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czech music quarterly magazine Martin Kasík 4 Zdeněk Košler 2005 Michal Nejtek Pavel Haas Quartet …want to learn more about Czech music? …search for information about Czech musical life? www.musica.cz czech music 4 | 2005 editorial Contents 2005 This is the last issue of Czech Music for Page 2 The Pianist Martin Kasík 2005. It is also the sixth issue I have Beyond the reach of ordinary mortals edited. That is not many issues, even for DENISA DOHNALOVÁ a quarterly, but all the same (or just for that reason!) I would like to ask you, our 4 readers, to write to us and tell us what Page 6 Masters of the Piano in the Dvořák Hall you think about the magazine. Tell us of the Rudolfinum whether it provides the kind of JAROSLAV SMOLKA information that you want and whether you find the form in which we provide information about current Czech musical life and history effective. For us it would Page 11 Laurels for the Pavel Haas Quartet be enormously valuable to learn which MARIE KULIJEVYČOVÁ articles or themes particularly interested you, what information you think is lacking, what you didn’t like, and what Page 15 Michal Nejtek there should be more of in Czech Music and what could be reduced. We don’t MIROSLAV PUDLÁK expect you to do our work for us, but your feedback is essential if we are to get the content and direction right. If you Page 18 Zdeněk Košler invest a few minutes of your time in an e- Let’s do it properly first and only then be Slavs mail with your comments (send to JINDŘICH BÁLEK [email protected]) or a letter (you will find the address in the magazine credits), we shall reward you with an even better magazine, a magazine for Page 23 The first Sound Transmission of a Czech Opera you. VLASTA REITTEREROVÁ See you again in the New Year Page 26 Reviews Profiles Alois Piňos PETR BAKLA Wenceslao Pichl EDITOR Czech Music Czech Music is issued by the Czech Music Information Centre with the support Information Centre, of the ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic and the Czech Music Fund Besední 3, 118 00 Praha 1, Editor: Petr Bakla, Translation: Anna Bryson Czech Republic, Graphic design: Ditta Jiřičková fax: ++420 2 57317424 Photos: Karel Šuster (cover, p. 15-17), and archives phone: ++420 2 57312422 e-mail: [email protected] DTP: HD EDIT, Print: Tiskárna Nové Město http://www.musica.cz/czechmusic ISSN 1211-0264 Price and subscription (shipping included): Czech Republic : one issue Kč 60, subscription (4 issues) Kč 200 Europe: one issue € 6.25, subscription (4 issues) € 25 Overseas countries: one issue$ 9, subscription (4 issues) $ 36 or respective equivalents. the pianist martin kasík You have won a large number of prizes ing young musicians for 45 years. It is actual- 2nd String Quartet (in co-production with from competitions or from various founda- ly a music agency that chooses musicians ProQuartet France and Bärenreiter tions. Which of them do you value most? from all branches of classical music (includ- Prague) in May 2006. This is a perfor- Do some of the competitions stick in your ing chamber ensembles, composers and mance of Janáček’s song cycle, The Diary memory more than others? singers) on the basis of a competition that it of One Who Disappeared with the singers Of course every competition is a very much organises every year. Especially in the USA, Jaroslav Březina and Veronika Hajnová an adrenalin affair and so you don’t forget YCA enjoys huge popularity and is extraordi- and with you playing as well. What is the them. Probably the one I remember best is narily successful in promoting its young place of chamber music in your reper- the Prague Spring 1998, because compet- artists. When you win the classical piano toire? After all, most of your concert work ing on hot domestic ground is always the competition you get a diploma, money and a is solo... toughest. few concerts, and that is certainly very For me chamber music is something refresh- encouraging and raises your prestige, but it ing and different, and recently I’ve been If I’m not mistaken, you were 22 at the still doesn’t necessarily mean so much for doing more of it. I very much enjoy playing time. In which phase of your music stud- your future. After winning in the YCA your co- with brilliant musicians and ensembles, ies were you back then? operation with the agency is just beginning. whether the Wihan, Panoch or Stamic Quar- I was in the first year of the Academy of Per- Usually you get a 3–5 year contract, which tets or the Afflatus Quintet, and I look forward forming Arts in Prague with Prof. Ivan Klán- includes concerts in the Carnegie Hall in to working with the violinist Ivan Ženatý and ský. I’m glad that I managed such a good New York or the Kennedy Centre in Washing- the cellist Jiří Bárta. It’s nice to create some- take-off, especially when in the first half of the ton, for example, which is usually beyond the thing together. year I was going through a crisis – the transi- reach of ordinary mortals. tion from the conservatory method of teach- Which piece or, more generally composer ing to the academy method probably gives When you have the chance to play in such do you most like playing? every student problems. prestigious concert halls can you choose It’s very hard to answer that question. There your own repertoire? is something unique and fascinating about You have taken many music courses in In choosing recital programmes I usually have every great composer which makes it impos- the Czech Republic and abroad led by var- a free hand, and I try to play as much Czech sible to compare him with the others. But if I ious interesting people like Lazar Berman, music as possible, especially 20th century – really had to choose one, it would be Janáček Eugen Indjic, Christian Zacharias, Paul Janáček, Martinů, Slavický, Fišer and so on. – with his great knowledge of human psy- Badura – Skoda, Claude Helffer and oth- As far as concerts with orchestra are con- chology, his music is really “thrust deep into ers. Do you have any favourite among cerned it’s usually the organiser, who has his blood and life” as he himself wished. them, someone who gave you something own idea of the programme for the whole more? season or festival. When you give an encore after a success- For me the most beneficial was the summer ful concert, do you play something that spent in Marlboro (Vermont), where they hold You made your debut with the Czech Phil- makes you happy or do you tend to harmonic in 2002 and then went with this choose something more with a view to the orchestra on a tour of Japan with the con- audience? ductor Ken-Ichiro Kobayashi and also con- I don’t prepare encores, and I just play what certs in Taiwan, also with the Czech Phil- I’m in the mood for, I most enjoy doing the harmonic and the conductor Zdeněk Toccata by Klement Slavický as an encore – beyond the reach of ordinary mortals DENISA DOHNALOVÁ meetings with chamber music. Playing with Mácal. How did you find working with it’s a very spectacular piece but at the same people from the Guarneri Quartet or the them? time richly expressive. Beaux Arts Trio was a vast stimulus for me Working with the Czech Philharmonic is and a long-term inspiration. every musician’s dream. I see every concert What is your attitude to contemporary with them as a great occasion and try to give classical music? Your name is usually followed immediate- it my best. With Mácal I had the chance to I would say it was the same as my attitude to ly by the title, “winner of the Young Con- play the Dvořák’s piano concerto and I must every other. With the difference that in the cert Artists Competition N.Y.1999”. Could say that I have rarely felt so sure and so case of music of the Romantic period, for you say something about the course of inspired on the podium. example, I dare make a judgment on what is the competition and how your success good and what bad, whereas with contempo- there has influenced your career? The music agency Arco Diva is working on rary music I can only say I like it or I don’t like Young Concert Artists is an organisation an interesting project to mark the publica- it. I don’t have enough of an overview and based in New York, which has been support- tion of a new critical edition of Janáček’s distance, in terms of time, to judge it more czech music 4 | 2005 | interview | 3 objectively. I’m aware that I am at a particular stage of development and I will definitely understand cer- tain things later on, and so it would be stupid to condemn them now. I sense a little scepticism in your answer... Do you sometimes have the feeling that contemporary music is developing in a wrong direction? Contemporary music is certainly developing in the direction that it has to develop in, and I think that a true master writes out of a need to write and cannot concentrate pri- marily on how the audience are going to react to a piece.