Semyon Bychkov, the Czech Philharmonic and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky might be a match made in heaven. “When it was suggested to me to record this Tchaikovsky cycle with them, I think it probably took me about five seconds before my instinct told me that it is exactly the place I would like to do it, because it is slavic, it is very close to the spirit of Russian music.” Over the past seasons, the orchestra and their Chief Conductor and Music Director have immersed themselves in the Russian composer’s music and their Tchaikovsky Project – a series of illustrious recordings – will culminate in 2019 with Tchaikovsky residencies in Japan, Vienna, Paris and their home venue, the Rudolfinum, during the Prague International Music Festival in September.
The heart of the concerts will be the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies. For Bychkov, the Pathétique is a work that stays with you your entire life, encouraging you to rethink your interpretation and approach to it. “As we go through life, we change, under the experience of living. The object is the same, but the person who is looking at it has lived.” And although he thought that the Pathétique’s ending is about acceptance, a resignation before death when he grew up, Bychkov has very much changed his conception when he further explored the score during his career. “It slows down systematically and then... it stops. Tchaikovsky doesn't write a fermata over it. It's very much written out that “life stops” – it cannot be acceptance, it cannot be resignation, it is something that comes abruptly, much too soon, and is a protest, not acceptance.”
Alongside less performed works such as Manfred and Serenade for Strings, Bychkov is programming some true classics. For Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto no. 1, a work that has been revised by the composer three times in fourteen years, the Czech Philharmonic invited the Russian pianist Kirill Gerstein, who championed the less familiar first revised edition of 1879. It is his “flawless technique” that not only won over audiences around the world, but also won him an ECHO Klassik award for his world premiere recording of the 1879 version in 2015. While Daishin Kashimoto, first concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic, will join the orchestra for Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto on their tour to Japan in October, the Capuçon brothers Renaud and Gautier will play the solo parts of the Violin Concerto and the Variations on a Rococo Theme respectively in Prague, Vienna and Paris. A lovely addition to the orchestra’s Japan programmes and a salute to their homeland will be Vltava (The Moldau), Vyšehrad and Šárka from Bedřich Smetana’s Má vlast.
It is also these two composers, Tchaikovsky and Smetana, alongside Shostakovich, that Bychkov and the Czech Philharmonic will bring to the BBC Proms this summer, a highlight for every orchestra. Elena Stikhina will be singing Tatyana’s Letter Scene from Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, nestling between the overture and Three Dances of Smetana’s The Bartered Bride and Shostakovich’s Eighth Symphony.