:33
The Prague Spring Pageant is a 12 months away from its eighth spherical, but this 12 months is already completely different. Right here we’ve got the Yr of Czech Music, i.e. an occasion protecting necessary anniversaries of a number of personalities, led by Bedřich Smetana, whose delivery has lately been 200 years outdated. An orchestra ranked among the many greatest on the earth got here to Prague to play his cycle Má vlast and thereby honor the composer’s legacy: the Berlin Philharmonic.
The opening of essentially the most prestigious Czech competition is a cultural, but in addition a symbolic and social occasion. Although it fought for media area and viewers consideration this time with Eurovision, a Rammstein live performance or the World Ice Hockey Championship, Sunday’s begin of the Prague Spring within the Municipal Home occurred with dignity, within the presence of the best representatives of the state, together with President Petr Pavel and First Girl Eva Pavlova.
The Berlin Philharmonic got here ready: instantly earlier than, they performed Mou Vlast with their chief conductor Kirill Petrenko thrice of their live performance corridor, well-known for its distinctive acoustics. That is why they did not want to shine the rating an excessive amount of within the Municipal Home on Sunday afternoon: they tried out the fanfare for the arrival of the presidential couple, the anthem – they performed it standing up, a pleasant gesture! – after which a number of sections of Smetana’s not precisely simple music.
Má vlast as a complete shouldn’t be typically carried out overseas, however this specific orchestra carried out the six symphonic poems in latest historical past in 2014 underneath the baton of Krzysztof Urbańský or 4 years in the past with Daniel Barenboim.
The famend Kirill Petrenko, the 52-year-old head of the ensemble, has a powerful relationship with the music of the Central European space, particularly the Czech music. Though he was baptized within the Irtysh, not the Vltava, as a result of he was born in Omsk, Siberia, he lived in Austria from the age of 18 and strikes primarily within the German-speaking cultural circle. As one of many few foreigners, his repertoire consists of works by Josef Suk and Brno native Erich Wolfgang Korngold.
Petrenko represents a brand new, much less frequent kind of conductor – a shy, privacy-guarding anti-maestro. They examine him to Woody Allen; possibly he is a posh soul, however the slightest insecurity would not go for him on the step in entrance of the gamers. His gestures are like from a conducting textbook and he is aware of precisely what he desires to realize with them. On the identical time, he is aware of find out how to let the orchestra free, simply observe it with a smile and let it play.
From the primary notes of the gala night, it was clear that the stage was crammed with essentially the most wonderful musicians. Their sound was intoxicatingly mushy and scrumptious, they playfully carried themselves by means of solos or sections wherein the deaf composer not set any limits, which is why they’re so tough.
The orchestra, as soon as mastered by Herbert von Karajan and adopted by many high conductors, is excellent at coping with the romanticism of the Smetano kind. It doesn’t want the pathos and burden of our nationwide myths. The music and its qualities are ample, whereas the rating might be performed fairly nondescript. On Sunday, maybe essentially the most shocking factor was the brisk tempos to the purpose of playability. It was refreshing within the polkas, however uncommon on the finish of the cycle – the march of the Blanica knights sounded extra swashbuckling than mystical and fateful.
It was symbolic that Smetana’s music was performed by a German orchestra within the 12 months of his anniversary. On the time when the composer composed his magnum opus, the conflict of the German component with the Czech was the order of the day. However despite the fact that the artist baptized Friedrich Mou was addressing the Czech viewers, the native meadows and groves had been additionally their homeland – the house of the Czech Germans.
The interpretation of the Berlin gamers is essentially completely different from the standard idea of Czech ensembles, however we’ve got to get used to it: if we need to take Smetana and Czech music past the borders, we’ve got to place up with a efficiency completely different from the concepts created by Karel Ančerl, Václav Talich, Rafael Kubelík and others. In any case, the custom shouldn’t be inviolable and is creating, as proven by the very attention-grabbing latest recording of the Czech Philharmonic underneath the baton of Semjon Byčkov.
The 2 opening concert events of the Prague Spring, the second of which will likely be performed this Monday, are usually not the final cease of the Berlin Philharmonic: they’ll carry out Smetana’s cycle, for instance, in August on the competition in Lucerne, Switzerland. It’s a big commercial each for Czech music and for Bedřich Smetana, whose fame needs to be equal to that of Antonín Dvořák.
Live performance
The opening live performance of the 79th Prague Spring
Berlin Philharmonic
Kirill Petrenko – director
Municipal Home, Prague, Might 12.