As soon as he joined, he signed up for Czech music. “Together we will perform the symphony Asrael, Josef Suk’s most important and tragic work. It continues to fascinate me from the moment I first heard it,” announced Kirill Petrenko in 2019 at the first press conference he held as chief conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic.
The now fifty-one-year-old native of Omsk, Russia, has since performed three extensive works by Suk with the prestigious orchestra. Bedřich Smetana will join them next year. At a time when the Czechs commemorate the 200th anniversary of the birth of their national composer, Petrenko and the Berlin Philharmonic will take on a celebratory task and arrive on May 12 to open the 79th edition of the festival Prague spring. The live broadcast of the concert from the Municipal House will be shown at Kampa, where an accompanying program is always held.
The tradition of presenting Smetana’s composition every year goes back to the war years. “The inclusion of Mé vlasti at the first festival edition on May 12, 1946 follows a long series of euphoric performances by the young chief conductor Rafael Kubelík with the Czech Philharmonic immediately after the war,” he reminded in the publication 75 years of the Prague Spring, journalist Jindřich Bálek.
The connection between My homeland and the national threat still resonates today. “In the Czech context, Má vlast is more than just a cycle of symphonic poems, it is a national symbol. Throughout the history of its performance, it reflected the Czechs’ conception of their own identity, the need to defend it and redefine it,” adds musicologist Pavel Kodýtek, who, with the multiple meanings of this composition deals with.
Until 1989, the festival was mostly opened by the Czech Philharmonic. Of the thirty-one performances, nine were conducted by Václav Neumann, the record holder among conductors. “Over time, however, the concept loosened up,” explains Kodýtek. “Foreign conductors also came to the conductor’s desk of the Czech Philharmonic at the opening. They were the ones who, as the Czechoslovak Television announcer explained to the audience in the 1980s, ‘understood its meaning,'” he adds.
In 1990, half a year after the Velvet Revolution, Má vlast was sung with a similar urgency as it had once been after the war. It was again conducted by Rafael Kubelík. He returned from emigration after forty years. One era ended, another began.
Three years later, Smetana’s score was acquired by a foreign orchestra for the first time: the Liverpool Philharmonic conducted by Libor Pešek. In the following years, the Vienna Philharmonic with Daniel Barenboim and the Bamber Symphony with Jakub Hrůša were added.
Probably the most daring act was the 1996 hosting of the London Classical Players under the direction of Roger Norrington, pioneers in the field of historically informed interpretation.
The version by the students of the Prague Conservatory in 2011, when the school celebrated its 200th anniversary, was also memorable. Next year, one of the best orchestras in the world will continue the dynamic tradition with its unpretentious boss.
The shy maestro
Kirill Petrenko is known for his privacy. We don’t know anything about his personal life, he doesn’t normally comment on social or political matters either. With one exception: in 2014, he loudly objected to the Russian annexation of the Ukrainian Crimea. After the tragic events of February 24 last year, he issued a statement in which he compared the Russian invasion to “a knife wound in the back of the entire peaceful world.”
Unlike some of his colleagues, he avoided proclamations about how music and politics should not mix. “Every emotion is connected to a story,” stated on another occasion. “We cannot simply get rid of our surroundings and deal with sounds only from a musical point of view. A whole series of historical and social associations are closely connected with each piece of music, which one must be aware of when interpreting,” he added.
During rehearsals, Kirill Petrenko has a clear idea of sound. | Photo: Stephan Rabold
Petrenko was born in 1972 into a family with Jewish roots. At the age of eighteen, he moved to Austria, where he began to steadily build a career. In order to reach the top of the world, it was enough for him to work in a German-speaking environment. He conducted in opera houses in Vienna, Bayreuth and Meiningen.
In 2002, he started as music director of the Comic Opera in Berlin. Eight years later, he took up the same position at Munich’s Bavarian State Opera, where, among other things, he staged the successful world premiere of the opera South Pole by Miroslav Srnka. The remarkable success of the work, in which Rolando Villazón and Thomas Hampson sang, moved the Czech composer’s career up several notches, to places where no Czech native had been for a long time. And cooperation with Srnka means that for Petrenko she didn’t finish.
The courtship between the Russian-Austrian artist and the German orchestra with more than 140 years of tradition began in 2006, when Kirill Petrenko appeared before him for the first time as a guest conductor. He then conducted it twice more, but there was no indication that he would be elected chief conductor in 2015 during a secret ballot. He assumed the position in the 2019/2020 season. “Words cannot describe my feelings,” he responded to his election. “I experience everything from euphoria to great joy, amazement and disbelief.”
His disbelief was also shared by journalists who tipped his better-known colleagues Andris Nelsons, Christian Thielemann or Gustav Dudamel. “Who is this anyway?” people outside of Germany asked. Kirill Petrenko does not give interviews. According to him, it is unnecessary and just costs time.
“I remember that I had to persuade him for a long time for an interview in our Digital Hall,” confirms Sarah Willis, who plays French horn in the Berlin Philharmonic, but also often interviews artists for them. “I basically begged him. I was saying: please, maestro, please! It’s going to be really nice, I’m going to be very gentle,” she recalls.
Kirill Petrenko and the Berlin Philharmonic perform the symphonic poem Zrání by Josef Suk. | Video: Berlin Philharmonic
Petrenko finally agreed, but his friend Lars Vogt had to be there. The interview is available on the website of the Berlin Digital Concert Hall, where subscribers can otherwise watch hundreds of concerts in top quality.
According to the horn player, the musicians fell in love with Petrenko during his hosting. “When a conductor works with us for the first time, we talk about coffee breaks and whether we invite him back. With Petrenko, it was basically about when he would come back,” explains Sarah Willis.
Outside the concert hall, the inconspicuous man gives his all on stage. Thanks to the great recordings from Berlin, everyone can see for themselves on YouTube, where the orchestra publishes short examples of concerts.
During the rehearsals, Petrenko shows a clear idea of the sound, but at the same time an endearing shyness. “You won’t like me, don’t be angry that I’m still bothering you, but please play that run one more time, even more lightly, please,” Asrael asked Josef Suk at the rehearsal, how she noted Lucie Maňurová in an article about a trip of young musicians to Berlin organized by the Czech Philharmonic. “When I sometimes think before my solo that I might not give it, I’m worried that I won’t spoil it, then it always occurs to me that I couldn’t do it to Petrenko. And I’ll play it without fear, for him,” Václav Vonášek summed up the feelings of many Berlin musicians , who plays the bassoon in a prestigious orchestra.
The story continues
With his leadership, Kirill Petrenko continues a respectable line of world-renowned conductors, among whom were three performers at the Prague Spring. Herbert von Karajan chose Beethoven and Mozart for the first acquaintance between the exceptional philharmonics and the Prague festival. The year was 1966. Claudio Abbado, a famous Italian artist with a wide range of activities, also chose Beethoven’s symphonies during his visit.
From 2002 to 2016, the Berlin Philharmonic was conducted by Sir Simon Rattle, a British extroverted conductor with a distinctive musical and spoken expression, who seems to be the complete opposite of the withdrawn Petrenko. It was Rattle with the German orchestra who performed at the Prague Spring for the last time, at the May Day concert in 2013.
The story of the festival and the extraordinary body, which began in 1966, is far from over. Petrenko’s era will be printed in the archive for the first time on May 12, 2024.
Concert
(Organized by the Prague Spring Festival)
Berlin Philharmonic & Kirill Petrenko
Municipal House, May 12 and 13
