Trying to cleverly connect a Czech conductor (leading a program of music from his homeland) with a pianist of Polish-Hungarian descent (playing a concerto by an Austrian composer) without dragging in the entire Austro-Hungarian Empire is a harrowing task.
Fortunately, finding a rather artificial, historico-geographical way to tie things together became unnecessary upon witnessing the very natural, acutely musical connection between guest conductor Jakub Hrůša, the San Francisco Symphony, and soloist Piotr Andreszewski. Exquisite musicianship on every front characterized last weekend’s concert at Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco.
For his debut performance with the S.F. Symphony, Hrůša brought music from his compatriots Bedřich Smetana (1824–1884), Antonín Dvořák (1841–1904) and Leoš Janáček (1854–1928), arguably the three most famous composers in the history of what is now the Czech Republic.
In an interview in the program notes, Hrůša (b. 1981) says that conducting works from the country of his birth is a matter of pride, and he considers himself an ambassador of the beauty that flows from the rich musical tradition of Bohemia and Moravia.
Dvořák’s Carnival Overture (Opus 92, from 1891) was all we needed to be convinced. The combination of an energetic, colorful piece, a conductor steeped in the aforementioned musical tradition, and an orchestra that — thanks mainly to the string section’s chameleon-like ability to modify their timbre to the demands of the score — sounded like it never played anything other than Czech music and generated a distinctly Slavic sound.
My only issue with the Carnival Overture was that, because of the location of my seat, I received an extra-healthy dose of Dvořák’s already generous helping of trombone in the piece.
For returning soloist Piotr Andreszewski, the defining moment lay in the second movement of Mozart’s Concerto No. 17 in G Major for Piano and Orchestra, K.453.
This Andante basically consists of one long, endlessly meandering melody, carried mainly by piano and solo woodwinds, with brilliant, unexpected, and yet completely logical twists and turns. Mozart at his Mozart-est.
Andreszewski urged the music forward, left the audience breathless with the tension he built and retained, and with the musical and physical elegance of his playing.
His entire being completely focused on the keyboard, Andreszewski sometimes rested an unused hand on top of the Steinway, not wanting to lose his feather-light touch on the instrument; or he raised one hand in a meditative way — perhaps a remnant of his own exploits as a conductor.
A YouTube video of Andreszewski performing this very Mozart K.453 concerto, both as pianist and as conductor of a chamber orchestra, is fascinating to watch. You can even hear him humming along.
With his clear, almost academically precise conducting style, Jakub Hrůša proved himself an exemplary mediator between Andreszewski and the musicians of the San Francisco Symphony. He continued to impress after intermission, when he inspired the orchestra to be even more transparent, more intense and dramatic, more colorful — even more Czech.
First was Smetana’s famous and colorful Vltava (part of the set of six symphonic poems, Má vlast, composed between 1874 and 1879). With beautifully undulating flutes, harp flourishes, and muted strings, the piece captures the flow of the river (called Moldau in German) as it passes through woods and meadows, along castles, palaces, and rapids, and vanishes into the distance past Prague.
The collaboration continued in the highly anticipated symphonic rhapsody Taras Bulba by Leoš Janáček. The piece is based on the horrifying novel by Russian writer Nikolai Gogol (1809–1852), set in 16th-century Ukraine, and deals with the old Cossack Taras Bulba, his two sons, and how all three end up dead. The score is dark and unsettling. With the same musical DNA as Dvořák and Smetana, Janáček’s melodic material is more fragmented and angular, but no less expressive.
And with that somber note, Hrůša conducted the S.F. Symphony to a majestic ending.
