PRAGUE — On Sept. 11, under a rainy sky, Jakub Hrůša led members of the Czech Philharmonic and Bamberg Symphony Orchestra in Mahler’s Seventh Symphony on the exhibition grounds where it premiered in 1908. The symbolism is multiple: Mahler was a native of Bohemia, but his main language was German. At the time of the original performance, which took place under the composer’s baton, he had left Vienna and was living in New York.
For Hrůša, chief conductor of the Bambergers and guest conductor of the Czech Philharmonic, the music of Mahler “has universal meaning” and stands as one of the best representatives of what he identifies as Central European culture. “Mahler included everything,” he said in an interview, “animal sounds, pagan music, church music, or night sounds in the streets as in the Seventh Symphony. And the demonic dimensions of the human psyche. That’s why it communicates so well to anyone.”
He points out that the work met with highly mixed reviews (not surprising, as it juxtaposes a self-ironic, highly contrapuntal allusion to Wagner’s Meistersinger with cowbells at the end of the last movement): “It’s eclectic on the one hand and masterful on the other,” Hrůša said. “In his time, a lot of people were very skeptical — it made no sense at all. And it’s wonderful to explore the music in different contexts, to shed new light on it.”
The joining of the two orchestras is in a sense an attempt to return to a time when both Czech and German culture co-existed within the borders of the modern-day Czech Republic. The Bamberg Symphony was formed by German-speaking Czechs of the German Philharmonic Orchestra Prague, who were forced to flee to Germany during World War II. The Czech Philharmonic, whose home hall is the Rudolfinum, was founded in the late 19th century and has persisted as the country’s leading orchestra.
Hrůša chose to distribute section leaders evenly between the two orchestras while delegating Jan Mráček, of the Czech Philharmonic and also a soloist who has appeared in Bamberg, as concertmaster. The conductor opted for Czech bowings while arranging the orchestra in “Bamberg style,” placing the first and second violins next to each other (according to Hrůša, this is not customary for the Czech players but typically used in performances of Mahler). “It took a few minutes for everyone to get to know each other,” he said, “but then they achieved the highest possible quality.”
The string section was slightly expanded from the original 1908 performance, while the brass and percussion remained unchanged. Program notes identify Mahler as an Austrian with Czech roots, but he could also be considered a Czech of Jewish origin who made his way through the ranks to become music director of the Vienna State Opera. His relationship to his Jewish roots was of course ambivalent and conflicted at a time of rising anti-Semitism in Austria, which was entangled with frictions between Eastern European and German culture. The Seventh Symphony is a cosmos reflecting this dynamic, not to mention the unresolved tension between tradition and modernity.
The opening movement could at times easily be confused with the pre-exile symphonic music of Kurt Weill, with its skulking dotted rhythms, sliding brass melodies, and restless changes in mood. Hrůša led the orchestra with precision but also the right momentum. The high dose of irony was never lost on him in the second movement, when cow bells are used for the first time, or in the third movement, with its sardonic waltz passages.
Still recovering from Covid, I had to find shelter before the start of the fourth movement and listen to a recording of a rehearsal from the day before in the Rudolfinum. The phrasing sounds as immaculate as ever in the second “Nachtmusik,” and I would have loved to experience the Rondo-Finale live, packed as it is with allusions and forward-looking orchestration.
The program opened with Dvořák’s Festive Fanfare for trumpets and timpani, which was also composed for the Prague exhibition grounds in 1891. It is a fitting choice as the concert falls under the auspices of both the Dvořák International Music Festival and the Year of Czech Music, a nationwide celebration on the occasion of Smetana’s bicentenary.
The acoustics on the exhibition grounds were of course not ideal (the orchestra was piped through speakers, as with any outdoor concert), and red flags bearing the motto “spojeni Mahlerem” (united by Mahler) bordered on kitsch. Transparent ponchos were distributed but no blankets despite predictions of cold and rain. Nevertheless, it was a welcome opportunity to reflect on Mahler’s musical and cultural identity, which reaches naturally across borders, or even oceans.
Ars longa, vita brevis.
