This vivid Bohemian rhapsody is an absolute triumph
Bamberg Symphony Orchestra/joshua Bell
The First Night of the Proms took us on a journey up to the moon, musically speaking, and then back down to a tiny corner of planet Earth – Bohemia. The second Prom stayed in that corner, with two much-loved works from Czech composers: the Violin Concerto by Antonín Dvořák and Má Vlast, Bedřich Smetana’s huge, picturesque evocation of Czech history.
Whatever the reason for this surprising Czech focus, the two concerts taken together were a vivid and pleasurable reminder that “all truth is local”, as GK Chesterton put it.
The new piece by Zosha di Castri that took us to the moon was skilful and atmospheric, but in that generic, easy-on-the-ear, postmodern style that composers are using everywhere, from Brussels to Beijing. It was a “nowhere” piece, whereas the Czech works in this second Prom were emphatically and joyously “somewhere”.
To embody that spirit of place it still helps, even in these globalised times, to come from the place in question. The Bamberg Symphony Orchestra
might not seem to qualify, as it is based in a picturesque Bavarian town, but its roots are definitely Czech – it was created after the War by Germanspeaking Czechs who no longer found themselves welcome in Czechoslovakia – and Jakub Hrůša, its chief conductor, is Czech to his fingertips.
As this wonderful concert proved the orchestra makes a special sound, projecting a horn-drenched warmth similar to a Viennese orchestra, but quicker on its feet and with an irresistible lilt in the dances that peppered the evening.
Joshua Bell, the American soloist in Dvořák’s Violin Concerto seemed to be the odd man out, but he played this delightful, nostalgically romantic work as if to the manner born. The best playing came in the slow central movement, where Bell’s dialogue with Barbara Bode, the oboist, had a lovely drowsy intimacy.
In Má Vlast is was Hrůša’s turn to shine. Some of the solemn marches and chases in this sprawling, sixmovement, 75-minute piece are humdrum musically, but he made every moment seem inspired. It was partly his sense of drama – no conductor alive can do a “cliffhanger” moment as well as he – but also the way he articulated those famous melodies, so that they seemed to “speak” to us.
At the grandiose ending, when the opening melody is combined with a triumphant Hussite song, you could feel the vast Albert Hall audience was ready to stand to attention.