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Czech television presents
Echo of the Prague Spring 2013
Part IV.
Good evening, friends!
The phenomenal Lorin Maazel counts for already 5 decades to the top world conductors.
He celebrated his 83rd birthday in March but he is far from ceasing his professional activities.
Since the beginning of the 2012/2013 season he has been the musical director of the Munich Philharmonic
which is an orchestra that celebrates its 120-year anniversary this year.
And we are glad they arrived with their musical director to the Prague Spring this year.
Maestro, welcome back to Prague!
What are your feelings and memories of our city and the Smetana Hall?
Well, it has been many years since the last time I was in Prague.
I recall my first concert in 1960
when I performed with the wonderful Czech Philharmonic.
I also remember the beauty of your capital.
Last but not least, I also recall the audience that welcomed me very warmly then.
And, of course, I also recall the acoustics of Smetana Hall.
I therefore have the best reasons to look forward to tonight's concert.
Janine Janson creates an expectional category herself.
She is a superb virtuoso, and a wonderful musician.
I love her style, she is The Madam Violinist!
During the summer I am going to preside over my festival.
The Castleton festival in Virginia.
We are organizing already the 5th edition of the festival this year.
It is a festival for young people,
we are trying to encourage them during their rehearsals.
Because classical music needs its advocates,
further bearers and propagators.
And we have to search them among the young.
You can find Prokofjev's second Violin Concerto
on the last compact disc of the violinist Janine Jansen.
But she is accompanied there by other artists.
Did the work with the Munich Philharmonic and Lorin Maazel
reveal Prokofjev's work in a new light for you?
Well, that is an interesting question, of course.
I have been playing this concert for many years now.
I played it for the first time at a competition in Holland when I was fifteen.
And since then, I have played it with many orchestras and conductors,
and I have even played this piece without a conductor.
I have admired maestro Maazel immensely since our previous collaboration already.
It is the first time we met together to play Prokofjev.
He brings into the interpretation many wonderful details.
We have also ardently discussed the more intimate approach towards the work
and we wanted to reduce the orchestra cast,
because we both prefer the more chamberlike sound of Prokofjev's concerto on stage.
Its crystalline sound.
The concert is thus very different every time
but it is every time a great pleasure to play this piece.
The Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra with its chief conductor Ondrej Lénard
commemorated with their concert in Rudolfinum
the 150th anniversary of the founding of Umělecká beseda Artists' Association
as well as the 90th anniversary of the start of Czechoslovak Radio broadcasting in our country.
Maestro, what role has the radio played on your path to music and with music?
A big one. The radio was, so to say, my education.
You know, when you put microphones in the hall, you cannot trick anybody.
The director will scream: "It's bad!" and you have to redo it.
I am very grateful that I worked for twenty years in radio.
That was the best school I could have ever visited.
The solo from the Fantasy for Piano and Orchestra by Jaroslav Ježek,
who himself had been a member of Umělecká beseda,
was played by Igor Ardašev.
What is your attitude towards this piece?
I have to say that it is a quite uncommon piece.
This piece is almost not played at all.
There are many elements I had to get used to little by little.
There are many dissonances which however in the whole create certain euphonies.
It is a piece from Ježek's experimental period
but it is a very interesting piece of music, there are beautiful moments in it
and I am very glad I can play it.
On Saturday, May 18th,
the first of festival morning concerts was shared by two pianists:
Yuka Yoshimura and Pavel Zemen.
What interesting music did you prepare?
I have prepared several interesting pieces,
but I am most looking forward to Oldřich František Korte's "Sonata".
I had the privilege to get to know this living composer personally
and I know the direct inspiration for this piece.
It is his experience from a hospital
when he was lying next to a dying concrete worker
who, to relieve himself of waiting to die, was singing a folk song.
I am very nervous but I am also very happy.
It is my first time at the Prague Spring Festival.
I hope I will play well.
The Morning concert is over and so is our Echo.
We will meet on Thursday again. Good bye!