TOUCH THE SOUND

A Personal History of the PKF—Prague PhilharmoniaAuthor: Martin Bialas

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When I was asked at the end of the season to note down my recollections, I felt neither qualified nor strong enough to do so. It had been a demanding season and, as always at such a time, I was looking forward to a rest, free from practicing and from the stress which inevitably accompanies each concert and tour, as well as worries in general. And on top of that, it will now be a quarter of a century since the first concert by the PKF — Prague Philharmonia, or the Prague Chamber Philharmonia as it was then. I felt that it was unrealistic to recollect everything which had happened over such a long period of time, but in spite of this, I asked to be sent some old work schedules. I put aside two evenings to go through them and then, from this fairy-tale Pensieve, I slowly began to extract a thin thread of long-forgotten memories, some of which I present here.

There were indications from this new musical group’s first concert that it might turn out to be something exceptional. To commemorate the national holiday on 28 October 1994, a gala evening was held at Prague Castle’s Vladislav Hall, part of which was a concert conducted by our chief conductor, Jiří Bělohlávek. Our first concert, leading state dignitaries, President Václav Havel at the front, a live television broadcast, an ancient hall, all of us around twenty years old. This all had an electrifying eff ect. We felt great pride and I doubt it would occur to anyone to this day to wait for the president to leave before going off stage with the conductor following the standing ovation. However, I believe this faux pas was forgiven, as eight years later we received another invitation to an important social and political event — the NATO summit in Prague. Michal Pavlíček was asked by President Václav Havel to compose a piece to commemorate this meeting. In his composition A Celebration of Freedom he created an original collage from famous works from musical history which he linked together with his own compositions. In this new form you could hear Vltava, Ode to Joy, the Marseillaise, Lennon’s Power to the People and a traditional gospel. The composition and its performance was an uncommon hit with the summit guests. President Havel himself recalled how many of those who were at the summit, albeit then holding diff erent functions, would enthusiastically recall that evening and the concert.

Not even royalty could escape an encounter with the orchestra. We were in the Alhambra in Granada in July 2001 when the police dogs started sniff ing around, so we guessed there was going to be a special guest at our concert. It was rumoured that the Spanish king, Juan Carlos, was going to attend with his wife. The women started to learn how to curtsey, the men how to bow, though in the end His Highness, a great sports fan, opted instead for a football match, which was obviously a clear mistake. You can watch a football match anytime, but to hear Pastoral and Eroica played by the PKF — Prague Philharmonia at the famous Alhambra was a unique opportunity. Queen Sophia, however, did not miss the concert and was fulsome in her praise afterwards. The only blot on an otherwise beautiful evening was all the unnecessary training in royal etiquette, as only Jiří Bělohlávek and the orchestra concertmaster met Sophia of Greece. Apart from her impressions of the concert, during the short royal conversation the traditional topic of the Spanish weather was brought up, ‘Do you like it?’

Queen Sophia was not the only royal to attend the PKF’s concerts. An evening in memory of Luciano Pavarotti was organized in October 2008 in the amazing surroundings of the stone city of Petra in the Jordan desert, with Queen Rania-Al Jasin in attendance. Our reward for waiting two and a half hours at our music stands before the evening started was not only an outstanding artistic experience with the leading singers from the world of opera and pop, but what really stood out was the post-concert meeting with this elegant queen of Jordan.

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Our appearance at the Jordan concert dedicated to Luciano Pavarotti was mainly the result of the positive response from previous collaborations with the PKF. In April 2005 we had the honour of working with Maestro Pavarotti on his last tour, part of which was a concert in Prague. The Maestro could now only move around on a three-wheeled vehicle, and so a special ramp had to be constructed to our rehearsal room. The concert was filled with all of the maestro’s most famous arias and songs, and the Sazka Arena, where it was held, was filled with an electrifying and celebratory atmosphere. And it was at that time that we began working with the world’s leading singers. In November of the same year we first met the free spirit which is Rolando Villazón, and he again confirmed the fact that the greater the artist, the nicer the person. We had the same experience with the kind and musically direct Nino Machaidze, the perfectionist Juan Diego Flórez and the temperamental Diana Damrau. What connects all of them, regardless of their differences, is that they give their all, even at rehearsals. Gala concerts often take place outdoors and from time to time it can happen that during a romantic aria the clouds gather, thunder roars and it starts to pour. Usually we musicians are OK as we are protected by a canopy or a roof, otherwise we couldn’t play. However, there are exceptions, such as one concert in Monza in Italy in June 2008. The stage had been prepared in the royal garden, the audience were on tenterhooks to see the superstar tenor José Carreras and… there was no concert either that evening or the next. The rain gods were against us.

It was a first-class musical as well as social event when the pianist Yefim Bronfman was invited to Prague by the PKF in January 2000. He spent three evenings at the Rudolfinum, where he played all of Beethoven’s five concertos with us, conducted by Jiří Bělohlávek. We had assumed that Bronfman’s piano playing would be wonderful, but the fact that he made the piano in the rehearsal room (which many pianists had toiled with) sound like a Steinway, took our breath away. His virtuosity was complemented by orchestral pieces by Ludwig van Beethoven.

As a ‘young’ orchestra we could occasionally allow ourselves the odd joke. After a long successful tour, one chord too many is guaranteed to send any conductor off the rails. Or at a final rehearsal when after waiting twenty minutes for Mr Bělohlávek we decided to start Beethoven’s Seventh without him, or when Mr Bělohlávek had been waiting ages for to Dvořák’s piano concerto in the hope that the soloist would appear during the long introduction. Or in Brescia in June 2002. We were waiting to meet the legendary Argentinian pianist Martha Argerich. The programme featured Sergei Prokofiev’s Third Piano Concerto, which is demanding for both the soloist and the orchestra. The rehearsal had been planned for the late morning. The pianist was nowhere to be seen. The start of the rehearsal kept getting put back. Later we decided to start the rehearsal in the afternoon. The soloist still nowhere. Finally, after her flight arrived and she had rested in the hotel we began to rehearse late in the evening. Martha’s playing was so incredible that we happily forgave her this ‘little joke’.

Keeping in motion, 2016. © Pavel Hejný

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October 2004 and we were setting off on our first North American tour, made more remarkable by the fact that we were visiting Alaska, the largest state in the US, which is not a common final destination. We were playing a concert at the university in the town of Fairbanks and in Anchorage. The orchestra was led by the conductor Bohumil Kulínský who, unlike many of his colleagues, did not insist on repeatedly rehearsing a well-known programme, and so we had time to explore the area and try to absorb as many experiences as possible. We travelled across this enormous land with its devastated flora as a result of a succession of tsunamis which blighted Alaska so often in its history. We took in the glaciers twisting along the mountain slopes and bathed at the end of the world in the hot springs of the Chena River — you need a helicopter to get any further. Nearly thirteen years later and we were off on our second tour of the United States. We were playing nearly every night and when we weren’t, then we had a long journey ahead of us. Over the three weeks we only had one free day in Phoenix, Arizona, so we tried to cram in as much as we can. On this day, though, there was a snow storm at one of the most famous natural sites in the world — the Grand Canyon. But we were happy all the same. Who else can say they’ve been to the Grand Canyon and never saw it?

July 1998. We were travelling by bus north of Amman in Jordan, passing through Palestine refugee camps, which after decades should now have been towns and villages, until we arrived in the ancient city of Jerash. Here in the grounds of a Roman town, as part of a local music festival, we played a unique version of Haydn’s famous symphony with kettledrum strokes — but without kettledrums. Although the Jordanian organiser had agreed to provide this percussion instrument, he evidently didn’t know what instrument it was. Ten years later and we landed a few more kilometres to the north at the airport in Damascus. We played in what is probably the only concert hall there and charmed the foreigner visitors with Schubert’s Unfinished and Dvořák’s Seventh, then charmed the locals with a composition by the Syrian composer Zaid Jabri. We rested for a while in a restaurant, and while the muezzin sang from the minaret of the Umayyad Mosque, we secretly poured out some wine. Beneath the majestic castle the conductor Leoš Svárovský tried out the acoustics of the amphitheatre of ancient Palmyra by singing Cavaradossi’s famous aria Recondita armonia. But the journeys to the mysterious Orient did not end there, and there were regular concerts at the Royal Opera House Muscat in Oman, collaborating with the most famous soloists from this period, combined with breaks in the shade of the palms of the deep wadis, mountain trekking through the wilderness or swimming in the azure sea alongside sea turtles, rays and hundreds of species of fish.

Sněží partitury, 2016. It’s snowing score, 2016. © Pavel Hejný

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I can also remember an outstanding performance of Beethoven’s concerto by the Russian violinist Sergei Stadler, who was also the first to be entrusted with conducting the entire evening. There then followed mainly violinists who took on the role of soloist as well as concert conductor. Maxim Vengerov toured Italy with us, conducting Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade while also taking the part of solo violin. In 2011, the organiser of the Prague Spring festival invited the American violinist Robert McDuffie for a themed American Four Seasons evening for the Prague audience. The concert consisted of two of the ‘four seasons’ from Philip Glass’s violin concerto The American Seasons, and four violin concertos by the Italian giant of Baroque music, Antonio Vivaldi, which made for an interesting juxtaposition between minimalism and compositions which have survived the test of time. In 2001 we met Shlomo Mintz for the first of several engagements. This exceptional violinist was invited to conduct at a subscription PKF concert, which also included our flagship piece, Schoenberg’s Transfigured Night, as well as Bruch’s Violin Concerto in G Minor. This collaboration continued when we attended his violin competition held in Sion in Switzerland, the capital of the canton of Valais. We accompanied the finalists of the competition and invited the first winner, Roman Simovich from Ukraine, to the opening subscription concert of the 2003—2004 season, where he performed one of his favourite pieces, Brahms’s Concerto in D Major.

Japan. The land of the promised music — in particular Czech. At least that’s the rumour. It’s clear to anyone travelling to the Land of the Rising Sun — from Germany, Austria or America — that they will be greeted with the same warm reception as the Czechs were bringing the New World. We first visited the Japanese islands in October 1996. The programme, which was arranged by Tomáš Hanus and the singer Zdena Kloubová, was dedicated mainly to Mozart, while the Czech part of the repertoire was represented by Antonín Dvořák’s Czech Suite. We were enthusiastic about the perfect acoustics in the halls of each town we visited, while our playing was received enthusiastically by the Japanese audiences. Where else today can you experience an ovation when you’re leaving the concert building than in Japan? But we enjoyed our stay in more ways than just musically. The photography buffs among us scoured the camera shops, the electronics geeks discovered a paradise in Tokyo’s Akihabara, gourmets toured the restaurants, while many people also visited the quiet corners with their shrines, which were sometimes hidden in unbelievable places between skyscrapers. And you quickly got used to the fact that everything was automated — you don’t touch anyone or anything anywhere. And then you’re standing in front of the door at the harbour terminal by the volcanic Lake Shikotsu on the northern island of Hokkaido, on one side are Japanese, on the other Czechs, and you wait for ages to see who will open first… until one of us turns the handle.

Letíme vzducholodí, 2017. Flying by airship, 2017. © Petr Králík

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One important activity, which is also quite educational today, is the PKF — Prague Philharmonia’s recordings for the leading Czech and international publishers. Peter Dvorský sang his high-profile CD with us for Supraphon, for whom we also recorded Mendelssohn’s Scottish Symphony and Italian Symphony, as well as a recording of the opening concert for the Prague Spring 2010 festival, which traditionally includes Smetana’s My Country. We have made several recordings for the French label Harmonia Mundi, we accompanied the wonderful Isabelle Faust on Bohuslav Martinů’s Second Violin Concerto, not forgetting the French cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras and his Antonín Dvořák, while just the orchestra recorded Mozart’s Haffner Symphony and the Linz Symphony. We also highly appreciate working with Deutsche Grammophon, who recorded Anna Netrebko’s Souvenirs during her secret stay in Prague in the spring of 2008. And I can remember our first recording for this prestigious company. It was September and we had just completed recording Le Belle Immagini with Magdalena Kožená at the Rudolfinum. It was the afternoon, I had got off the metro at Staroměstská station and when I was going up the escalator I heard something about skyscrapers… New York… aeroplanes. It was September, September 11, 2001, and no-one knew that the world was about to change.

What doesn’t change, though, is the youthful and positive spirit of the PKF — Prague Philharmonia orchestra. When the ensemble was formed, the oldest members were around twenty-five, but even so we were touchy about being labelled ‘young’. Our guiding principle was our professionalism based on the experiences that many of us had gained from the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester and working with the leading players from renowned symphonic bodies, the world’s leading conductors and mainly the founder of that orchestra, Claudio Abbado. The chief conductor of the PKF — Prague Philharmonia, Jiří Bělohlávek, assembled a group of musicians who wanted to work in that vein. Naturally, the membership of the ensemble has also changed over the years. For example, Radek Baborák went to the Berlin Philharmonic, Ludmila Peterková began to follow a solo career, Petr Šporcl was more attracted by chamber music, etc. Oto Reiprich, Judita Škodová and Jan Prokop then came in to fill positions which had been vacated. After twenty-five years in the orchestra, the oldest founding members are precisely that many years older. We pass on our experience to the younger ones, while we take from them what many may have forgotten — youthfulness, enthusiasm and not being too serious. So what to say in conclusion? Perhaps just that for these reasons I don’t worry about the future of the orchestra — about the future of the PKF — Prague Philharmonia.

Thank you to my colleague Jan Adam for helping to prise out these memories.

A Personal History of the PKF— Prague Philharmonia

Komorní let, 2017. Chamber flight, 2017. © Petr Králík