Czech Philharmonic • Semyon Bychkov

In addition to conducting at Prague’s Rudolfinum, Semyon Bychkov and the Czech Philharmonic in the 2023/2024 season, took the all Dvořák programmes to Korea and across Japan with three concerts at Tokyo’s famed Suntory Hall. In spring, an extensive European tour took the programmes to Spain, Austria, Germany, Belgium, and France and, at the end of year 2024, the Year of Czech Music culminated with three concerts at Carnegie Hall in New York. 

Among the significant joint achievements of Semyon Bychkov and the Czech Philharmonic is the release of a 7-CD box set devoted to Tchaikovsky’s symphonic repertoire and a series of international residencies. In 2024, Semjon Byčkov with the Czech Philharmonic concentrated on recording Czech music – a CD was released with Bedřich Smetanaʼs My Homeland and Antonín Dvořákʼs last three symphonies and ouvertures.

Bychkovʼs repertoire spans four centuries. His highly anticipated performances are a unique combination of innate musicality and rigorous Russian pedagogy. In addition to guest engagements with the world’s major orchestras and opera houses, Bychkov holds honorary titles with the BBC Symphony Orchestra – with whom he appears annually at the BBC Proms – and the Royal Academy of Music, who awarded him an Honorary Doctorate in July 2022. Bychkov was named “Conductor of the Year” by the International Opera Awards in 2015 and, by Musical America in 2022.

Bychkov began recording in 1986 and released discs with the Berlin Philharmonic, Bavarian Radio, Royal Concertgebouw, Philharmonia Orchestra and London Philharmonic for Philips. Subsequently a series of benchmark recordings with WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne featured Brahms, Mahler, Rachmaninov, Shostakovich, Strauss, Verdi, Glanert and Höller. Bychkov’s 1993 recording of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin with the Orchestre de Paris continues to win awards, most recently the Gramophone Collection 2021; Wagner’s Lohengrin was BBC Music Magazine’s Record of the Year (2010); and Schmidt’s Symphony No. 2 with the Vienna Philharmonic was BBC Music Magazine’s Record of the Month (2018).

Semyon Bychkov has one foot firmly in the culture of the East and the other in the West. Born in St Petersburg in 1952, he studied at the Leningrad Conservatory with the legendary Ilya Musin. Denied his prize of conducting the Leningrad Philharmonic, Bychkov emigrated to the United States in 1975 and, has lived in Europe since the mid-1980’s. In 1989, the same year he was named Music Director of the Orchestre de Paris, Bychkov returned to the former Soviet Union as the St Petersburg Philharmonic’s Principal Guest Conductor. He was appointed Chief Conductor of the WDR Symphony Orchestra (1997) and Chief Conductor of Dresden Semperoper (1998).

Allegro vivace
Andante con moto
Con moto moderato
Saltarello. Presto

On 3 February 1809, a son named Felix was born to the wealthy family of the banker Abraham Mendelssohn. He began playing piano and violin at the age of seven, at age nine he made a public appearance, and already at 12 he began composing. Wisely, Felix’s father did not stand in the way of the development of his son’s talent; to the contrary, he actively supported the boy—perhaps as a banker, he was well aware of how fleeting wealth was, and that the only thing that could immortalise his name was an act of artistic creativity. Felix was fortunate to have grown up surrounded by plenty in what was then one of Germany’s richest families, and never in his life did he have to concern himself with earning a living. Already as a child, he was composing symphonies, cantatas, songs, choruses, and attempts at musical drama. Many of these compositions (including symphonies!) were performed soon after they were written at regular Sunday household concerts, for which leading professional musicians were hired, so the young composer received immediate feedback—what would Antonín Dvořák have given to have had something like that! After the travels of his youth (Germany, England, Scotland, Italy), he became the conductor of the Gewandhaus Orchestra in Leipzig, and he served in that capacity continuously from 1835 (with the exception of the years 1841–1842) until the end of his life. As its conductor, he improved the Leipzig orchestra, establishing its outstanding reputation, which continues to this day.

Mendelssohn composed five mature symphonies. The Symphony in A Major (“Italian) was the third to be written, but based on the opus numbers assigned by the composer, it was his fourth. Mendelssohn’s first sketches for the symphony date from his journey to Italy in 1830/31. The Hamburg native was enthralled by sunny Italy’s joyous atmosphere and temperament. The young Felix sent home letters full of colourful accounts of everything he experienced and saw abroad, and he showed his talent as an artist by supplementing his descriptions with lovely drawings. The composer noted his sources of inspiration: “For most of my music I am indebted to things that are not, in fact, musical: ruins, paintings, the beauty of nature.” He also wrote that he did not begin sketching the symphony until he had visited Naples, because he said that experience must not be left out. Of course, there is no descriptive narrative of concrete scenery. Instead, the composer poured into his music the impressions that Italy made on him, so we can view the symphony’s individual movements as four pictures of Italian life through the eyes of a young German intellectual. The sunny Allegro vivace takes us to the joyous merriment of Rome’s carnivals. The Andante con moto was inspired by a religious procession with a dignified atmosphere interrupted only by two melodic, pastoral episodes, during which it is as if the observer momentarily diverted his gaze, dreaming of the beauties of nature. The minuet Con moto moderato was apparently inspired by Goethe’s poem Lilis Park, then in the trio, according to the scholar Thomas Grey, the composer expresses his homesickness (French horns symbolising Germany’s forests and hunting). The concluding Presto is filled with the rhythms of Italian folk dancing, the Roman saltarello and the wild Neapolitan tarantella.

Mendelssohn composed his “Italian Symphony” after returning to Berlin in 1832. The composer conducted the first performance in March 1833 in London. Although the public received the symphony enthusiastically, the composer was not satisfied with it, and he soon began work on its revision. He never finished the new score, and he never had the work published during his lifetime. It did not appear in print until four years after his death.

Většina oper Richarda Wagnera našla inspiraci v mytologických a bájných námětech eposů, ság a legend. Nejinak je tomu i v první takto zaměřené opeře Tannhäuser, v níž skladatel zpracoval středověkou ságu o minnesängrovi, který kolísá mezi ideální, nenaplněnou láskou k šlechtičně Alžbětě a erotickými rozkošemi ve Venušině hoře. Zároveň je s tímto klíčovým rozporem spojen zápas pěvců na Wartburku, jehož námětem je soutěž o píseň nejvýstižněji vyjadřující podstatu lásky. „Velká romantická opera“, jak bylo dílo označeno, se stala novým Wagnerovým pokusem o umělecké zpracování rozporu společnosti a umělce, který hledá spásu v porozumění a zaujetí ženy pro jeho činy. Premiéra Tannhäusera se uskutečnila 19. října 1845 a obecenstvo ji přijalo vlažně a se zdvořilou rozpačitostí, zatímco hudební kritika operu jednoznačně odsoudila. Velkorysá předehra je vlastně sama o sobě jedinečným symfonickým dílem. Proto také bývá často uváděna mimo divadelní prostor, na koncertním pódiu. Je zajímavé, že obšírný komentář k obsahu a průběhu předehry zanechal samotný skladatel, který je – jako ostatně u všech svých děl – také autorem libreta opery. Uveďme tedy zkráceně alespoň podstatné části Wagnerova výkladu:

„Na začátku předvádí orchestr zpěv poutníků. Blíží se, zazní mocným hlasem a zase se vzdaluje. (…) Jakmile nastane noc, zjeví se čarovné přízraky: v růžovém červánku zní jásavý zvuk jako předzvěst rozkošného, bujného tance. To jsou svůdná kouzla ,Hory Venušinyʻ, jež za nocí znějí do duše těch, v nichž plane vášnivá touha. Přiváben lákavým zjevením, blíží se Tannhäuser, pěvec lásky. Pyšně zní jeho jásavá píseň…. Odpoví mu divoký jásot… a opojí vůní jeho smysly. V nejsvůdnějším šeru spatří teď nevyslovitelně rozkošnou postavu ženy: slyší sladce rozechvělý hlas, hlas Sirény, libující uspokojení všech divokých žádostí. Venuše se mu zjevila. Žár se zmocňuje jeho srdce a smyslů, žhoucí touha rozněcuje krev v jeho žilách…. Až předstupuje před samu bohyni se svým chvalozpěvem na lásku. Jako na kouzelné zavolání ožívají teď před jeho očima všechny divy Hory Venušiny. (…) Venuše ho, zpitého touhou, obejme a unáší do nekonečných dálek, až na práh věčnosti. Jako divoké vojsko přežene se Venušina družina a v okamžiku bouře umlká. Jenom rozkošně znějící chvění oživuje ovzduší a nad místem, kde se zjevilo úchvatné kouzlo, zní dech líbezné, blažené lásky. (…) Znovu se však probouzí jitro: z velké dálky je slyšet blížící se zpěv kajícných poutníků (…). Ovzduší, které nám dříve znělo jako nářek zatracenců, zní stále radostněji, takže konečně, když vyjde zářící slunce a zpěv poutníků s nadšením zvěstuje všemu, co žije, dosažení spásy, zvučí jeho vlnobití, vznešené a uchvacující. Tak celý lidský život zní hymnem vykoupení a obě odloučené podstaty, duch a smysly, objímají se v jediném posvátném polibku krásy.“