Music was truly back again, in all its glory
On Wednesday night, something astonishing took place, in the English Garden of a handsome neo-gothic castle tucked away in the northern fringes of the Czech Republic. On an impressive popfestival-style stage with a roof was one of the world’s great orchestras, the Czech Philharmonic, led by its chief conductor Semyon Bychkov. And I mean a whole orchestra, not a handful of players sitting at a distance from each other to avoid that dreaded virus.
In front of them, seated mostly elbow-to-elbow, was an audience of about 500 without masks. True, there was a light drizzle, but that didn’t dampen their enthusiasm. There they sat in their gaily coloured Pac a Macs, looking like the crowd at an English resort listening to the band on the pier.
How did this small miracle happen? It was partly because the Czech Philharmonic is fortunate enough to have a private sponsor, which coughed up to have every orchestra member tested for the virus. Another reason is that social distancing rules in the Czech Republic were relaxed long ago – restaurants, bars, gyms and cinemas reopened on May 25. Most important is that the Czechs are immensely proud of their musical tradition, and they wanted to offer a thank you to the medical professionals who have led the battle against Covid-19. The Czech culture minister, no less, was on hand to give a few words of praise.
Unlike the Berlin Philharmonic and Bavarian State Opera, which have included interesting rarities in their online concerts, the Czechs opted for sure-fire masterworks. But they came up beautifully fresh. The Overture from Mendelssohn’s incidental music to A Midsummer Night’s Dream was absolutely the right choice to begin things: its four magical opening chords sounded like the birth of music.
The sound in open-air orchestral concerts can often be disappointingly thin and top-heavy, but here it was miraculously good, showing off the pure tuning and soft-edged warmth of the orchestra to perfection. It meant we could focus on the musical qualities of the event. Bychkov is a hugely intelligent conductor, who never does anything egregiously odd or “striking” but always makes the music speak in a specially eloquent way.
The Scherzo from Mendelssohn’s incidental music was slower than one often hears it, which made it interestingly dusky and romantic rather than elfin. In Haydn’s Trumpet Concerto, Bychkov was a deft and tactful accompanist to Stanislav Masaryk. The latter made a noble and distinctly unflashy soloist, and spun a beautiful lyric line in the slow movement.
Finally came Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, in a brilliantly paced performance. The mysterious second movement, with its burst of martial glory in between strange spectral forebodings, has rarely seemed so eloquent. At the very end, Bychkov and the orchestra created a wonderful sense of liberty finally let off the leash. For a moment, it felt as if the sun had broken through. Then came the most moving moment – the applause. Music was truly back again, in all its glory.