Czech Philharmonic • Karen Gomyo
To begin the evening, Frenzy by the contemporary American composer John Adams will take us into the depths of madness caused by information overload, then at the concert’s end we turn our attention to Pictures at an Exhibition. In between, we will hear the violinist Karen Gomyo, who likes to think about aspects of music the composer has expressed not in the notation, but between the lines.
Programme
John Adams
Frenzy: a short symphony (2023) (Czech premiere) (18')
Max Bruch
Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor, Op. 26 (25')
— Intermission —
Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky (arr. by Maurice Ravel)
Pictures at an Exhibition (35')
Performers
Karen Gomyo violin
Semyon Bychkov conductor
Czech Philharmonic
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“There are sounds and ideas suspended in the air, and I find myself overeating, swallowing them up. I can barely manage to write it down on paper”, Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky boasted in a letter to a friend in June 1874. He was already at work on a musical tribute to the painter and architect Viktor Hartmann titled Pictures at an Exhibition. Mussorgsky’s dear friend Hartmann had died in August 1873, and the Academy of Fine Arts in St Petersburg held an exhibition of his works, which the composer attended. Inspired by what he had seen, Mussorgsky decided to transform ten of the images into music. The piano original was not played very often, but when Maurice Ravel arranged the work for orchestra in 1922, it became a hit.
Max Bruch’s First Violin Concerto underwent revisions; creating the work did not come easily. “Work is progressing slowly on my Violin Concerto—I don’t feel very secure in this territory. Do you think writing a violin concerto is too daring?” he wrote to his former teacher Hiller in November 1865. Whatever answer he got back, his many revisions finally paid off. The result was the composer’s most famous work.
The opera Nixon in China probably still remains John Adams’s most famous work, but he was again unafraid to tackle a current topic in his recently created composition Frenzy. “For me, ‘frenzy’ sums up the feeling, at times overwhelming, of contemplating the current world around us, especially as it is imagined in our daily doses of digital news and information, much of which we consume without regard to its subversive and subconscious influence on our mood”, Adams says about the composition written three years ago. He dedicated his “short symphony” to Simon Rattle, but at the Rudolfinum we will hear it performed by Semyon Bychkov.
Performers
Karen Gomyo violin
Karen Gomyo, a violinist of Japanese descent, is one of the leading figures on the global music scene. She is celebrated for her ability to captivate audiences and forge a deep connection with them through her emotional and heartfelt performances. She was inspired to take up the violin by the violinist Midori, whom she heard perform at a concert in Montreal when she was five years old. A pivotal moment came four years later when she was given the opportunity to play in masterclasses led by the legendary pedagogue Dorothy DeLay—who subsequently invited her to study with her at Juilliard, where Karen Gomyo began her studies at the age of ten. Violinist Mauricio Fuks also played a very important role in her musical journey.
As a soloist, she has performed with numerous orchestras; in the 2025/2026 season, these included the New York Philharmonic, the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, the National Symphony Orchestra Taiwan, the Residentie Orkest in The Hague, and the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra. She performed with the Czech Philharmonic and Semyon Bychkov during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021, when concerts were held under restricted conditions. Most recently, she shone in the Czech Republic in the spring of 2025 during the season-closing concert of the Janáček Philharmonic Ostrava; her performance of Dvořák’s Violin Concerto in A minor under the baton of Gilbert Varga thrilled the audience.
Karen Gomyo is also active in the field of chamber music—she has performed with a wide range of artists, including mezzo-soprano Susan Graham, pianist Enrico Pace, violinist Daishin Kashimoto, cellist Julian Steckel, flutist Emmanuel Pahud, trumpeter Tine Thing Helseth, and guitarist Ismo Eskelinen, with whom she recorded the duet album Carnival on BIS Records.
When she was fourteen, she first heard the music of Ástor Piazzolla, introduced to her by her mother. She was immediately captivated and remains a lover and performer of tango nuevo to this day. She has collaborated with Piazzolla’s longtime pianist and tango legend Pablo Ziegler, as well as bandoneon players Héctor del Curto, JP Joffre, and Marcelo Nisinman. In 2021, she released the album A Piazzolla Trilogy, which she recorded with the Strings of Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire and guitarist Stephanie Jones.
Each season she features a work written by a living composer—these include, for example, the Violin Concerto Adrano by Samy Moussa, Concerto No. 2 Mar’eh by Matthias Pintscher, Xi Wang’s YEAR 2020: Concerto for Violin, Trumpet, and Orchestra, and Samuel Adams’ Chamber concerto—all of which she premiered with leading North American orchestras.
As a violinist, host, and narrator, Karen Gomyo also participated in a documentary film about Antonio Stradivari titled The Mysteries of the Supreme Violin, produced by Japan’s NHK television and broadcast worldwide on the NHK WORLD channel.
Semyon Bychkov Chief Conductor and Music Director
In 2018 Bychkovʼs tenure as Chief Conductor and Music Director of the Czech Philharmonic was initiated with concerts in Prague, London, New York, and Washington celebrating the 100th anniversary of Czechoslovak independence. 2019 marked the culmination of The Tchaikovsky Project: concerts, residencies and recordings of Tchaikovskyʼs symphonies. For 2024ʼs Year of Czech Music, in addition to recordings of Smetanaʼs Má vlast – voted by BBC Music Magazine as Orchestral Recording of the Year 2025 – and Dvořákʼs Symphonies 7, 8 and 9, Czech music was at the centre of extensive European tours as well as concerts in the US, including three concerts at Carnegie Hall. Earlier this season, Bychkov toured with the Orchestra to Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Austria, Italy, Germany and Luxembourg. In April 2026, PENTATONE released the box set of Mahler symphonies recorded with the Orchestra since 2018.
In the 2026/2027 season, Bychkov and the Czech Philharmonic return to repertoire that has accompanied him since the beginning of his career. Alongside Czech music, he will focus above all on the works of Dmitri Shostakovich, Sergei Rachmaninoff and Modest Mussorgsky. The programmes of the 131st season thus connect the music of his native country with the Czech tradition at the centre of his work in Prague.
He is a frequent guest with the leading international orchestras and opera companies and has recorded extensively including with the Berlin Philharmonic, Bavarian Radio, Concertgebouworkest, Philharmonia Orchestra, London Philharmonic and Orchestre de Paris. Benchmark recordings with WDR Cologne include the four Brahms Symphonies, in addition to works by Strauss, Mahler, Shostakovich, Rachmaninoff, Verdi, Glanert and Höller. His 1992 recording of Tchaikovskyʼs Eugene Onegin was the recommended recording for BBC Radio 3ʼs Building a Library (2020); Wagnerʼs Lohengrin was BBC Music Magazineʼs Record of the Year (2010); and Schmidtʼs Symphony No. 2 with the Vienna Philharmonic was BBC Music Magazineʼs 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 emigrated to the United States in 1975 and is now based in Europe. In 1989 Bychkov returned to the former Soviet Union as Principal Guest Conductor of the St Petersburg Philharmonic and, the same year, was named Music Director of the Orchestre de Paris. In 1997, he was appointed Chief Conductor of the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne, and in 1998, Chief Conductor of the Dresden Semperoper. In summer 2025, Bychkov returned to Bayreuth to conduct Wagnerʼs Tristan und Isolde, and conducted the premiere of a new production of Tchaikovskyʼs Eugene Onegin at the Paris Opera in January 2026. In the 2026/2027 season he also returns to the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in London.
Bychkov was named ‘Conductor of the Yearʼ by the International Opera Awards (2015) and, by Musical America (2022). He holds honorary titles with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Academy of Music. From 1 August 2026, Bychkov is Music Director Designate of the Paris Opera, assuming the title of Music Director in 2028.
Compositions
John Adams
Frenzy, a short symphony
Max Bruch
Concerto for Violin and Orchestra No. 1 in G minor, Op. 26
Vorspiel. Allegro moderato
Adagio
Finale. Allegro energico
The German composer Max Bruch (1838–1920) began composing at the age of nine and wrote his first symphony at the age of 14. Very soon he became an internationally acclaimed musician, but he was recognized more as a conductor because his compositions were hard to swallow both for the public and critics. He produced more than 200 opuses, including three symphonies, four operas, several instrumental concertos and many choral pieces in the field of sacred and secular music. As a composer, Bruch remained captive of a conservative “school” of German music all his life, and he kept composing in the traditional way still in the 20th century, when the art world had long been fascinated by completely different creative methods.
Bruch’s musical legacy is accepted today with similar embarrassment, and his (almost) only work that is performed on concert stages is the first of his three violin concertos, which on the contrary occupies a very important place in the concerto repertoire and is extremely popular with violin virtuosos and audiences. Bruch composed Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor, Op. 26 in 1866, when he was music director in Koblenz in the Rhineland. The original version of the composition was premiered the same year on 24 April by Otto von Königlow as soloist and with Bruch conducting. After that, Bruch rewrote the concerto together with the world-famous violinist Joseph Joachim, giving it its final form in which this composition is performed to this day. It is interesting that in this composition Bruch entrusted the solo instrument with a considerably more important role than the orchestra, which serves as mere accompaniment. The concert begins with a lyrical violin cadence, followed by an equally lyrical dialogue between soloist and orchestra. The first movement leads directly into the slow second movement, which is melodically the most inventive of the whole composition. A faster tempo comes with the third movement, which has the playful character of an energetic dance and brings the work to a rousing virtuoso close.
Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky
Pictures at an Exhibition
V polovině devatenáctého století v Petrohradě působilo volné sdružení pěti ruských skladatelů pod názvem Mocná hrstka. Jeho členové usilovali o vytvoření národní ruské hudby a za svého duchovního vůdce považovali hudebního kritika, historika a archeologa Vladimira Stasova. Vůdčím skladatelem Mocné hrstky byl Milij Alexejevič Balakirev, díky němuž se členem sdružení stal také jeden z jeho žáků – Modest Petrovič Musorgskij (1839–1881). Musorgskij byl v zásadě hudebním samoukem, svým originálním kompozičním projevem však předešel dobu, ve které žil; jeho tvorba se stala inspirací francouzským skladatelům na přelomu století (především Debussymu a Ravelovi), zejména však ovlivnil hlavní představitele ruské hudby první poloviny 20. století – Šostakoviče a Prokofjeva.
Své nejznámější klavírní dílo zkomponoval Musorgskij v roce 1874 jako hudební památku na náhle zesnuvšího přítele, ruského výtvarníka a architekta Viktora Hartmana. Oba umělce seznámil již zmíněný Vladimir Stasov, v jehož režii byla pár měsíců po nešťastné události v Akademii výtvarných umění v Petrohradě uspořádána výstava prezentující přes čtyři sta Hartmanových knižních ilustrací, cestovních náčrtů, architektonických a kostýmních návrhů. Pod dojmem návštěvy této výstavy a pod vlivem emocí ze ztráty blízkého člověka zkomponoval Musorgskij během šesti týdnů klavírní suitu Obrázky z výstavy.
Deset klavírních miniatur tak představuje vybrané Hartmanovy obrazy, které většinou vznikaly na cestách po Polsku, Francii a Itálii. Tmelícím prvkem suity jsou variované mezihry – Promenády, jejichž charakter je vždy ovlivněn předcházejícím obrazem, a které znázorňují samotného skladatele coby návštěvníka výstavy. Většina Hartmanových obrazů je dnes bohužel ztracená. Jejich hudební podoba vytvořená Musorgským nám však přináší vskutku pestré náměty: Skřítek (Gnomus) je trpaslík těžkopádně se pohybující na křivých nožkách, Starý hrad je monumentální středověká stavba, před níž stojí zpívající trubadúr, poté si v pařížské zahradě Tuileries hrají děti, Bydlo popisuje veliký polský vůz tažený voly, skica Tanec kuřátek ve skořápce byla Hartmanem vytvořena jako kostýmní návrh pro balet Trilby, Samuel Goldenberg a Schmuyle jsou dva Židé, jeden bohatý a vztekající se a druhy chudý a dotíravý.
Následující obraz Trh v Limoges představuje hádající se francouzské prodavačky na tržišti, a jako i v předcházející části je zde hudebními prostředky zpodobněna lidská řeč. Hrůzostrašnou atmosféru, motiv smrti a portrét zesnulého Hartmana, který s lampou v ruce prohlíží pařížské podzemí, navozuje obraz Katakomby s podtitulem S mrtvými řečí mrtvých. Domek na kuří nožce, v němž přebývá pohádková Baba Jaga létající na hmoždíři, nás přivádí k finální části skladby, jíž je Velká brána Kijevská, která nikdy nebyla postavena. Šlo o Hartmanův architektonický projekt městské brány s kostelem a zvonicí; stavba měla připomínat atentát na ruského cara Alexandra II.
Suita Obrázky z výstavy patří mezi základní klavírní přednesovou literaturu; široké kulturní veřejnosti je spíše známa orchestrální verze suity instrumentovaná francouzským skladatelem Mauricem Ravelem. Je to nejčastěji hraná verze, není však jedinou orchestrální úpravou tohoto Musorgského díla.