Opening Concert II
Programme
- Bedřich Smetana: My Country
Performers
- Czech Philharmonic
- Semyon Bychkov - conductor
“Má vlast, My Homeland, Mein Vaterland, Patria mia, Ma Patrie, Rodina… We all have one. It may be called by a different name, but the feeling is the same – the sense of identification with one’s roots and of belonging. The pride we take in the best of our heritage and the pain of having to live with and come to terms with its darker pages. Smetana speaks for his country: its longing for independence at a time when it was dominated and needed to assert its national character, its language, its way of thinking. While looking at its past, he dreams of its future,” states Chief Conductor of the Czech Philharmonic Semyon Bychkov, characterising the cycle of symphonic poems Má vlast (My Country).
Perhaps no other orchestra is as closely associated with this work, composed between the years 1874 and 1879, as the Czech Philharmonic, and this chiefly due to Václav Talich, who was responsible for the first recordings of Má vlast for Czechoslovak Radio in 1925 and for the legendary label His Master’s Voice in 1929. It was also the Czech Philharmonic who presented Má vlast at the first edition of the Prague Spring on 12 May 1946, conducted by the festival’s founder, Rafael Kubelík. Memorable festival performances of Má vlast likewise include those with Chief Conductors Karel Ančerl, Václav Neumann, Zdeněk Mácal and Jiří Bělohlávek, not to mention the unforgettable return of Rafael Kubelík amid the turbulent post-Revolutionary atmosphere of 1990. The first Prague Spring performance of Má vlast involving a foreign conductor was also given by the Czech Philharmonic, who on this occasion were led by Lovro von Matačić back in 1984.
“I would like to dedicate these pieces to the glorious city of Prague, since this is where I acquired my musical education, for many years I performed here in public, and it was also here that I was stricken by an illness that is so terrible for a musician,” wrote Bedřich Smetana (1824–1884) in a letter to the Council of the Royal City of Prague. In 2025 Smetana’s masterpiece will appear on the Prague Spring programme for the 133rd time, including repeat performances; of these an impressive 76 are attributed to the Czech Philharmonic. Semyon Bychkov returns to the Prague Spring after a lengthy absence of twenty-seven years, here for the first time as Chief Conductor of the Czech Philharmonic, with whom he will present the festival’s signature work.
During his time in Prague Bychkov has developed an immensely strong affinity with Smetana’s cycle and has shaped a concept that combines his distinctive musical perspective with the Czech performance tradition. A native of St Petersburg who emigrated to the United States in the 1970s and later settled in France, he regularly conducts some of the world’s finest orchestras, including the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics, the New York Philharmonic and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. Before he decided to rehearse Má vlast with the Czech Philharmonic in 2019, he gave various performances of the work outside the country, since he “first had to really understand it and also absorb it, so to speak”. Since that time he has performed this monumental opus with the Czech Philharmonic several times, and they have even recorded it together on CD. What impression will Semyon Bychkov’s Má vlast make at the Prague Spring in 2025? How will this performance be etched into the history of the festival? Stirring questions which will be symbolically answered on 12 and 13 May 2025 at the opening concert of the landmark 80th edition of the Prague Spring.
