A Czech conductor conducts Czech music: what could be more normal in Smetana’s 200th anniversary year? But as Jakub Hrůša begins his eighth season as chief conductor of the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, his plans aren’t quite what you might expect. No Bartered Bride overture or celebratory performance of Má vlast (though they have recorded it twice in their partnership, to great acclaim). No: on tour in Prague, and later at home in Bamberg, he’s beginning with Smetana’s rarely-played symphonic poem Wallenstein’s Camp – part of an exploration of Smetana’s three so-called “Swedish” symphonic poems (the other two being the Shakespearean Richard III and the Norwegian-inspired Hakon Jarl). A Czech national icon suddenly seems very… international.
And this being Hrůša – and this being Bamberg – that’s entirely the point. “My picture of the composer is very complex”, he says, when asked about his plans.
“Of course I’m biased because I am Czech, but it’s not the case that because I am Czech I like Smetana’s music. It’s rather the other way around! Because I’m Czech, I’ve been offered enough opportunities to get to know Smetana’s oeuvre generally – since my teens, in fact – and I consider him an incredibly important composer of his time, undervalued because he’s too easily perceived as a purely national composer. But Smetana is a composer who would rightly be considered very important even if he’d never done anything for his nation. Take his First String Quartet, or the Piano Trio in G minor – works which are not predominantly folkloristic at all”.
It’s an unfamiliar perspective, for some listeners at least. But Hrůša doesn’t have much time for pre-conceptions. “If you look at the progressive line of 19th-century composition that was inspired by Beethoven and continued through Berlioz, Schumann, Liszt and Wagner, I would claim that Smetana is one of the best composers belonging to this tradition. I’m strongly convinced that Smetana is actually a more successful exponent of the symphonic poem than Liszt himself. He deserves to be celebrated in the whole of Central Europe, not just Bohemia.”
So there you go – and whether you’re a believer or a sceptic, there’s no disputing the force of Hrůša’s artistic convictions. This is a musician who has published scholarly essays on Bohuslav Martinů (whose Third and Fourth Symphonies he’ll be conducting in Bamberg next season), and whose discography ranges from Hans Rott to Alissa Firsova. He’s an artist who thinks deeply about the music he performs and the culture he inhabits, and in the concert hall he makes good on his opinions. Smetana as a natural heir to Beethoven? Hrůša walks the walk, pairing those early symphonic poems with – of all pieces – Beethoven’s Fifth. Well, why hold back?
“Smetana’s early symphonic poems are not meant to be a cycle like Má vlast, but they were composed close to each other” he says. “I thought: let’s bring them together with Beethoven – who was a huge influence. Smetana has many Beethoven-like features: he has a little bit of that formal inclination; he’s monothematic and muscular and very major-minor oriented. So I felt it was an ideal combination of works which even in Czechia are not played regularly enough. And then we play Beethoven 5. I think it’ll be quite a nice combination!”
And if you’re going to explore the interconnectedness of the great Central European musical tradition, where better to do that than in Bamberg, a smallish Bavarian town (about the size of Shrewsbury) which happens to support a world-class symphony orchestra. It’s an orchestra with a very particular heritage, too. The Bamberg Symphony Orchestra was originally founded in by German-speaking Czechs who settled in Bamberg at the end of the Second World War. That’s history now, but Hrůša is a firm believer in a musical tradition that transcends boundaries:
“The German-speaking world has a tendency to look at Czech music of the 19th century from too strongly a German perspective – as if it’s an exotic, Slavic branch of German music and it’s only the exoticism which gives the music an additional value. My personal conviction – especially nowadays, when I’m working in Japan or the USA or London – is that there’s a unity to Central European culture. For me, Czech, Slovak, Austrian, Bavarian, Saxon and so on feels like one whole big cultural family – as opposed to the distinctiveness of Italian or indeed British culture.” Hrůša speaks from experience. He’s currently principal guest conductor of the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, and in September 2025 he takes over as music director of London’s Royal Opera.
“I mean, orchestras have a very strong feeling of lineage and tradition, but it’s not DNA – it’s not like families. Today the Bamberg orchestra has no explicit connection to the Czech Republic, though we have over 20 nationalities among the players. It’s a German orchestra, for sure, and should be seen as such. But it does have this specific flavour of history. It’s not something I consciously cultivate, but because I am who I am, we’ll sometimes do a Schubert or Bruckner symphony and someone in the press or the audience will say, ‘But this trio section – it sounded completely Bohemian! It sounded like Dvořák!’ And indeed, why not? Because Linz, where Bruckner lived – how far it is from Prague? Two hours’ drive. The same goes for Vienna, which is close to Brno, where Janáček lived.”
“The connection really is very close”, Hrůša explains, “and I’m happy if this traditional connection to Bohemia exists in the orchestra, because it sounds good, and it's true, and it gives us a very natural opportunity to cultivate that repertoire – whether Smetana or Mahler”. Or indeed Bruckner: Hrůša’s Bamberg recording of the Ninth Symphony was released in May 2024. And in the town itself Hrůša has the advantage of a uniquely loyal and enthusiastic audience, and a civic culture in which the orchestra, and its superb late-20th century concert hall, takes pride of place.
“They are an amazing audience. About 10% of the population are subscribers, and 95% to 100% of our programmes are sold out. They adore the standard repertoire, so we have a great deal of German classics, but the other 50% of our programming is really adventurous, and there's no limit to what we can give them. They really follow. I bring specialties from my background, and when a French or British or American conductor is coming, he or she brings something of his or her origin”. The 2024–25 Bamberg season sees Joana Mallwitz conducting John Adams, Benjamin Grosvenor playing Gershwin a programme of Carlos Simon and Rimsky-Korsakov with Andris Nelsons, as well as celebrations of the 2025 Shostakovich anniversary from John Storgårds and from Hrůša himself: the monumental Eleventh Symphony.
“He’s one of the composers I always felt very strongly about”, Hrůša says. “I feel Shostakovich is missing a little bit in Bamberg. I think these days his music has a very special point in it. The emotional power of it – if it’s interpreted without fake pomp – can be one of the strongest connections with Russian culture for us Westerners. I conduct his music differently from many Russian conductors, if I may say – maybe with less grandeur. I see him more as a radical composer of a very urgent, provocative character; a somewhat ambiguous or ambivalent figure. It’s actually a beautiful aspect of great artworks: they say as much about us as they do about their creator. In Shostakovich’s music you can find who you are”.
That, it seems, is central to Hrůša’s inquisitive, intelligent and all-embracing approach to music. And to the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra – an ensemble shaped but never constrained by its distinctive history, and its very particular place in the world. “You’re right,” says Hrůša. “It’s unusual to have this top German symphony orchestra in such a small town, but it’s really something we are proud of”.
“What I can say? Bamberg is very human. For meaningful and beautiful work, it’s a blessed place because you have the means for focus and concentration. Everything this orchestra does is very personal, very considered, and they thrive and flourish when they have time to go deep inside the music. We’re trying to cook slowly, if you know what I mean? To be as far as possible from musical fast food.”
The Bamberg Symphony and Jakub Hrůša are on tour performing Smetana and Beethoven from 6th September.
This article was sponsored by the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra.