Opening Concerts of the Season • Daniil Trifonov, Selina Ott and Semyon Bychkov

Named as “Artist of the Year 2019” by the magazine Musical America, Daniil Trifonov is known worldwide as a soloist, chamber player, and composer. Combining perfect technique with extraordinary sensitivity and depth of interpretation, he can enchant both audiences and music critics. “What he does with his hands is technically incredible… and then there is his touch – so gifted with tenderness and, at the same time, he has the demonic element. I have never heard anything like this before,” said Martha Argerich in amazement. His Liszt album Transcendental on the Deutsche Grammophon label, for which he records exclusively, won a Grammy as the best new solo album of 2018. In 2021, the French government made Trifonov a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. According to The Times of London, Trifonov is “without question the most astounding pianist of our age.”

A native of Nizhny Novgorod, he began playing the piano aged five. He studied under Tatiana Zelikman at Moscow’s Gnessin Academy of Music and then under Sergei Babayan at the Cleveland Institute of Music. He came to international attention during the 2010/2011 season, when he was among the top finishers at three prestigious competitions: third prize at the Chopin Competition in Warsaw, first prize at the Rubinstein Competition in Tel Aviv, and first prize (and the Grand Prix) at the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow. In 2013, leading Italian critics awarded him the prestigious Franco Abbiati Prize for the best instrumental soloist.

Over his career, Daniil Trifonov has released a number of outstanding recordings on various labels with recital and concerto repertoire. As a Deutsche Grammophon artist, he last presented himself in October 2021 on a recording titled Bach: The Art of Life with contents inspired by the programme of his tour of the USA and Europe. 

In the 2023/2024 season, Trifonov toured successfully on three continents, appearing with the best orchestras (Los Angeles Philharmonic, Atlanta Symphony, Israel Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, Chicago Symphony, Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia). He toured Europe with the cellist Gautier Capuçon and made solo appearances in Vienna, Munich, Madrid, Boston, Dallas, and New York’s Carnegie Hall. 

Trifonov also studied composition, he has written piano concertos and music for solo piano or chamber ensembles, premiering the works himself. As part of his residency with the New York Philharmonic for the 2019/2020 season, he was the curator of the “Perspectives” concert series at Carnegie Hall, and the season before that he was the Artist-in-Residence of the Berlin Philharmonic.

As first woman ever in the seventy-year history of the ARD International Music Competition Munich Selina Ott was awarded 1st Prize in the category trumpet in September 2018 at the age of only 20.
Subsequently, she has been invited to perform with leading orchestras such as the WDR Symphony Orchestra, the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Tonkünstler-Orchester Niederösterreich and the Czech Philharmonic, at international festivals like Bachfest Leipzig, Grafenegg, Rheingau Musik Festival, Sauerland Herbst, Festival Emergents Barcelona, Herbstgold Festival Eisenstadt, Musikfest Bremen and SWR Schwetzinger Festspiele, and at concert halls such as Wiener Konzerthaus, Musikverein Wien, Philharmonie Berlin and the Rudolfinum Prag.
She has already made her solo debut with such orchestras as the WDR Sinfonieorchester, Hamburger Symphoniker, Haydn Philharmonie, Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie, Collegium Musicum Basel, Philharmonische Orchester Hagen at the Kölner Philharmonie, Philharmonie Essen, Mozarteum Salzburg and the Musical Theater Basel.
Selina Ott started her music studies at the age of five years on the piano. One year later, she began to study trumpet with her father Erich Ott. She continued her studies at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna with Martin Mühlfellner and at the University of Music in Karlsruhe with Reinhold Friedrich. In 2020 Selina graduated with distinction (Bachelor of Arts) in the class of Roman Rindberger at the Music and Arts University of the City of Vienna (MUK).
In addition, she attended masterclasses of Gabor Tarkövi, Jens Lindemann, Kristian Steenstrup, Allen Vizzutti, Bo Nilsson, Hans Gansch, Guillaume Couloumy, and Klaus Schuhwerk.
In her young career Selina Ott has been awarded eight times the first prize of the Austrian prima la musica competition in the category trumpet solo on regional and national level, and she received the first prize of the 2017 Lions Music Prize.

In the 2023/2024 season, Semyon Bychkov’s programmes centred on Dvořák’s last three symphonies, the concertos for piano, violin and cello, and three overtures: In Nature’s Realm, Carnival Overture, and Othello. In addition to conducting at Prague’s Rudolfinum, Bychkov and the Czech Philharmonic took the all Dvořák programmes to Korea and across Japan with three concerts at Tokyo’s famed Suntory Hall. Later, in spring, an extensive European tour took the programmes to Spain, Austria, Germany, Belgium, and France and, at the end of year, the Year of Czech Music 2024 will culminate with three concerts at Carnegie Hall in New York. As well as featuring Dvořák’s concertos for piano, violin and cello, the programmes will include three poems from Smetana’s Má vlast, Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 and Janáček’s Glagolitic Mass for which the orchestra will be joined by the Prague Philharmonic Choir. 

Bychkov’s inaugural season with the Czech Philharmonic was celebrated with an international tour that took the orchestra from performances at home in Prague to concerts in London, New York, and Washington. The following year saw the completion of The Tchaikovsky Project – the release of a 7-CD box set devoted to Tchaikovsky’s symphonic repertoire – and a series of international residencies. In his first season with the Czech Philharmonic, Bychkov also instigated the commissioning of 14 new works which have subsequently been premiered by the Czech Philharmonic and performed by orchestras across Europe and in the United States.

As well as the focus on Dvořák’s music, Bychkov and the Czech Philharmonic are exploring the symphonies of Mahler as part of PENTATONE’s ongoing complete Mahler cycle. The first symphonies in the cycle – Symphony No. 4 and Symphony No. 5 were released in 2022, followed in 2023 by Symphony No. 1 and Symphony No. 2 “Resurrection”. Last season’s highlights included performances of Mahler’s Third Symphony in Prague and Baden-Baden, and during the 2024/2025 season, Bychkov will conduct Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 with the orchestra in Prague, New York, and Toronto, and Symphony No. 8 in Prague.

While especially recognised for his interpretations of the core repertoire, Bychkov has built strong and lasting relationships with many extraordinary contemporary composers including Luciano Berio, Henri Dutilleux, and Maurizio Kagel. More recent collaborations include those with Julian Anderson, Bryce Dessner, Detlev Glanert, Thierry Escaich, and Thomas Larcher whose works he has premiered with the Czech Philharmonic, as well as with the Concertgebouworkest, the Vienna, Berlin, New York and Munich Philharmonic Orchestras, Cleveland Orchestra, and the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

In common with the Czech Philharmonic, Bychkov has one foot firmly in the culture of the East and one in the West. Born in St Petersburg in 1952, Bychkov emigrated to the United States in 1975 and has lived in Europe since the mid-1980s. Singled out at the age of five for an extraordinarily privileged musical education, Bychkov studied piano before winning his place at the Glinka Choir School where, aged 13, he received his first lesson in conducting. He was 17 when he was accepted at the Leningrad Conservatory to study with the legendary Ilya Musin and, within three years won the influential Rachmaninoff Conducting Competition. Bychkov left the former Soviet Union when he was denied the prize of conducting the Leningrad Philharmonic.

By the time Bychkov returned to St Petersburg in 1989 as the Philharmonic’s Principal Guest Conductor, he had enjoyed success in the US as Music Director of the Grand Rapids Symphony Orchestra and the Buffalo Philharmonic. His international career, which began in France with Opéra de Lyon and at the Aix-en-Provence Festival, took off with a series of high-profile cancellations which resulted in invitations to conduct the New York and Berlin Philharmonic Orchestras and the Concertgebouworkest. In 1989, he was named Music Director of the Orchestre de Paris; in 1997, Chief Conductor of the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne; and in 1998, Chief Conductor of the Dresden Semperoper.

Bychkov’s symphonic and operatic repertoire is wide-ranging. He conducts in all the major opera houses including La Scala, Opéra national de Paris, Dresden Semperoper, Wiener Staatsoper, New York’s Metropolitan Opera, the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and Teatro Real. While Principal Guest Conductor of Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, his productions of Janáček’s Jenůfa, Schubert’s Fierrabras, Puccini’s La bohème, Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, and Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov each won the prestigious Premio Abbiati. In Vienna, he has conducted new productions of Strauss’ Daphne, Wagner’s Lohengrin and Parsifal, and Mussorgsky’s Khovanshchina, as well as revivals of Strauss’ Elektra and Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde; while in London, he made his operatic debut with a new production of Strauss’ Elektra, and subsequently conducted new productions of Mozart’s Così fan tutte, Strauss’ Die Frau ohne Schatten, and Wagner’s Tannhäuser. Recent productions include Wagner’s Parsifal at the Bayreuth Festival, Strauss’ Elektra and Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde in Madrid. He returned to Bayreuth to conduct a new production of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde in summer 2024.

Bychkov’s combination of innate musicality and rigorous Russian pedagogy has ensured that his performances are highly anticipated. In the UK, the warmth of his relationships is reflected in honorary titles at the Royal Academy of Music and the BBC Symphony Orchestra – with whom he appears annually at the BBC Proms. In Europe, he tours with the Concertgebouworkest and Munich Philharmonic, as well as being a guest of the Vienna and Berlin Philharmonics, the Leipzig Gewandhaus, the Orchestre National de France, and Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia; in the US, he can be heard with the New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Los Angeles Symphony, Philadelphia, and Cleveland Orchestras.

Bychkov has recorded extensively for Philips with the Berlin Philharmonic, Bavarian Radio, Concertgebouworkest, Philharmonia, London Philharmonic and Orchestre de Paris. His 13‑year collaboration (1997–2010) with WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne produced a series of benchmark recordings that included works by Strauss (Elektra, Daphne, Ein Heldenleben, Metamorphosen, Alpensinfonie, Till Eulenspiegel), Mahler (Symphonies No. 3, Das Lied von der Erde), Shostakovich (Symphony Nos. 4, 7, 8, 10, 11), Rachmaninoff (The Bells, Symphonic Dances, Symphony No. 2), Verdi (Requiem), a complete cycle of Brahms Symphonies, and works by Detlev Glanert and York Höller. His 1992 recording of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin with the Orchestre de Paris was recommended by BBC’s Radio 3’s Building a Library (2020); 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). Of The Tchaikovsky Project released in 2019, BBC Music Magazine wrote, “The most beautiful orchestra playing imaginable can be heard on Semyon Bychkov’s 2017 recording with the Czech Philharmonic, in which Decca’s state-of-the art recording captures every detail.”

In 2015, Semyon Bychkov was named Conductor of the Year by the International Opera Awards. He received an Honorary Doctorate from the Royal Academy of Music in July 2022 and the award for Conductor of the Year from Musical America in October 2022.

Bychkov was one of the first musicians to express his position on the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, since when he has spoken in support of Ukraine in Prague’s Wenceslas Square; on the radio and television in the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Austria, the UK, and the USA; written By Invitation for The Economist; and appeared as a guest on BBC World’s HARDtalk.

Dmitri Shostakovich was one of the greatest symphonists not only of the twentieth century, but also of all of music history. His fifteen symphonies composed between 1925 and 1971 mirror half a century of life in the Soviet Union when the crushing weight of history in that part of the world was destroying human lives. After the First World War – the self destruction of worldwide European hegemony – there were many Russian artists reporting on the dramatic developments in their ingenious works (the writer Bulgakov, for example), and Shostakovich was unquestionably among them. We can hardly imagine Shostakovich composing outside of Russia. Unlike Stravinsky or Prokofiev who were successful abroad, Shostakovich was a “chronicler”, and in his works we read and hear a description of what was happening to people in the Soviet Union. His music was largely subject to its political and cultural context, so it cannot be seen in black and white – the search for a compromise between the free expression of an artistic idea and the unimaginably powerful pressure of the all-important state ideology led to the creation of highly disparate works. The fact that we can recognise the same composer in his propaganda music and in his Thirteenth Symphony (“Babi Yar”) is proof of Shostakovich’s musical genius.

For his First Piano Concerto (1933), Shostakovich chose the sparse instrumentation of a string orchestra with the addition of a single solo trumpet. Optimistic and light in mood, the four-movement neo-baroque composition employs a relatively traditional formal layout: the first movement is in sonata form, the second in three-part song form, the third is a brief intermezzo, and the fourth is in a relaxed sonata form. A certain youthful wildness (the composer was just 27 years old) appears mainly in the first movement with the rapid alternation of a large number of highly varied themes. Into his concerto, Shostakovich organically incorporated several musical quotes, and the attentive listener may notice not only quotes of the composer’s own music (The Age of Gold, Poor Columbus), but also snippets of such works as Beethoven’s Appasionata, Grieg’s Peer Gynt, and Mahler’s Third Symphony. The musical aesthetics scholar Miloš Jůzl fittingly described the music’s character: “Joy of life – that is perhaps how one might convey the concerto’s overall mood. The composer is having a lot of fun, and the unsuspecting listener is left somewhat unsettled.”

The work makes considerable demands on both soloists. The composer himself gave the first performance of the concerto on 15 October 1933, and Alexander Schmidt played the solo trumpet part. Conducting the Leningrad Philharmonic was the Austrian conductor and composer Fritz Stiedry (who had been Gustav Mahler’s assistant at the Vienna Court Opera).

Rok 1889, ve kterém vznikla Symfonie č. 8 G dur op. 88, byl pro jejího autora úspěšný. Dostal nabídku profesora skladby na Pražské konzervatoři, Národní divadlo mu uvedlo premiéru opery Jakobín, byl vyznamenán Řádem železné koruny. Dvořák se nacházel v pozitivním životním období, ve kterém u něj sílil pocit vyrovnanosti a životní radosti.

Zájem o skladatelovy kompoziční aktivity byl dále posílen jeho úspěšnými pobyty v Anglii. Svému anglickému příteli klavíristovi a skladateli Francescu Bergerovi v dopise ze dne 8. září 1889 píše: „Velmi děkuji za Váš laskavý dopis, ve kterém se mě ptáte, zda mám něco nového pro Vaše koncerty. Pravděpodobně to bude nová symfonie, na které nyní pracuji; je zde pouze otázka, zda budu schopen ji dokončit včas.“Do práce na Osmé symfonii byl Dvořák ponořen od 28. srpna do 8. listopadu, a to převážně na svém letním sídle ve Vysoké, kde se cítil nejlépe.

Dobrá tvůrčí atmosféra byla ale narušena roztržkou s jeho „dvorním“ nakladatelem Simrockem. Vydavateli se Dvořákovy finanční požadavky zdály přehnané. Snažil se ho přimět ke komponování drobnějších a jednodušších skladeb, neboť velká a náročná orchestrální díla se mu nezdála dostatečně rentabilní. Autor ovšem nehodlal slevit ze svých uměleckých představ, a tak na tři roky přerušil se Simrockem spolupráci. Svůj opus 88 vydal u londýnské firmy Novello. Symfonie tak proto získala později podtitul „Anglická“.

Osmá symfonie si v základních rysech – čtyřvětosti a tempovém rozvržení vět – zachovává stavbu klasické symfonie. Dílo ale překvapuje mnoha inovacemi, pestrým sledem proměnlivých nálad od pastorálních obrazů přes intonace taneční a pochodové až k dramaticky vypjatým plochám. Je to kantabilní a diatonická skladba, ze které je patrná skladatelova náklonnost k české a slovanské lidové hudbě. Jak sám autor poznamenává, usiloval o zpracování témat a motivů v jiných než „obvyklých, všeobecně užívaných a uznaných formách".

Premiéra se uskutečnila pod Dvořákovým vedením 2. února 1890 v Rudolfinu v rámci populárních koncertů Umělecké besedy a následně 24. dubna téhož roku v Londýně při koncertu tamní Filharmonické společnosti v St. James’s Hall. Dvořák symfonii následně dirigoval ještě mnohokrát: 7. listopadu 1890 ve Frankfurtu nad Mohanem, 15. června 1891 v Cambridge při příležitosti udělení čestného doktorátu tamní univerzitou, 12. srpna 1893 v Chicagu a 19. března 1893 znovu v Londýně. Ohlasy, které následovaly po provedeních, jsou samostatnou kapitolou. Dvořák byl anglickým tiskem označen za jediného z žijících skladatelů, který může být oprávněně nazýván Beethovenovým nástupcem: „Ten jediný, ačkoli se stejně jako Brahms snaží držet Beethovenovy školy, je schopen přinést do symfonie zřetelně nový prvek.“

Vídeňský kritik Eduard Hanslick zase píše: „Celé toto Dvořákovo dílo, jež patří k jeho nejlepším, lze chválit za to, že není pedantické, ale při vší uvolněnosti nemá zároveň k ničemu tak daleko jako k naturalismu. Dvořák je vážným umělcem, který se mnohému naučil, ale navzdory svým vědomostem nepozbyl spontánnost a svěžest. Z jeho děl mluví originální osobnost a z jeho osobnosti vane osvěžující dech něčeho neopotřebovaného a původního.“

Zanedbatelný není ani komentář samotného skladatele po Londýnské premiéře: „Koncert dopadl skvěle, ba tak, jak snad nikdy předtím dříve. Po první větě byl aplaus všeobecný, po druhé větší, po třetí velmi silný tak, že jsem se musel několikrát obracet a děkovat, ale po finále byla pravá bouře potlesku, obecenstvo v sále, na galeriích, orkestr sám, i za ním u varhan sedící, tleskalo tolik, že to bylo až hrůza, byl jsem několikrát volán a ukazovat se na pódium – zkrátka bylo to tak hezké a upřimné, jak to bývá při premiérách u nás doma v Praze. Jsem tedy spokojen a zaplať pánbůh za to, že to tak dobře dopadlo!“