United Kingdom PROM 50 – Kaprálová, Dvořák, Janáček: Mao Fujita (piano), Corinne Winters (soprano), Bella Adamova (mezzo-soprano), David Butt Philip (tenor), Pavel Švingr (bass), Christian Schmitt (organ), Prague Philharmonic Choir (choirmaster Lukáš Vasilek), Czech Philharmonic Orchestra / Jakub Hrůša (conductor). Royal Albert Hall, London, 28.8.2024. (CK)
Vítězslava Kaprálová – Military Sinfonietta (first Proms performance)
Dvořák – Piano Concerto in G minor
Janáček – Glagolitic Mass
Enterprisingly, the Czech Philharmonic began their second BBC Prom with Vítězslava Kaprálová’s Military Sinfonietta: a protégé of Martinů, the tragically short-lived Kaprálová wrote it while she was still a student. It is immediately clear that she could handle large forces (including triple woodwind, six horns, percussion, harp, piano and celeste) with energy and confidence. On a first hearing, alternating fanfares and quieter episodes fall well short of fulfilling the expectations inevitably aroused by the title (Janáček had died less than a decade earlier): but then cellos and double basses introduce a lovely episode, with quiet timpani and muted brass, and I was won over. Like a Czech version of Vaughan Williams’s Cotswold rapture, the music seemed to open onto a vision of rolling countryside and made sense of Kaprálová’s words quoted in the programme: ‘the composition does not represent a battle cry, but it depicts the psychological need to defend that which is most sacred to the nation’.
The music is a brave and heartfelt response to the threat of imminent Nazi aggression – Hitler’s Special Military Operation, we might now say. It becomes faster and more brilliant, using a wide range of orchestral colours: a lovely trumpet solo, xylophone and bells, bass clarinet, stirring use of the horns; even fourfold bass drum strokes, recalling the shattering climax to the first movement of Suk’s Asrael Symphony the previous evening (Colin Clarke’s review here). Ominous fanfares resurface, but the work ends in an explosion of colour and optimism. I cannot imagine it ever being played with more sensitivity and conviction than it was here: almost as moving as last season’s performance of Dora Pejačević’s symphony under Sakari Oramo. Pejačević died at 37; Kaprálová at only 25. Thank you, Czech Philharmonic and Jakub Hrůša, for bringing us her music.
I wish I could be as enthusiastic about Dvořák’s Piano Concerto, which seems to adopt the manner of a great Romantic piano concerto but lacks the matter, the substance, the attractiveness of invention. It sounds awkward (a gentleman behind me commented that ‘G minor is a very unusual key’). I wonder what Dvořák’s patron Brahms made of it. It is too long: longer than the lyrical, light-filled Fifth Symphony, written around the same time. I can at least praise the performance unreservedly. I was in the Royal Albert Hall when Rudolf Firkušný and Charles Mackerras presented a Prom performance: it was a long time ago, but I do not remember finding Firkušný’s performance as entertaining as Mao Fujita’s, keeping us interested with playfulness and puckish virtuosity, bell-like clarity, liquid runs and a bewildering range of colours. He is some pianist, and the orchestra supported him to the hilt: yet all I remember is the strings’ gentle, Slavic, polka-like tune in the first movement.
The performance of Janáček’s Glagolitic Mass which occupied the concert’s second half was simply astonishing. What a work it is! My first live experience of it was also my first experience of Promming, standing at the front of the Arena: a very young Andrew Davis was conducting, and at the end I was so excited I didn’t know what to do with myself. I also remember Pierre Boulez’s much more recent Prom performance of Paul Wingfield’s reconstructed original version: Boulez’s choristers overflowed from the platform into several rows of choir seats (partly to make room for three sets of timpani).
Hrůša’s forces were comfortably contained within the platform space. The choir was only around 80 strong – probably less than half the number in Boulez’s performance – yet their sound was devastating: a phalanx of women to the left, a phalanx of men to the right, singing with such absolute conviction and precision that it sometimes sounded as if just two giant voices were hurling those wild sonic salvoes into the hall and over our heads. The quieter moments were equally spinetingling, but the physical force of those ecstatic choral detonations was something I have not heard paralleled. The soloists kept us on this high plane, especially Corinne Winters (soprano) and the heroically committed English tenor David Butt Philip; Czech bass Pavel Švingr was fine, though with less of the Slavonic cavernousness of Eduard Haken on Ancerl’s famous recording, or (more recently) Peter Mikuláš; and the mezzo-soprano Bella Adamova’s voice is so beautiful that we probably all regretted that Janáček gave her so little to do.
The orchestra matched the singers in fiery commitment: those wonderful Czech strings silvery one moment, cutting like swords the next; the tangy eloquence of the woodwind and the refulgence of the brass; a fearless timpanist. Under Hrůša’s direction the performance never let up: it was as though everyone was possessed by the same blazing vision. Christian Schmitt tore into the crazy organ solo as if challenged and inspired by orchestra and chorus; the orchestra responded with an equally ecstatic (and fast) Intrada, four trumpets blazing away indefatigably at their hair-raising fanfares until the work came to its abrupt and uniquely thrilling end.
There are some orchestral heavyweights on the Proms horizon, but I shall be surprised if the achievement of Hrůša and the Czech Philharmonic over these two nights is in any way diminished by them: for me, this Janáček performance (like the Suk the previous night) is likely to prove indelible.
As I left the hall I overheard the comment ‘Impossible to think of a work more life-affirming’. I’m with you, sir.
Chris Kettle