In many ways, the Friday subscription audience has been the collective memory of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Parents have brought their children as their parents did before them, going back generations. So, when they embrace a conductor with sustained, enthusiastic applause as they did with Jakub Hrůša, making his BSO debut, they are not only expressing their approval; they are saying you belong.
They may have also thought Halloween had arrived early given the gruesome, gory panorama of revenge, slaughter, and satanic debauchery on display in works by Smetana, Mussorgsky, and Janáček. Along with Bartók’s Violin Concerto no. 2, these pieces call for a wide range of dynamics and orchestral colors, sharp rhythms, and an attention to balance, all of which Hrůša masterfully deployed. His podium manner is contained; his right hand carves and cuts clearly and precisely, his left cues and cajoles. Gestures expand with the music and become more muscular and kinetic as emphasis and tension build; climaxes often conclude with arms thrust high and wide above his head. His gestures are so clear and apt they make the score visible.
The afternoon bloodbath began with Smetana’s Šárka, the third and shortest of the six self-contained symphonic poems of Má vlast, based on an episode from the popular Bohemian folk tale, “The Maidens’ War,” which first appeared in print in a 12th-century anthology. Šárka is a fierce warrior made moreso by her lover’s betrayal. She swears vengeance on all men after the death of her comrade and queen, Libuše, and the restoration of the patriarchy, leading an army of women in rebellion and scheming to entrap the knight, Citrad, sent to quell it. From the boiling rage of the opening to the jaunty march in triplets announcing his army’s approach to the siren’s call of a solo clarinet which accompanies Šárka’s seduction to the swooning cellos soon seconded by the rest of the strings singing Citrad’s “warm and loving” response and the frenzied coda of the final slaughter, Hrůša and the orchestra gave a vivid, dramatic account of the symphonic poem’s eventful nine minutes.
Janáček’s Taras Bulba is a work in a similarly grim vein, inspired by a peculiarly bloodthirsty novel by Gogol. Written in 1915, revised in 1918, and not performed until 1921, it was conceived as a pan-Slav tribute to Russian fortitude in World War I. Each of its three movements depicts a death: the first, Andri, Bulba’s son, who has fallen for the daughter of of an enemy general, meets his father in battle, and is shot on the spot; the second, the capture and gruesome torture by the Poles of the other son, Ostap, and the third, Bulba’s revenge, capture, and immolation. As the flames lick at him, he prophesies a glorious future for Russia under a great, all-conquering Tsar. The ghastly goings on are painted in bold colors and in a style which anticipates later works such as the Sinfonietta and Glagolitic Mass. Brass and percussion excelled but never overwhelmed and Hrůša’s overall care for balance allowed the many facets of this graphic score to resonate in its first performances by the orchestra.