Semyon Bychkov and the Czech Philharmonic, a much less idiomatic and extra cosmopolitan Dvořák | Culture | EUROtoday

Bird songs in Spillville and pigeon breeding in Vysoká, but additionally remark of railway engines in Prague and ships in New York. Antonin Dvořák's music all the time tried to mix ardour for the countryside and town. In a latest exhibition on the National Museum within the Czech capital, one may see the e-book that Dvořák used to establish fowl sounds throughout his morning walks. And, on the primary web page of his autograph seventh symphonywe learn this well-known annotation: “This topic arose when the Pest Festival train was entering the central station, in 1884.”

It was simple to establish, final Wednesday, March 6, these obsessions of the Czech composer with birds and trains listening to his Symphony no. 9, From the New World. Semyon Bychkov underlined these associations on the head of the Czech Philharmonic, throughout his second live performance on the National Auditorium in Madrid. And we simply acknowledged the tune of the American robin on Jana Brožková's oboe and the sound of the blue jay on Andrea Rysová's flute, on the finish of the well-known largo. But additionally the insistent roar of a smoking metallic monster, in the beginning of the very vigorouswith that highly effective low string that features Gonzalo Jiménez Barranco from Malaga amongst his first double basses.

The Russian maestro returned to Spain with the assistance of Ibermúsica along with the orchestra that he has directed since 2018, to start a European tour of 14 live shows. A tour devoted to the upcoming a hundred and twentieth anniversary of Dvořák's loss of life, which started on the 4th within the not too long ago rehabilitated Palau de la Música in Valencia. It will proceed right now, Thursday, in Barcelona, ​​after two live shows in Madrid, and later, it is going to head to Vienna, passing by three German cities and ending in Paris, after a efficiency in Belgium. On the music stands the final three symphonies of the composer of Nelahozeves together with the trilogy of overtures Nature, life and love and his three concertos for piano, violin and cello, with the pianists András Schiff and Bertrand Chamayou, the violinist Augustin Hadelich and the cellist Pablo Ferrández.

Spanish performances have been restricted to symphonies Octave and Ninth together with the concertos for violin and cello and the primary two overtures. All works (apart from the violin concerto) from the final years of the Czech composer, from 1889 to 1894, wherein he achieved a synthesis as private because it was eclectic between the usage of Czech folkloric components and the mixed (apparently incompatible) symphonic fashions of Brahms and Wagner. That populist variant of late romanticism, within the phrases of Leon Botstein, which right now continues to fill auditoriums with assured success.

The Czech Philharmonic has this music in its genes. Let us not neglect that this orchestra was born out of the group of musicians of the National Theater, in January 1896, to fulfill the symphonic wants of Prague, though additionally for charitable functions. Dvořák himself performed his inaugural live performance in its present venue, the corridor named after him within the Rudolfinum, with a monographic program that culminated with the New World Symphony. In Madrid, Bychkov tried to mix his goal and cosmopolitan imaginative and prescient of this Dvořák rating with the orchestra's custom. But his interpretation improved because the minutes handed. It sounded orderly and versatile, with great solos on the woodwind (just like the well-known and exquisite English horn that Vojtěch Jouza performed), however with the load of the brass wind, and particularly the horns and trumpets. And the very best got here within the cheerful with fireplace closing the place the Russian grasp skillfully weaved collectively Czech echoes and native North American sounds.

Wednesday's live performance opened with a efficiency of the overture Carnival, op. 92 as bombastic in its starting as it isn’t very charming within the beautiful E minor theme of “lost lovers.” A model, nonetheless, properly ruled from the rostrum in its improvement and coda, the place Bychkov squeezed the fieryness of the Czech group to the utmost. The finest was the Violin Concerto with a memorable solo efficiency by Augustin Hadelich. The 39-year-old Italian-German-American violinist confronted the extraordinarily tough cheerful, however not an excessive amount of preliminary, filled with all types of double strings, arpeggios and bariolages. He confirmed off the corporeal sound of his Guarneri del Gesù, from 1744, within the gradual, however not an excessive amount of which was the very best of the night time, with the ability to sing and depend with virtuosity and musicality, but additionally to dialogue with the orchestra, which now had glorious horn solos. And within the finale He rode the sound wave of the Czech group to shine a lot within the frenetic raging as within the melancholic dumka central.

Hadelich provided two ideas the place he selected to drastically change his fashion. He began with a tango association By a head, by Carlos Gardel, the place he exhibited the dialogic lyricism of his double strings. And he ended up with a considerably educational foray into American bluegrass with Wild Fiddler’s Rag, by Howdy Forrester. Much extra correct was Bychkov's tip on the finish, the primary of his Slavic dances, the Furiant in C main, op. 46 no. 1though I didn't fairly discover the chunk of this music.

Perhaps the very best Dvořák that Bychkov performed in Madrid was heard within the overture that opened his first efficiency, on the fifth. An glorious model of In the dominion of nature, op. 91 with its completely drawn bow, from starting to finish, with that murmur of the double basses, the propulsion of the primary violins led by the concertmaster Jiří Vodička and the class of its woodwinds with a particular point out for the clarinetist Jan Mach.

He adopted the Cello Concerto with the solo efficiency of Pablo Ferrández. The 32-year-old cellist from Madrid achieved nice success and extracted an exquisite sound from his Stradivarius “Archinto”, from 1689. But his interpretation didn’t work within the allegro preliminary with frequent tuning checks, abuse of dynamic extremes and higher concern for taking part in notes than for singing phrases. In it gradual, however not an excessive amount of all the pieces improved, with an excellent nearly Cadenza, though the cellist remained extra involved with sharpening the sound of his instrument than with the music. We needed to anticipate finale to take heed to the very best musical moments of his efficiency and, particularly, the attractive coda that the composer rewrote as a posthumous tribute to his sister-in-law and former love, Josefína Čermáková, and the place Jan Mráček, the opposite concertmaster of the Czech orchestra.

Ferrández additionally didn’t get the perfect tip proper. And he selected to insist on his unquestionable technical solvency with a virtuosic association of the piano piece. Asturiasby Albéniz, a extremely popular composition with a sure prominence within the latest movie Anatomy of a fall. Dvořák returned, within the second half, with one other cosmopolitan and indifferent interpretation, this time of the Eighth Symphony. Bychkov displayed his astonishing method, fluid and exact, which ensured a musically impeccable efficiency. But he lacked cohesion and rhapsodic sense each within the allegro with vivacity as within the adagio, the place the composer makes use of a number of themes that he combines with modal and rhythmic modifications. In the third motion, the attractive dumkawhich comes from his opera The cussed lovers, sounded not very idiomatic and didn’t end rising. The issues within the metallic, which had appeared within the Cello Concerto They went additional on this symphony. And the Finale It turned out to be fairly flat, regardless of how a lot the coda tried to compensate with excesses.

To shut this primary live performance, Bychkov as soon as once more added a super tip taken from Dvořák's Slavic dances. Here he directed a powerful efficiency of the melancholy and glowing Ancient E minor, Op. 72 num. 2. Perhaps one thing was anticipated from Bedřich Smetana, who celebrated his bicentennial on March 2, however they selected to spherical off his efficiency with the very well-known Hungarian dance no. 1, by Brahms, as a second tip. The German composer all the time admired the musical inventiveness of his beloved Dvořák and shared with him a sure curiosity within the vicissitudes of technological progress. But, within the latter, the Czech all the time beat him by a landslide, as we are able to see with this well-known quote: “I would give all my symphonies to have invented the locomotive!”

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