NEW YORK — We who hear music in New York are spoiled by Carnegie Hall programming frequent visits by great orchestras from the U.S. and elsewhere. But last week’s sustained visit by the Czech Philharmonic in honor of Czech Music Year took on the atmosphere of a festival. The orchestra — traditional in aspect: men in tuxes and women in floor-length black dresses — performed under banners and amid floral arrangements, and the dynamic Czech president Petr Pavel attended the Dec. 5 concert, at which the ensemble and its tremendously accomplished chief conductor and music director, Russo-American maestro Semyon Bychkov, received a medal commemorating Antonín Dvořák.
The Bohemian composer, his nation’s greatest symphonist (and, I would argue, the most fecund classical melodist this side of Franz Schubert and Pyotr Tchaikovsky) was the presiding spirit of the orchestra’s Carnegie visit due to his connection to Carnegie Hall and to his furthering of a distinctively American music. As one of the world’s most eminent composers, Dvořák was invited from 1892 to 1895 to lead the American Conservatory. While here, he conducted parts of four concerts in the recently opened Carnegie Hall — though not, despite what we heard in a speech, the world premiere of the New World Symphony, with its themes suggested by Black and Native American idioms. Dvořák was present to hear the New York Philharmonic’s Anton Seidl lead the work.
Each of three major Czech Philharmonic concerts Dec. 3-5 began with one of his concertos played by a star soloist: the Cello Concerto (1894-95)with Yo-Yo Ma, the Violin Concerto (1879, revised three years later) with Gil Shaham, and the Piano Concerto (1876) with Daniil Trifonov. After the concertos, each soloist played a brief solo encore.
By any standard, the three concertos — though all meriting performance — were played in the declining order of their musical merit. Ironically, they increased daily in the quality of the execution. The festival’s very opening piece, the Cello Concerto, written in America, is justly among the composer’s most lauded works — often performed and oft recorded, including (very well) by Yo-Yo Ma, both with Kurt Masur and the New York Philharmonic and (even better) Lorin Maazel and the Berlin Philharmonic.
But somehow, even though the work is in both Ma’s and the orchestra’s artistic DNA, the rendition Dec. 3, though sonorous and pleasant (and needless to say rewarded with what might call the “as seen on TV” standing ovation for the renowned cellist) felt merely like good routine. Perhaps there was not sufficient rehearsal for such a (seemingly) surefire prospect? The emotional dial didn’t move until Ma played — with a much more plangent tone — his encore, which paid tribute to Dvořák’s involvement with Black musicians and students: a medley of “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen” and “Goin’ Home” (adapted from the ravishing English horn solo in the New World‘s Largo movement.)
After intermission, Bychkov and the players found a much richer tone and sense of connectedness in three movements from Smetana’s iconic, nationalist suite of symphonic poems Má vlast (My country). The Liszt- and Wagner-influenced second piece in the series, Vltava (evoking the key Czech river the Germans call the Moldau), flowed and shimmered along with particular beauty. And throughout, one noticed the skill and clear articulation of the instrumental solo work, from the restrained harps up through the crashing cymbals. Again, the encores — two of Dvořák’s Slavonic Dances — took wing.
The next night’s concert was far more highly charged. Bychkov is not an assertive, self-aggrandizing podium figure but exercises great balance over his forces, and the rich mellowness of the orchestral sound proved a constant pleasure. In the opening concerto — from its solo initial bars a remarkable test of the violinist’s endurance — the conductor was well matched in terms of interactivity with the players by Shaham, who watched his colleagues constantly, often smiling beatifically.
His musicianly playing, continually light, sweet, even of production and timbrally unified throughout the music’s broad range, was admirable. I heard but did not much heed some complaints that his is not that of a traditional “Czech violinist.” Written for if never played by the virtuoso Joseph Joachim, the solo part is hardly outside the Central European tradition; the material turns most recognizably “folkish” in the final movement, also full of Dvořák’s trademark false endings. After this exhilarating performance, Shaham offered the Gavotte en Rondeau from Bach’s Third Partita.
On the concert’s second half, we heard a wonderfully organic Mahler Fifth Symphony; after some of the “effects without causes” Mahler symphonic treatments that Carnegie listeners have endured of late, it was a pleasure to encounter the Fifth led with a sure sense of narrative through line and overarching architecture.
The audience followed in riveted silence. Mahler — whom, like Sigmund Freud and others, we think of as “echt Viennese” — was born and raised in the Czech lands, exposed to Czech, Jewish, and Romany as well as Germanic musical sources. The very first of the 72 concerts Mahler himself led at Carnegie included Smetana’s Prodaná nevěsta (Bartered Bride) overture — maybe the greatest assertion ever of the wonders of Czech violin playing. And he also programmed Dvořák and other non-Germanic “Austro-Hungarian” composers like Károly Goldmark and Georges Enescu.
One wonderful evening followed another. The Dec. 5 emerged perhaps as the most exciting of all, due to the relative rarity in live performance of the material programmed: the insanely demanding, stylistically diverse Piano Concerto and Leoš Janáček’s resplendent, nonpareil Glagolitic Mass (1927) — an astonishingly forward-looking work for a composer in his 70s. Carnegie had witnessed the Piano Concerto only eight times before, four of them with Rudolf Firkušný in the virtuosic edition he then favored, doctored by his teacher, Vílem Kurz. This was the seventh Carnegie Glagolitic Mass, heard here first in 1975, and the first by a Czech (or indeed non-American) orchestra.
Trifonov, like Bychkov, comports himself onstage without flourishes, to serve the music rather than a publicity machine. I confess I had heard the Piano Concerto only on recordings (Firkušný and Sviatoslav Richter) and had little sense how it would “play” live. Trifonov’s contribution was simply astonishing, maintaining evenness of tone throughout a huge dynamic range and executing the incessant feats the composer imposed on him (often potentially covered by heavy orchestration). And the orchestra reacted with ideal symbiosis. It may not be a great work, but the audience recognized the quality of its execution. Trifonov offered a palette-clearing morsel of Sleeping Beauty, arranged by Mikhail Pletnev.
The Glagolitic Mass — a work fueled by Pan-Slavism rather than traditional religious faith, demanding many additional musicians on the stage — really is a masterpiece, and sounded like one in this performance. Both the enormous, well-focused Prague Philharmonic Choir and the fine organist Daniela Valtová Kosinová (who had the mass’s penultimate section to herself) rose impressively to the work’s rhythmic challenges. The brass and percussion really let loose, as Janáček requires.
The mezzo-soprano part is, as in Beethoven’s Ninth, inconspicuous, only perceptible if badly done; plummy Lucie Hilscherová did just fine. The suddenly very prominent bass David Leigh showed a striking sound but, as in his Washington National Opera Rocco in October, might have been steadier in the middle register. Lyubov Petrova (a good Met Zerbinetta, Oscar, and Woglinde) was announced for the taxing lirico-spinto soprano part; in the event, we heard Katerina Knežíková, an accomplished Kat’á Kabanová and Rusalka, exactly right for this assignment. Aleš Briscein, really today’s leading Czech lyric tenor, proved tireless and sonorous in his rigorous duties. Bravi tutti, perhaps most especially Maestro Bychkov.
In terms of repertoire, the next night’s concert in Zankel Hall proved the most enlightening evening of the four. Lukáš Vasilek, the Prague Philharmonic Choir’s deft principal conductor, led a subset of his charges in much unfamiliar choral music. My only complaint would be that — as not infrequently in Zankel — the lighting was too dim for listeners to read the thoughtfully provided texts.
The first part encompassed Prague Te Deum 1989 by Petr Eben (1929-2007), also employing a brass quartet, timpanist, and percussionist, and Janáček’s 1906 setting of the Lord’s Prayer, scored for harp, organ and tenor as well as the mixed choir. Eben’s Velvet Revolution-linked piece — to my ear rather anonymous “postwar international” in style, with no evident folkish elements — was very well performed by all concerned, with excellent ensemble and attack. Otčenáš (Our Father) left a stronger impression: another striking, almost wistful religious work by its atheistic composer. Valtová Kosinová reappeared on the organ, joined by subtle harpist Jana Boušková.
Subbing in the short but not easy assignment for Czech’s world-class spinto tenor Pavel Černoch (recently Laca in Lyric Opera of Chicago’s Jenůfa but elusive when it comes to New York appearances), the Met’s budding Wagnerian Kyle van Schoonhoven sounded terrific, alternating solo lines with choral responses. After the intermission, we heard two a cappella works, Dvořák’s highly melodic V přírodě (In Nature’s Realm), five lovely strophic songs sometimes employing folk meter, and with smaller but very capable choral forces; then a 1934 cycle of four Marian songs by the cosmopolitan Bohuslav Martinů, their lighter texture marked by characteristic shifting tempos and unexpected harmonic resolutions. More Martinů on American stages would be welcome.
The program ended with Jan Novák’s 1966 Testamentum Iosephi Eberle, which would have yielded more enjoyment had one been able to make out the enigmatic, ironic texts. Here, four excellent horns joined in, with seven of the choristers taking brief solo parts — the lower voices particularly effectively. As an encore to the grateful crowd, we again heard “Goin’ Home” — not long on crisp English consonants but absolutely lovely in tone and feeling. It was a privilege to experience this window into Czech musical life.
