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

Grammy Award-winning pianist Daniil Trifonov – Musical America’s 2019 Artist of the Year – has established a reputation as a solo artist, champion of the concerto repertoire, chamber and vocal collaborator, and composer. Combining consummate technique with rare sensitivity and depth, his performances are a perpetual source of wonder to audiences and critics alike. With Transcendental, the Liszt collection that marked his third title as an exclusive Deutsche Grammophon artist, he won the Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Solo Album of 2018. As The Times of London notes, he is “without question the most astounding pianist of our age.”

In the 2021/2022 season, Trifonov released Bach: The Art of Life on Deutsche Grammophon and embarked on recital tours of the U.S. and Europe, where his program was inspired by the album. He performed Brahms’s First Piano Concerto with both the Dallas Symphony under Fabio Luisi and Philharmonia Zurich under Gianandrea Noseda, as well as playing Mozart’s Ninth “Jeunehomme” Concerto on a European tour with Antonio Pappano and Rome’s Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. Trifonov also performed all five of Beethoven’s Piano Concertos in various combinations with eight different orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, Munich Philharmonic and Toronto Symphony. Finally, he gave the world premiere performances of Mason Bates’s new Piano Concerto, composed for him during the pandemic, with ensembles including the co-commissioning Philadelphia Orchestra and San Francisco Symphony.

In recent seasons Trifonov served as Artist-in-Residence of the New York Philharmonic—a residency that included the New York premiere of his own Piano Quintet—and curated and performed a seven-concert, season-long Carnegie Hall “Perspectives” series, crowned by a performance of his own Piano Concerto. He has played solo recitals around the world since his Carnegie Hall debut in 2012/2013, and his Deutsche Grammophon discography includes a live recording of his Carnegie recital debut; Chopin Evocations; Silver Age, for which he received Opus Klassik’s 2021 Instrumentalist of the Year/Piano award; and three volumes of Rachmaninov works with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Yannick Nézet-Séguin, of which one received a 2021 Grammy nomination and another won BBC Music’s 2019 Concerto Recording of the Year. In 2016 he was named Gramophone’s Artist of the Year and in 2021 he was made a “Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres” by the French government.

It was during the 2010/2011 season that Trifonov won medals at three of the music world’s most prestigious competitions: Third Prize in Warsaw’s Chopin Competition, First Prize in Tel Aviv’s Rubinstein Competition, and both First Prize and Grand Prix in Moscow’s Tchaikovsky Competition. He began his musical training at the age of five, attended Moscow’s Gnessin School of Music, and continued his piano studies with Sergei Babayan at the Cleveland Institute of Music.

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 recognition of the 2024 Year of Czech Music – a major celebration of Czech music celebrated across the Czech Republic every 10 years since 1924 – Chief Conductor and Music Director Semyon Bychkov has put the music of Antonín Dvořák at the centre of his programmes with the Czech Philharmonic throughout the 2023–2024 season. In addition to conducting three programmes devoted to Dvořák in Prague, Bychkov and the Orchestra will tour the Dvořák programmes to South Korea, Japan, Spain, Austria, Germany, Belgium and the United States, as well as recording the last three symphonies for Pentatone. 

Semyon Bychkovʼs tenure at the Czech Philharmonic began in 2018 with concerts in Prague, London, New York, and Washington commemorating the 100th anniversary of Czechoslovak independence. Following the culmination of The Tchaikovsky Project, Bychkov and the Orchestra began their focus on Mahler. The first discs in a new Mahler cycle were released by Pentatone in 2022, with Symphony No. 5 chosen by The Sunday Times as its Best Classical Album.

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 recently awarded him an Honorary Doctorate. 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).

In common with the Czech Philharmonic, 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).

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!“