SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

Smetana, Beethoven and Dvořák: Freddy Kempf (piano), Prague Symphony Orchestra, Libor Pešek, St. David’s Hall, Cardiff, 07.05.09 (GPu)

Smetana: Vltava (The Moldau) [Ma Vlast] (1874)
Beethoven: Piano Concerto No.1 in C, op.15 (1795)
Dvořák: Symphony No.9 in E minor, From the New World, op.95 (1893)

I have rarely, if ever, been disappointed when hearing one of the major Czech Orchestras play the music of their native land. And, I am happy to report, no cause for disappointment was offered by this concert given by the Prague Symphony Orchestra, conducted by the confidence–inspiring figure of Libor Pešek.

The works by Smetana and Dvořák are both very familiar, even to non-Czech audiences (and orchestras). For this orchestra and this conductor these are pieces which constitute a central part of any definition of the musical self, important elements of the core around which their understanding of all other music develops and coheres. Music that musicians have grown up with obviously has the potential to elicit from them some of their best performances – so long as the dangers of over-familiarity and complacency are avoided. Here – again, this has often been my experience in hearing orchestras from this part of the world – such dangers seem consistently to be avoided, perhaps because the music inescapably also carries a national and political charge, a charge which can still be embraced unembarrassedly.

Smetana’s Vltava is one of the great works in a tradition one might describe as the music of place, the aural equivalent of landscape painting. Here it benefited, appropriately enough, from a thoroughly fluid opening, the flutes and clarinets, each ‘representing’ one of the river’s twin sources, rippled beautifully into unity and made their way together through a richly evoked land of forests and meadows, where Pešek’s shaping of phrases and control of rhythm were altogether exemplary. Pešek’s refusal to hurry was part of a kind of civilised pastoral feel, communicating a strong sense of the man–made element in the landscape. Though this was, properly enough, a performance full of affection, it avoided facile sentimentality or romanticisation; the water-sprites who danced in the moonlight were surprisingly solid and unethereal, real presences from ancient natural religion, not nineteenth-century decorative fantasies. The Orchestra played quiet passages with a pleasing delicacy and strength, and Pešek balanced orchestral sounds with great assurance. The glow of majesty was palpable as the river flowed into the distance towards the end of the work and as, in symmetrical balance with the work’s opening, it descended into near silence to join the Elbe, one’s sense of a musical journey completed was peculiarly satisfying. It made for an impressive opening to the programme and made one anticipate with some eagerness the performance of Dvořák’s Ninth with which the programme was to end.

Before that we were offered a performance of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No.1, with Freddy Kempf as soloist. The quite lengthy orchestral exposition which begins the first movement was full of graceful dignity and brought out the Mozartean textures and shapes of the music very attractively. The playing of the woodwinds was a particular delight. In this first movement – and even more markedly in the second – I found something very slightly disappointing about the playing of Kempf. To put it at its simplest, there was less poetry than some interpreters have found in this music; on this particular evening, at least, Kempf temperament was more fully attuned to the dramatic than the poetic, evidenced by the attractive air of spontaneity and the dramatic flurries which characterised his performance of the first movement cadenza. In the succeeding Largo, Pešek and Kempf handled the dialogue between soloist and orchestra very well, but Kempf’s playing still seemed to lack a certain inwardness. The work of the string section was notable throughout this movement and in the closing bars Kempf’s piano was heard to beautiful effect against the pizzicato strings. It was in the third movement that Kempf really came into his own. There was an impish sense of playfulness and power – actual and potential – to his playing, and he handled complex runs with panache, the articulation consistently impressive. His innate sense of theatricality was (without being other than apt and proportionate at all times) was everywhere evident. He and Pešek produced a movement full of great good humour and joie de vivre, in which the presence of the dance never seemed very far away. This was an excitingly witty reading of the last movement, not quite matched, in quality, by what had preceded it.

After the interval, we were treated to a richly enjoyable performance of Dvořák’s Ninth. It has always seemed to me that the work’s sub-title, “From the New World” has about it a degree of ambiguity. That it might designate this a piece drawn from American musical sources and experience is one obvious meaning; but we might also take it to indicate that this a piece written in America but looking, with a degree of longing and even homesickness, ‘from’ there back to his ‘old world’. The work will bear both emphases. With this orchestra and this conductor, it was no surprise that what we got was a performance which emphasised the latter possibility. This was a New World with a decidedly Czech accent, and none the worse for it. In the adagio introduction to the first movement the low strings were very imposing, creating a kind of low centre of gravity, musically speaking, which gave shape and character to the movement as a whole, a firm foundation on which everything else was built. The orchestral playing – not least by the brass – was of a high order, and so too Pešek’s integration of the various sections, without loss of clarity. The movement’s conclusion was particularly exciting in its sharply accented rhythms and its tautness. In the second movement the gravity of the opening chords in the winds was succeeded by a supremely eloquent reading of the famous melody for cor anglais, a melody which, on this occasion at least, sounded as though it owed at least as much to Czech folk melodies as to American spirituals. It was noticeable how little demonstrative conducting Pešek seemed to find necessary though much of this movement; at times he seemed to settle for listening and enjoying, as if confident in the musicians’ ability to articulate what had no doubt been clarified at rehearsal and (understandably) content with the performance they were producing. There was a quality of rapt near-stillness to much of this Largo and the conclusion, when only a small number of strings are employed, was a moment of exquisite beauty. By contrast, the third movement, for all the considerable complexity of its structure, was full of vitality and surely could be mistaken by no one for anything other than music thoroughly imbued with a Czech spirit, much of it redolent of the same kinds of landscapes as had already inspired Smetana and remained full of the same kind of significance here in Dvořák. In the closing Allegro momentum and relaxation were equally evident. Without ever overdoing it Pešek seemed to point up Dvořák’s reuse of materials from earlier movements and the sense of felt-integration and unity was very strong. The whole carried great conviction, a deep sense of naturalness and an unfussy attention to detail. Pešek’s control of dynamic contrast did much to clarify matters of structure and the whole had a quality of considered intensity which didn’t preclude a sense of ease. It made a stirring and powerful conclusion to the evening.

Glyn Pursglove 


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