This was one of the really memorable night’s promenading, a privilege to hear Dvořák’s and Smetana’s music close up to an inspired orchestra and conductor. This is Prom 2 but my first this year. The very British queues for promenading as good-humoured as ever along with an equally strong and British sense of turn and order, aided by the redoubtable staffers from the Albert Hall.
This was one of the really memorable night’s promenading, a privilege to hear Dvořák’s and Smetana’s music close up to an inspired orchestra and conductor. This is Prom 2 but my first this year. The very British queues for promenading as good-humoured as ever along with an equally strong and British sense of turn and order, aided by the redoubtable staffers from the Albert Hall.
The Bamberg Symphony Orchestra conducted by Jakub Hrůša triumphed at the Proms with their performance of Bedrich Smetana’s Má vlast; the first movement Vyšehrad (The High Castle) went well: painting the picture with fluid grandeur, from the opening chords on the harps (either side of the orchestra for a nice effect) to the vast architectural music portraying the role of the castle in Czech history.
Conductor and orchestra exchanged satisfied glances in the pause leading to Vltava, which describes the river which flows around the castle. Their performance was both rhapsodic but firm, fluid and dynamic and with masterly detail. Simply a clean performance sound, not muddy and with inner detail not masked by orchestra mush. What does that mean? The reticent applause following Vyšehrad grew to full-bodied applause after Vltava. Proms audiences don’t applaud movements of symphonies (which Má vlast is not) so this was a rare honour, a clear indication the Bamberg orchestra were winning the hall.
The same with Šárka (“From Bohemia’s woods and fields”) and Tábor, clean and clear performances, killer percussion dead on the stroke contributing not leading very detailed, precise but wonderfully fluid interpretations. Smetana’s music is a tone poem not a symphony, it’s an evocation and a celebration of the Czech national story. Jakub Hrůša breathed life and colour in to even the unison chords of Tábor, chronicling the darker moments of the city of Tábor.
Finally Blaník, the resolution of the epic story. The detail achieved by Jakub Hrůša and the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra was revelatory, Blaník can so easily turn in to a banal and repetitious nationalistic march. This performance had colour in the Hussite hymn, “Ktož jsú boží bojovníci” (“Ye Who Are Warriors of God”), showing it firstly as a hope, a dream and going forward through emotional remembrance of the fallen in battle to a triumphal march that is the resolution of the whole cycle of tone-poems.
A very enthusiastic reception from the audience, there had been many many moments of Proms silence, that special moment when the music diminishes to a single instrument, almost silence, and you can hear every last note through the prism of several thousand people’s collective concentration. Jakub Hrůša and the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra sensed these moments and played them strong; audience applause was the complete counter. There was an encore at the end of a generous programme, a couple of Smetana’s dances from his opera “The Bartered Bride”.
Earlier, but by no means less successfully, the Prom had opened with Antonín Dvořák’s Violin Concerto in A minor, with soloist Joshua Bell. This opened with what seems to be the Bamberg orchestra’s trademark, relative slowness but which allows the performance to use speed as an essential part of their box of colour. This worked well, fine tone all round and some accurate timpani. It was a treat to hear in concert the Dvořák concerto of 1879, it’s not performed that often; Joshua Bell gave a very accurate performance, integrated with the orchestra as befits the music which is almost more symphonic than one of Dvořák’s symphonies but with so many references to Beethoven’s magisterial violin concerto written over seventy years previously. Joshua Bell partnered with two players from the orchestra for an encore, one of Dvořák’s Romances.
A fine night at the Proms; the season is only just beginning but that was enough fantastic music to justify my season ticket alone. A popular night too, a sell-out for the seats and the queues for the arena and gallery promenaders started early and built fast and long. I think the draw was the American violinist Joshua Bell, although Má vlast has long been a fixture in the programme of the opening night of the annual Prague Spring Festival, a concert relayed by the EBU for many years.
Prom 2
Antonín Dvořák - Violin Concerto in A minor
Bedrich Smetana - Má vlast
Joshua Bell, violin
Bamberg Symphony Orchestra
Jakub Hrůša, conductor