Czech Philharmonic • Alim Beisembayev

Jealousy (introduction to the opera Jenůfa), overture for orchestra (JW VI/10) (6')

Leoš Janáček

Leoš Janáček’s orchestral composition Žárlivost (Jealousy) is subtitled Introduction to Jenůfa, suggesting a link to that opera. It was originally intended as the opera’s overture, but its music is unrelated to that of Jenůfa, as the composer himself pointed out. He wrote the overture in 1894‒1895 while at work on Act I, intending for it to tie in with the act’s most powerful dramatic moment, when Laca wounds Jenůfa’s cheek out of jealousy. For this purpose, Janáček recalled the folk ballad Žárlivec (The Jealous Man), which he knew from songs collected by František Sušil (third collection, no. 263/124) and arranged as a chorus with the same title in 1888. In it, a wounded brigand asks his beloved at his bedside to hand him his sabre. The girl senses the danger and leaps out of harm’s way. The dying brigand admits that he wanted to kill his beloved so no one else could have her after his death. Motifs from the ballad’s melody were worked into the overture, which Janáček composed in 1894 in a reduction for piano four-hands, and the parts for the orchestral version were already in existence by 1895. The piano version is interesting because Janáček inscribed excerpts from the ballad’s text beside corresponding musical passages, confirming the source of his melodic material.

The overture was given its premiere as an orchestral work on 14 November 1906 in Prague by the Czech Philharmonic with František Neumann guest conducting. Four years later, it was played by the orchestra of the National Theatre in Brno under the baton of Rudolf Pavlata, when the title Žárlivost was first used. Karel Kovařovic also chose the work for the programme of a concert of the orchestra of Prague’s National Theatre on 13 October 1917 in Brno. Certainly, it suited Kovařovic that the overture was still written in the traditional style of Late Romanticism. Here, Janáček hints only timidly at his later tendencies towards experimentation and fragmentation, so the overture lacks the elements and procedures that Kovařovic could not understand in the music of his Moravian colleague. Despite this, Kovařovic convinced Janáček that the overture would be unsuitable as an introduction to the opera Jenůfa because it had been created independently.

Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Op. 16 (32')

Sergei Prokofiev

Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev was among the composers who were also pianists who attained the highest level of professionalism and whose music was often written for that instrument. He composed five piano concertos, the first two of which date from the period of his studies at the conservatoire in Saint Petersburg. The one-movement Piano Concerto No. 1 in D flat major, Op. 10 (1912) brought the composer undeniable success and victory in a competition ‒ the “Battle of the Pianos.” He wrote his Second Piano Concerto in G minor, Op. 16, in the winter of 1912‒1913, finished it in April, and premiered it at a concert presented by the Russian Music Society on 23 August (5 September according to the Gregorian calendar) 1913 at a park in the Saint Petersburg suburb Pavlovsk. Aleksandr Aslanov conducted the orchestra, and the composer played the solo piano part. He dedicated the work to the memory of Max Schmidthof, a friend and classmate from the conservatoire in Saint Petersburg who had committed suicide. The first and second concertos are separated by just a year, and they document Prokofiev’s rapid artist development, including the unleashing of dissonant harmony even to the point of cacophony. The composer recalled that after the premiere of the Second Piano Concerto: “some hissed and the others applauded”, and the reactions of critics were also mixed. Negative reviews predominated, accusing the composer of musical futurism and cubism, like Russia’s politically engaged men of letters.

The score of the Second Piano Concerto did not survive the events of the First World War and the Russian Revolution that forced Prokofiev to abandon is native country. He went to the USA and western Europe to live, and in October 1923 in Paris he reconstructed the composition from his sketches. In light of the many changes, especially with respect to the orchestration, he jokingly described the work’s new form as his fourth piano concerto (meanwhile, the Third Piano Concerto had been premiered in 1921 in Chicago), but experts have always regarded the two versions as representing a single work. The premiere of the second version took place on 8 May 1924 in Paris under the baton of Serge Koussevitsky. 

The concerto’s four-movement structure allowed the composer to create a work full of contrasts, with certain parameters of the first and last movements corresponding to each other – their length, an extensive cadenza, and the sophisticated use of sonority to achieve a thrilling effect. The second movement gives the performer the chance to exhibit bravura finger technique. Expressiveness returns in the third movement, as the orchestra’s threatening pesante drags the initially restrained piano into a demonic atmosphere, in which the fourth movement begins as well. Before the end, the solo melody of a lullaby brings calm, then the movement gradually develops into a monumental recapitulation of the main motifs.

Ripening. A symphonic poem for large orchestra, Op. 34 (39')

Josef Suk

Josef Suk composed the symphonic poem for large orchestra Zrání (Ripening) between 1912 and 14 August 1917 as the third in a series of large symphonic projects, which he created during the period following the deaths of his teacher Antonín Dvořák (1904) and of Suk’s wife, Dvořák’s daughter Otilie (1905). While the Asrael Symphony (1906) expresses the composer’s sorrow over the loss of loved ones, A Summer’s Tale (1907–1909) is full of imagination, and it shows the way towards the coming to terms with grief that Suk finally achieves fully in Zrání. Suk borrowed the title Zrání and the conception of his work from a meditative poem by Antonín Sova in a collection titled Žně (The Harvest), and he used the poem’s concluding section as this work’s motto.

The unfolding of the single-movement composition proceeds through expressively and motivically contrasting passages. The work is one of the supreme manifestations of subjective lyricism, and it exhibits an unusually imaginative handling of sound. The score is influenced by late Impressionism, supplementing the timbral individualisation of lines with the frequent use of polyphonic techniques. In the harmony, there is tension between tonality and chromaticism; the whole-tone scale and other procedures that relax the grip of tonality arise naturally from the polyphony and the multi-layered modern structure. The musicologist Vladimír Helfert asserted that beginning with this composition, Suk admirably balances rationality and emotion. The composer himself characterised Zrání as follows: “I spent nearly five years working on this composition. In the tightly bound musical form, you will find all of the degrees of human feeling. In this work, I again immerse myself into life’s jubilations and the shadows of tragedy, but then in the long fugue near the end, I emphasise that ‘labour is our liberator’. After the music builds to a huge, passionate climax, a profound calm arrives towards the end with a tremulous hymn of life’s affirmation.”

The first performance was entrusted to the Czech Philharmonic, and the conductor Václav Talich studied the score with exceptional care, consulting with the composer about the work’s interpretation and insisting on twelve rehearsals. The dress rehearsal took place on 28 October 1918, and the mood of elation over the declaration of Czechoslovakia as an independent state on that day carried over to the premiere two days later. The enthusiastic reaction of Suk’s friends and the favourable reviews were heightened by the euphoria over the country’s newly acquired independence. It was against this background that Zdeněk Nejedlý publicly criticised Suk, denigrating him as a person and an artist and even going so far as to accuse the members of the Czech Quartet (until 1918 the Bohemian Quartet) of having collaborated with the Austrian authorities. Suk suffered a physical and nervous breakdown. Suk wanted to bring his artistic activities to a permanent halt, and he asked for the score of Zrání to be returned to him. He withdrew completely from society and secluded himself in the Bohemian village Křečovice, where those close to him tried to eliminate all sources of stress from his life. The affair cast a lasting pall over Czech cultural life, but Suk’s Zrání nonetheless remains, as Vladimír Helfert said – one of the most daring utterances of 20th-century European music.

Prague Philharmonic Choir

women’s choir

The Prague Philharmonic Choir (PPC), founded in 1935 by the choirmaster Jan Kühn, is the oldest professional mixed choir in the Czech Republic. Their current choirmaster and artistic director is Lukáš Vasilek, and the second choirmaster is Lukáš Kozubík.

The choir has earned the highest acclaim in the oratorio and cantata repertoire, performing with the world’s most famous orchestras. In this country, they collaborate regularly with the Czech Philharmonic and the Prague Philharmonia. They also perform opera as the choir-in-residence of the opera festival in Bregenz, Austria.

Programmes focusing mainly on difficult, lesser-known works of the choral repertoire. For voice students, they are organising the Academy of Choral Singing, and for young children there is a cycle of educational concerts.

The choir has been honoured with the 2018 Classic Prague Award and the 2022 Antonín Dvořák Prize.

Lukáš Vasilek

choirmaster

Lukáš Vasilek studied conducting and musicology. Since 2007, he has been the chief choirmaster of the Prague Philharmonic Choir (PPC). Most of his artistic work with them involves rehearsing and performing a cappella repertoire and preparing them to perform in large-scale cantatas, oratorios, and operatic projects in collaboration with world-famous conductors and orchestras (Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Czech Philharmonic, Israel Philharmonic, Kyiv Symphony Orchestra, etc.).

In addition to leading the PPC, he is active in a wide range of artistic projects, most notably in collaboration with the vocal ensemble Martinů Voices, which he founded in 2010. As a conductor and choirmaster, he appears on numerous recordings for major international labels, including Decca Classics and Supraphon. In recent years, he has focused systematically on recording the choral music of Bohuslav Martinů. His recordings have received extraordinary worldwie acclaim and have earned awards from prestigious publications such as Gramophone, BBC Music Magazine, and Diapason.

Jakub Hrůša

conductor

Born in the Czech Republic, Jakub Hrůša is Chief Conductor of the Bamberg Symphony, Music Director Designate of the Royal Opera, Covent Garden (Music Director from 2025), and Principal Guest Conductor of the Czech Philharmonic. He was also formerly Principal Guest Conductor of the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, the Philharmonia Orchestra, and Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra.

He is a frequent guest with the world’s greatest orchestras, including the Vienna, Berlin, Munich and New York Philharmonics; Bavarian Radio, NHK, Chicago and Boston Symphonies; Leipzig Gewandhaus, Lucerne Festival, Royal Concertgebouw, Mahler Chamber and The Cleveland Orchestras; Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, and Tonhalle Orchester Zürich. He has led opera productions for the Salzburg Festival (Káťa Kabanová with the Vienna Philharmonic in 2022), Vienna State Opera, Royal Opera House, and Opéra National de Paris. He has also been a regular guest with Glyndebourne Festival and served as Music Director of Glyndebourne On Tour for three years.

His relationships with leading vocal and instrumental soloists have included collaborations in recent seasons with Daniil Trifonov, Mitsuko Uchida, Hélène Grimaud, Behzod Abduraimov, Anne Sofie Mutter, Lisa Batiashvili, Joshua Bell, Yefim Bronfman, Rudolf Buchbinder, Gautier Capuçon, Julia Fischer, Sol Gabetta, Hilary Hahn, Janine Jansen, Karita Mattila, Leonidas Kavakos, Lang Lang, Josef Špaček, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Yuja Wang, Frank Peter Zimmermann, Alisa Weilerstein and others. 

As a recording artist, Jakub Hrůša has received numerous awards and nominations for his discography. Most recently, he received the Opus Klassik Conductor of the Year 2023 prize and the ICMA prize for Symphonic Music for his recording of Bruckner’s Symphony No. 4, and the Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik for his recording of Mahler’s Symphony No. 4, both with Bamberg Symphony. In 2021, his disc of Martinů and Bartók violin concertos with Bamberg Symphony and Frank Peter Zimmermann was nominated for BBC Music Magazine and Gramophone awards, and his recording of the Dvořák Violin Concerto with the Bavarian Radio Symphony and Augustin Hadelich was nominated for a Grammy Award. 
 
Jakub Hrůša studied at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, where his teachers included Jiří Bělohlávek. He is President of the International Martinů Circle and The Dvořák Society. He was the inaugural recipient of the Sir Charles Mackerras Prize, and in 2020 was awarded both the Antonín Dvořák Prize by the Czech Republic’s Academy of Classical Music, and – together with Bamberg Symphony – the Bavarian State Prize for Music.